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The Nepal Digest Tuesday 21 Feb 95: Falgun 9 2051 BkSm Volume 36 Issue 14
Today's Topics:
Apologies for no headers due to time restrictions.
******************************************************************************
* TND Board of Staff *
* ------------------ *
* Editor/Co-ordinator: Rajpal J. Singh a10rjs1@mp.cs.niu.edu *
* SCN Liaison: Rajesh B. Shrestha rshresth@black.clarku.edu *
* Consultant Editor: Padam P. Sharma sharma@plains.nodak.edu *
* TND Archives: Sohan Panta k945184@atlas.kingston.ac.uk *
* Book Reviews Columns: Pratyoush R. Onta ponta@sas.upenn.edu *
* News Correspondent Rajendra P Shrestha rajendra@dartmouth.edu *
* *
* +++++ Food For Thought +++++ *
* *
* "If you don't stand up for something, you will fall for anything" -Dr. MLK *
* "Democracy perishes among the silent crowd" - Sirdar Khalifa *
* *
******************************************************************************
**********************************************************************
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 22:46:24 EST
To: The Nepal digest Editor <nepal-request@cs.niu.edu>
From: "Pramod K. Mishra" <pkm@acpub.duke.edu>
Subject: Of Intellectuals and Fools
Are intellectuals fools and fools intellectuals? What makes a
PhD--whether earned after years of grinding course work and sweating
dissertation writing and defense in the hallowed precincts of American
academia or after two years of functional research and jumbling together
information and getting the degree honestly in Nepal or India or just
pirating some dust-gathered, long-forgotten dissertation from the
libraries of Calcutta and buying a PhD--what makes such PhDs intellectuals
is a difficult matter to decide. And in recent years we have had much
soul-searching about the role and characteristics of an intellectual.
In Nepal where the age of darkness ended only in 1950, what could an
intellectual do? What is his role? What is the role of a Nepali college
and university? These are questions we must ask now. The atmosphere of
fear and arrest that prevailed only some years ago has lifted now in
Nepal.
The Hindu tradition itself greatly emphasizes the significance of
knowledge for sons (I presume those of the upper castes). Many of us
know the Sanskrit shloka: "Vidya dadati vinayam / Vinayat yati patratam /
Patra dhanamapnoti / yatra dhanam tatah sukham." (Learning brings
modesty; from modesty comes good character; a person with goodness and
politeness earns wealth and where there is wealth, there is happiness.)
The implication of this Sanskrit stanza is obvious. Knowledge is
gained for not generating further knowledge by writing books, nor for
agonistic battle of dismantling one's forbears' theory and formulations,
nor for putting that learning in practice by educating the oppressed and
hungry millions to rise against feudalism, autocracy, and tyranny of
political, religious, or social systems, but to be polite, to be modest.
If the intellectuals become polite and modest instead of asking
difficult questions, then the society would perptuate itself as it is.
The privilege of the corrupt and the powerful would remain intact,
unchallenged and unexposed. (Folks! I'm trying to write in short
paragraphs, but I leave it for the TND Consultant Editor to decide
whether what I'm writing is therapeutic and guilt-ridden babble or
serious stuff). Every son should have this kind of knowledge, and one
who did not such
knowledge was considered good-for-nothing. There is a Sanskrit shloka
in Vishnu's Sharma's animal fables Panchatantra: "Ko arthen putren jaten
yo na vidwan dharmika / Kanain chakshuh kimba kewal pidalam" (What's the
use of a son who is neither learned or religious? To have such a son is
like to have an eye that cannot see).
Knowledge was decorative as well. In the same fable, there is
another shloka that says: "Rup yauvan sampanna vishaal kul sambhava /
Vidya hina na shobhante nirgandha iva kinshuka" (One may have good
features, yourth, born in a great clan, but if he doesn't have learning,
then it's like the flower of a tall cotton tree--beautiful and high-up in
the sky, but without fragrance and so useless).
So what should we expect from a Nepali PhD? One could say they
are prestige-hungry, title-grabbing ignorant bums always after some
lucrative posts and profitable pursuits. One can blame them for their
sterile degrees, vegetable minds, and starving bodies--both self and and
family.
But one charge that cannot be levelled against them is of only
producing dust-gathering, tenure-getting jargon-filled trivia in the name
of advancing knowledge. Although the value of this kind of the
production and consumption of knowledge cannot be denied because once in
a while some gem does come out of this process, it is nonetheless suited
only for some places not for others.
Schools and colleges in some places need not be politicized
because the fundamental questions about the political structure of the
society have already been settled by the forefathers (although many
would disagree with me here), because a few don't fill their coffers with
foreign aid while the majority live in poverty, illiteracy, and
degradation. In such places, revolution takes places in the books or on
the television screens, not in real life. In such places, you can get
only experts who could invent knowledge that could transform the rest of
the world without regard to the complexities that lie where the theory is
to be applied.
Let me give you the example of our Nepal. I don't know how far
it's true, and I haven't investigated this claim. In Nepal, back when
even a straw burned under the Panchayat system, they said that the idea
of a limited democracy was first propounded by a Harvard political
scientist from which Ayub Khan of Pakistan, Sukarno of Indonesia and King
Mahendra of nepal borrowed and gave it a local color and it became
"suitable to the soil" Panchayat system. The second example is that of
the Naya Siksha Yojana, New Education Planning, that flopped miserably in
the Nepali soil. It was only after coming to the United States that I
realized for the first time how important and useful that educational
system have been for Nepal. It would be interesting project to
investigate why this new system of education failed. In this system,
teachers, having power to give grades, began to tutor privately at expensive
costs, at times even taking bribes. And the students instead of writing
original papers, began to copy en mass the note books and text books
giving the teachers as their own original works.
In a place like Nepal, colleges and university are the places
where intellectuals reside, people who are neither starving nor tied to
their sunup to sundown work with half-empty stomachs. These students and
teachers, those who already don't get sold out to some temptation of
power and pelf, keep alive the flame of change. They are thus not only
passive learners of some information from books to get a lucrative jobs,
which were never there in the first place without born privileges, but
they are active agents who roam the precincts like watch dogs.
Of course, they should read and write and learn to generate
knowledge, but they cannot just forget politics, for we must give credit
to them for keeping the flame of democracy alive for these many year.
And the teachers, those who did not go to lecture on certain birthdays
and days of national festivals, they spoke against the system in the
faculty rooms and class rooms and acquainted the students with the
reality of the country. That work was more important than writing a
paper and publishing it in some obscure journals for promotion.
Besides, what could they do? Without speaking continuously for
six hours a day, they couldn't even get their one-room residence and feed
themselves and their family. For me, Sanglu Miyan, the starving tenant
in my village, also is in intellectual. Sanglu get up in the morning and
looks up in the sky and philosophizes about the sun, the clouds, the
wind, the birds, and goods off to work with his bullocks in front and his
plow on his shoulders. When he comes back in the evening, tired and
mired, he reads the adventures of the Persian tale Hatimtai, which he
says he learned to read in his dream. He is old, poor, and decrepit but
knows what is wrong in his society. He is a Muslim, offers his prayer
five times a day at the muezzin's call, but this time voted for the
Communists because last time he had voted for the Congress. And he was
not happy with the result. Maybe next time he will vote for the Congress
back again if the Communists fail to satisfy his hunger and take away his
pain. For me he is as important an intellectual, given the situation, as
a PhD in Kathmandu or in the US. In fact, more. I end this piece with a
quote again:
"Shaastranidhityapi bhavantu muurkhah
Astu kriyawan purushah saha vidwan"
(People become fools even after studying books. Those who act--put
theory and praxis together--are intellectuals.
**********************************************************************
Date: Fri, 17 Feb 1995 21:53:18 -0500 (EST)
From: Jagadish Dawadi <JXD9590@ritvax.isc.rit.edu>
Subject: Re: The Nepal Digest - Feb 18, 1995 (6 Falgun 2051 BkSm)
To: The Nepal Digest <NEPAL@cs.niu.edu>
Hello from Rochester!
It was nice reading the Feb. 17th issue of the TND. I would like to thank
Ashutosh Tiwari for his comment on my idea about the publication of the TND in
our mother tounge. I think that I didn't say TND be published in Romanized
Nepali(RN). My "Bichaar" was to know whether or not there were possibilities
that TND could be published using "Nepali Font." Now, I came to know from the
TND editor that publishing the TND in devenagiri is impossible using ASCII code
. If there are some technique to make this possible, attention should be given
to this regard.
Sure, I agree with Ashutosh that publishing TND in RN is sometime interesting
and sometime boring, but as far as people who really love Nepali language are
concerned, they can't remain complacent expressing their ideas through RN.
Anyway, I am not against publishing of TND in English, but I am just putting my
"Bichaar" before you all readers regarding this.
I would like to draw your kind attention that I am not neither in RPI nor in
The University of Rochester, I am here at Rochester Institute Of Technology,
RIT. Thanks for your kind attention!
It would be great to hear your further comments and ideas regarding the topic
above. Lau ta, ahilelai yati nai,
Have good weekend!
Namaste!
Jagadish Dawadi
**********************************************************
From: ponta@sas.upenn.edu (Pratyoush R. Onta)
Subject: Buddhanil kantha: an ex-Princely School (fwd)
To: NEPAL@cs.niu.edu (tnd)
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 01:06:51 -0500 (EST)
The following was sent to be with the request that I forward it to
TND.The author wishes to remain anonymous.
> ===================================================================
> >>Date: Sun, 30 Oct 1994 00:46:21 GMT
> >>
> >>> |atuladhar@vax.clarku.edu wrote:
> >>> |
> |:The school was a big ego trip to the Crown Prince Dipendra
> who could not go to
> |: a "normal" elite school such as the St. xaviers or
> other convents in India. he
> |: had to have the latest school built for him,
> |
ans:> ||I passed out from Budhanilkantha in 1982, and I believe this school
> |is giving quality education to nepali community. What the Crown prince did
> |or where he studied afterwards, I do not want to talk about it at the moment.
> |Maybe, I missed the real article by Bhusan Khanal, but Budhanilkantha School
> |is a good school not just because the Crown Prince happened to study and pass
> |out from this school.
> |
> |Sanjay Bajracharya
> >>
> >>
> >>We might have to look
> >>at the root over here.
> ans: >>
> >>The school was made for the crown prince, there is no doubt about that. The
> >>school cannot be run with only one student and therefore there were many
> >>students as everybody has seen. It is good that the school is continuing
> >>till today, but one should see the quality now. The product is not as good
> >>as it was during the CP's time. The reason, the allocation of fund and
> >>man power. The fund allocated to the student was very very high compared to
> >>any government school in Nepal. If only about 20% of that fund is allocated
> >>to any government school and management be handled by the secretary of the
> >>Ministry of Education, I am sure that it will not be lesser than the B.
> >>Kantha school. One might know that the board running now is also highly
> >>powered (in terms of bureaucratic and political). During CP's time there
> >>were prime minister's involvement (as an advisor) too, you can imagine now.
> >>Why a school needs a lot of importance, it is because there is CP.
> >>
> >>If B.Kantha is to be run as a school, I recommend to all that let the same
> >>fund as allocated to other government school be allocated to that school and
> >>all the cost be recovered from the tuition. The able can pay. The
> >>government's fund could be used to provide scholarship to the needy and poor
> >>students.
> >>
> >>I do not regret the establishment of B.Kantha, in fact, if we can afford,
> >>all schools should be made like B.kantha. I do not regret that the crown
> >>prince studied there and a lot of fund was allocated to that school in
> >>earlier days. What I want to emphasize that we do not want to produce more
> >>than one CP from that school. The beneficiary must pay for it. The
> >>government should not subsidize the elites.
End
************************************************************
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 01:00:52 -0500 (EST)
From: Ashutosh Tiwari <tiwari@husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Re: Membership List
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
TND membership list should NOT be made public. Why? Three reasons.
First, an e-mail address is a PRIVATE address, not a public address.
For example, at least in the US, if you request your university or company
to give you an "unlisted" (so to speak) e-mail address, no one can 'finger'
your account and get the info that they would otherwise normally get.
Think of your telephone number: Even the phone company CANNOT put you
in the publicly available directory unless you give them express permission
to do so. Why should the treatment of e-mail addresses be different?
Second, TND's primary responsibility is to serve as a Nepal Interest
Group through the posting of news, views and so on. Strictly speaking, it
therefore carries no obligation to give one Nepali's e-mail address to
another Nepali, even if they happen to be father and son living on two
different continents. That the editor has been giving out addresses on
request should be attributed to his "being a nice guy". But it
should never be mistaken as subscribers' "rights" or the editors' "duties".
In fact, I would even urge the Editorial Board NOT to give out
any member's address (except of the people on the masthead and contributors)
but, instead, encourage readers to send in their "looking for falana"
request to TND so that OTHER subscribers can give/pass e-mail addresses
to the inquiring party in their PERSONAL capacities.
Third, there exist substantial evidences that abuses of e-mail address
list happen all too frequently on the net. If you don't believe me, why
not spend a few minutes talking to experienced system administrators at
your sites, and see what horror stories you can get?
What guarantee is there that a wide cirulation of a PRIVATE e-mail
list like that of TND members' list is immune from abuses?
So, what do we do?
Thankfully, Padam, Sushovit, Diwas and others have volunteered
to compile a list of Nepali e-mail addresses at each their sites. Those who
want to be on their list should get in touch with them, and give them
the approval to put your names and addresses on their data-bases. That way,
you'd be agreeing to make your e-mail address PUBLIC. If enough
people respond to their requests, their lists could get substantially big
over time, and this "need" to get Nepalis' e-mail addresses could be
publicly satisfied without getting tripping into the sensitive area called
privacy.
This way, the folks who bring you TND can maintain their editorial
"sanctimony" while you get your "public good" (i.e. e-mail addresses of
friends lost since kindergarten) from other explicitly arranged sources
at Padam's, Sush's, and Diwas's.
To play on Dorothy's words: "We're not in Nepal anymore, Toto!"
namaste
ashu
********************************************************
From: ponta@sas.upenn.edu (Pratyoush R. Onta)
Subject: Book Review
To: NEPAL@cs.niu.edu (tnd)
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 10:45:58 -0500 (EST)
What follows is my review of a much-reviewed book. I have posted it here
in the hope that it will still be of interest to some TND readers. This
review was published in Spotlight Weekly of 20 May 1994
Book Review James F. Fisher, Sherpas: Reflections on Change in Himalayan
Nepal, Oxford University Press, Delhi, 1990, xxv + 205 pp., Rs. 275.
by Pratyoush Onta
The first ethnographic monograph based on fieldwork done in Nepal,
Christoph von Frer-Haimendorf's The Sherpas of Nepal: Buddhist
Highlanders, was published in 1964. In the three decades since then, more
than 15 doctoral dissertations and books have been written by various
American, European (mainly German) and Nepali anthropologists on the
Sherpas. Quite a few of these writers have noted the changes that have
occured in the Sherpa homeland (and Nepal in general) since the 1950s. A
general sense of alarm as to how various "modernizing" forces have
wrought havoc on the cultures and lives of the diverse Himalayan peoples
(including the Sherpas) pervades much of the journalistic and scholarly
writings on Nepal. However this literature, by and large, has remained
silent on the roles played by modern schools and tourism in the changes it
describes. Moreover, the roles played by foreign anthropologists in these
changes, in their research or other avatars, have remained somewhat
obscure. James Fisher's book under reveiw here addresses both of these
shortcomings.
Fisher's contact with the Sherpas began in 1964 when he was "not
yet ... a bona fide anthropologist." While in Nepal as a Peace Corps
teacher, he joined the Himalayan Schoolhouse Expedition led by Edmund
Hillary of the Everest fame, and helped to build a few elementry schools
and one STOL (short-takeoff-and-landing) airstrip in the Solu-Khumbu and
Lukla areas of the Sherpa homeland. The airstrip, although built to
effectively transport the supplies necessary for a hospital that Hillary
constructed in the area in 1966, reduced the fourteen-day walk from
Kathmandu to Khumbu to a forty minutes flight. After completing his
doctoral dissertation on the Magars of northwest Nepal from the University
of Chicago (see his Trans-Himalayan Traders , 1986), Fisher returned to
Khumbu on multiple occasions to find that the number of outsiders who
visited the area had increased from a handful in 1964 to about 3,500 by
1974 and almost double that number by 1986. The longevity of Fisher's
association with the Sherpas coincides with the history of intense
interventionist contact in the Sherpa homeland.
The book is then partly a memoir spiced with poignant photographs
of the "before-and-after" genre, and partly an anthropological analysis of
the impacts on present day Sherpa society of modern education and mass
tourism (in which Fisher includes mountaineering expeditions). In the
first chapter, Fisher describes his involvement with the Himalayan
Schoolhouse Expedition. His very readable narrative, constituted around
excerpts from the diary he kept at that time, describes the many trials
and tribulations that marked the construction of the schools and the Lukla
airstrip. In the following chapter, Fisher briefly describes the
pre-1960s Sherpa history, emphasizing that ever since their migration from
eastern Tibet to their present homeland in Nepal at the end of the
fifteenth century, Sherpa society has seen "a tradition of change."
However, Fisher argues that the changes that have occurred with
the coming of modern schools (as opposed to religious education imparted
in the Buddhist monasteries of the area), a hospital, an airstrip and a
large number of tourists have "in some ways fundamentally realigned the
ecological, economic, and political pillars of Sherpa society." But this
realignment does not mean, as Fisher shows in the next two chapters, a
dilution of Sherpa identity. On the contrary, he argues that the
education they received in schools have enabled educated Sherpas to take
advantage of the tourist trade. Also, as their homeland was increasingly
linked to the political and administrative infrastructure of Nepal, these
educated Sherpas were able to deal with the central bureaucracy from an
empowered position. Their relative prosperity has enabled rich Sherpas to
assert their Sherpa identities, and take part in religious/cultural
activities in their homeland in a scale not possible in the pre-1960s
period. Therefore, Fisher argues that although many Sherpas have migrated
out of the Solu-Khumbu area to Kathmandu and elsewhere, their cultural and
economic linkages to their homeland remain strong. As should be obvious,
"imperialist nostalgia" (Stanford anthropologist Renato Rosaldo defines
this as a longing for things one has helped to destroy) is not for Fisher.
Before concluding, James Fisher resorts to "ethnographic futures
research" by eliciting views from ten adult male Sherpas of various ages
of what their middle-term future - a period of twenty years - holds.
Significantly a variety of viewpoints were obtained. A majority of these
men agreed that "education will be a more central and critical feature of
Sherpa life" and that firewood and forest resources would be critically
depleted in twenty years' time. Six thought that although there would be
modest increases in the tourist trade, people in Solu-Khumbu would not
benefit all that much from this growth.
It is to be noted that the views of poor Sherpas and that of
Sherpa women who have in general not been the direct beneficiaries of the
tourist trade, are not included in Fisher's future research scenario. This
reviewer gets the impression that Fisher's optimistic appraisal would have
to be qualified when these views are taken into consideration. Recent
publications have shown that the benefits of trekking/mountaineering
tourism are not distributed equitably among those involved in this trade.
The majority of the Sherpas who engage in portering get only the crumbs of
the tourism pie. Also tourism's fluctuating fortunes in Nepal make it
difficult to predict future scenarios with any level of confidence.
Fisher's argument (regarding cultural reinvigoration) has
parallels elsewhere in Nepal. Instead of naive descriptions of
mono-directional cultural degradation, "sanskritization," or
"westernization," we have in some of the recent anthropological writings
on Nepal, sophisticated representations of extremely complex cultural
lives of people. Coinciding with this sophistication is, of course, the
theoretical shift in anthropology where the identities of "natives" are no
longer conceived as primordially given but rather as consciously chosen
and asserted by a heterogeneous group of actors. Years of discussing the
politics of representation have now made it difficult to accept academic
work that makes essentialized claims about the subjects of research.
Even as it discusses topics important to current agendas in
anthropological theory, James Fisher's book is largely free of the
anthropological jargon that makes some books unreadable. Its substantive
contents and its readability should encourage others to look at the issues
concerned in more detail. That some of this is already happening can be
seen from Stanley F. Stevens' tome Claiming High Ground: Sherpas,
Subsistence and Environmental Change in the Highest Himalaya (Berkeley,
1993). However, as senior anthropologist at the CNAS, TU, Dilli Ram
Dahal, has pointed out on a number of occasions, Sherpas and their
homeland have received a disproportionate amount of scholarly attention.
It is time that researchers interested in pursuing themes highlighted by
Fisher - cultural change in the context of modern education and
tourism-inspired economy - examine other places and peoples within Nepal
as well. The comparative insights that might come from such projects
could really enhance our understanding of contemporary Nepal. END
**************************************************************
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 13:51 EST
From: particle ana <PSIGDYAL@vax.clarku.edu>
Subject: Re: The Nepal Digest - Feb 18, 1995 (6 Falgun 2051 BkSm)
To: NEPAL@cs.niu.edu
In reply to Anak's search for his good old friend Yogendra:
The last time I talked to him on the net was last year when he was at Trent
University. I wonder if he's still at Trent 'cause I heard this rumor that he
was transferring to some other school in Canada. You could still give it a try
at YSHAKYA@TRENT.EDU.CA
Pradip.
***************************************************************
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 12:14:35 -0800 (PST)
From: Amresh Karmacharya <psu01146@odin.cc.pdx.edu>
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
Subject: Lost!
Roshan,
The last mail failed to be sent. I do not know what was wrong. The
address was correct of course. Anyway if you happen to see this message
please do send a reply. I have few friends named Roshan Shrestha. I
think I am not wrong to guess that you are the one doing Ph.D. in Israel
in algology.
Amresh.
*********************************************************
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 95 16:14:28 EST
From: eknath@math.cornell.edu (Eknath Belbase - Math Grad)
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
Subject: nepal in the news
Regarding the lack of US mainstream media attention given to events in Nepal-
Why do we WANT more coverage about Nepal? So we can get more information
about what is going on in Nepal, or so that people here can? Or do we want
to be able to feel that our country is more significant in the scheme of
things as viewed from a US perspective? If it is for the first reason,
there are plenty of non-mainstream sources of detailed news about Nepal
(TND included!). As for the second, lets remember that there are 100 other
countries which are mentioned as infrequently as Nepal in the US News.
When was the last time a "general" periodical had news about Botswana,
the Maldives, the CAR, Mozambique (or just about every country in Africa
except Egypt, Nigeria, Somalia and Rwanda)... if ever country was given
SOME attention when significant internal changes occurred, weekly periodicals
would probably average 4-5 hundred pages!
In addition, do we really WANT to see Nepal written about more in USA Today
and Newsweek and Time? That is the best way to get incorrect, vague, silly
(add any pejorative) sensationalized bs going around. Instead of an almost
complete ignorance about Nepal (I did a pseudo-random sample in Ithaca
the other night - about 1 in 2 people could place Nepal in Asia, about
1 in 3 could place it between India and China, and about 1 in 10 knew it
had a monarch. No one I asked knew that it had a monarch AND a "communist"
prime minister. This in a town where half the people, especially half
of the people you'd be likely to find in a bar, are in college or grad school)
you would have the propagation of standard cliches, absurd romanticized
articles straight out of National Geographic... think of the ideas one can get
about the Middle East (a well publicized region) from reading some of the crap
thats written about it! Contrast this with how some of these countries are like
when one actually goes there.
Thinking about all of this, I feel pretty lucky that Nepal is completely
ignored by mainstream US media. When *I* meet someone who knows almost nothing
about Nepal (which is true of almost everyone I meet, excluding people who have taken anthro courses or are into mountaineering), but is interested, I can give them my version of things without having to fight any bs that's already there.
If I were from Egypt or Lybia, this would be quite a challenge!
Cheers,
Eknath Belbase
******************************************************************
Subject: testing
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 95 18:35:05 MST
From: "Rajendra Kumar Joshi" <rkjoshi@acs.ucalgary.ca>
rajendra kumar joshi
department of geomatics engineering
university of calgary
calgary, alberta. canada
eml: rkjoshi@acs.ucalgary.ca
*************************************************************************
Date: Sat, 18 Feb 1995 21:41:10 -0500 (EST)
From: Ranjan Panth <rpanth@uceng.uc.EDU>
Subject: BKS: A Clarification for Bhushan
To: The Nepal Digest <NEPAL@cs.niu.edu>
> Ranjan Panth writes:
>
> > Can you tell me how much the following people have "given back" ? ( If you
> > know them, of course.) Sitaram Joshi, Subodh Bhatta, Sanjay K.C. and Kiran
> > Thapa have not ever thought about rural health or anti-AIDS. You may
> > say that they are the exceptions.
>
> Sitaram Joshi, who came board 2nd after being kicked out of BKS (from
> boarding housing, but not from the school) couple of months before the SLC
> exam, had an offer to study at Harvard for an undergraduate degree. He
> instead chose to study @ Bangladesh where he completed his medical school. I
> think he is back in Nepal right now.
>
> Bhushan.
Sitaram Joshi is a very close friend of mine and I have known him
for years. My point about "giving back" had to do with social service and
not about what he has accomplished in life. My argument was that "social
service" is not something that he really cares about, even though he is a
BKS graduate. The same holds true for the other persons I have mentioned
along with many, many others. I mentioned only those persons who were
close to me and would not take offense to my using them as examples.
Sitaram's academic achievements and disciplinary problems were the
furthest from my mind when I wrote that piece. The same holds true for
Subodh, Kiran and Sanjay. They are all great people. Bhushan
misunderstood me. Maybe now he'll understand that I was only referring to
their attitude toward social service and nothing else. Knowing Sitaram,
Bhushan probably realizes that Sitaram did not study medicine to "help
the poor and needy".
*****************************************************************
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 11:50 +0000 (GMT +8:00)
From: K.PAUDYAL@CGNET.COM
Subject: TAJA-KHABAR
To: NEPAL <NEPAL@cs.niu.edu>
UPLB Nepalese Students Organization (NSO) welcomed Dr. Kailash
Nath Pyakurel, Member, Planning Commission, Nepal on Feb. 17 1995 at
Los Banos, Philippines. During the meeting Dr. Pyakurel highlighted the
policies of the government related to agriculture and rural development.
Answering a question on how the present system is expected to make
difference in the life of target population (rural) he opined that "the
transparency of budgets/activities in local level planning/implementation
units is expected to induce creative people's participation resulting in a
strong positive economic effect".
Dr. Pyakurel was here at Los Banos to participate in International
Rice Research Conference held at IRRI during 13-17 February 1995.
***************************************************************
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 03:16:58 -0500
From: rshresth@black.clarku.edu (RaJesh B. Shrestha)
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
Subject: Need advice: intro to Nepal?
Cross-posted from SCN:
---------------------
> I'm going to be graduating soon and plan on making a trip overseas as a
> personal reward sometime in late 1996.
> ...
> If anyone would like to suggest a title or two, I'd be much obliged. I
> should be able to dig up the standard travel information without a
> problem, but if there's a book that "captures" Nepal, please suggest it.
> (does this group have a FAQ?)
I went to Nepal for 6 weeks last year, and it is my favorite place
I have ever gone. (But then, I hadn't left the continent before.)
I didn't do a whole lot of reading, except for travel books, which
are all you can find without much trouble here anyway. Some are
better than others. The "Insight Guides" book has really nice
pictures and gives a nice introduction to many aspects of Nepal
which are not covered in most travel books. The Lonely Planet series
contains some good practical guide books. For trekking, Bezruchka's
book is the most comprehensive. I forget the exact titles of all
these, but I bought them all in Knoxville, so they can't be hard to
find.
Travelling in Nepal is not difficult if you do a little reading and
start early enough when getting your passport and immunizations. I
had the impression that Nepal at least as safe as the US, and that
Kathmandu is safer than Knoxville. The standard precautions and some
common sense should suffice. You do have to watch what you eat and
drink. I got sick three times, but not seriously.
This group doesn't have an FAQ. If you have WWW access, see
Rajendra's Nepal Home Page at Dartmouth:
<URL: http://coos.dartmouth.edu/~rajendra/Nepal.html >
I have a trip report on the WWW:
<URL: http://enigma.phys.utk.edu/~syost/nepal.html >
**************************************************************88
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 13:52 EST
From: ATULADHAR@vax.clarku.edu
INDIANS PUNISH NEPALESE ??
==========================
Are the Indians punishing the nepalese people for daring to choose a communist
govt, for endorsing a party that criticised the Congress govt of Girija for
selling of Tanakpur, for favoring nepali industrialists over Indian
capitalists, for asking for a review of the unjust treatis, or for demanding
to regulate the labour that floods the Kathmandu markets?
These are questions that are on the mind of Nepalese who are closely watching
the Indian response to the electoral changes late last year. The politicians
on both sides operate within the lexicon of plausible deniability, diplomatic
ambiguity, and obscure communique talk but close watchers develop rich
contextual meanings to decipher the direction of change before things become
so bad that it becomes a "prestige issue" to back down as when Nepal suffered
when Rajiv and Birendra had a personal showdown of who is bigger in protocol
(Birendra would invite the President of India and the King of Bhutan but not
the Primi Minister of India to his breakfast talk of heads of government when
he was the rotating chair of the SAARC).
A couple of recent Indo-Nepal events deserve analysis here:
First the recall of Indian Ambassador Prof Bimal Prasad. Prof Bimal Prasad
had been accused of being blatantly pro-govt, meaning not only pro-congress
but also pro-Girija. Anti -Girija Congressis complained several times in local
papers how the Indian Ambassador was doing Kissingerian shuttle diplomacy
between Chetrapati and Baluwaterdurbars to prevent the fall of the Girija govt
in the several earlier strains. Credit for averting several earlier challenges
by Ganesh Man and later by Krishna prasad to bring down the govt of Girija
through internal party mechanism has won Prof Bimal Prasad several extensions
on his job as the Ambassador on specific Girija's request.
Opinion is divided
o whether Bimal was represented only the interests of the Indian govt or his
personal selfish reason. for instance, indian interests are said to be closer
to the visions of Ganesh Man and Krishna Prasad who both share a committment
to socialism over Girija's capitalism, a political vision that Nepal's destiny
is locked with India over Girija's perception that it is locked with US and
Western interests and in the early stages many of the pro-Establishment papers
of India such as the India Today and Times of India were giving negative
pictures of the Girija govt and generally sympathetic pictures of anti-Girija
Congress leadership while the Washington Post and the South Asia Desk in US
State Department Ms Raphel strongly endorsed Girija. What possibly clinched
Indian weight behind Girija is the demonstrated inability, call it
incompetance, of both Ganesh Mand and Krishna Prasad to enginner the Congress
party behind their leadership to throw out Girija. so when it came to
stability vs instability, Indians opted for the "stable" govt of Girija.v
After the fall of Girija, the communists leadership openly accused the Indian
Ambassador of meddling in the electoral politics of Nepal by supporting
Girija. It was not specified what this "electoral meddling " was about. some
say he called the Indian businessmen to give campign funds to Girija, others
say he was speeching about instability over communist govt in Nepal and that
the Indian govt did not want a party that was determined to make Tanakpur a
major issue and so on.
It came as no surprise that when communists did come to power, Bimale, as he
was derisively referred by his detractors, had to go. And swiftly he was
recalled, ostentisively because his term was over several years ago, a face
saver.
Following quick on the heels of Bimal's kickout, we had news of 3 Nepali
diplomats in India being kicked out. The Indians would have loved to kick out
a Nepali Ambassador himself, if for nothing else than to get even on the
diplomatic tit-for-tat, but this pleasure was denied them by Chakra Bastola
who resigned to contest Parliamentary elections. So next best thing is to kick
out the 3 top diplomats short of the Nepali Ambassador including the First
Secretary.
When I was in Nepal in jan, the Nepali press generally played this issue as
only a personal morality case. Hey, we all know how corrupt these diplomats
are right, abusing their diplomatic privileges to enrich themselves? So what
is new if the Nepali diplomats did a little of thier own when they knewy they
would be recalled when a non-congress gvot came to power. So 3 Nepali
diplomats were "punished" for abusing diplomatic privileges to import
contraband items from Singapore in the diplomatic immunity. This line of
discourse fit the ruling Communist govt who wanted to tone down any sign of
official indian displeasure and perceived lack of legitimacy by toning down
Indian gestures as the personal things and hey it is comfortable believe that
these Congressis are just corrupt sin-bags.
However, the Indians prefer to paint this gestures as political diplomatic
displeasure against the Nepalese govt and the nepalese people for electing
this govt. While the official Indian govt talks of "the ageless relationship
between Indian and Nepali people, irrespective of the govt n power" it means
just the opposite. "The relationship between nepal and India depends very
much on govt in power. The innocuous dilomatic doublespeak, "irrespective of
govt in power" is invoked only when this matters. What happened to this
ageless special relationship that "swavimani Nepali" cringe about for fear of
its national sovereignty being crushed in the brotherly embrace of INdia when
Nepal's Marich Man's govt was being blockaded in all but 2 transit points and
the treaty left expired? What happened to this ageless friendship when Indira
Gandhi was campaigning that the Janata govt was being too subservient to Nepal
by agreeing to a separate trade and transit treaty?
A few anti-govt papers of Nepal including, the rightist "Chaksu" claimed that
India was "ghumao_ing" (i.e. literally playiing cat and mouse game) with the
proposed visit of Deputy Prime Minister Nepal to India. Evidence of this
dilly-dallying was refusing to accept the agrimor to endorse the proposed the
Nepali Ambassador Prof. harsha narayan Dhoubdal until he had only 2 days
before nepal visited to present his accreditation to the President of India.
India is said to be cool to the proposal to require work permits for Indian
labor in kathmandu and the communist govt demand for the reveiw of treaty.
It is interesting that "INDIA ABROAD" A Paper published in USA reports from
their correspondent Ashok Easworan should report that:
" 'If one smuggle items to make personal profits, it cannot be overlooked,'
an Indian government official said. The Nepali contention apparently is that
Indian officials could have asked the diplomats to pay the customs tariff and
ended the matter. But in December Indian authorities summoned the charge
de'affairs of the Nepali Embassy and asked him to recall the three diplomats.
" A few days later a senior Nepali official arrived from Kathmandu and sissued
a letter recalling the diplomats. Although the three have been recalled,
Kathmandu is reported not convinced about the charges. 'it is felt that Indian
authorities acted in haste and did not wait for an explanation from the three
diplomats.' the PIONEER newspaper said quoting unidentified Nepali government
officials."
THE NEAR FUTURE: Nepal in the Indian Scheme of Things
====================================================
While there are familiar themes of macro-level hegemony of Indian interests
over Nepal, the nature and contextual meanings are changing. For long
democratic and secular India inherited the colonial perpective of the British
India and the even more deeply embedded premise of "Akhanda Bhara" which the
Bhratiya janata Party has insurrected to include Nepal firmly withing the
Indian cultural, political, and economic entity. This attitude ingrained in
the ossified values of the Indian foreign service, the brown sahibs, that make
up the civil service of the South Block that houses Indian foreign offices
interpreted Nepal in terms of Hindu refuge when India was partitioning during
the early 1950s (so cunning Mahendra declared Nepal a Hindu state to get RSS
and other Hindu parties to stop the border armed revold of BP's congress);
this was again reinterpreted as anti-Communist buffer in line with the buffer
state real politik after Indian suffered defeat from the Chinese in 1962; as
brief respite of Janata govt largesse as a co-sufferant of Indira Gandhi's
emergency erraticity; as possible refuge and nest of anti-Indian terrorits
from the Sikhs, the Kashmiris, and the Tamils during the reign of Rajiv
Ganghi; and now in the nineties, a continued suspciion for harboring
anti-India terrorits (witness the alacrity with which Indiansecurity personnel
roam around in full uniform and guns after suspected terrorists i kathmandu
last year) and possible captured market for Indian capitalist interests.
The signal that indian interests are changing from the primal place of
military and security interests of bulwarking against the communist takeover
by china by building roads to commercial and economistic is heralded by the
switchover of the switch of the foreign minister portfolio position from
Dinesh Singh to Pranab Mukherjee. Dinesh Singh is an old Indira Ganhi insider
with cold war real politik world view that privileges rigid security interests
over flexible economic interests. Pranab Mukherjee is a respecrted economist
turned politician with great deal of experienc ei India's revitalistion in
recent years. The appointment of Pranab signals India's growing perception
that their foreign interests are economic now that they do not have to worry
about the containe d dangers of Punjab, Kashmir or Pakistan or other regional
risks once Russia is out of the scene, US and the West is trying to actively
Woo India with the prospect of a permanent seat in the UN security council on
par with Germany, Japan, and China.
So on this logic, India is receptive to the communist govt of Nepal's demand
for the revision of the Nepal-India treaty because many of the premises do not
hold in post-cold war, yes, but cool to proposals to limit the growth of
indian capitalist interests in Nepal, including Nepal's hydel resources, the
labor market for its citizens of Bihar and UP, the restrictions on Indian
business and investment ove rthe Nepali businessmen.
We have to see how this develops in the near future.
Amulya Ratna Tuladhar
Clark University
Massachusetts, USA
*****************************************************************
Date: Sun, 19 Feb 1995 17:34:35 -0500 (EST)
From: Ashutosh Tiwari <tiwari@husc.harvard.edu>
Subject: Graduate Student's Anthem... (fwd)
To: nepal@cs.niu.edu
A friend sent this to me, hope you like it,
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> The Graduate Student's Anthem
> song sung to the tune of hotel california!!!
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> In a dark deserted room,
> Brylcreem in my hair.
> Warm smell of unwashed socks,
> Rising up through the air.
> Up ahead on my PC...
> I saw a shimmering light
> My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim,
> I had to work through the night.
>
> As he stood in the doorway,
> I heard the Rush Rhees bells.
> And I was thinking to myself,
> 'two years of researching - and this could be hell'
> Then he picked up my paper,
> And he gave me an 'F'.
> there were voices down the corridor,
> Thought I heard them say,
>
> 'Welcome to the world of academia
> Such a lovely place, such a lovely place, such a lovely phase.
> Plenty of room at the world of academia,
> Any time of year. any time of year, you can get screwedout here.'
>
> My mind was stiff and a-twisted,
> The coursework never seemed to end.
> Got a lot of glassy genius boys,
> That we call friends.
> How they crammed in the libr'ry,
> Sweet summer sweat.
> Some mugged to remember,
> Some mugged to forget.
>
> So I called my advisor,
> 'Please make me a T.A.'
> He said ' We've never had such spirit here
> Boy, you really make my day'
> And now those students keep calling from .. far away,
> Waking up in the middle of the night,
> Just to hear them say
>
> 'Welcome to the world of academia,
> Such a lovely place, such a lovely place, such a lovely phase
> Livin' it up at the world of academia
> We don't mean to cheat, we don't mean to cheat,
> where's your answers sheet?
>
> Four years was my ceiling,
> Then came some advice.
> He said 'We are all just prisoners here
> Failed my defense thrice'
> In the dissertation chambers,
> The doctoral committee,
> They quiz him with their steely glares
> And he can't get his Ph.D.
>
> Last thing I remember,
> I was running for the door.
> I had to find a passage back
> To the place I was before.
> 'Relax', said the chairman,
> 'Til some results we receive.
> You can check out any course you like
> But you can never leave.'
******************************************************************************
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