My parents could afford to hire an ambulance and buy air tickets—even considered it morally okay to fake ill health to be able to attend the funeral. But not everyone can do that.
When highways are paralyzed for weeks and months, by disparate groups sometimes making ridiculous demands, it´s the common people that suffer the most. They can´t travel to attend family rites, can´t take their sick to hospital, and can´t see their loved ones before they breathe their last. Roads and highways are called arteries for the vital role they play as the lifeline of people and a functioning society. But look at our highways. They are the first targets of any protestor, making them unpredictable and unsafe—sometimes the lifeline itself becomes the cause of someone´s death.
After 10 days of closure, the East-West Highway reopened on Wednesday following an all-party agreement to open an integrated administrative service centre at Harioun of Sarlahi. On Thursday, locals at Nawalpur again blocked the highway, protesting the all-party decision. Last week, the Tharuhat activists, protesting Tharus being lumped into the Madhesi category for reservation purposes, closed the highway for several days. A month ago, trade unions blocked the highway to Biratnagar for three weeks protesting over a minimum wage issue. Still more bizarre was the case of relatives of jail inmates blocking the highway in Saptari, demanding their release.
If you think it´s just a problem of highways, just a problem for travelers, you are mistaken. Highways are just the indicators, good indicators. If crumbling roads and highways are the best indicators of a country´s mismanagement and relative poverty, their frequent blockading is a good indicator of crumbling, unraveling politics. So let´s get it right: It´s the politics, stupid.
We have indulged ourselves far too long in this democratic irresponsibility called ´banda´. The banda is just the physical manifestation; look closer and you will realize it´s the intolerance, it´s the disrespect for others, it´s the rapid fragmentation of our society, and it´s bigotry itself raising its ugly head. That´s a dangerous sign for a society in search of a collective identity.
Limbus in the eastern hills want their own state; Tharus, who are spread across the tarai, want their own state; Madhesis want a single Madhes state; Magars and Tamangs also want their own state; Newars want theirs—actually, any sizable ethnic group wants its own state. All this is happening because they were told it was possible, they were told it was their right and they were told there was a conspiracy to deny them their right, their self-rule.
Talk to the Madesi leaders in private, and they will admit that one Madhes, one Pradesh is not possible; talk to the Tharus in private and they will tell you they are just opposing the one Madhes, one Pradesh demand; talk to various Kirat factions in the eastern hills and you will not even understand their ranting, which seldom has any political meaning. Nor is there any coherence to what they say. But again politics and society are hostage to this trivia and bigotry.
I am not an apologist for a unitary state nor am I apologetic that we also contributed to kicking the monarchy out, to bringing the Maoist in, and to some extent to this collective national drift. No one should be. Persuading the Maoists to join the mainstream politics was the right thing and republic was the best thing to happen for this country.
Let´s face it—we now have new problems that only we can fix. And it´s time to get started; it´s time to reboot politics. Maoists often say you have to destroy the old to begin anew. If there is any merit to that claim, to that philosophy; if there is any such thing as creative destruction in politics, let´s go for it.
Social and political exclusion of various ethnic groups is a real problem and we have to address it. Centralization of power and resources is a real problem, so we have to federalize the state. But let´s not tolerate the indiscipline, the bigotry and the anarchy and let´s not become a vehicle for any of these.
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