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I’ve followed human rights issues for much of my career. I even worked for the UN human rights office in Nepal soon after the civil war ended in the mid-2000s. Back then, Nepal’s own human rights commission was quite insular, focused on overcoming the huge challenges around the conflict using the few resources it had available in a sometimes hostile environment.

I left Nepal for 6 years and when I returned in 2016 I was surprised to see that the commission had a much louder voice, at least on social media. It belonged to Mohna Ansari, one of the NHRC’s commissioners and its Spokesperson. On Twitter Ansari, Nepal’s first female Muslim lawyer, did much more than post institutional updates. She used her voice to swiftly call out human rights abuses and other injustices, and to call on the police, government and other institutions to play their roles effectively.

The six-year tenure of Ansari and the other NHRC commissioners ended in October, so I thought it would be a good time to hear her assessment of the team’s work in a period when the government was mostly dismissive — and at times highly critical — of the commission.

In our chat, we talked about her work at the NHRC and Nepal’s Women’s Commission. We also discussed her family’s modest roots in Nepalgunj, in Nepal’s southwest,  the challenges of working as a high-profile public figure who is also a minority, and the roles of the international community and civil society in safeguarding human rights in Nepal. 

By the way, this is our last episode of 2020. Although the year was a bust it did see the birth of this podcast, so it wasn’t a complete disaster. Thank you to everyone who supported the idea and its execution, including all of the guests who have generously given their time, and to you, for listening.

(Apologies for the audio quality in some places — it’s the price we pay for recording online.)

Resources

Mohna Ansari, Twitter

National Human Rights Commission, Nepal

Nepal Now social links

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Thanks as always to Nikunja Nepal for advice and inspiration.

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To its credit the Nepali media has written regularly about successive governments’ lack of action on transitional justice since the Comprehensive Peace Accord was signed in 2006. Reporting has focused on the legal framework, which in 2015 Nepal’s Supreme Court ruled must be revised because it granted amnesty for the most serious crimes of the conflict. In the civil war, from 1996 to 2006, the state and Maoists combined to kill 17,000 Nepalis, torturing and disappearing thousands more. 

But somehow we in the media have overlooked the other strands of transitional justice. These include perpetrators revealing the truth of their crimes and the state providing reparations to support victims and their families to survive the losses they suffered. In fact, victims have said clearly and consistently post-conflict that their priorities are knowing the truth and getting support for their livelihoods; prosecutions rank a distant third. 

I was pleased to learn more about this in today’s conversation with Pooja Pant from the project Memory, Truth and Justice. In recent years the project has worked with victims’ groups to record recollections from around 200 victims and members of their families. 

Other work has been quietly going on in the 14 long years since the peace agreement was signed: monuments, parks and infrastructure like communal water taps have been created in communities and days of mourning have been declared in the names of conflict victims. As you’ll hear from Pooja, the first generation of fighters for memory, truth and justice are slowly stepping aside but their successors are prepared to dedicate themselves for the long term. It looks like justice, in its many forms, will not be forgotten in Nepal.

(Apologies for the audio quality in some places — it’s the price we pay for recording online.)

Resources

The Memory, Truth and Justice Project

Nepal Now social links

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Instagram

Twitter

Thanks as always to Nikunja Nepal for advice and inspiration.

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‘The rapist is you’. On October 10th a group of about 20 young women dressed in black took over a street in Kathmandu pointed straight ahead accusingly, and performed the anti-rape song ‘A rapist in your path’. The ‘flash mob’ was protesting what feels like an epidemic of rape in the country. In recent months it seems that every week the media is reporting another violent incident, often against adolescent girls, too often ending in murder. 

‘Ajhai kati sahane?’ (How much more must we endure?) is the movement’s name. As we mark the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-based Violence, you’ll hear in this episode that what got the (almost all) young women onto the street was the growing chorus of voices screaming, via hashtag, — ‘Hang the rapist’. Movement members Sagoon Bhetwal and Sasmit Pokharel told me that their group of activists disagrees with that diagnosis, arguing that Nepalis need to confront a rape culture, not punish individuals to death. 

Ajahi kati sahane? is not taking credit for the government announcement two weeks ago that it plans to increase prison sentence for rape, and punish those who try to settle accusations outside of the justice system. But it considers the pledge a success, and plans to monitor the government to ensure the changes do really happen.

(Apologies for the audio quality in some places — it’s the price we pay for recording online.)

Resources

Kathmandu Post article about the flash mob and Ajhai kati sahane

Nepal Now social links

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Twitter

Thanks as always to Nikunja Nepal for advice and inspiration. 

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In 2019, 19-year-old girls in Nepal were the third shortest in the world, found a recent study by the journal The Lancet that ranked 200 countries. 

That’s not simply a genetic thing: ‘Nepalis are short’. A third of adolescent boys and girls in Nepal — 1.8 million — are stunted, or too short for their age. Others are too thin for their age, or wasted. These various forms of undernutrition contribute to 25,000 child deaths in Nepal each year, or 52 per cent of child deaths, more than any other cause, says UNICEF. The impacts of these various types of malnutrition can last life-long. Stunted children do less well at school and are less productive as adults. They are also more likely to suffer from diet-related non-communicable diseases later in life, such as diabetes and chronic heart disease.

In 2019, three days before 1,200 nutrition experts from around the world met at the Scaling Up Nutrition conference in Kathmandu, a new initiative was launched to fight malnutrition in Nepal. But Baliyo Nepal soon became controversial when it was revealed that the organization was created by the Chaudhary Group, makers of Wai Wai instant noodles, widely recognized as junk food. Though the company denied that one of Baliyo Nepal’s plans was to fortify Wai Wai noodles to make them more healthy, a prominent advisor, nutritionist Aruna Uprety, quit the project days later. 

Today, Baliyo Nepal — ‘baliyo’ meaning mighty or strong — is forging ahead with a pilot project in Lumbini Province. Covid-19 has slowed its plans to launch a ‘baliyo’  basket of nutrition-rich foods, CEO Atul Upadhyay tells us in this episode. He also addresses the criticism that the non-profit company’s focus on engaging the private sector to fight malnutrition is misdirected. 

Resources

Baliyo Nepal website

UNICEF Nepal

The Lancet article on height of the world's children

Nepal Now social links

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This is a shortened version of our episode with filmmaker Deepak Rauniyar, from Season 1. It was a great interview but, admittedly, quite long. We hope this 'bonus' episode will make Deepak's words more accessible to potential listeners. Important: we did retain the original New York City background sirens :-). The original introduction follows below. 

Deepak Rauniyar still feels queasy when he remembers the racism he faced growing up in Udaypur district in eastern Nepal. As one of few dark-skinned kids in the community, whose mother tongue was not Nepali, he was taunted by children and singled out for beatings by his headmaster. But as a college student looking for part-time work he soon discovered that journalism gave him the power to uncover the discrimination that pervaded life in the southern Madhesh region. He later honed those skills travelling the country writing radio dramas for BBC Media Action.

In 2010 Deepak and his wife, actress and filmmaker Asha Magarati, decided it was time to start telling stories from their own point of view,  with film as their medium.

Today, Deepak and Aasha live in New York City and are finalizing the script of their next project, tentatively called The Sky is Mine. It tells the story of a fair-skinned female police officer assigned to the Madhesh in the midst of communal tensions that would soon ignite. Like all their movies, this one is inspired by personal experience, explains Deepak, adding that telling the couple’s most personal story yet can be a frightening prospect.

Resources

Deepak Rauniyar's website, with links to his films

Nepal Now social links

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Rukshana Kapali is a firebrand. At 21 she is leading efforts to change Nepal’s laws so they include transgender men and women, and spearheading work to develop terminology in Nepali, and Nepal bhasa (or Newa language), that is inclusive of people who identify anywhere along the gender spectrum. She has led campaigns to protect lands of Kathmandu Valley’s Indigenous Newa people and has joined heritage activists to ensure that an ancient, sacred pond in the centre of Nepal’s capital Kathmandu was rebuilt following traditional designs. 

Less than 10 years ago Rukshana was a bullied, confused student furtively surfing the Net in cyber cafes trying to understand why she knew she was a girl but living in a boy’s body. “I spent a lot of money on Facebook back then,” she says. 

Today, Rukshana leads the community of young Queer activists in Nepal fighting to get their rights recognized in law and also calling for recognition from the established LGBTQI community. Unsurprisingly, she is also embarking on a law career. 

On today’s episode we’ll hear more from Rukshana about the very eventful and influential journey that she is taking. 

Resources

Rukshana's blog

Nepal Now social links

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I liked Mithila painting the very first time that I saw it. The bright colours and village scenes amid lush jungles and bountiful nature really appealed to me, although nostalgically I now realize. 

So I was shocked the first time I saw paintings done by today’s guest. Although they  featured the same vibrant colours and verdant backdrops, one example showed two women kissing under a tree and another depicted a woman standing and bleeding profusely during her period. But my shock soon wore off and I started wondering who was creating these very modern scenes using the traditional art form. 

Mithila painting has been practised, as a part of Mithila culture, for thousands of years by women in the region straddling Nepal’s southern border with India. Traditionally women created it on the walls and floors of their homes, often to mark a religious event. But in recent decades it has also become a commercial art form, painted to be sold. At the same time, the tradition of mothers passing on Mithila painting skills is dying out, says today’s guest, Sapana Sanjeevani. 

Resources

Sapana's paintings on:

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Nepal Now social links

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Anyone who lives in Nepal knows about caste and untouchability — the social rules that slot people into rigid groups from which they can rarely escape. At the bottom of the caste hierarchy are the Dalits, previously known as untouchables. 

Anyone living in Nepal would be aware of the deadly, violent crimes committed against Dalits, almost always with no legal consequences. (Since I recorded this episode at least two Dalit girls have been raped and murdered.) But as you will hear in my introduction, the incident reports from the Nepal Monitor provide a sense of the daily indignities and violence that Dalit people face in this country. 

In recent months, parallel with the Black Lives Matter movement, there has been a surge in efforts to ensure that Dalit lives also matter. Today we’re talking with Pradip Pariyar, Executive Chairperson of the Samata Foundation, an organization that works to ensure the rights of Dalits in this country. 

Resources

Samata Foundation

Nepal Monitor

Nepal Now social links

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I’ve been following the work of Chandan Kumar Mandal carefully during the pandemic. He’s the labour reporter with the Kathmandu Post and has been writing daily about the millions of migrant labourers who leave their families in Nepal — often for years at a time — to work in neighbouring India or overseas. Many of them have undergone horrendous experiences since Covid-19 flipped the world upside down earlier this year, and many remain stuck in some sort of nightmarish limbo between home and family and their working country. 

But it was a Tweet that Chandan posted in June that really caught my eye. Since then, he’s been on my list of people who I wanted to speak with, and last week I caught up with him on his day off from reporting. We started our chat talking about labour migration but the conversation ranges much further, to include being a reporter in the time of Covid-19, his start in journalism, growing up in Nepal’s Madhesh region and, of course, that Tweet. 

Resources

Kathmandu Post

The Tweet

Nepal Now social links

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5 to 6 million Nepalis live outside of Nepal today, excluding India and other South Asian countries. That’s according to the non-resident Nepali association. Nepal’s total population is 28 million.  

Many emigrants leave for a specific period of time, to either work or study, but others embark for what they hope will be a better life in countries including Australia, the US and the UK. It’s normal that some of those emigres return home at some time in their lives, often with the dream of building a house, retiring and enjoying their final years among family and friends. But in recent years it seems that more and more people are returning sooner, some to be with family but many to set up businesses and help give the economy a kickstart. 

However, I have never — in my two decades’ connection with Nepal — heard of someone coming back to this country to enter politics. Until I spoke to Karma Tamang. 

Resources

https://www.nepalfarkaun.org/

Nepal Now social links

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Nepal Now is produced and hosted by Marty Logan.