Then, just after we had given rise to the latest People’s Movement to happen in Nepal, just before the elections for the Constituent Assembly, the revolution seemed for good. It felt real.
I was traveling to the border town of Sunauli on a ricksha. An elderly woman, taking advantage of the crawling speed because of the overcrowded passage, climbed up unannounced to share the ricksha. After some time, noticing the red tika on my forehead, she assumed I was going abroad.
“It’s a historic event. It does not happen every day, this election is to select a new constituent assembly. How can you leave the country….on such an occasion?”
While I was fumbling for thoughts and words, she did not wait for my response. She stopped the ricksha midway and disappeared. It was surreal. Like the revolution itself in retrospect.
The historic event had really taken place. For the first time in the history of the nation, the Constituent Assembly was elected. And we had hoped, these 601 men and women will pave the way and the country will gallop into the future from different centuries. Together.
‘New Nepal’ is what we named this dream. And in the hysteria of the movement it did not even feel like a dream. It felt real.
A movement is a wonderful thing. It gives us, the ordinary people, the feeling of power for a moment.
When hopes bounce on the streets, when millions of hands pierce the sky to reach out to a common dream and when screams become a voice that is heard, we can sense the power.
I was eight years old when I first felt this ‘power.’
It was long before I knew it was called revolution.
I feel, every revolution remains a revolution only in ‘face value’ if the change is not institutionalized. Real transformation is a tiresome and lengthy process based on gradual but concrete steps. At best, a revolution can be a change of direction. It can never be the pace in itself that carries forward an enduring change.
I was studying in grade three in the government Primary School of Walling in Syangja district. A new mathematics teacher, who had joined a couple of days before, was taking our class. The teacher, in an attempt to be strict right from the start, used to beat the students real hard. That day he had crossed all limits; he had hit one of the students on the head with a duster, causing him to bleed.
While the class was in progress, suddenly we heard voices outside. Then, some students of 4th and 5th class (senior most in the school) started shouting from the window instigating us to boycott the class. Within no time, the whole school was out standing out on the hillside shouting slogans against the teacher. We refused to attend classes the whole day until the teacher was punished.
The teacher was never seen in the school again.
Till that day, I had never thought, we – the children aged between 5 to 11 years - could cause such a change.
We had felt the same power in 2006.
Now we look back and wonder: The realities are much more nuanced. And the post-hysteria disappointment is painful. More troubling is the unfinished business of the revolution.
Some might say, ‘every revolution is revolutionary in its own way.’ But, as the realization hits us now, I feel, every revolution remains a revolution only in ‘face value’ if the change is not institutionalized. Real transformation is a tiresome and lengthy process based on gradual but concrete steps. At best, a revolution can be a change of direction. It can never be the pace in itself that carries forward an enduring change.
Now, with no hope of the extended-by-a-year-deadline for the constitution being met, we are almost back to square one, though on a different and difficult plane.
Voices are increasingly being heard - especially among the youth - that just any constitution on time will not do. There is something wrong with the fundamentals marked to set the path. But is any one listening to these voices?
While some still look for traces to build upon from the fallout of the last movement, some have announced their initiative for an alternative. But, we have had time gaps between movements in the past: 1950, 1990 and 2006. It has been merely half a decade since the last one. How frequently can a generation gather the courage to stand and feel the ‘power’? Can they do it more than once in their lifetime? Can this Facebook generation – which has left the country - kick-start a movement?
The biggest problem is not of them being away. From what I gather, they are ready to come back if need be. And the darkness in sight is as scary as the firing squads; for those of the Lenins who still believe we cannot make a revolution without firing squads. For the dreams to soar, we do not need to stand on the throne of some overthrown tyrant.
The leadership is committed in the system that is nothing but an endless entanglement. In their haggling around, they forget to listen and so they stop being leaders of the people.
If the message behind the outpourings on Facebook, Twitter and papers is not understood well in time, people will be forced to shout. And leaders can emerge from within a revolution.
The under-currents are never detected on their own if not looked deep enough. Why would they call it a revolution otherwise?
dinkar.nepal@yahoo.com
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