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 A border row triggered two years ago by the construction of a cul­vert in Ananda Bazar in the south-western district of Kan­chanpur remains unresolved. Although a government sur­vey team has been to the area a number of times, the dispute is far from over. As a result, locals have not been able to farm the land.

Hari Adhikari, a local, says that even though they have knocked on the doors of various government bod­ies—local, provincial and federal—there has been no initiative to resolve the dispute. Moreover, India has closed the road, claiming that the area is disputed. So locals are compelled to use an alternate road.

A local says that India wrongly considers a Simal tree near the culvert to be a border pillar

Disputed territory

Govinda Gautam lost his life when he was struck by the bul­lets fired by the Indian Sashas­tra Seema Bal (Armed Border Force) in Ananda Bazar on 10 March 2017.

Lok Bahadur Khadka, a local, says that India wrongly considers a Simal tree near the culvert to be a bor­der pillar. “Nepali territory extends 500 meters to the south from that Simal tree,” he claims. Temporary police camps were set up by both Nepal and India after the bor­der row broke out.

Promise not fulfilled

It has been two years since the government expressed a commitment to take action against the Indian security personnel accused of shooting Gautam. But it hasn’t even fulfilled various promises it made to Gautam’s family, let alone taken steps to punish the guilty.

Gautam’s family has received Rs 1 million from the government but other promises remain unfulfilled. The government had prom­ised free education for Gau­tam’s daughters and a job for his wife, and various other bodies had promised sundry other things for the family, but none of them have been kept. “All we have received is promises and flowers,” laments Gautam’s father Khem Lal Gautam.

Memorial service

A memorial service was held on Sunday, March 10 in Ananda Bazar to mark the third anniversary of Gau­tam’s death. On the occa­sion, Krishna Raj Subedi, Minister for Social Develop­ment in the Far-western pro­vincial government, made an announcement that a statue of Gautam will be con­structed in his memory. Sub­edi remarked that the provin­cial government is ever ready to protect border residents, whom he called “ununiformed border troops”.

Similarly, Tara Lama Tamang, a provincial assembly member and Nepal Commu­nist Party leader, demanded that a martyr park be built in Gautam’s memory.

Jeevan Raj Thapa, the head of the municipality, presented Gautam’s parents with cash and shawls as a token of appreciation. He also pledged an annual sum of Rs 10,000 for each of Gautam’s three daughters.

 Three women—Saraswati Baral from Pokhara, Shova Kumari Limbu from Damak and Geeta Devi Chaudhari from Udayapur— who were kept captive in Kuwait for months have been rescued by the International Rolpali Service Society. DB Budhathoki from the Service Society says that it has been rescuing helpless women who find themselves lost or are held captive abroad.

Brokers have been tak­ing young Nepali women to Kuwait via India for them to work as domestic help. The society informs that many of these women have to live like captives once they reach Kuwait. Baral was taken to Kuwait via India a year ago. In the one year that she was there, she worked in four households. She says they kept moving her from one household to another under false assurances that she’d receive better treatment in the next household.

Victims have confided in the officials of the society that they didn’t get their salary on time. Even though Baral worked in Kuwait for a year, she only received five months of salary. She also says that when the house owners went outside, they locked her in the house. Rescued women like Baral say they were treated more like captives than like domestic help.

According to Bal Bahadur GM, the vice-president of the Rolpali Service Society’s Kuwait branch, when Baral was rescued, she was physi­cally and mentally tortured. Someone who came to know Baral informed the society about her plight and asked for help in rescuing her.

After her rescue, Baral was handed over to the Nepali Embassy in Kuwait. Earlier, two women who were rescued from Kuwait were also sent to Nepal in coopera­tion with the embassy.

Brokers in Nepal take women to Kuwait, where another set of brokers charge a hefty sum to find humili­ating and pathetic jobs for them, informs the Rolpali Service Society. Women who go to Kuwait don’t know they are being taken there illegally, and only when they find themselves in captivity do they realize that they have been trapped.

Even a year after the formation of provincial governments, Province 5 is struggling to resolve the row over its name and its capital. The provincial assembly has finally started collecting suggestions from different districts in the province in order to decide on the matter.

To this end, the assembly has formed a special committee, which collected suggestions from Nepalgunj in the district of Banke on February 24. Various teams have been deployed to different districts for this purpose.

In Rupandehi, the team comprised provincial assembly members Santosh Kumar Pandey and Fakaruddin Khan, as well as other assembly members elected or nominated from the district. Respondents there generally suggested that the province should be named Lumbini and Rupandehi should be its capital.

After all the suggestions are collected, they will be presented to the provincial assembly to facilitate decision-making.

 The provincial assembly has finally started collecting suggestions

Absent chief minister

Even though Provincial Chief Minister Shankar Pokharel was expected to be present during the suggestion-collection campaign in Bhairahawa, a city in Rupandehi, he did not attend it. Locals and their elected representatives were disappointed. Some said Pokharel’s absence suggested he did not take the campaign seriously. They also speculated that his absence could mean he did not want Rupandehi to be the provincial capital.

Difficult questions

Saraswati Gautam, a member of both the special committee and the provincial assembly, laments that the work on finalizing the province’s name and capital is not making much progress. She says the slow pace is due to the provincial government being busy with formulating laws.

“A four-page questionnaire has been developed for collecting suggestions from the public,” she informs. “It has questions ranging from geographic accessibility of a place to security issues.”

However, the questionnaire is apparently too long and too difficult to understand. Madhav Dhungana, a local who responded to the questionnaire, claims that the questions are almost impossible to comprehend for many people, particularly those from rural areas. “Some questions cannot be answered even by members of parliament,” says Dhungana. Many respondents have returned half-filled questionnaires.

Dhungana also says the questionnaire contains many irrelevant questions. “The kind of questions that should have been in the questionnaire aren’t there. This means locals have been deprived of an opportunity to express their opinion on a topic of their concern,” he says.

Chanmati Batala, 68, of Bherimalika municipality-1 Kalegaun has been without support in her old age after her only son Deepak Batala was killed during the Maoist insurgency. In 1998, Deepak, then 24, was killed by security personnel because of his ‘involvement’ in the insurgency.

The Maoists had started a ‘people’s war’ 23 years ago on February 13, 1996, ostensibly for the liberation of Nepal and its citizens. Districts in the mid-western hills, including Jajarkot, Rukum, Rolpa and Kalikot, were Maoist strongholds.

At the time, Deepak was a student at Tribhuvan Secondary School and was involved with a student union close to the Maoists. His involvement with the union led to his arrest and killing by security personnel. Chanmati’s husband had passed away by then. Four of her daughters are married. She now lives with a disabled daughter.

Says Chanmati, “Thousands of Nepalis like my son lost their lives at a young age in the name of the Maoist war. The political system changed, but now there is nobody to support us.” She laments that the Maoists did not keep the promises they made during the war. “Politicians got people to kill each other in order to advance their agenda. But what happened? More than war, Nepalis need good governance, development, peace and stability,” she says. “May Nepalis never kill each other like they did back then.”

It’s been more than 12 years since the war ended. It seems like a remote, even fictional, story for the new generation. But for those who endured the atrocities of the war, the pain remains raw.

The Maoists made Congres cadres stand in a line and started hacking them to death

It was around 17 years ago during the conflict that Bhadra Bir Rana, also from Bherimalika municipality, was captured by security personnel. His wife Bali Rana still does not know his whereabouts, but she hasn’t given up hope that he will come back. “The Maoists used to come to our home, eat the food we cooked and take him to their events. That led to his arrest and disappearance,” she says.

Following the capture of the District Police Office in Laha on June 12, 1999, the Maoists made four Nepali Congress cadres stand in a line and started hacking them to death. Ram Bahadur Khatri, a Laha local, was one of the four. He says a chill runs down his spine whenever he remembers the incident.

“I was the last guy in the line. They started the slaughter from the top of the line. I thought I would rather try running away than be killed like that, consequences be damned. I managed to escape, and came to the district headquarters and hid there. I have not been back to the village since,” he recounts.

Rajendra Bikram Shah, a local civic leader, says ordinary citizens were troubled by both sides during the war. “Security personnel used to target them for feeding the Maoists, attending their programs, giving them donations, etc. But if they did not do as the Maoists told them, they feared that the insurgents would harm them.”

“In the decade-long war, many lost their husbands or their parents. Many others were maimed. Youngsters who were involved in the war are severely disappointed,” says Shah. “They joined the war with the hope of improving the country’s socio-economic conditions but their own conditions are now so bleak that they are forced to go to Gulf countries for work.”

Over 370 people from Jajarkot lost their lives during the war and hundreds were displaced or maimed. Dozens of government structures were demolished. Many victims have got neither justice nor compensation.