He surely is one of the children of Nepali politicians, a modern political slave with a mind half-filled with fantasies of playfulness, one-fourth sadism and the rest with thoughtlessness and confused feelings. He probably cannot recall the books his school has prescribed or better yet he does not go to a school. He is skilled in using foul language while rampantly breaking shop windows and chasing the shopkeepers away.
Who is he working for? He does not know and is not interested to know. He enjoys his acts of destruction and then returns home after enforcing a general shutdown. You too may remember the front page picture of the ‘Young Enforcer’ published in Republica on June 2, 2009.
Despite the violent settings, there still is an essence of childish innocence on his face but that too quickly fizzles out and then the youthfulness vanishes. He holds a stick in his feeble hand while children in the background are in the liminality of playfulness and mob rule. The children represent both the state of national politics and the status of youths in our society.
They are the children of illegitimate politicians who themselves are politically underdeveloped and intellectually malnourished members of the nation. This is how our modern politicians beget children and drag them out of schools and leave them in the streets. The children are political orphans who do not and cannot have caring orphanages.
One day, almost a month back I rode on my bike for university classes. Upon reaching the Mitra Park crossroads, I saw some uniformed college students blocking the way creating a traffic chaos. I was at the front of the line of vehicles along with many other bikers. I dared to request one of the uniformed students to let me pass through by telling him the truth. “I have an important class to take.” He gave me a strange look and walked away ignoring my request. “I have to sit for an examination,” I lied to influence another student by using a familiar term of educational paranoia. I realized it was the most stupid thing to say to a student. He too looked at me with disgust. “You have examinations to worry about while more serious things are happening here,” he lectured me and left with a mocking expression.
I resigned myself to participating in their quest for national destiny. I turned around and saw a sea of vehicles behind me and the dozen or so students too looked at the chaos with heroism surging through their blood.
And you must have also probably seen pregnant women walking miserably toward Teaching Hospital during similar bandas. Once I saw an ambulance pleading with its siren wailing when suddenly someone banged its bonnet with an iron rod and even the patient inside must have momentarily forgotten about his ailment.
Bandas are decadent ideologies of our politicians who have achieved nothing because they are incapable of doing anything politically sensible. They ride on the backs of the youths by forging unethical relationships with them. Such acts are child abuses of the most serious kind. These politicians take advantage of the children of economically-challenged families: It makes the offense more serious because such children are devoid of proper educational upbringing. How many days must cities like Kathmandu and Biratnagar tolerate bandas and strikes and how many children be forced to participate in bizarre political street games? A statistician once counted more than two hundred bandas in a single month in different parts of Nepal.
It is not only about time wasted by children in the streets but about their psychological development. It is about how their minds will shape up towards being irresponsible members of a nation.
The ‘Young Enforcer’ captured by Bhaswor Ojha’s camera is one of the most disturbing photographs that illustrates the bankruptcy of state policies and political mechanisms. The boy holding the stick does not know that he is acting against himself. Every strike on shops and vehicles boomerangs in his mind. He becomes senseless. He looses his innocence and the beauty of youthfulness. He becomes a mechanical slave, a dysfunctional cyborg manufactured by illegal political factories.
The politicians are the owners of such factories who feed on the minds and bodies of ignorant youths. They are the modern monsters who snatch the children of humble parents and Mr. Ojha through his lenses has revealed the helplessness of other sensible people of this country.
Then lately, another lensman Keshab Thoker managed to capture nauseating frames of children assaulting children (Republica, June 8). Among the terrorized kids, one can be seen having the sense of not leaving back his school bag amidst the senselessness of street politics. Books are surely dear to this little school kid. He claims his bag and then only runs. His instinctive reflex of self-concern displays a psychological instance, which should make us understand that children are for themselves and not for the politicians.
pallabi@pallabi.wlink.com.np
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