My birth and the declaration of the Maoist armed rebellion in 1996 took place in an interval of a couple of years. By the time I had learned to walk, the Maoists had already started gathering troops and training them. As I began my school, a few incidents of shootouts and attacks were starting to make headlines. So as I grew, so did the war. A fortunate child like me was born and bought up in Kathmandu—the most secured place in the country—and thus I only got to witness a limited amount of terror and destruction during those days.Although I consider myself privileged, children of my age (even in the capital) did suffer, in one way or the other, from the decade-long war. I would hear my father talk current affairs almost on a daily basis with his friends and neighbors. I reckon their talk included various incidents of bombings and killings and other war-time atrocities committed by both state security forces as well as the Maoist militia. I and my sister who were then growing up in the capital saw the news and pictures of the brutal killings through the various news media—and we wondered.
Schools were often shut due to various strikes and bandhs, which were becoming a routine affair. I hated school and rejoiced whenever there was a bandhs, which meant there was no tiring homework. I also remember a few times when the then Royal Nepal Army personnel visited our house as a part of their regular search. As a son of a journalist I happened to be more updated about the national politics. In case there were rumors of bandhs or strikes the following day, having no mobiles phones back then, I would put the landline in my house to good use. I would have to update my friends about the probability of school being closed the next day: Would I tell them that the bandh-enforces were serious, please?
Our family was also regularly updated about the incidents back in our ancestral village where we had many relatives and cousins. They had to live through utter terror. Sometimes the Maoists would ask them for tall ransoms in the name of donation and sometimes the security forces would inconvenience them in the name of interrogation. A cousin of mine was compelled to leave a private-boarding school he had been studying, and join a public school where his father taught instead. The Maoists, back then, were against what they called 'bourgeois' private schools. But I barely understood what the fight between the state and the Maoist was for. However, one way or the other children of my generation had been injected with some very troubling notions about war, terror and looting.
Soon as we entered our teenage, the Maoists ended their battle. Then there was the second Jana Andolan in 2006, which pitched youths like me into national politics. Everyone I knew said that the King had erred badly in taking over power, in a move far above and beyond what the constitution allowed him to do. This was initially the only thing that encouraged me to participate in the popular movement. Further, there was an intoxicating blend of fear and enthusiasm in chanting 'murdabad', standing on the roads and causing obstacles to vehicular movement, and walking in a mass of hundreds. While doing so we felt invincible.
However, these incidents related to recent political 'milestones' in Nepal equipped many of us—the children of my generation—with notorious political tools and distorted idea about politics and why it's practiced. We had learned to declare 'bandhs' and 'chakkajam', chant slogans like 'jindabad' and 'murdabad' —even as we were clueless about why we were protesting in the first place—and to threaten others with 'dhunga-muda' and 'bomb-banduk'.
Our generation, much like the generation of our parents, never learnt to look beyond bandhs and strikes when it came to fulfilling our demands. We forgot that in the rush to secure our rights we had been impinging on the rights of other people. Political principles, we learned, were only useful to the extent that they helped particular parties to get into government.
In fact, we are in a loop, a loop of children being fed with wrong political principles and practices. Do we stop to think about what the children involved in Madhesh movement might be learning? While Tarai plains have turned into a battle field, children are being used as protestors. And even the ones who luckily do not take part in protest learn improper political practices.
I worry that my younger brothers and sisters will also learn to throw stones, chant murdabads and practice bribery when they grow, thereby continuing with this vicious cycle.
The author is a senior business development officer at Prixa Technologies, a software firm
prayash.koirala@gmail.com
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