It affects three million people in Kathmandu and millions more across Nepal
India's blockade is wrong, it is crippling Nepal. The protesting Madheshi people need to be heard. Why can't we say both of these things in one breath? I am startled to see online activists' focus on one: either they are happy to raise hell with black flags, welcoming the blockade. Or, they simply ignore Madheshi plights and speak mostly against the blockade. I identify myself as a centre-leftist on economic issues. However, when it comes to ethnic politics, coupled with Nepali geopolitics, I am a centrist.
The blockade is a disaster for general Nepalis. This needs to be explained to those English speaking Madheshi activists who have openly written, pleading India to impose a blockade on Nepal. How this is affecting people's lives is there for everybody to see. The Madheshi activists need to understand that this blockade has reinforced polarisation between Madheshis and Pahades. When Pahade kids cannot go to their school, when hospitals cannot refill their oxygen cylinders, when people in hills cannot cook food in their kitchen and cannot commute to work, then this blockade is no longer just against the government. This becomes against the people.Though it is an open secret that India is behind the blockade, the Madheshi parties have openly said that it is they who have blockaded Kathmandu. Whether it is India or the Madheshi parties, this is no more only against political elites; it is against the three million people in Kathmandu and millions more across the country. This blockade is resulting in hatred of Pahade people, of not just Madheshi leaders but Madheshi people in general.
On the other hand, many Pahades do not even acknowledge the loss of nearly 50 lives in Madhesh. To this day, some politicians do not believe there is popular support for Madhesh movement, at least in parts of Madhesh. For them the Madhesh movement is fringe activism, even after two months of the blockade. People of Madhesh have seen police shoot at people and impose a curfew. But the plights of the Madheshis seem to matter little; it is as if the Madheshis needed to be taught a lesson. Many Pahades still ask: "What do the Madheshis really want?" There could be no better answer to this than "Please find their demands online."
So it's unsettling that the two groups cannot feel the plight of common people. Both Pahades and Madheshis are suffering at this point. At the end of the day, the Madheshi demands will have to be accommodated in the new constitution. Likewise, the blockade cannot go on forever, it will have to end. Continued polarization of Pahades and Madheshis is dangerous to both the communities and the country. Madhesh, also called the granary of Nepal, feeds the whole country. On the other hand, Madhesh requires energy produced by the rivers of Pahad. The relationship is natural and complementary.
There has to be acknowledgement from the dominant Pahade community that yes there has been discrimination. That does not mean we are personally responsible. I cannot personally accept the blame as an individual whose family climbed its way up from poverty. It is rather about the structural mechanism that shaped our social relationships with Madheshis. If it can be corrected, we should correct it.
That said, the Madheshi community also needs to understand that world history is littered with episodes of injustice. Many European countries that questioned Nepal's human rights record in the recent Universal Periodic Review in Geneva, had benefited from slavery and colonisation. However, they will never pay reparations. The Jamaican government recently asked David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, for reparations for the inhuman slave trade and unimaginable human cost African and Caribbean people endured to make Britain prosperous. Cameron simply asked Jamaicans to "move on". Personally, I do think colonisers need to address the plights of formerly colonised nations.
What also needs to be understood is that the constitution is a document of compromise. No group can get all of what it wants. Nepal is also not a bi-ethnic country divided into Pahades and Madheshis halves. There are more than hundred ethnicities with a similar number of languages and cultures.
Similarly, India needs open borders soon. One way of solving the problem is to internationalise it, as Kamal Thapa did in Switzerland. However, we cannot starve our people because of our pride. Our pride will not light up gas stoves.
But our greater engagement with China is positive. This is a sign of diplomatic maturity. Nevertheless, we cannot write off India. With our geopolitical compulsions, we need India more than it needs us. It does not mean we should be quiet to its bullying. However, it would be even more dangerous to completely burn the bridges.
The author is a Chevening scholar doing his MSc in Conflict Studies at London School of Economics and Political Science