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January 12, 2003
EXCERPTS: Schismed identity
Manjushree Thapa writes about her visit to Mustang Bhot and ponders the contradictions in Nepalese society
Bikas settled more comfortably on the ground and frowned the way he did when he was going to talk about development. He asked, “How much rice does the government subsidise for you? Twenty pathis?”
“Twenty?” The young man laughed. “Ten or fifteen, depending on the size of the family. Only a few large families get twenty.” He spoke awkwardly and stumbled over his words, but he seemed used to talking in Nepali....
Bikas nodded in sympathy. “Wasn’t there a flood in Chhosher a few years back?” he asked.
“The river washed away our fields,” the young man said.
“Were all the fields damaged? Or only some?”
“A few people have some land left.”
“Are the others cultivating new fields?”
“No. It’s not possible. There’s not enough land left.”
“They have livestock to support them, then?”
“Livestock?” The man laughed. “There’s so little land to graze the animals on.”
“Then what are people doing?”
He shrugged. “What can they do?”
Bikas looked at the young man. “Has the government helped?”
“It resettled some families down south.”
Bikas fell silent again. The two older men smiled politely. The young man scratched the ground with a stone.
“Have you been to Chhosher?” the young man asked.
“I came to survey electricity last year,” Bikas said.
The young man translated this, and the older men’s faces lit up in recognition.
Bikas smiled. “When we did the survey, we found it was good for electricity. And after the flood, the government even gave Chhosher a full subsidy for the electrical equipment. But the villagers didn’t want to install the scheme....”
The men all frowned, and the younger turned to the others to see if they would respond. They said nothing, so he looked back at us.
“Why should we do anything in that place?” he said, his voice suddenly harsh. “There’s nothing to stay for any more.”
The man we first met sighed. “Why bring electricity to a place where no one wants to live?” he said slowly.
“You can’t go on living there?” Bikas asked. “Not at all?”
The young man leant forward. His face flushed. “It’s not just the fields,” he said. “It’s everything. Everything — what is there to stay for? Nothing but hardship. It’s time for us to leave.”
“Time for us to leave,” the older man echoed softly.
The confusion I had felt earlier, in Kathmandu — between being native or foreign, an insider or an outsider, Nepali or un- Nepali — suddenly became irrelevant at that time. Such dualities, and the obvious cultural differences between me and the people I met, distracted me from the fact that economically, I was inextricably linked to them; our country had allowed me an excess of resources and opportunities they suffered, and died, from lack of.
As I write this, now, outside the shelter of my room is Kathmandu. Tin roofs glint on the hills at the edge of the valley. Beyond is the rest of Nepal, where hope comes grudgingly in the fits and starts of initiatives that are plagued by hurt and doubt. From my desk, I can just barely hear the desperation of those who were born in the wrong place.
I understand that I inherited generations of privileges that finally, unbelievably, solidified in my lifetime, so that the rifts that separated me from other Nepalis were more dominant than what we shared in common.
I now see how this happened.
Neither of my grandfathers was rich, but they were established members of their communities, and they came from high class and caste backgrounds (upper-class Chhetri). Most importantly, they were close to the centre of power. When Nepal opened to the world in 1950, and set itself on the path of development, my grandparents were able to provide their children a chance to learn from outside.
My parents, among the first moderns in Kathmandu, found themselves in the centre of tumultuous changes. They were “self made”, in a way that was possible in Nepal for the first time then — they willed their lives, and broke with their parents’ ways. They embraced modern concepts like nuclear families, two- income households, and equality between their son and daughters. They were impatient to be rid of the past.
Their Nepal was a brash and optimistic country that welcomed the United Nations and the World Bank. Its leaders believed in progress, the Peace Corps, the moon landing; they planned roads, hospitals, dams and electrical projects — grand nation-building schemes to propel its mediaeval populace into the 20th century.
The house my parents built was part of the new Nepal they envisioned: it was of concrete and iron, with the gas-stove kitchen on the ground floor instead of in the attic, a dining room with tables and chairs rather than floor mats, a lawn in place of a vegetable patch, a Ford in the front yard. Red and green linoleum tiles were procured for the kitchen, and curtains for the windows. Furniture was collected over years of work- related trips to countries like Canada and the United States. This was the house, and the world — “best of both worlds”, First World possibility in a Third World society — that I was born into.
In my childhood, my privilege passed as destiny, good karma from a past life. Later, in the United States, a secularism born of development deemed my privilege evil instead, and I used terms like “urban-centred development”, “dual economy”, and “unequal distribution of wealth” to understand it. From this understanding, I gained enough insight to see the contradictions in Nepal, but now I see the economic and political connections that link one Nepali to another.
The cost of my independence, self-worth, confidence, education, plans, hopes, dreams — and my ability to determine my future — has been borne by impoverished, disempowered, suffering Nepalis: these are my roots.
I am no longer sure if I am a member of a new Nepal or a continuation of the old one, but I am certain that living with this schismed identity is what it means to be a Nepali.
Excerpted with permission from
Mustang Bhot in fragments
By Manjushree Thapa
Himal Books, P.O.Box 166, Pattan Dhoka, Lalitpur, Nepal. Tel: 977-1-542544
Email: himassn@mos.com.np
ISBN 99933-13-16-5
130pp. Nepalese Rs275
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