Tyranny of transport cartels was reserved for buses plying beyond Karnali River. Ever since Maoists embraced free-market fundamentalism with the fervor of a neo-convert, tentacles of transport syndicates have extended eastwards too.
Unpredictability is an essential feature of routes under ‘syndicate system’ where buses take turn to grab passengers. Booking counters issue tickets that have just seat numbers. A traveler comes to know of the condition of the bus only when boarding it at designated time and place. Since there is no difference between fare of a rickety vehicle and a comfortable carrier, what one gets to ride in the night of the journey is purely a matter of chance.
It saves transport owners the trouble and cost of upgrading their vehicle or improving quality of service. If passengers suffer in the process, then so be it. Risk is the way of the free-market. Buyers beware: Sellers are free to fleece unsuspecting customers. The only thing predictable about a bus journey these days is its utter unpredictability.
Air-travel is no less uncertain. Flights routinely get delayed and can even be rescheduled at the last minute, often on flimsy grounds, as it’s not a priority route for any private airline. Workers returning from Gulf countries and NGO-executives on fieldtrips pay in rupees. Airlines prefer patronage of tourists who are required to pay for their journey in foreign currency.
The birthplace of Janaki is low on the list of visitors who are attracted towards the mountains and can manage to squeeze Bharatpur and Lumbini at best in their busy schedules.
Hit by insecurity and uncertainty, where any group can close the road to have their real or imagined grievances addressed, number of day-buses have dwindled. Night-buses are more dependable when risks of facing agitating locals during the day are higher than the fear of nocturnal marauders on highways.
It defies logic why operators that could have commanded a premium in the marketplace have succumbed to the lure of syndicate system. Apparently, entrepreneurs want freedom from government regulation only to surrender it to cartels controlled by big players.
Most rickshaw-pullers in Janakpur are convinced that they have done visitors to the town a favor by not migrating to West Asia. Like taxi-fare in Kathmandu, it’s best to haggle before taking the trip and settle the charge in advance. Even then, it’s advisable to be prepared for the harangue of the puller during the journey.
Politics is in the very air of the town where any rickshaw-puller can deride the government, curse the opposition and lament his fate all in the same breath while asserting simultaneously that unlike vehicles running on petrol, the cart he paddles runs on his blood and sweat. Any passenger with a heart is then honor-bound to offer a tip on top of the fare. Perhaps not as powerful as transport cartels, but association of rickshaw-pullers is influential enough in local politics to escape any punitive action for overcharging.
EXUBERANCE OF DESPAIR
Like politics, economics of the town too is unexplainable. At one time, Janakpur Cigarette Factory was the largest employer that directly or indirectly supported over a quarter of urban population. It had long been the ‘crown jewel’ among state enterprises until mid-eighties when it ceased production. Priests of major temples gripe that secularism has adversely affected their business as number of free-spending pilgrims has gone down.
Rather than going to the temple, devotees increasingly prefer extravagant religious ceremonies—complete with colorful shamianas, paper festoons, plastic chairs and ear-blasting sound systems—followed by grand feasts, at their own residences.
City roads are bad as ever. Water supply has not improved since Indians built an overhead tank near the Janaki Temple in the late sixties.
Most residents are still dependent upon shallow tube-wells and hand-pumps. The municipality has failed to establish a proper garbage-collection system. Sewers, wherever they exist, routinely overflow. Land grabbers have appropriated most holy ponds. Mango groves have fallen to the axe as public forests were handed over to private interest groups in the name of community forestry. Almost all physical infrastructure lies in a shambles due to willful neglect of concerned authorities.
Government abandoned public education long back and left it at the mercy of market forces. But since Janaki Medical College began operation nearly a decade ago, profit sector has not made any significant investment in education. Despite inadequate infrastructure, paucity of funds, and heavy load of general patients, the maternity ward of Janakpur Hospital caters to more newborn babies than anywhere else in the country except Prashuti Griha in the capital. The health ministry has not yet thought it fit to upgrade facilities in this woefully ill-equipped center.
A walk around town—it doesn’t take more than two hours to cover almost every street of the core settlement on foot—fills a visitor with a sense of despair. In stark contrast, locals appear to be full of hope. Activists exude confidence. Students have spring in their steps. Even amidst the squalor, a whiff of optimism in the air is unmistakable.
Land prices are either stagnant or falling in most of parts. In Janakpur, it has gone up almost five times in as many years since the Madhesh Revolt. Part of the rise in property prices can be attributed to remittances, but astronomical sums being invested in tiny plots along main roads are beyond the imagination of workers toiling in distant lands.
Madheshi activists that once shouted slogans against Pahadi hegemony at slightest pretext make extra effort to be courteous towards the dominant community of the country. Even though Pahadi-dominated administration appear to be etching for a showdown and seldom desist from hurting Madheshi sentiments, locals bear all innuendos with a grin characteristic of a confident population.
Freedom to use one’s own mother tongue was an important issue during Madhesh mobilization. Ironically, almost all daily newspapers published locally are in Nepali. The upwardly mobile have reverted to speaking Nepali at home and some private schools boast that the use of any other language on their premises is proscribed.
Prospect of a constitution that would institutionalize a federal democratic order seems to have given the strength to the residents of the town to endure a near total collapse of governance. Madheshis want to claim their country. What if a federal democratic republic is further delayed, or worse, completely denied?
The question is too frightening to contemplate. Distracting din emanating from the valley may have drowned out Madheshi aspirations for dignity and equality, but despair of the spurned population could be far more dangerous than an irrational enthusiasm born out of exuberance.
DREAMS OF DIGNITY
The entire country got fed up with purported politics of development of Panchayat era. Janakpur had to pay a higher price during decades of dictatorship but got lower returns even after restoration of democracy and declaration of republic. Apparently, political representation at the center is necessary but insufficient to ensure socio-economic justice. The economic base and political superstructure postulates of Karl Marx encapsulate realities of largely homogeneous societies. It fails to embrace ideas of prejudice and discrimination born out of centuries of subjugation.
In principle, it’s impossible to deny that equal opportunity creates conditions for equality of outcome in politics and economy. But that faith turns out to be fallacious when ethnocentrism—the tendency to evaluate other cultures by the norms and values of the dominant community, a firm belief in the superiority of ruling castes and a deep suspicion of externalised population—has been the founding principle of the state. Of what use would be more budgetary allocation if those assigned to implement government programs have little or no affiliation with aspirations of supposed beneficiaries?
Well-meaning NGOs in Kathmandu may wonder about the resentment that their field officers fuel on the ground in Tarai-Madhesh, but their activities only end up accentuating the difference between the ruling class and the ruled. The Pahadi elite has so far failed to repeat even the condescending American ditty: “I am sorry for what my people did to your people/ It was a nasty job/ Please note the change in attitude/ On the bumper of my Saab/”. There is little reason to believe in the intentions of the dominant community that keeps insisting that whatever is palatable to the rulers must also be acceptable to the ruled in the matter of federalism, inclusion and democracy.
Dignity-based federalism may invite all evils that are being attributed to it. There was little social harmony anyway; there is no need to fear disturbing it. Tensions inherent in communal relations may surface, but keeping it bottled up longer would be riskier. Secessionist tendencies come to the fore when right to self-rule are denied not when it is institutionalized.
Federalism may not be a full-proof antidote, but democracy in a multi-cultural society is more secure in a federal constitution than under a unitary government. And whoever worries too much about fiscal sustainability of federal unity needs to take a reality check: When was Nepal a financially sustainable state anyway? It can get worse, but do not say that to communities whose hopes hinge on prospects of federalism.
cklal@hotmail.com
Related story
How Language Dehumanizes, Kills the Oppressed
