Telling her story
Darshan Karki,
The Kathmandu Post, Published at : December 28, 2014
The Kathmandu Post, Published at : December 28, 2014
Nepali
history must acknowledge women’s contributions to the country’s seminal
political change.
Two lines are visible on her forehead, a gray shawl with a brown
border covers her head as she holds close an SLR assault rifle, as if to keep
it warm. Her face displays a slight awareness that she is being photographed
while at the same time, it seems as though she’s lost in thought, elsewhere.
She looks vulnerable. She looks empowered. Juna Rai, the girl in the picture by
Sagar Shrestha, under the nom de guerre Comrade Chunauti during the Maoist
insurgency, went on to become the face of the decade-long conflict in Nepal. As
an ode to the photo, Uma, a 2013 Nepali movie based on the Maoist war, had
Richa Sharma, an actress, on its poster imitating Juna.
The conflict, however, was never a war waged
‘exclusively’ to ensure women’s rights. While it did seek to liberate women
from the chains of patriarchy, it was part of the greater emancipation of all
oppressed groups. In 1996, when Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai submitted a
40-point list of demands to the government, only point 19 specifically referred
to women. It read, “Patriarchal exploitation and discrimination against women
should be stopped. Daughters should be allowed access to paternal property”. It
was an ambitious goal. And the ‘people’s war’ in itself was touted as an
opportunity for women to liberate themselves from the traditional burdens of
household work and discrimination. Women, by joining the war, could ‘choose’ to
be free.
The war is now long over. Comrade Chunauti is
just Juna Rai—one among the 1,352 former Maoist combatants who were inducted
into the Nepal Army in August 2013. Gun toting women who captured the
imagination of a large section of Nepali society are now a thing of the past.
And their narrative is easily overlooked in popular accounts of that era.
A conspiracy of silence
Take Sudheer Sharma’s bestselling book,
Prayogshala. The book is described by the writer as “an effort to dissect the
Maoists’ tumultuous relationship with the then monarchy and the Indian
establishment”, and not a history of the Maoist war. The over-400 pages long
book is gripping and reads like a political thriller. One glaring drawback
being that it is overwhelmingly about males: journalists (Sharma included),
politicians, party workers, spies, soldiers. Women come into the picture only
when they are related to males. Sharma mentions that Sita Dahal advised her
husband Pushpa Kamal Dahal, chairman of the Maoist party, on important matters.
But readers only get to read of Sita’s advice to Dahal not to attend a meeting
in the evening that would later be raided by the Indian police. Her advice on
any other political matter does not find space.
When a reader like me looks for a female
perspective in a definitive book like Prayogshala, it is because I am curious
about the role of women in a key historical event like the Maoist conflict.
Would the book have been any different if it were written by a woman? Would the
list of interviewees and the writers of materials that have been extensively
referenced include more women? Or was no woman ever part of any event that was
worthy of mention in the book?
Writing about another book, Battles of the New
Republic: A Contemporary History of Nepal (released months after Sharma’s book)
by Prashant Jha, in The Kathmandu Post, Surabhi Pudasaini and Astha Sharma
Pokhrel had this to say, “Jha finds himself unable to see women’s political
practices with the empathy he brings to other struggles.”
Both books were written long after the war was
over. Sharma’s book was released in September 2013 and Jha’s in June. By then,
there was no dearth of writing by Maoist women, detailing their roles and
experiences of the war nor was there a lack of writing by other women on
women’s roles, or their absence, during the war, the transition to peace, and
other political developments. Pidabhitrako aakrosh (2007) documents the
experience of 79 Maoist women who worked in different capacities within the
party during war. Kailash Rai, in her research article, ‘Sahasik Jibangatha:
Maobadi Mahilaka Yuddha Sansmaran’, lists seven books by women on their war
experiences, published between 2005/6 and mid-2012. The Akhil Nepal Mahila
Sangh (Krantikari) also published a book titled Mahila Sahila Gatha in 2005,
which provides a brief introduction of 947 Maoist women killed during the war,
of whom 47 were tortured and repeatedly raped after arrest and then killed. Two
among them were four and seven months pregnant.
In addition, there is an increasing number of
research and news stories on women’s participation in the conflict and other
political movements. So, their absence in popular documentation of political
movements, in part, can be explained by the fact that history has a tendency to
be ‘sexually selective’. As Ginette Castro writes in American Feminism: A
Contemporary History, “In history, women have been the victims of a conspiracy
of silence.”
History cannot wait
Key historical events have no doubt been
overwhelmingly dominated by men, especially at the leadership level. Whether it
is the anti-Panchayati movement or the 2006 Janaandolan, men led. But it’s hard
to imagine the success of those movements without the direct and indirect
support and participation of women. This support, however, has rarely gained
visibility or been recognised in the form of leadership during crucial moments.
For example, on Thursday, the four major quarrelling political parties—Nepali
Congress, CPN-UML, UCPN (Maoist), and the Madhesi Morcha—formed a taskforce to
find consensus on disputed constitutional issues; all of its four members are
men. This is all too familiar. Even when the Maoists and the state were
negotiating peace, both sides were represented by men. These parties have
always, at least in rhetoric, stood for the emancipation and empowerment of
women.
For the situation to change, the most
desirable scenario would be more women in influential positions in politics and
the bureaucracy. But as that does not seem to be happening anytime soon—the
state does not even recognise a Nepali woman’s right to grant citizenship to
her children till date. History, however, cannot wait to be written until women
come to power. It must acknowledge their participation and contribution. While
things might have worked out well for Comrade Chunauti in her new life as a
Nepal Army soldier, other Maoist women are still struggling to find a rightful
place in Nepal’s contemporary history.
Karki is with
the op-ed desk at the Post
