Three cheers for Nepal

Nepal: I have long belonged firmly to the camp in agreement with George Bernard Shaw that patriotism is “your [misplaced] conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it”. Reflecting on that universal tendency, Bertrand Russell had declared that “we require all kinds of support to our self-esteem”, with Arthur Schopenhauer even more to the point with his words: “Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs…”

 

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It may be foolhardy to assert the same in a country where national pride often begins with the slogan “Buddha was born in Nepal”. So popular is that position that one of its champions, Rabi Lamichhane, catapulted himself into the Guinness books parroting it, and later leveraged that fame into a so-far successful political career.

 

For all my misgivings, though, the past month or so has seen three events that do indeed make me swell with pride in our country. And, no, it has nothing to do with our political class.

 

First and second

 

It began with the buzz created the world over when Jane Dipika Garrett, the 2023 Miss Universe Nepal, made it to the last 20 in the finals in El Salvador. I certainly was not aware who had been crowned Miss Universe Nepal this year—or years past for that matter. With even our leftists seeming to have outgrown their virulent opposition to them, these shows with a bunch of youngsters having some harmless fun do not attract as much attention as in yore. Hence, to find news feeds from around the globe to suddenly go into a tizzy over Garrett’s presence in the worldwide competition was quite a pleasant surprise.

 

And why? The headlines said it all: ‘Miss Nepal stuns as first plus-size candidate in Miss Universe 2023’ (the Philippines) and ‘Jane Dipika Garrett Makes A Gorgeous Case For Inclusivity’ (India), with the question uppermost being ‘Who Is Jane Garrett, Miss Universe Nepal 2023?’ (the UAE). All because Nepal had decided that the one to represent our country does not necessarily have to be a waif; that we are confident in giving a new meaning to that contested, even hated, phrase, “Beauty with a brain”.

 

I do not know how the selection process for Miss Universe contests works, whether it is the judges who decide or the larger public is also involved. Whatever the case, one has to give kudos to everyone who voted for Garrett. And, of course, a big shout-out to Garrett herself for having the confidence to first stand on a national stage and an international one—a role model to the millions who watched her.

 

The other development that made it internationally was Nepal’s being only the second country in Asia, and the first in the region, to recognise same-sex marriage. When Maya Gurung and Surendra Pandey officially tied the knot, it was hailed as a “milestone”, “historic” and even “A beacon of change for South Asia”. The latter sentiment was indeed well-timed, coming as it did on the heels of the Indian Supreme Court’s refusal to recognise such unions.

 

The only other South Asian country where gay rights might materialise anytime soon, Sri Lanka, is only just limping towards decriminalising homosexuality. That Nepal has led the way making the polity more inclusive of the LGBT groups has been well documented. What was amazing, though, was that the first same-sex marriage certificate would be issued in a village in Lamjung district. That is why it makes naysayers like the arch-conservative Kamal Thapa of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal so out of touch with changing values when he argued that same-sex marriage “contradicts our fundamental concept of the ‘institution of marriage,’ which traditionally embodies a sacred union between a man and a woman”.

 

A minor bitter aftertaste from the whole episode was that Maya had to mention she is the “wife” in the relationship since the law still requires “a husband” and “a wife” in a marriage. It is still not certain what form the law ordered by the courts to grant gay and lesbian couples equal rights as others will take.

 

And justice for all

 

The third instance of “proud to be a Nepali” came with the Rukum West District Court’s verdict condemning 24 men to life sentences for mercilessly beating to death six youths back in 2020. Nabaraj BK, Ganesh Budha Magar, Tikaram Nepali, Lokendra Sunar, Govinda Shahi and Sandip BK faced a bloodthirsty mob when they went to entice Nabaraj’s love interest to elope with him. Smack in the heartland of the decade-long Maoist insurgency, Nabaraj and his friends were killed for the simple reason that a Dalit like him had the temerity to fall in love with a Thakuri girl.

 

That the main instigator of the killing was an elected official from the CPN (Maoist) should have made his party hang its collective head in shame. Instead, we saw Janardhan Sharma, a heavyweight in the party and formerly a No 2 in the Maoist army that ostensibly fought to rid Nepal of the horrendous practice of caste discrimination, actually going out of his way to justify and excuse the barbaric murders. If reports are true, besides party camaraderie, many of the accused were actually relatives of Sharma’s.

 

That is hardly the kind of testimonial any politician should be carrying, but so far, there has been no action taken against him by the party brass. At the very least, once the courts had decided against those he had tried to protect, Sharma should have been made to participate in a public self-criticism that his party’s inspiration, Mao Zedong, had perfected. Let alone that, I am not even aware that the Maoists have denounced the ringleader member of their party who will now have time in jail to re-read the revolutionary texts.

 

But, where politicians have fiddled, the judiciary has provided succour yet again. That is more than can be said of comparable India, where the government and the courts have repeatedly and systematically failed to protect Dalits. The Rukum West case was the most prominent one, but it will hopefully spur justice in other cases involving the killing of other Dalits, namely, Ajit Mijar, Sete Damai, Manbir Sunar, Shiva Shankar Das, Angira Pasi and Bhim Bahadur Biswakarma. That will truly be the day when we should all be happy to be Nepalis, for it will certainly be a much greater achievement than the meaningless pride in someone’s birth millennia ago.