I asked an elderly gentleman from Kapilvastu who comes to do
repairs in our house whether he’d voted. He said he did, for the Nepali
Congress. Then I asked him if his family
voted.
“Hah, hah,” he said. “But in our family we vote
chutta-chuttai.”
I looked at him, puzzled, unsure what he meant. His studied
nonchalance told me he was revealing something of import.
“Afno-afnai. I vote for the Nepali Congress. My wife votes
for the Cow-Kamal Thapa, RPP faction.”
He said this with a studied nonchalance that made me realize
that this separate voting between his wife and him it was sort of a big deal. Almost
with the tone of voice people would use when saying: “yes, we eat separately. Chuttai
chuttai.”
In communities where people vote in big blocs, a husband and
a wife voting separately is clearly a big deal. Decisions, from economic to
political, in households are made jointly, and the woman follows the
man’s lead. So to have the wife vote for some other party was clearly a matter
of discomfort and embarrassment, to be revealed to the public in the most diplomatic way. His
tone of voice seemed to say: “Yes, we are trying to keep an united front here,
but its just not possible in this matter.”
Clearly for this elderly lady to show defiance to her husband’s
party and go out and vote for her own showed a) a determined woman and b)
someone who felt a strong conviction in the campaign message of the Cow.
Women have been part of Mr. Thapa’s core supporters since he
started his campaign. On Elections Day, the TV showed a long line of women wearing
colorful saris and tikas, almost as if they were lined up at a festival or to
enter a temple, waiting to vote in Mr. Thapa’s Makwanpur district. As Mr. Thapa
put his vote into the ballot box, he did his Namaste with great deliberation,
almost as if he was bowing to the Divine. Mr. Thapa has been out and about for the last
few years, attending Ram-Sita wedding parties in Janakpur and taking part in
colorful pageantries. His “yada yada hi dharmasya” posters appeared at
strategic locations around the capital, and no doubt in other cities. So it’s a
bit of a surprise that he has had such a poor showing at the polls. What is
clear is that while he may not have won, his platform of campaign, which
includes the very powerful appeal to female voters on the issue of culture and
religion, probably has a strong foundation.
Whether this voting bloc got a say in this elections is
moot. What is clear is that they are part of the warp and woof of Nepal’s
polity. Living in Handigaon, I am very aware that leadership in Nepal runs
through religious and cultural institutions. Despite the best attempts of
modern global forces to prioritize the secular and political institutions as
the most important ones in people’s lives, the fact remains that the daily act
of leadership is happens through religious and cultural events and institutions.
People who win elections appear in people’s lives in the
form of election posters, and a once-in-an-elections appearance given via a
rally and a speech. But the ones who organize vegetable markets, raise money
for the poor, find work for widows and single women, provide psychological
counseling, provide bereavement and grief mitigation solace, give out rice to
single mothers, interface between the all-important Sarkar and paperwork,
mediate community disputes, hear out neighbourhood complaints—these real
leaders performing real tasks are the religious/cultural figures in the
community.
These figures will not get to write the Constitution. Nor
should they. This Saturday I met an old
monk at a cybercafe who I recognized. I reminded him that we’d met at a peace
rally in New York twelve years ago. The young man at the cyber joked that they
were thinking of getting this monk to run for elections, and that he would
certainly win if he did. I said: “Monks should not run for elections. Once you
mix religion and politics, dharma khattam huncha (the religious sphere gets
corrupted.)” And I believe this firmly.
This lack of political participation of religious figures in
the material realm, however, doesn’t mean that the religious and cultural doesn’t
have a powerful, day to day impact on everything from governance to
leadership. And the new Constitution should make space for this reality.
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