United at heart, Nagarik

From The Nepali Press
United at heart, Nagarik
Phurpa Tamang, 25 June

FROM ISSUE #611 (29 JUNE 2012 - 05 JULY 2012) | TABLE OF CONTENTS

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BIKRAM RAI

Three days before the constitution deadline, my 72-year-old mother Nhimalhamu Tamang passed away at Nepal Medical College in Jorpati. After performing her last rites according to Buddhist tradition, her body was taken to Swayambhu on the back of a minivan.

On the way to Swayambhu our vehicle was stuck in a traffic jam in Chabahil. When I looked outside, I noticed a traffic police paying respect to my deceased mother. Soon I saw that everyone who passed by our van stopped for a while and paid respect to my mother's lifeless body. From Chabahil we drove past Maharajgunj, Balaju and Banasthali before finally reaching Swayambhu and all along the way I witnessed the same thing. The strangers who bowed their heads were clearly Hindu Brahmins and Khas. Yet, irrespective of their castes, they paid their respects.

I felt the thread that unites us as Nepalis is still strong. I had feared the new constitution would divide the country along ethnic lines. But this incident restored my faith in Nepal's social harmony and unity.

1. kamal
When you have short sighted Sundar Mani Dixit, Padma Ratna, Ang Kazi Sherpa, Mangal Siddhi Mananandhar(former vice chair of Planning Commission), Malla K Sundar, Khagendra Sangroula , Ashok Rai who just think about their NGO - deriving money from Norwegian, DFID without thinking about country men. Political lots specially Maoist are worst. When crowd tries to influence and political leaders succmbed to crowds what can we expect. Intellectuals have no role as Prachanda calls them Sukila Mukila.

Posted on: 04 JULY 2012 | 9:17 AM NST

2. Tej

This is a great story. The common denominator is humanity or we human beings, and not our caste, religion or geography. Yes, we respect each other. Our religious-social-harmnoy is and example in the world.

To ensure social justice to all irrespective of caste religion, geography, income and education through rule of law is understandabe. But to divide the entire nation based on ethnic-communal-feelings----has no guarantee of sicial justices. The socalled elite ethnic leaders can do the same exploitation and discrimination to their fellomen. People are the same and mentality is the same as the present leaders.

I pity on those people named by Kamal ji above for not understanding this.

So creating the ethnic-enclaves is not the issue, it is the rule of law to stop social injustice caused by any one including Chhetri, Bahun, Tamang, Limbu, Rai, Magar etc. That will ensure social justice and keep our social bond strong

Unfortunately Prachanda himself is Sukila Mukila trying to play politics by dividing Nepalese fellowmen into caste and ethnicity--even if that means communal bloodshed in Nepal

Posted on: 04 JULY 2012 | 2:39 PM NST