Prisoners of banda

COUNTERING NEPAL BANDAS



When there is a Nepal Banda, there is virtually a closure of all business activities. All vehicular movements, and most shops, colleges, schools and offices are closed. In a way, one becomes a banda prisoner. People feel caged. Those who do move out also have restrictions: they have to walk, the offices are not fully opened, shops are closed. Then there is the psychological banda (closure) effect. Even people who usually stay home feel kind of tied down and suffocated, their movement restricted. Humans in general are independent beings who seek and want freedom.



So, during bandas, people feel that they are Prisoners of Banda (POB). Their right to lead a normal life is violated. Their rights to open and visit shops, offices, colleges, schools, and use vehicles are violated. In every way, the citizens’ right to live is violated. When people try to open shops, colleges, or offices, they are harassed. Most importantly, when people use vehicles, the vehicles are vandalized and the drivers molested and cruelly beaten. In our own country, we have become prisoners, not prisoners of war (POW) or crime, but prisoners of bandas.



The inconvenience, the distress, the financial and psychological damage caused by bandas cannot be measured. Even for healthy, normal people, it is very inconvenient and demoralizing. For the sick, old and children, it is totally devastating. For daily wage earners, shop keepers, transport operators and most small business owners, it means the loss of a full day’s earnings. For people going outside the valley who have to reach bus stops, people coming in and out from airports, and mothers giving birth, bandas are troubling, painful and a nuisance. Nepal simply cannot afford so many mindless bandas, which in many cases do not achieve the intended goals but only cause losses and distress. It’s a shame that some of us led by our reckless and mindless leaders are proud to make the rest feel like prisoners of immense crime by restricting their movements during bandas.



There are many direct and indirect effects of banda. Nepal loses around two billion rupees a day in a banda. Our children, who are the future of the nation, suffer as schools and colleges are forcibly closed. The total national loss is colossal, and is simply immeasurable due to bandas’ cascading effects.



I am one of the campaigners for an anti-banda group called’ Die Nepal Banda Die’, whose main purpose is to fight bandas. We have had several meetings with young anti-banda campaigners, and also staged a freeze session as a means to show our dissatisfaction. What we were trying to convey in that freeze session was that we become totally motionless during bandas, and it is like freezing oneself.



In Tundilkhel, Babarmahal and other places we traveled to, we asked people to fill forms if they were dissatisfied with bandas. Most people participated and said that they were utterly fed-up with bandas, and thought bandas should be banished by law.



But banishing bandas is like belling the cat. Who will bell the cat? Who will take the initiative to start the process? Who will be the first to start vehicles and open shops during bandas? Everyone is looking for someone else to take the initiative. In the fable, rats come up with the idea of hanging a bell on the cat’s neck so that they know when the cat is coming. But individually, all rats were scared to bell the cat. As individuals, it is an uphill task. But as a nation of more than 27 million, we should be able to stop bandas called by a few hundred people for some partisan or sectarian goals. We all know the cats (banda perpetrators) have become strong because they have been getting a lot of milk from their sponsors (political parties) and been in the process, have been eating the rats (the common citizens). If we, the common citizens, have solidarity and act in unison, we can defeat the perpetrators and make bandas absolutely ineffective.




The government’s inaction and apathy towards security and citizens’ welfare has discouraged many activities like this campaign against banda. But people are affected so severely by bandas that it will not be long before they speak up. Political party endorsed banda should end. Most of the bandas are called because the demands of a small group of people have not been met (at times the demands are very self centered). If political parties claim to fight for the cause of the people, they should give people freedom and liberty instead of making millions suffer for their selfish demands.



If the state does not have the courage, machinery and the security apparatus to stop bandas (a minor challenge considering the strength of the organizers), what can we expect from the government? Isn’t it the duty of the government to provide security and try to make everyday life normal?



The government should keenly listen to and consider the demands made by the public. The government should not create an atmosphere where parties believe that the only solution to their problem is enforcing a banda. If both the demanding parties and the government are reasonable, agreements can be achieved.



Bandas have become so normal that people have found ways of adjusting to them. Such acceptance of bandas by the public and the government is encouraging its proliferation. Accepting a crime and not speaking against the crime is equal to committing a crime. A land of brave Gurkhas surely does not lack one Gurkha brave enough to bell the cat. Only time will tell who the brave one will be.



surajthapa1@hotmail.com

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