Friday, Jul 4, 2008
Still reeling from the massacre of its royal family, Nepal finds itself struggling to fend off a Maoist revolution -- while the West looks away.
Dec 20, 2001 | Before the soldier came it was a pleasant evening in the Devkota household. After a traditional Nepali meal of rice, lentils and vegetables, we watched an Indian movie and chatted.
"Do you have the caste system in your country?" asked Dixon, 16. At first I was surprised at the question. The Devkotas are an educated, English-speaking Nepali family. An uncle was ambassador to Sri Lanka. But then I remembered the outdated textbooks of their children (Dixon, Nixon and Abhilok), with their ponderous lists of facts and figures about Europe that said nothing about real life. I was explaining Britain's meritocratic social setup when there was a rapping on the door. It was 8 p.m., an hour after the district of Tulsipur's strictly enforced curfew.
The curfew is part of the state of emergency declared by King Gyanendra on Nov. 26, three days after Maoist guerrillas broke a cease-fire and attacked army and police posts across Nepal.
We saw it was a soldier when Mrs. Devkota answered the door. She and her sister Neera went outside to talk with him. The soldier was upset and angry. There was a heated argument. The only words I understood were "emergency" and "Maobadi," the Nepali word for Maoist.
Inside, Abhilok, 14, sat wrapped in a blanket, rocking back and forth, watching TV and refusing even to look outside.
The argument stopped. The women came inside and we all watched the movie again. The good guy smashed a fish tank into the face of the bad guy; it was the kind of up-close-and-personal violence common in Hindi movies.
Outside a gunshot split the night air.
For a moment no one spoke. Then there was another hushed discussion in Nepali, and finally the situation was explained. Abhilok, still staring straight ahead at the TV, had fetched a chowki, a wooden board used in chapatti making, from a neighbor's house. Soldiers in the army base behind the Devkotas' house thought he was carrying a bomb. Although they could have shot Abhilok on sight as a suspected Maobadi, instead they gave him the benefit of the doubt and came around to check out the situation, firing the pistol in fear and anger.
The phone rang. It was the army officer, apologizing for his bad temper.
It's been a bad year for Nepal, indeed a bad decade. Things have not gone smoothly in the Himalayan kingdom since the country underwent the transition to multi-party democracy in 1990 after 30 years of autocratic rule by the monarchy. Ten governments in 10 years, frequent violent protests and rampant corruption have plagued Nepal, better known in the West as an unworldly Shangri-La for adventure tourists. Since 1996, Maoist guerrillas have fought an insurgency throughout the country; over 2,000 people have been killed.
Before the latest fighting, the Maobadi were a common sight in rural Nepal. Their policy of constant violence, kidnapping and intimidation had the police confined to the roads and major towns, leaving the Maobadi the effective government in 46 districts out of Nepal's 75.
On June 1, Nepal was shaken to the core by the massacre of its royal family in their palace in Kathmandu. Much-loved King Birendra was gunned down along with his family by his son, Crown Prince Dipendra, who then committed suicide. The official explanation is an argument over Dipendra's choice of bride, but few Nepalis believe this story, preferring a conspiracy theory involving Gyanendra, the present king. Pictures of the dead king are displayed in everywhere in Nepal. Gyanendra's image appears nowhere.
For a time, conspiracy theorists speculated that the Maobadi had something to do with the royal killings. Although apparently uninvolved, the Maobadi have tried to gain political capital from the tragedy. They infiltrated street protests, and their leader, Comrade Prachanda ("Comrade Awesome" in English), tapped into the popular sentiment by sending the palace a tribute to the slain king, head of the very same monarchy he had vowed to overthrow.
Nepal calmed down after the turbulent summer. A cease-fire was agreed to and the Maobadi and the government started talking. But by early November the talks had broken down and the Maobadi retreated into the heavily forested Himalayan foothills and prepared for war.
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