The only full timer out of the 200,000 Nepalis in the US to work for Nepal's democracy and social justice movements in 2005-06.
Sunday, December 11, 2005
December 11 Sunday 11 AM Union Square
Every Sunday 11 AM Union Square
The first time it was Anil Shahi, Sanjaya Parajuli, Sarahana Shrestha and me and it was in Chinatown. The next time it was the same group and the location was Union Square. The one after that was at Binay Sah's place. It was cold, and free lunch is a tempting proposition. That is when I met Ritesh for the first time. Then the invitation was extended to three other people, but only a total of two showed, one was out of town, a second had prior engagements, two were working, and so on: so Divita Mehta and I talked. She bought me MoMo. For this one four showed, although one was out of town, and three others were lined up to show. Sarahana called saying noone responded to her email when she asked if others were coming. She just might have overslept! Anil is out in New Hampshire attending a wedding. Binay is on call. Divita, Ritesh and I have another get together Tuesday evening.
The last major Nepali event in town was Rajeev Goyal's fundraiser, but I had to miss that for another DFNYC event. I donated to the Goyal fund online. (Lampson, Mistry, Dance-a-thon, LinkUp) In hindsight, I should have missed the DFNYC event and saved myself $75!
We don't have pictures from the prior events. I am glad Ritesh brought along his camera.
Mr. Sanjaya Parajuli was in attendance, Master Sanjaya Parajuli stole the show, and Ritesh Chaudhary was the guest of honor. Ritesh is a techie from Janakpur. He knows people in far away places who read this blog!
Over the weekend I had managed to mess up my body clock, so I was mostly twisting and turning in bed most of the night. I was able to catch a few hours of nap in early morning after I got out of bed and helped myself to Ramen noodles.
It was a nice day, although how nice I found out only after I got to Union Square. No wind, a lot of sun. But then we went indoors into Starbucks - Sanjaya bought me coffee - and by the time we came out, the sun was a goner.
Sanjaya showed up with his son. We had a pleasant conversation. We touched many bases. I was raring to maybe visit local Nepalis into their homes, call people, do phone banking if lists be available. He cautioned it might be better to instead grow this Sunday 11 AM crowd, a little at a time.
I have been writing to people in Boston and DC to replicate. And then to smaller towns across the country where people would hold the meet inside living rooms, take pictures and send them all to one central location online.
It is a nice social activity in its own right. But it is also important solidarity expression.
I brought up the topic of moving beyond the usual crowd of the politically active or those with white collar jobs, although there are many Nepalis who work blue collar jobs locally below minimum wage who might have advanced degrees from back in Nepal or India or elsewhere. The problem is they also tend to work crazy hours. It would be hard for them to show up.
I hope fundraisers will be held in living rooms for them at times of their convenience. I know that crowd parties hard. I have been to a few. Perhaps we can keep expanding our network. There is something called the cellphone.
Anil tells me there are more than 15,000 Nepalis in New York City.
Sanjaya and I touched many other bases. We talked about the projects we and others are involved with. Sanjaya threw in some important insights as to how there is more than one way to go about the projects. Transparent, online book keeping makes little sense for the clandestine projects. True. There are some mini projects that noone will know anything about. Only the end products will get seen. There will be few donors, all anonymous, each potentially big, as in $1000 each, and if there be book keeping, it will stay within that really small group, and for safety purposes, the names of the people actually carrying out the work in Kathamandu will not be circulated even among that small group of donors. I totally bought into what Sanjaya explained to me. Whatever works. As long as the work gets done, there has to be more than one way of doing it.
Ritesh arrived about 20 minutes late. By then Sanjaya, his son and I had already moved on to the coffee shop. Usually I am not big on coffee. It is social drinking for me.
The three of us had long, expansive talks on many different topics, very few of them to do with the Nepal movement. In the mean time Master Parajuli explored the nooks and corners of the coffee shop.
We mostly talked of globalization and how it impacts countries like Nepal and India, especially in how it impacts us and people we know. We talked India and China. There were the stories we had.
Then we dispersed. The Parajulis took off, and Ritesh and I went for MoMo. Darbar East is nice that way. Dhrubaji likes to engage in political talk.
Then we walked over towards Times Square. It was getting cold, but it was worth it. Ritesh knew of this shop where he wanted to buy a sweater. I ended up buying a winter cap and a pair of gloves. The prices were low. I like my prices low. I am a Walmart kind of guy.
Then it was adios until Tuesday, "7:45ish," for Ritesh and me.
We got to grow from four to 10 to 40 to more. Spread the word. When Nepal hits the world headlines, local media will come to us. That attention will further help the movement.
NAC Goes Proactive
Jeet Joshi ji.
What took you so long?
Kidding. Not really.
But, sincerely, thanks.
Action is good. Any and all action in "that" direction is good.
The NAC Executive Committee is a recognized body of individuals. Although many of those individuals are members of this ND forum, the NAC has an independent identity. I am so very glad you all came out with this action.
Do more of this and more often. Keep firing off press statements. Develop a rapid response mechanism. Write to more bodies and individuals. Write to EU, to China, to Venezuela. Write, write, write.
Every act of state repression has to be hit back with a NAC press statement. Strike back within hours at best, within 24 hours at most. More than 24 hours and it looks stale.
List names of all member organizations. List names of all members of the Board. That is how you make it LOUD.
Maybe assign one person to immediately draft letters when events take place. Then circulate over email and give people about 6 hours to respond. And fire off. Let the valley ring with your word bullets.
I respectfully thank you and the NAC Board. Keep up the good work.
Now let me go read the letter!
Nepalese Americas Council
P.O. Box 9883, San Bernardino, CA 92407
NAC Since 1991
Web: www.NepalCouncil.org
Phone: 909-792-0343
December 9, 2005
President Jimmy Carter
The Carter Center
One Copenhill
453 Freedom Parkway
Atlanta, GA 30307
Dear Mr. President,
On behalf of Nepalese Americas Council (NAC) and its member organizations located throughout the North American continent, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Carter Center for its continued interest in peace and democracy in Nepal.
Mr. President, as you know, a popular movement in 1990 overthrew a thirty year long autocracy in Nepal in favor of a democratic system of governance. Taking advantage of the strength of a democratic system and weakness of newly adopted system that was still in the learning phase, Maoists launched an insurgency with a publicly declared goal of establishing a communist republic.
To make the matter worse, King Gyanendra engineered a coup d'etat and took over a democratically elected government on February 1, 2005. Since then he has ignored all internal and international call for a dialogue with democratic political parties in order to restore democracy and to seek a solution by bringing the Maoists into the main stream democratic polity.
Recently, the Maoists and the democratic forces represented by seven political parties reached an understanding where Maoists have shown serious interest to participate in the multi-party democracy. They declared a three-month unilateral ceasefire. However, the royal Nepalese army commanded by the king did not reciprocate this gesture despite calls from international community, human rights organizations and activists, and Nepalese people in general.
The ceasefire declared by the Maoists ended on the first week of December 2005. On the request of democratic parties, people, human rights organizations and activists, Maoist recently agreed to extend the ceasefire for another month.
Mr. President, such a good window of opportunity to end the decade long violence and political turmoil had not been appeared before. The 12 point agreement between the political party alliance and the Maoists provides that the arms of both the Royal Nepalese Army and the Maoists to be supervised by UN or a dependable international body to ensure free and fair election to the constituent assembly. As this agreement presents a rare chance to bring peace and to restore democracy, it will be extremely unfortunate if this opportunity is lost and the country that is already at the brink of collapse enters into another deadly phase of violence.
Therefore, Mr. President, Nepalese Americas Council (NAC), its member organizations listed below and Nepalese Diaspora in the North American continent call upon you to help, either individually, or through the Carter Center, in concert or in collaboration with the United Nations, or in any other manner you feel appropriate. We also request you to consider a short personal trip to Nepal to take a political stock and to provide an impetus to the political process towards returning to peace and the restoration of civil liberties, human rights, and democracy at the earliest possible time.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Dr. Jeet Joshee
President, Nepalese Americas Council
NAC Member Organizations and other Community Groups.Organizations:
America Nepal Friendship Society (ANFS), New York
America Nepal Society (ANS), California
Association of Nepalis in the Americas (ANA)
Association of the Nepalese in the Midwest America
Association of Nepali Terain in America (ANTA)
Florida Nepalese Association (FNA)
Greater Boston Nepali Community ( Boston)
Kaligandaki Friendship Society (KFC), Washington, D.C.
Liberal Democracy Nepal (LDN)
Nepalese Association in South East America ( NASeA)
Nepalese and Friends Association (NAFA)
Nepali Youth Organization (NYO), Washington, D.C.
Nepa Pasha Pucha Amerikaye (NPPA)
Nepal Cultural Society of B.C. (NCSBC)
Nepal Seattle Society
Nepal Community Network of Canada (NCNC)
Nepali Women’s Network of North America
NCNC( North Carolina)
Nepalese Society of Texas ( Dallas)
Nepali American Public Affairs Council (NAPAC)
Nepal Concern Group-Canada
Nepal Enterprise Forum
Nepal Democracy Forum
Rocky Mountain Friends of Nepal (Denver)
Society of Ex-Budhanilkantha Students - North America
Indira Foundation
Saturday, December 10, 2005
In The Quest For Social Justice Feelings Are Going To Get Hurt
ND Dynamics
The Cloud Model, Not The Pyramid Model
ND Glasnost
Diaspora Logistical Help To The Movement
Logistics To Bring Down The Regime
To: ND Group, c/o Puru Subedi
Madhesi
Nepal Democracy Google Group Does Not Believe In Free Speech
I believe the discussions at the Nepal Democracy forum boil down to this:
(1) Join one of the five projects: Nepal 5, Nepal 1000.
(2) Critique the Proposed Constitution.
Progress is being made with all five projects. But I wish things were moving faster. And so I am going to confront one issue head on, the Madhesi-Pahadi issue.
Madhesis are a hugely marginalized group, surely in Nepal, but also in the mini Nepals in America. And the Madhesis in America need to take the lead on this, just like the Pahadis in America need to exhibit they are capable of a positive transformation on their part. They need to be working on their hearts.
I have been in New York City six months now. Before that I was in Kentucky and Indiana. And the small local Nepali communities there were not a big part of my life back there. I moved to Kentucky from Kathmandu. The anti-Madhesi fog in Kathmandu is too thick for me to have longingly hobnobbed with the local Nepalis in Kentucky, not that there were that many opportunities in the first place.
Moving to New York City alone would not have done the trick. If it were not for the democracy movement, I doubt I would have made a point to really reach out to the local Nepalis. I might have more comfortably gravitated towards the South Asian crowd. One of the better things about being in America for me has been discovering the Indian in me, giving it expression. When I travelled across America, and people asked me where I was from, I said India. Mostly they did not even ask, they just assumed, and they assumed right. I was born in India.
But the democracy movement has brought me crashing back to Nepal. In the process the biggest discovery I have made is to see again the sad political plight of the Madhesis in Nepal. The Terai is responsible for over 70% of the state revenue in Nepal, and gets less than 20% back, mostly in terms of payments for civil servants, most of whom are Pahadi in the first place. Madhesis are 50% of Nepal, and yet are super marginalized in all walks of life, kind of like the women on the planet.
So when I express my ire at the Nepal Democracy forum, I am making up for all the Madhesis that are not present at the forum. There are 116 members. Only one other is Madhesi that I know of. In a just world, you would have had 58 Madhesis. I feel like I am having to make up for the difference.
I can differentiate between the general b.s. and the anti-Madhesi prejudice. And I do exhibit that sophistication here: ND Dynamics. But there is no denying the anti-Madhesi prejudice. Just like the false anti-India-based nationalism of the Monarchists, the anti-Madhesi prejudice is a big part of the glue that brings and keeps the Bahuns/Pahadis together. It is sick. There is this utter reluctance to see a Madhesi in a leadership position, even more so if those Pahadis have to be members of any team that a Madhesi might lead. The very sugggestion is deemed offensive.