Democracy For Nepal

Thursday, November 21, 2013

A Majority Government Of The NC And The UML

Looks like the NC and the UML are on their way to forming a two party government. That will be interesting to watch. The two are neck and neck right now. So there's no telling who will be Prime Minister.

But the two parties will not get a two thirds majority. And so that leaves plenty of room for the identity federalists to have a say on the question. The two sides of the debate should fully express themselves, and then they should forge a compromise.

It would be best for the peace process if the NC and the UML acted generous and elected Prachanda as the president. Or they might go ahead and give Ram Baran Yadav another term! If the PM and DPM will be Pahadi, might as well have a Madhesi president.

Local and state elections have to be held by April 2015. If the Maoists and the Madhesi parties do their homework and learn their lessons, the electoral pendulum might swing their way then.

What homework can they do?

Prachanda and the Maoists to not have the option to get out of the process now. In that direction lies a dead end. They should continue to be part of the process. It is true that the status quoists in the bureaucracy and the judiciary have been staunchly against the identity federalists, and messing up with the list of voters was one rabbit they pulled out of the hat. The Maoists and the Madhesi parties might still have lost, but the margin of loss would not have been so dramatic.

Hridayesh Tripathy's radically gerrymandered electoral district is proof the Election Commission is status quoist.

There is still a stark need for a Truth And Reconciliation Commission so we can put the Civil War firmly behind us. That is necessary work.

The two Maoist parties should unite. And the recipe for that unity would be an attempt to turn Nepal into a multi-party democracy of state funded political parties. That would be a welcome attempt at classlessness. That move would turn Nepal into the top democracy on the planet, that also would signal that there is no more revolution in the future, there are only elections.

All the Madhesi parties should become one political party. To sing the song of One Madhesh, One Pradesh is hypocritical when you are split up into 30 different parties. And the way to do that is to organize a unity convention. If this move is made, that unified Madhesi party will do well in elections that will surely take place in over a year. That is not far.

The most important task right now is to give the country a constitution within a year. To that end all political parties must work, winners and losers alike. Electoral tally aside we are all winners. The country is about to get a legislative and an executive. The political vacuum is about to go away.

It is to be seen if Sushil Koirala or Jhalanath Khanal becomes Prime Minister. The two get the PM and the DPM and the cabinet. It would be generous to give the presidency to Prachanda or to Mahantha Thakur. That would make constitution making smoother. Because you still need a two thirds majority for the sticky issues. It would be smart for Prachanda to propose Mahantha Thakur's name. In a democracy, the majority rules, but it does not get to rub the nose of the minority in the dust.

I have a feeling we might be headed towards four states each in the Terai and the Hills. There is a danger the NC and the UML might overplay their hands and misread their simple majority for a two thirds majority, and we might end up seeing street action. That would be unfortunate. Compromise has to be the name of the game. Neither side will get all it wants. That knowledge has to be the starting point of the negotiations.

Also give six of the 26 nominated seats to the Baidya Maoists. That was a profound idea Prachanda came up with before the elections. That would be a small price to pay to keep the two Maoists part of the process.

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Election 2013: The People Have Spoken

English: Election logo of Nepali Congress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

One can already see the outlines of the election results.

There has been an anti-incumbency wave against the Maoists and the Madhesi parties, but that does not explain their full defeat. Two and a half million people have been disenfranchised. Those were people who would have mostly voted for the Maoists and the Madhesi parties.
The Nepali Congress and the UML have won rather decisively. But this is not a mandate against federalism. This is more a mandate for peace, law and order, the democratic process, and normalcy. And this is not any clear mandate against the identity based federalism that the Maoists and the Madhesis have been known for. The NC and the UML do not have even a simple majority, let alone a two thirds majority.
A coalition of non-Maoist parties will likely come into power. That might include Madhesi parties.
On the contentious issue of federalism the mandate is no different from what it was in the last constituent assembly, that the two sides need to work together and forge some sort of a compromise. Neither a purely identity based federalism nor a purely geographic federalism is in the cards.
There has been no conspiracy. The Maoists might still have lost, but their wide loss is due to the disenfranchisement of 2.5 million voters, the anti-incumbency factor, and the people saying law and order and the economy are higher priority to them than federalism.
The Maoist split hurt them big time. I am surprised the UML split has not been hurtful.
The Madhesi parties have been punished for their numerous splits as predicted. But they still stand a strong chance of going back to power. The NC and the UML don't seem to have the numbers. Sadly the Madhesi parties might not unite even after this clear defeat.
The Maoists and the Madhesi parties will likely do better on the indirect election side.
One hopes for a new constitution by the end of 2014. Nepal needs local elections and state elections right after that.
Prachanda should be elected president. That way it would be okay to keep the Maoists out of power. What are we looking at? Sushil Koirala for PM? KP Oli for DPM? Will Gagan Thapa end up in the cabinet?

Friday, November 15, 2013

A Global Citizen

Globe (Photo credit: Joe Shlabotnik)

Globe showing Asia - Satellite image - PlanetObserver (Photo credit: PlanetObserver)

(written for Vishwa Sandesh)

A Global Citizen
By Paramendra Bhagat (www.paramendra.com)

People who attempt and succeed at global endeavors, all else equal, will make more money than people who are based entirely either in Nepal or in America. There is enormous money to be made in the Nepali market, in the South Asian market, once there is political stability in Nepal, which should happen soon. As soon as the country has a constitution and regular elections, the law and order situation surely will improve. The beauty of a democratic arrangement is if the people demand law and order, they will get law and order. If they demand political stability, they will get political stability.

When there are elections in America, you can follow the polls and have a pretty good idea of how the horse race is shaping up. But there is no poll taking in Nepal. I have no idea how the various political parties will fare. My wild guess is the parliament will be even more fractured than last time. On the federalism issue as well, the people will give a fractured verdict. Neither the identity federalists nor the geographic federalists will garner the two thirds majority needed to push through, and so a grand compromise will have to be forged out, which means the last assembly was just as good for the purpose as the next one will be, which means the country just wasted billions of rupees on a second election.

A few years back when I was the only full timer among the 200,000 Nepalis in America working for Nepal’s democracy movement, it cost me money. But contributing to Nepal’s economic revolution to last decades is to be a money maker.

I am a network marketer with ACN. A few days back I spent a few hours one fine morning reaching out to some of my friends outside America for the business. I sent out Facebook emails to about 50 friends spread across the United Kingdom, Australia, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, Belgium, Netherlands, Italy, Germany, Denmark, the Czech Republic, and Finland.

One of the challenges for me in the business has been how do I reach out to people in my personal network who are spread across the United States who I don’t have the option to bring to a meeting in New York City. Looks like digital technology can go a long way. Emails, phone calls, and videos shared can go a long way. The basic premise behind the Internet is that geography ought not matter.

When Mike Maser, the top performing Senior Vice President with ACN, was at my house a few weeks ago – the guy makes 80,000 dollars a week – I told him if we could do NYC right, we could go from a presence in 24 countries to a presence in 124 countries. Nepal is the poorest country outside of Africa, and quite literally every town in Nepal is represented in NYC. That means it has got to be the case that literally every town on the planet has somebody from that town living in this city. A few weeks later his brother Patrick Maser relayed that same thought on stage at Hotel Pennsylvania when he addressed over a thousand people.

A big part of tech consulting is to do with techies in India for me. That really speaks to the Indian in me. But that is also tremendous in terms of business efficiencies. I also bring the home ground advantage of not getting tripped by cultural nuances when communicating with my engineers. They can be subtle, but I have had friends who went on to raise millions for their startups who have been tripped by the same, to the point they plain gave up.

Nepal hydro as I see it has a major role for the investors who are based in New York City. You necessarily have to get investors from India, China and America excited if the sector is to take off like it deserves to.

But then globalization can also go the other way. The inter mixing of peoples can feel dizzying for some, and they look for symbols and people to clutch to. NYC is very diverse, but it also has ethnic enclaves. People who are alike congregate. You can see that in Jackson Heights. The various country groups maintain strong inbound bonds.

Globalization and the Internet bring enormous opportunities. For the first time in human history, it feels like poverty can be eliminated. That is going to be the biggest achievement of my lifetime. But those same forces also put pressure on people’s traditional sense of being. I for one feel very comfortable crossing the lines, and mixing things up. I am known to visit various places of worship in the neighborhood. And I will take absolutely anyone of any background into my network marketing business. I am not trying to be the master of some ethnic ghetto. I want the members of my team to be typical New Yorkers bound by the city’s subway system. Screen time as time spent staring at the laptop and the phone has to be matched with face time: time spent networking with people, building teams. And so I mean to point out health benefits to networking.

For a guy like me who has been to every nook and corner in America, my choice of NYC as my base is some statement. This is a city I have chosen. I am a New Yorker and a global citizen.

Sunday, October 20, 2013

The Maoist Map: A Criticism

Khaptad is a better name than Seti-Mahakali. One word names are the only choice.
Khasan, that is Karnali.
Chitwan is part of Madhesh like was the case in the original Maoist map. There was no Kochila. 40% of the people in the Terai are of hill origin. To try to get Chitwan and Jhapa out of Madhesh just because they are majority hill origin, that does not contribute to national unity.
I am looking at a total of 10 provinces.

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Swami Atmananda Giri: Geeta Temple

Photo Album

Full Audio: 1 Hour, 10 Minutes

(written for Vishwa Sandesh)

Swami Atmananda Giri In Town
By Paramendra Bhagat (www.paramendra.com)

On the evening of October 17 I found myself at the offices of Girija Gautam at 72-28 Broadway Third Floor. It is the best office of all I have been to in the area and a big reason why is the large window through which you can see pretty much all of Jackson Heights. You should check it out when you get a chance.

He took me to the Geeta Temple on Corona Avenue. I had been to the temple once before to step inside, and several times to play Ingress: the location is a portal in the game. He also switched his electric account for the office, gas to follow shortly: I am a network marketer with ACN. If he were to only grab half the people he had show up for his daughter’s grand high school graduation party a few months back, he would hit the top position in the business and be looking at making 100K a month at least, I said to him. But he said time was an issue, and instead he would be happy to share all his contacts with me. Why, thank you. I guess a Columbia Law grad needs to focus on his law practice. This guy could easily be holding public office in Nepal, that part of him comes out in his immense community involvements.

I was born a Hindu, my family is still Hindu, and I have not stopped celebrating any of the festivals.

They say about the Dalai Lama that he has something akin to a PhD in whatever it is that he has accumulated in terms of Buddhist teachings. This guru is also a Vedantic scholar with immense credentials. He was just one step below the Shankaracharya. Enough said. There are the rituals of Dashain, and then there is the prabachan. The wise man speaks, and you sit and listen. The guru had a sense of humor. He spent a few minutes explaining the word “makkhichoos.” I already knew, but thanks for the refresher.

When I got back home I prepared a multimedia presentation of the evening at my Nepal blog that you can find at http://bit.ly/16gPQBs where I have pictures, audio and video files. And I sent it out to my NYC Nepali Google Group with close to 600 members and the Facebook group of the same name with close to 200 members. The guru was just getting started, he was to speak every evening until the 25th.

There is a NRN angle to the swami that was of great interest to me. The bridhashram that the association built in Devghat was done so under this swami’s supervision. The swami also used his immense Bombay connections to set up a fund. Hundreds of people eat for free every day at the premises. This is what Bush might call a sound faith based initiative. You can be secular as a clock and still admire the implementation of the whole operation.

The first evening’s prabachan was on Geeta, easily the crown jewel of the Hindu teachings. What Muna Madan is to Laxmi Devkota’s body of work, what the life of Jesus is in the Bible, Geeta is to volumes upon volumes of Hindu messages. You can meet Nepalis at political and social events, but at an event like this, the connection you form is deeper.

There was prasad after the prabachan. The Gurudwara on 61st and Broadway beats all religious establishments in the area on that count: there is lunch and dinner every day pretty much. My childhood best friend’s wife is a Punjabi he met at engineering college in India: they live in Augusta, Georgia. He is a diversity visa lottery winner. When I was in Indiana, I drove to visit him. My first day of Dashain was dinner at the Divya Dham mandir. Many Nepalis had gathered. That was the first time Girijaji mentioned the swami to me.

He mentioned Hindu rituals and his kids. A guy from Nepal raising a family in America at some level feels the need to keep to his roots. Can’t blame him. On the drive back from the temple, he called up Bhim’s Café and ordered momo for his son. That might not be religious, but that is also a ritual, and it is also to do with roots. Eating momo is the top thing I might have learned in the decade plus I spent in Kathmandu. The dish is a delight.

Girijaji was in Tennessee for a while. I was in Kentucky for five and a half years: that is where I went to college. The first time I got to meet him was at the NRN membership drive event in Times Square a few years back when my friends Temba Sherpa and Jiwan Shrestha brought the association 1,000 members in one month compared to the 400 members the organization had collected in four years. I got John Liu to show up as Chief Guest. Harlem’s State Senator Bill Perkins, the first elected official in the city to come out for Obama, was the original invite. But then he was stuck in Albany Friday night, which is when the gay marriage bill passed. A John Liu staffer texted me late Friday night. Perkins is stuck in Albany, do you want John Liu to show up instead? We moved from texting to the phone. By midnight the confirmation had been made. Liu showed up promptly at 10 AM the following day. The guy at the time was the leading candidate for Mayor.

Audio File 4 Audio File 5 Audio File 6

Friday, October 04, 2013

Durga Pooja In Gorigama

English: Devotees of the Festival Chhath Parva in Janakpur, Nepal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(written for Vishwa Sandesh)

Durga Pooja In Gorigama
By Paramendra Bhagat (www.paramendra.com)

Gorigama is a neighboring village to my homevillage Gonarpura in Nepal. Gonarpura is not that far from Janakpur. What I most remember about Gorigama is the DurgaPooja there. Chhath was the top festival in the culture I grew up in. Jitiya dashe Dashain, Dashain solhe sukrati, Sukrati chhabe Chhaith. 10 days after the festival of Jitiya we start celebrating Dashain, 16 days after Dashain is over, we celebrate Diwali. Sukrati is another name for Diwali. Six days after Diwali is Chhath. So goes the saying.

In the culture of the hill Nepalis Dashain is the top festival, Chhath is not even celebrated, although Chhath is also a Hindu thing. But maybe it is a Mithila thing, because even Muslims in Bihar are known to celebrate Chhath. In my culture we don’t do tika in Dashain. That is a hill thing. But many Teraiwasis have learned to do the tika thing.

I would be home for vacation from the school I attended in Kathmandu. Most years my Dashain vacation, which incorporated Diwali (one year it didn’t), would end just a day before Chhath. That was the Panchayat era cultural insensitivity.

On the days of Durga Pooja late in the afternoon streams of people would walk from my village to Gorigama. The sight I most remember is all these people who would carry their flip-flops in their hands for most of the walk, and when they were almost there, they would go to the nearest pond, and wash their feet, and put on their flip-flops. They wore the flip-flops only on special occasions. Otherwise they walked around bare feet. It is called being a Third World country.

Local artisans created the most beautiful mud statues of Durga Mata. And then when the festival was over, half the village would go lay the statue down in some pond or river. Such was the custom.

The festival grounds, usually the public school, would have stalls of food and stages of entertainment. The local drama companies got to perform. This was Bollywood to most people in my homevillage for whom Bollywood was not yet a reality. To most people in my village at the time both Nepali and Hindi sounded like English: foreign. There were high school students who would sit themselves in the mango groves reading up cheap Ved Prakash Sharma novels who would would tell their parents they were “studying.”

The festival season would start after the flood and monsoon season ended. You cleaned up and decorated your homes for Diwali because the rains are gone until they are back next year. But after Chhath there was no major festival for months.

Before I moved to New York I was in Indiana. There I went to a local county festival once with my then wife and her family. I was the only non white person at the fair. The festival reminded me of the Durga Pooja festival in Gorigama.

Rumor had it the biggest Durga Pooja festival celebration happened in Calcutta. I have never been. And the biggest Chhath celebration was in Patna, along the banks of the Ganga river. I have been to Patna but not for Chhath. Some day.

In the mid 80s my father was a dealer for the Santosh radio that was manufactured in Calcutta, probably the first one in eastern Terai. My brother is named Santosh.

Gorigama was part of the same local village unit as my homevillage. There was Gorigama, and the adjacent Hari, and Hriduwa not far away. I had relatives in Hari. My grandfather’s sister lived there with her two sons, one of whom was a teacher. My grandfather had no expressed desire to become mukhiya. But then one day a committee in the neighboring village decided he was the appropriate person, and they came and lifted him up while he was sitting for dinner. I witnessed the scene. They took him away. When he came back, he was garlanded and had abeer – red powder – all over his face. He had just become Pradhan Panch. I guess he acquired a taste for it. Then they started holding elections, and he contested and won several times. He remained Pradhan Panch until the system got toppled, and there were still people urging him to run. He didn’t. A few years later one morning he headed out to the holy cities of India to spend the rest of his days as a sadhu, never to return. The family performed his cremation rites in absentia a few months back.

His father, my greatgrandfather, was a local rags to riches story. He started with very little, and his other branches of the family were proof, and went on to own more land than anyone else in the village. A key element of his success was the strong urge to save. My greatgrandmother knew how to save. She would get the last drop out of every mango, every time. My grandfather’s other sister was married to the Pradhan Panch of the neighboring Badiya. A granddaughter of hers, my cousin, recently moved to Minnesota from Nepal after getting married. Small world.

At the Durga Pooja festival in Gorigama I would often get to meet my relatives from Hari and Badiya, and also Banchauri nearby. My grandfather’s brother’s daughter was married in Banchauri. Her daughter’s son now lives in New Jersey. Hello Suneel.

Buddha Was Born In Lumbini

The Asokan pillar at Lumbini, where Gautama Buddha was born (current Nepal). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

(written for Vishwa Sandesh)

Buddha Was Born In Lumbini
By Paramendra Bhagat
www.paramendra.com

Buddha was born in Lumbini. At the time no country called Nepal existed. The country that we know as Nepal today did not exist for another 2,000 years after Buddha was born. So it can be argued Buddha was not born in Nepal. It can also be argued Gandhi was born in Britain, because at the time India that we know today was British territory.

King Janak back in the days ruled over a vast country that was larger than today’s Nepal: it spanned what would today be Eastern Terai in Nepal and much of Bihar. It was called Mithila. The cultural entity still exists. My father is Nepali, my mother was born and grew up Indian. But both are Maithils. To my two families the Nepal-India political border feels highly arbitrary. At some level we want Mithila back!

I am no Buddha, not even close, I am merely a Buddhist, “one small human being” in the words of my fellow Buddhist Richard Gere, but I was born in India. Buddha was born in Nepal, but he achieved enlightenment in India. I was born in India, and attended high school in Kathmandu.

I like to argue Buddha must have looked like me when he was born. Lumbini is in the Terai. Buddha was born a Teraiwasi. The Jesus that walked this earth looked like what an average Arab looks like today. He had brown skin. But he is depicted as this blue eyed blonde dude in popular media. That is not accurate but it is something to do with the fact that Christianity has gone on to flourish in the West, whereas Jesus country is mainly home to Judaism, and in a bigger way Islam.

Buddha gets depicted like he had Mongol features. He gets shown to have Kubla Khan eyes. That cannot have been true. Buddha was a Madhesi. Too bad there are hardly any Madhesis and Biharis who are Buddhist today. I might be a major exception to the rule. My family is still Hindu. And I like to celebrate all kinds of festivals. I am a big fan of the Holi in Richmond Hill, the top Holi celebration in North America. I visited a mosque for a month last year every evening during Ramadan. The picture that you see in my ad for my tech consulting firm in this newspaper is from a Christmas party a few years ago.

The various South Asian currencies are already tied to the Indian rupee. When the Indian rupee goes down in value, the Nepali rupee goes down in value. It would make sense for South Asia to attempt a free trade zone and a South Asian economic union to end up with a single currency. But Europe’s mistake was there was no accompanying political union. I don’t imagine a Kashmir that is with either India or Pakistan. I imagine a Kashmir that is in a closely integrated South Asia, and so it does not really matter if Kashmir is with India or Pakistan.

Buddha is a strong case to be made for diluting the Nepal India border to the max. There are more Nepali speakers in India than in Nepal. Preserve the culture, but when it comes to the economy, make decisions that are pro-growth, pro prosperity. The India Pakistan border is a sore point in South Asia. No prime minister level peace talks could achieve with the magic that full-fledged trade could bring about. A South Asia that stands united will be a South Asia that will compete globally. A disunited South Asia will stay preoccupied with its immediate neighborhood.

I have never gotten worked up about the whole Buddha was born in Nepal issue. Like the Indian embassy said in a press release a few weeks ago: “The fact that Buddha was born in Lumbini was established over 2,000 years ago.” During a class discussion I said with immense pride to my geography teacher in college that Mt. Everest was in Nepal. To that his retort was: “And what’s your contribution to that?” Made me think.

Buddha was born in Nepal. But what’s your contribution to that? Nepalis alive today will have to create a world class economy that they can claim credit for and express pride in. But that requires getting past the false nationalism as expressed in the non-issues like the whole Buddha was born in Nepal fiasco.

A front page article in this newspaper a few weeks back argued India was behind the idea of Nepal elections in November 2013 and April 2014. The truth is it is the political parties in Nepal that have engaged in this debate and tussle. But to see India working behind the scenes is pretty reflective of the knee jerk ways of the Nepali media. If South Asia is a solar system, India is the sun, and Nepal is like planet Earth, true. There is the obvious gravitational pull. That geopolitical reality cannot be wished away just like gravity cannot be wished away. Leading Nepali politicians making regular treks to Delhi to lobby the power centers in that power city is a bigger phenomenon than various elements of the Indian foreign establishment wanting to meddle in Nepal. But for the most part both India and China want Nepal to do what’s best for Nepal. And so Nepali leaders just have to take more responsibility for their actions and non actions than they do.

Buddha was born in Nepal. But what’s your contribution to that?

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Thursday, November 21, 2013

Wednesday, November 20, 2013

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Friday, November 15, 2013

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Sunday, October 20, 2013

Thursday, October 17, 2013

Friday, October 04, 2013

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