The story of the hope, sacrifice and struggle of a woman guerrilla
When photojournalist Bikas Rauniar took a picture of a Maoist guerrilla in 2006, he was told by his minders not to reveal who she was and where the picture was taken. The photograph of the fighter on the stairs was later included in nepa~laya’s picture book of the conflict, A People War, curated by Kunda Dixit.
Eight years later, the woman in the picture, Sapana Maya Baju (‘Comrade Manju’) is now in her late 20s, and is cleaning cups and tending tables at her Everest Café in Lainchaur. Rauniar remembers travelling with colleague Narendra Shrestha after a Maoist contact arranged a trip to the remote village of Bhaise of Rautahat district.
Sapana Maya Baju shows her son, Samar, her photograph in the book, A People War, at her rented room in Kathmandu. (left) Bikas Rauniar’s picture of Sapana in combat uniform when she was ‘Comrade Manju’ eight years ago in the remote village of Bhaise of Rautahat district.(right)
“It seemed to me then that the Maoists had forcibly recruited young men and women,” Rauniar remembers. But Sapana’s story, like that of thousands of others like her, is a tale of idealism, the sacrifice of war, the struggle for survival in peacetime, and of hopes dashed.
Sapana was in Grade 5, part of a large family of 18, helping with the household work. She had an abusive father who used to scold and slap his daughters. She had been impressed by a Maoist recruiter named Maila Lama who had come to perform a cultural program at her school, a four hour drive from Hetauda. Sapana’s brother, Ratan Baju, had already been recruited by the Maoists and at 11 she joined a Maoist cultural troupe as well, and was given the nom de guerre, Comrade Manju (pic, right).
They were immediately caught up in the war, narrowly evading capture by an army patrol as they headed to the hills. Sapana soon learnt to use weapons and was entrusted with expanding the Maoist women organisation. She rose up the ranks to be the vice-chairperson of Lalitpur district committee of All Nepal Women’s Association (Revolutionary).
“I concluded that the path the Maoists had taken was the right one,” she recalls, “I was not afraid to carry a gun and use it if needed. It proved that women were no longer weak.”
Once, her unit ran into a group of soldiers in Sindhuli. They hurled grenades, while the soldiers fired back and pinned them down behind rocks for the whole night. Luckily, none of her comrades was hurt.
In 2005, amidst the heat of battle, fellow-guerrilla Krishna Pant proposed to her. He was a war wounded, and although she liked his honesty and frankness, Sapana initially turned him down. He was a Brahmin, she a Tamang, and she remembered the way her family used to be insulted by Brahmins.
But their relationship grew, and Sapana and Krishna had a revolutionary marriage just as the ceasefire came into effect in 2006.
She joined Krishna at his home in Phujel of Gorkha district, and had to switch from wearing jeans and t-shirts to kurta, bangles and touch her mother-in-law’s feet with her forehead. She was prepared to observe these Brahmin practices, but Krishna’s mother spurned her. Sapana decided to return to the UNMIN-supervised camp in Shaktikhor where she gave birth to a baby boy in 2008. By then, the Maoists were locked in a confrontation with the Army, and women guerrillas with children were asked to leave because the Maoists saw them as a liability.
Sapana and Krishna at their ‘revolutionary wedding’ in 2006. (left). Sapana, her husband Krishna Pant and son Samar, on his first birthday in Chitwan in 2008 (right)
Life outside the cantonment was even harsher, and Sapana and Krishna were forced to hand over a portion of their meagre state stipend to the party. Krishna decided to pay Rs 600,000 to a recruiter who promised him a well-paying job as a security guard in Afghanistan. But he was cheated, got stranded in Dubai, lost most of the money he paid the middleman, and never got the promised job.
The family relocated to Kathmandu, and although Krishna worked briefly as a security guard in a mall in Kathmandu and moonlighted as a trekking guide, life was a
struggle.
It was only after Everest Café that Sapana feels she finally has a foothold in Kathmandu. “Our primary concern is to earn enough to feed ourselves, and support our son’s education,” says Sapana, as she walked home this week after picking up her son, Samar, from school.
The war seems a long time ago. Sapana credits the Maoists with opening her eyes to the world, but is disappointed about how it has all turned out.
“We had dreamt of a bright future for a New Nepal,” she says, “we gave up everything for the party, but it abandoned us. They said we fought for equality, but look at what we have now. It’s the same old world.”
Read also:
The end of a sibling war, Bhrikuti Rai
A People War in permanent exhibit