Khada Nanda Poudel, 73, who witnessed communal violence unleashed by the indigenous Limbus against Chhetris and Brahmins during a brief political void created by the fall of the Ranas, fears a recurrence of the ugliest incidents of his life. [break]
"The trauma of being chased away from my village still haunts me," says Khada Nanda, who was just 13 then, adding, "The unfolding situation now compels me to fear such ugly incidents again."
Khada Nanda, one of very few persons who can still recount the horrors of the 1950s, did not mind the historic political change--the fall of the Ranas and establishment of democracy--made possible by Nepal´s first democratic movement until a group of people, mostly Limbus, started ransacking non-Limbu houses.
"I was just a child. I did not understand why they were vandalizing our houses," he recalls. "The only thing I understood was our lives were at risk."
Those doing the vandalizing were not strangers. Their children grazed cattle along with Khada Nanda. "People I had known for years ransacked our house," he says.
Khada Nanda, who was holed up in the nearby jungle to escape the wrath of the vandals, returned to his home only in the night. The house was completely destroyed. Standing on the debris, he and his parents wept through the night.
Rumor has it that hundreds of Brahmins were forced to flee the villages with their janai sacred threads torn and hair roughly shorn during the 1950s´ violence in the eastern hills.
According to Khada Nanda, people from Chhetri and Brahmin communities have never felt safe since the tragic incidents on the sidelines of that democratic struggle. "In my locality alone, there were 18 Poudel families," he says. "Just three families remain now." Others are also fleeing.
"Back then, it was just an outcome of the seething anger of the Limbus against the Ranas. The Limbus wanted to hurt the Ranas. We accidentally fell victim to their anger," Khada Nanda says. "What is more worrisome now is that they (Limbus) are demanding their own province."
He, however, says he will not leave his village at this advanced age. "We are in their society. We will not oppose their demand for Limbuwan. After all, we cannot bear the cost of challenging them and fleeing the village."
Khada Nanda´s anxiety is not baseless. A few months ago, a bunch of hoodlums masquerading as cadres of an ethnic outfit championing the cause of Limbuwan, appeared at Ganesh Chowk in Nagi and ransacked half a dozen shops owned by non-Limbus. They warned non-Limbus to always comply with their instructions since they live in Limbuwan (land of Limbus).
It is not an isolated case. People belonging to non-Limbu communities have been enduring countless such attacks ever since the sudden surge of ethnic politics in the eastern hills following the April uprising of 2006.
The Limbus, who lack a majority but constitute a significant segment of the population in the eastern hills, harbor a sense of betrayal by the Shah kings with the tacit approval of political parties that ruled the country after the 1990 democratic struggle.
The Limbus, who boast of a glorious history of having reigned in Limbuwan (comprising nine districts east of the Arun River), assert that their rights over land were intact even after Prithvi Narayan Shah defeated them. Those rights continued until the late King Mahendra´s Land Reforms Act did away with the Kipat system.
The Limbus firmly believe that with the abolition of the Kipat system, they started losing their lands gradually to non-Limbus, especially to Chhetris and Brahmins. Hence, Chhetris and Brahmins are their purported enemies. This sense of being betrayed by the Shah kings and marginalized by non-Limbus has been stoked by various ethnic outfits.
Khada Nanda and others like him believe the brouhaha could turn nasty if the government fails to properly handle the politics of the ethnic outfits and address the sentiments of ethnic Limbus.
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