Young Nepalese Lead Their Nation's Push For Democracy

The New York Times

April 14, 2006

By SOMINI SENGUPTA

KATMANDU, Nepal, April 13 — The Nepalese New Year dawns on Friday, with Nepal's young lashing furiously at the past.

"We will not ask the king to leave the throne — we will go and take the throne and put it on display," Gagan Thapa, 29, the political symbol of young Nepal, told a crowd of thousands on the outskirts of this capital on Thursday. The vast majority, dressed in baseball caps and jeans and looking well below the age of 30, roared in approval.

A brassy antimonarchy call-and-response echoed through the warren of terraced lanes.

"We will burn the crown," Mr. Thapa shouted.

"Burn the crown, burn the crown," the crowd hollered back.

The irrepressible protests that have gripped Nepal in the last several days, demanding the end of palace rule and the reinstatement of Parliament, are a function of demography and its discontent.

Young Nepal has been at the forefront of this week's rambunctious, often violent pro-democracy protests, which have left four people dead. Whether Nepal descends into further tumult or sees the dawning of a new political age in the Nepalese calendar year of 2063 will depend on whether the protesters can be appeased.

With his country's crisis mounting by the day, King Gyanendra seemed to make the slightest of nods in that direction. In a brief statement read on state-owned television shortly before midnight, he called for general elections "with the active participation of all political parties committed to peace and democracy."

But the king said nothing about when elections would be held or, more important, whether he would concede to elections to review the Constitution, something the country's coalition of political parties and the Maoist rebels insist on.

Whether the gesture restores peace in the Himalayan kingdom will depend on the reaction on Friday from the uncompromising throngs of young people who today represent his most formidable foe.

Nearly 60 percent of Nepal's 23 million citizens are under 24. They came of age after democracy came to Nepal in April 1990, and they have tasted the fruits and failures of electoral politics. They have seen a Maoist rebellion put much of the countryside through the wringer.

In February 2005, they saw their king suspend Parliament and install prime ministers of his own choosing in a bid, as he said, to defeat a bruising Maoist insurgency. For 14 months, they have lived under the king's direct rule.

Last week, he banned protests here in the capital and for six days imposed a daytime curfew.

That order has not stopped young people from defiantly pouring out into the streets. They have been taking the lion's share of police beatings. On just one day this week, of the 59 people admitted to Katmandu's main teaching hospital for treatment of their injuries, only 13 were over the age of 30.

Consider the verdict of Shashi Sigdel, a 22-year-old medical student on the shift in attitudes toward the king.

"My grandfather used to think he is a god," Mr. Sigdel said. "My parents used to think he stands between God and the devil. Me, I think he's the devil. That's the generation gap."

On Thursday, the government restored cellphone service, suspended for nearly a week, and lifted the curfew in the capital. The ban on protests in Katmandu and several other cities continued — as did the protests.

The Royal Nepalese Army has been dispatched to some of the demonstrations. But so far, it has largely refrained from open confrontation with the demonstrators. Of the four people killed in the demonstrations, at least two died by army fire.

A protest by the Nepal Bar Association on Thursday morning ended with the police beating of dozens of demonstrators; nearly 50 landed in the hospital, including two whose heads had been grazed by rubber bullets.

In a statement on Thursday, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights hinted that the use of excessive force by police officers could jeopardize Nepal's participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions, a good source of income for the country.

"One would expect them to be respectful of United Nations standards in their conduct at home," Ian Martin, the High Commissioner's representative in Nepal, said in an interview Thursday night.

Pro-democracy demonstrations have been commonplace since the royal takeover of February 2005, but none have been as intense, sustained or violent as the ones unfolding over the last week. The Maoists have given their blessings to the protests, having signed a peace deal of sorts last fall with a coalition of Nepal's seven largest political parties.

Thousands of Nepalese, including lawyers, journalists and other professionals with no explicit links to political parties, have been arrested over the past week. The palace has accused Maoists of infiltrating the ranks of the protesters.

The young people who have been on the front lines of these protests are the children of parliamentary politics in Nepal. Democracy brought more than elections to this Himalayan kingdom. It ushered in new schools and colleges. Roads were built connecting the countryside to the capital. A feisty independent press was born.

Many of those who joined this week's demonstrations, if they had even any memory of the pro-democracy movement of 1990, had never joined a political protest before.

Ila Sharma, 39, remembered watching her neighbors light torches and march in the street in the spring of 1990. Last Saturday, she joined a protest march. The same day, she watched television videotape of the police beating protesters. She has not been able to stop protesting since.

Ms. Sharma said she had lost what little faith she once had in the king. "We are amply disillusioned," she said.

The young Nepalese are a thorn in not only the king's side, but also the sides of the politicians who gave the call for these protests and saw them spreading well beyond expectations over the course of the last week.

In interview after interview, protesters said they would not allow their politicians to strike any power-sharing deals with the palace.

"These young people are not going to spare us if we go against their aspirations," Mr. Thapa, who belongs to the Nepalese Congress Party, said after his speech Thursday afternoon. No sooner had he climbed down from his stoop, he was buttonholed by his fans.

"Our destination is a republic," said Rajesh Sapkota, 21, a college student. "You have to convey this message to the leaders. We want to be clear about democracy."

Mr. Thapa assured the protesters that their wishes would not be sidelined. "We thought years ago that a republic was unthinkable," he told them. "Now it's possible."