3.29.2007

The Guar Massacre: what’s next

Following the unfortunate massacre in Gaur, some important questions to be asked:

who is responsible?
a) Upendra Yadav hired some thugs from India
i) not expecting it to be what it turned out
ii) with the intention of unleashing maximum cruelty

(Note: his condemnation of the massacre came days after, he is in hiding in India, he was spotted in a hindu extremist event in India)

Maoist Reaction

a) Good so far.

b)Bad (following the incident in Banke where MJF leader was killed by 15 masked and armed men).
c)Predicted to be very bad.

Government’s failure

What will happen to the CDO who wasn’t even there to call the curfew? Was it an intentional oversight of the law and order apparatus who were very aware there was going to be a clash, given past incidents and information on the rallies? What’s next for terai?

The Madhesi Movement

Is it discredited now? Will they be able to clean their image, perhaps by dissociating from MJF, their student wing did? How will the check infiltration? Who will take the new lead?

5. Royalist infiltration…. Or was it grandmaster Gyanendra behind it all.


Gaur is said to be controlled by criminals affiliated with the Panchayat regime who are now under the wing of the SPA to help in the elections held previously.

2 comments:

सुजन said...

i cannot keep MPRF and MJF straight. i don’t know how different they are, if they are different. that is just in the way of saying that i am a total ignoramus on this issue – i do not know the “ground reality”, i do not dwell on real-politik. i feel, and i think. the problem with that is if i feel a thousand pounds, i think maybe 50, and i speak/write maybe 1 single pound. if i am lucky. and in my good days i act on one ounce, maybe. in any case, i do believe i have the right to feel and the privilege to write here, even if i do not know. and this is not just in the atermath of Gaur. this is also in the wake (pun intended, unfortunately) of earlier deaths in the course of the madhesi movement.


1) who is responsible?
a) Upendra Yadav

i do not know what Upendra Yadav was thinking when he hired the thugs from both India and Nepal. truth be told, i don't even who UY is! if the dude with an interview on Kantipuronline.com is to be believed, it costs about Rs. 15 million to hire those professional ruffians. i do not think you hire people for that kind of money just for fun. even if UY claims not to have expected what actually happened, it does not exonerate him, does not relieve him of culpability and responsibility. UY is responsible, whether he likes it or not, if indeed he hired those killers. i will not claim that he is fully responsible, or that he is the only one to blame. but some responsibility, he has.

there is a true story about a bluesman. a legendary bluesman from the delta, R. L. Burnside. he once shot a man in the head. during the murder trial he testified, “i did not kill the guy. i shot him in the head. him dying was between him and the Lord.” he went to jail. if i were on the jury, the verdict would not have been different on account of me, regardless of how much i enjoy his music.


2) Maoist Reaction

i don’t know how the Maoists have reacted unofficially so far. i have read that the primma donna prachanda was raising a stink over how the government-formed-committee would not be unbiased. the point of that line of argument, i fail to grasp. i cannot see how appointing a committee that has his approval would ensure a fair investigation. let he who has not killed speak – not he who stands on the shoulders of 13,000 shredded lives.

speaking of culpability, it would be wrong to say that his highness prachanda is not culpable for this massacre. yes, he is. from his total lack of respect for the cause, to his total lack of decency in recognizing that this is and can be an independent movement. i read somewhere that he bellowed of the madhesi movement a coupla months ago, “who the hell are they to steal our agenda and revolt against us?” great, the chump has a copyright and patent on all the social issues now, does he? what a fucking visionary concept. just who the fuck is he to claim that any agenda is his agenda? that any cause is his and his alone. and that he gets to define it the way he pleases. the way he wants. the way he needs. shit, if there were three persons responsible for the massacre, his holier-than-thouness Mr. P is one of them.

and will the maoist reaction be bad in the future. possible. but they are not going to leverage that into bullying me to believe in them. how about an uncouth and totally inappropriate reaction to the maoist threat of escalation – yawwwwn.


3) Government’s failure

i won’t even go there. it is not just that the govt. is inept. it is just incapable of understanding even the spirit of the madhesi movement.

4) The Madhesi Movement

the idea underlying the madhesi movement is not discredited. how can an idea, an idea based on fairness at that, be discredited? BUT, this was not the way things should have gone. the execution of the idea based on fairness was anything but benign – and to think benignity and mutual respect are arguably the defining elements of fairness. from the very beginning, there were overtones and veiled threats of violence underlying the madhesi movement. that simmering violence, or the threat of such, was disturbing, at least personally. and depending on where we go from here, this may just be a beginning. a chilling and severely sobering thought.

the problem with movements, in general, is that the intent and goal of a movement is rarely aligned with the intent and goal of its leaders. the madhesi movement needs to keep marching and distance itself from the senseless violence. btw, isn’t all violence senseless? in all likelihood, however, that is not going to be the case. i will just chalk it up to my pessimism for now – i just choose to be pleasantly surprised rather than rudely awakened. and i have to admit, no matter how much i lower my bar, Nepal, my Nepal, my dear dear Nepal, almost always manages to convince me that i am overshooting, that i dream of dreams too good to be true.

tough rhetoric aside, the madhesi cause, or any other cause for equality, is probably best served by a more concerted effort to make a difference, rather than create sound-bites and cheap publicity. yes, wars are waged on propaganda, but propaganda alone is rarely enough. the goal should not be to just make noise, just score some points in a high school debate, or just incite hatred in people. but who am i to talk about “should”s anyway.

look, i believe in equality, decency, fairness everything. i am just tired of all this killing and maiming. and it is just getting in the way of life. let’s give people room to live, time to progress and reason to hope. without progress and hope, what use is equality and fairness? the land of the dead is equal and fair, there is no one alive to discriminate, deprive or exploit. but i don’t want the land of the dead. i don’t like this race to the bottom. there must be a better way. there is, isn’t there?

there is no such thing as [some political thought or entity] (say equality, fairness, political rights, etc. etc.) "at any cost." only people who do not have to pay utter the phrase "[something] at any cost." costs are real, not imagined, no matter how inelastic the demand. my right to live, and my right to earn a living is more fundamental to your right to engage people in political action/movement/debate/war.

(plus, i need a crash course on the goals of the madhesi movement. i am not talking about things like the demands that the home minister resign. goals, like proportional representation or federal structure along ethnic lines and stuff like that. at this point, i am not 100% concinved that proportional representation and federal structure along ethnic lines are good or productive or even fair. but i do not know these issues - somebody help me out, please. i just think these are really complicated and tough challenges that require a lot of thought, empathy and negotiations. just cannot be resolved by waving the wand/gun/cannon/rocket-launcher.)

5. Royalist infiltration…. Or was it grandmaster Gyanendra behind it all.

possible. very possible. especially if that Rs 15 million figure is somewhere near correct. in any case, if there were three persons responsible, one would be g as well. but if g did buy people, what about those who got bought?

Anonymous said...

the demands of the MJF are sketchy... proportional representation (as opposed to quotas) is one of them, i.e. constituenties be drawn proportional to the population. the govt. has agreed. federal structure is one of them, and upendra yadav, i have heard, has his own model. but with so many competing models, legislators are going to have a tough time. upendra yadav was formerly a UML man, who then switched to the Maoists and recently opened a front called MJF (the same as MPRF, nepali and english). they do not really have support, as in loyal followers, but people are sympathetic to their cause. but now it seems criminal elements are running amok.

law and order in the terai is completely crashed. no wonder u can have 4 bombs blow up in janakpur simultaneously.

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