The Fagu festival, popularly known as Holi, is being celebrated on Tuesday by smearing red vermilion powder and throwing colour and water-filled balloons at each other.

An important festival of the Nepalis, Holi begins on the eighth day of the new moon in the month of Falgun and ends with the burning of the ‘Chir’, which was installed earlier, on the full moon day.

The festival is being celebrated in the hilly areas including Kathmandu valley on Tuesday while people in the Terai region will observe it on Wednesday.

The festival revolves around a mythology that demon king Hiranya Kashyapu ordering his sister Holika to enter a fire with Pralhad, son of the demon king and a devout follower of Lord Vishnu, in her lap so that Pralhad would stop chanting the name of the God. The catch was that Holika wouldn’t burn in the fire because of a boon she had received from the God.

But it so happened that the fire burned Holika whereas Pralhad remained unharmed and came out of the fire still chanting the name of the almighty.

From then onwards, the festival is celebrated by smearing colour in enjoyment. There is also a saying that Lord Vishnu had told Holika that the boon she had received would be meaningless if it was misused.

Elders believe that any premonitions can be avoided if ‘Tika’ made from the ashes of the ‘Chir’ is put on one’s forehead or kept in the house. Revelry in the form of throwing water-filled balloons at pedestrians from the upper windows of houses usually marks the festival.

Hindus in Nepal, India and around the world smear colors and exchange greetings during Holi celebrations.

However, over the last few decades, Holi has been witnessing wrong trends such as targeting of young women in the streets, forcible smearing of colors and use of dirty water in water-filled balloons, causing inconvenience to others.

Former minister and advocate Subhash Chandra Nembang filed a petition at the Kathmandu District Court against the Home Ministry and the Kathmandu District Administration Office for ‘misusing’ the Public Peace and Security Act, 1989, while detaining leaders and human rights activists.

In a petition, Nembang also sought the court’s order to the government to provide him at least Rs 100,000 in damages as he was ‘illegally’ detained for 28 days.

He claimed that the government has been misusing a provision of the Act while taking persons in preventive detention even after the Supreme Court’s strictures against detaining anyone illegally.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court (SC) on Monday ordered the government to produce three leaders of Nepali Congress (NC) before the Court on March 16.

Acting upon a habeas corpus writ petition, a single bench of Justice Khil Raj Regmi ordered the government to produce NC leaders Bimalendra Nidhi, Dr. Prakash Sharan Mahat and Pradeep Firi before the SC.

The bench also directed the Home Ministry, the Bhaktapur District Administration Office and the Royal Nepalese Army’s Guheshowari Barrack at Duwakot to furnish written explanation on the trio’s detention.

The government released NC leader Dr Mahat on Monday from the premises of Kathmandu District Court.

The three-week-long blockade of capital, Kathmandu, and other district headquarters called by the CPN (Maoist), beginning Tuesday has sharply reduced number of vehicles moving in and out of Kathmandu.

According to Thankot police post—a major land transit to point to Kathmandu, very few vehicles have left the capital this morning. Similarly, number of vehicles entering the valley has drastically gone down.

According to police, over one thousand big vehicles leave and enter the capital valley on an average every day. A few private vehicles could be seen entering Kathmandu this morning while a number of people were awaiting for passenger buses at Kalanki to reach their destinations.

Talking to Nepalnews, Mohan Krishna Ghimire, a passenger, said he was awaiting a bus to Narayangadh for the last three hours since this morning but not a single passenger bus had left the Kathmandu bus park. “I wanted to join my family for the festival of ‘holi’ today and I don’t have money to stay back in Kathmandu,” he added.

A transport operator, Binod Chhetri, said the blockade would have adverse impact in their business. “Transport business is already on the verge of collapse due to insecurity and recent hike in the price of petroleum products. Now, the blockade and indefinite strike are likely to push us out of business,” he complained.

Sarala Giri, a housewife at Maitidevi, complained that there was already shortage of cooking gas and other essentials in the market though the Maoist-imposed blockade was just to begin. “Fresh vegetables are in short supply and prices of tomato and other vegetables have gone up,” she added.

Calling upon the people to bear with them during what they called the “decisive battle,” the Maoists said they have called for three-week-long blockade leading to indefinite nationwide strike in order to force the king to give up his direct rule.

But the seven party opposition alliance and rights groups have urged the rebels to withdraw their blockade and strikes saying that it will add to the woes of ordinary people.

The rebels had also called similar blockade of the capital in February last year immediately after the royal takeover. They, however, withdrew their blockade after one week.

Meanwhile, officials have said they have adequate supplies of essential goods and petroleum products to meet the requirements of the residents of the capital valley. They have also urged people not to resort to “panic buying” in the wake of the Maoist blockade.

Ambassador of Denmark to Nepal, Finn Thilsted, has said the international community is committed to supporting Nepal and Bhutan in finding a comprehensive solution to the Bhutanese refugee problem in Nepal – including resettlement to third countries as stated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).

In a letter sent to Nepalnews, ambassador Thilsted said he was wrongly quoted by a leading Nepali newspaper as saying that he had blamed Bhutan for prolonging the refugee problem while addressing Bhutanese refugees in Beldangi III camp on March 8.

Nepalnews had quoted the news report.

In his letter, the Danish envoy said, “It is evident that Nepal and Bhutan have a joint responsibility for the lack of progress in the verification process. Denmark and the international community have been encouraged by reports that Nepal and Bhutan are planning to restart the dialogue with the aim of agreeing on the terms and conditions for repatriation of eligible persons and a continuation of the verification process.”

He further said, “Bhutan and Nepal, however, should take the first positive steps, as a matter of urgency, towards finding a comprehensive solution.”

Denmark is one of the largest donors of Bhutan. It also supports the Bhutanese refugees living in the UNHCR-supported camps in Nepal.

Some 105,000 refugees have been living in seven camps in eastern Nepal for the last 15 years. 15 rounds of bilateral talks held between the governments of Nepal and Bhutan have failed to yield any results. The refugees said they would launch decisive movement for repatriation under the leadership of Teknath Rizal, who was released in 1999 after ten years of jail term within Bhutan.

Four Armed Police Force personnel have been injured when a landmine exploded at a training center of Armed Police Force at Naubasta, about 25 km north of Nepalgunj on Tuesday morning.

Security sources say that the landmine was planted for the security of the training center.

According to the source, Gagan Shahi, 26, Bhim Bahadur Mandal, 20, Gagan Singh Rasaili, 30 and Jaggulal Choudhary received minor injury by the blast this morning. Three of the injured security personnel have been admitted to Nepalgunj Medical College in Kohalpur for treatment. Reports say they are out of danger.

Indigenous mobilization of resources by community credit union could be an effective model to arrest the poverty trap and community development at local and regional level.

By Surendra R. Devkota

Historically, Nepal is one of the richest countries in terms of social, cultural, and ecological capitals with the exception of the human and economic capitals. Though contemporary modernization paradigm exclusively upholds the economic capital, strong influence of modernization sprouted and injected in cities seems to relegate other forms of capitals. In fact, other forms of capitals are also equally important that complement to socio-economic development. But a very false impression of modernists that economic capital will substitute other forms of capitals is ruining our social values and beliefs.

Capital is a contentious conception as Marx outlined in the classical theory of capital, which emerges out of social relation between a capitalist and labor; whereas Adam Smith’s neo-capital theory relies on human capital. In simple terms, capital has a potential either to produce profits or to reproduce or both. Unlike economic capitals, socio-cultural and ecological capitals are primarily non-marketable. Nevertheless, how non-marketable goods and services like social capital can be made marketable is a challenging task.

The belief of social capital is intensifying with respect to humanity. In general, social capital resources include trust, norms, and networks of association representing any group. It is an investment in social relations with expected returns in the market place as Nan Lin defined in his “Social Capital”. The neo-Marxists believe that social capital is a sort of individual dominance of a certain privileged class to maintain its hierarchy, whereas advocates of neo-capital theory believe that social capital is a public good. The collective assets, hence, should be available to all members of the group.

Nepal is proud to have many forms of social capital, and contemporary sociologists and anthropologists have enlisted their characters elsewhere. In a broad sense, our social capital may be categorized broadly into two groups: Traditional model, and Modern model.

i. Traditional model

The Chattis Mauja irrigation system developed by local Tharus about 150 years ago in Rupandehi district is considered as a global model of our social capital being transformed to economic capitals over the period of time.
The traditional model of social capital in Nepal is mainly based on the diverse ethnic communities such as Gurung, Magar, Tamang, Thakalis, Rai, Limbu, Tharu and others. The Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS) estimates that there are 61 indigenous nationalities: 21 in the Mountain, 23 in the Hill, 7 in the Inner Terai, and 10 in the Terai regions. Each ethnic community has unique social network, and exhibits different social norms and rituals. One of the commonest approaches is formation of an association of ethnic members, and help each other during the period of social rituals and crisis that may include marriage, death, assisting to building or repairing a house, and public buildings. Further, it also helps to poor member of the association by providing some investment incentives. Members of such associations will maintain their credit by paying off the debt in due course of time. Such ethnic associations truly exemplify the notion of social capital, and it has been utilized for economic gains at the local level as well.

The other traditional model of social capital is Guthis – a homogenous association of certain tribes or castes such as Newars, and Bahun- Chhetris. In many societies, Guthis were established by the family altruists which could be of either physical property like land, temple, or monetary. But, in recent years, for instance, there is a decline of social obligation of elite members of the Guthis who deceived their economic transaction to other members, and resulted in the bankruptcy of the fund. There are many instances where so-called elite members had also seized non-monetary property of the Guthis. Since the law of the land did not bother to investigate such misuses on common trust, people simply lost faith in the Guthis. Moreover, there are plethoras of examples that government has been unable to keep the public Guthis intact. On the other side, in some ethnic communities, where people have maintained a common trust among the members of the Guthis, all members have got an opportunity to be better off. Examples include the Newars communities that have a strong accountability in their Guthi system.

Another example of a traditional model of the social capital in Nepal is farming activities. In many areas, farmers still practice a barter system and society is greatly dependent upon mutual trust between peasants and farmers. Farmers have been following a long tradition of managing the water resources in such a way that all downstream households will be better off by cooperating each other. They share a common vision of betterment in terms of equity and efficiently allocating resources. Farmers managed irrigation system at local or regional levels are very successful models of both agricultural development and enhancement of social capital. The Chattis Mauja irrigation system developed by local Tharus about 150 years ago in Rupandehi district is considered as a global model of our social capital being transformed to economic capitals over the period of time.

ii. Modern model

Modern model of social capital in contemporary Nepal includes forest management by local community by forming forest users’ group (FUG). Different aspects of the community forestry have been discussed elsewhere. Essentially, the community forestry has gained all forms of capitals: social, ecological and economic and enhanced strong sustainability model. FUGs are trying to reverse the phenomenon of “the tragedy of commons” based on their social structures, and values. Local people are building up their social capital in order to enhance the natural capital through a game of cooperation. Real faith on the fact of forest preservation emerged only after local people got some legitimacy. Now, they could get not only the direct forest products like fuel wood and fodder, but also benefited by the other indirect use and non-use values of forests like improved local micro-climate, resilience of greenery and bio-diversity. People in different regions are experiencing the resilience of the local ecosystem over a period of one decade. Local people are taking not only the interests from the forest, i.e., fuel wood, food and timber, depending upon the harvest rate, but also are committed to increasing forest stock – a capital enhancement. FUGs in Nepal are flourishing based on the real human behavior, whereby maximization of self-interest as an economic man is replaced by the community interest, since economic man does not represent the true human nature.

Future model:

Both prototypes reveal that Nepalis have pioneered in their social trusts and transactional behaviors. Further, the traditional social trust and activities need to be revitalized by integrating contemporary philosophy of social equality, openness, and inclusiveness, so that a heterogeneous social structure will evolve that will be able to drive socioeconomic development at local/regional level. One of the options could be establishing a community credit union at the local/regional level in order to satisfy the demand of capital vis-à-vis break the vicious circle of poverty. Though poverty alleviation has been a sole mantra for many decades poor are getting poorer due to paucity of resources and deprived opportunity of building their human capital. Injection of foreign loans and resources has yet to reach to them. Meanwhile, indigenous mobilization of resources by community credit union could be effective model to arrest the poverty trap and community development at local and regional level.

In general, credit union is an important tool for economic growth in urban centers, where resourceful agent can easily take advantage of it. But, in the context of Nepal, city based financial institutes rarely make appearances at the rural areas for their profit maximizing motives, and they should not be encouraged to siphon off rural credit also. Hence, there exists an indigenous alternative that is community owned and managed credit union at rural areas. The structure of community credit union could be an extended model of community forestry or irrigation system or any ethnic association, but it must be accessible to all members of the society. In other words, it will be a community owned credit union for community development. Its mission is not to maximize the profit, rather to minimize social inequalities. It will basically complement to the socioeconomic development at local level by mobilizing local resources. Pierre Bourdieu, a pioneer scholar of social capital, mentions that since economic capital is the root of all forms of capitals, credit unions will try to convert their socio-cultural, ecological and human resources into economic capital. Initial endowments could be in terms of both monetary and non-monetary resources accumulated at local level. For example, capital gains from community forestry could be mobilized. Local social entrepreneurs and farmers need to be encouraged so that resources will be utilized properly. Trading between or among the community credit unions could be another source of the revenue at the regional level. Community credit unions can be initiated without any outside funding, but they must be protected by laws so that they won’t be other examples like city based fraud financial institutes, Guthis for elites, and rural savings scheme of the Panchayati regime.

The existing constitution lacks provisions related to rights of economy, socio-cultural, and ecology, and accountability at local level and does not grant as well as protect social capital. Henceforth, people oriented constitution is an urgent need that empowers people in real sense and revitalises their different capitals in order to foster the social sustainability of the Nepali society in the 21st century.

(Dr. Devkota is a Faculty at the World Learning, Vermont, USA. Views expressed in this article are based on his research paper on marketing the non-marketed goods and services. Please send your comments/suggestions to [email protected] or [email protected])

(Editor’s Note: Nepalis, wherever they live, as well as friends of Nepal around the globe are requested to contribute their views/opinions/recollections etc. on issues concerning present day Nepal to the Guest Column of Nepalnews. Length of the article should not be more than 1,000 words and may be edited for the purpose of clarity and space. Relevant photos as well as photo of the author may also be sent along with the article. Please send your write-ups to [email protected])

A day after two central committee members of the CPN (Maoist), Rabindra Shrestha and `Anukul’ alias Mani Thapa, publicly criticized the party leadership of “ideological deviation,” Maoist chairman Prachanda said both of them have been expelled from the party for indulging in “counter-revolutionary activities.”

In a statement issued on Tuesday, Maoist supremo Prachanda alleged that Shrestha and Thapa duo– who were expelled from the central committee of the party a few days back—will be considered as renegades for “serving the cause of the royal government.”

He said the party was investigating reports about suspicious activities of Shrestha when he was under custody.

Said to be in-charge of the Maoist organization in the capital valley, Shrestha was arrested in November 2001 and was released after nearly two years during the second round of failed peace talks between the government and the Maoists.

Prachanda also refused to respond to specific allegations leveled by the two dissident leaders.

In a joint statement issued on Monday, Shrestha and Thapa who were earlier politburo members of the party leveled personal and ideological allegations against party chairman Prachanda alias Pushpa Kamal Dahal and another senior leader of the party, Dr. Baburam Bhattarai.

In their statement issued on behalf of the little known “New Cultural Revolutionary Group,” Shrestha and Anukul narrated how ideological, political, organizational, military and cultural deflections had taken place among two top leaders of the party.

They alleged them of spending most of their time in a “foreign country” and not sending their children to the battlefield. They also accused Prachanda of turning soft towards monarchy against the party’s policy.

Meanwhile, in an exclusive interview with the BBC Nepali Service on Tuesday, Shrestha said he would continue to fight against the party’s leadership from within the party. When asked if they would be going for a splinter party, Shrestha said, “If our appeals are not heard, we may be forced to look for an alternative.”

Police arrested more than 50 hooligans from different parts of Kathmandu Valley on Tuesday for hurling water balloons and smearing coloured powder on people without their consent.

According to police those arrested will be released by Wednesday.

Over the last few years, Holi has been witnessing wrong trends such as targeting of young women in the streets, forcible smearing of colors and use of dirty water in water-filled balloons, causing inconvenience to others.

Police arrested 17 hooligans, who had vandalized a car with registration number BA 5 CHA 4679.

They had smashed windscreens of the car.

One of the leaders of the alliance of the seven agitating political parties has said that the alliance has announced the protest programmes for outside the valley to make the April 8 rally of the valley and non cooperative movement of the alliance a success.

Talking to Nepalnews on Tuesday, Lila Main Pokhrel, Vice-Chairman of People’s Front Nepal, a member of the seven party alliance, said that they are holding protest programme outside the valley to gain people’s support in the mass meeting of the alliance in the capital, slated for April 8.

He further said that the alliance will continue its agitation in and outside the valley to restore complete democracy in the country from April 8.

He ruled out the allegations that the seven party alliance announced decentralized protest programme as it is losing popular support and added that the upcoming protest programmes would end such allegations.

On the talks between Maoists and seven political parties in New Delhi, he said that it was essential to strengthen and effectively implement the 12-point pact reached between political parties and Maoists last November, adding, “I am confident that it will bring positive result in favour of restoring peace and democracy in the country.”

When asked about the reaction of the seven party alliance about the blockade called by the Maoists against the 12-point pact, Pokhrel said that it will not affect in their understanding and expressed the hope that Maoists will not do anything that will hinder the protest programmes announced by the alliance.

He said that Maoists might call off their protest programmes so as to not obstruct the protest programme of the seven party alliance.

The Maoists imposed blockades in the capital, regional, zonal and district headquarters from Tuesday.

Monday’s meeting of the seven-party alliance’s taskforce appealed to the people to participate in the joint rally to be held in the capital on April 8 and make its non-cooperation campaign against the government a success.

The alliance has decided to organise campaigns in all the districts from March 19 to 28 calling upon the people to head to Kathmandu to make the April 8 rally a success.

The alliance is also scheduled to organise nationwide protest rallies against loadshedding, lack of drinking water and skyrocketing prices.

On March 30, the political parties would participate in a protest rally to be held by the Indigenous and Nationalities Joint Struggle Committee in the capital. The agitating parties would also take part in another rally to be held by the peasants across the country on April 1.

The alliance is scheduled to hold joint rallies in Itahari, Sunsari and Narayangadh on March 31 and Chitwan on April 1 and hold nationwide protest rallies on April 6, according to the statement.

The alliance is holding various protest programmes since the February 1 royal takeover of the last year to restore complete democracy in the country.

Sunday’s meeting of the taskforce of the agitating seven-party alliance discussed various programmes to be organised before and after a joint rally scheduled in the capital for April 8 for the restoration of complete democracy.

The meeting will also continue today as well.

A meeting of the alliance’s top leaders on March 6 had decided to oraganise a joint rally in the capital on April 8, coinciding with the day of lifting of the 30-year of ban on political parties in 1990.

Report quoted NC leader Arjun Narsingh KC as saying that they discussed the alliance’s policies, programmes and ways of accommodating various walks of life in the joint movement.

He said the constituents of the alliance would launch their independent protest programmes till April 2 in all district headquarters and constituencies and launch joint programmes in the capital highlighting the issues of load-shedding and hike in petroleum prices.

KC also hinted that the outcome of the talks between the Maoists and political parties will be made public within a day or two.

He said the alliance leaders have asked the Maoists to withdraw the blockade and indefinite general strike they have announced to begin from March 14 and April 3 respectively.

Maoists have been continuing their violent activities against the 12-point pact between the Maoists and political parties.