Q &A with Jagannath Lamichhane

Jagannath Lamichhane is a global mental health rights activist who has been actively advocating the Occupy Baluwatar movement from day one. He says that the movement will continue until justice is provided to the victims and shares his take on the movement with The Week.



How did you get involved in the Occupy Baluwatar movement?[break]



The first day of the protest started at the South gate of Singh Durbar and I was there to support the cause. It was through my wife that I got to know about the whole event but after I saw the victim’s families there, I felt really sad to witness their plight so I wanted to get involved with the movement. We protested peacefully without crossing over to the restricted areas and drafted a letter to be submitted to the Prime Minister. We were initially focused on the case of Sita Rai but when we gathered at the PM’s office, the police intervened and misbehaved with us.



Then we shifted our protest site to Baluwatar. Our country has evolved from monarchy to democratic to the present Republic state. So there should be equality among all the citizens. In a republic state, the security the PM gets should be applied to the common citizens as well. But here, the suppressed group is denied justice and the perpetrators are living free. The law isn’t transparent enough and there’s misuse of power as there’s impunity. So I strongly support this movement to pressurize the government to provide justice and highlight issues of violence against women.



How has the progress been so far?



Today is the 43rd day of the protest and even till date there hasn’t been any progress regarding the five individual cases. Our main intention was to highlight the issues so that it reaches the government and the government forms a committee to take action against the culprits. But what we need is a change in our system and a reform in the perspectives of the police as well. Our demand was to have a transparent investigation on individual cases and even though the culprits have been identified, proper action hasn’t been taken. We have seen negligence in handling of all the five cases that shows that the police haven’t even fulfilled their basic duty. But a positive aspect of this movement is that 156 other cases of violence against women with 45 cases of rape have come out. Even with the constant support of media and civil society, there hasn’t been any significant progress so how will the unreported cases of violence against women even be acknowledged is my main concern so far.



What do you have to say about all the controversies surrounding the movement?



There are talks going on about how the movement is funded but this is just a false rumor as this is purely for the cause of justice for the victims. In future if NGOs may this concept to get funds, there’s nothing we can do about it and we aren’t accountable for that. We are apolitical and I think through this movement we have been able to unite the divided groups and party based journalists and NGO’s to stand for a cause through this platform.



What will the future of this movement be like?



We are committed and will take this movement till the end until we get a positive result and justice is provided to the victims and their families. Our plan is to further reach out to the broader civil society and make political parties accountable as well. This is a victim centered movement so we will incorporate the issues of violence against women to show how inept our system and government is so that they will be forced to take proper action. We will make the mass protest even more symbolic.

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