Monday, December 17, 2012
Pushpa’s CNN Hero win: What does it tell us about ourselves?
The following article was published in Republica on December 16, 2012 with the title "An engaged bunch". The unedited original version is below.
Our current political struggle to unite over how the country should be
run, who should run it, and how long they should run it belie the otherwise
rarely accepted fact that, as a people, Nepalis are pretty solidly united.
Besides the purpose with which such unity occurs, there are often unintended
consequences, the likes of which we saw during the anti-Hrithik Roshan incident
years ago when a handful of Nepalis died in Nepal over something that the actor
said which has yet to be proven to this day. However, in recent years, the
unity that we have showcased as people have mostly been for the purpose of
good, except in our political sphere where we don’t seem to agree on anything.
One of the first clear strength of Nepali unity was seen when Prashant
Tamang participated in Indian Idol. Not only the Nepalis in Nepal were united
to make sure that Prashant won that contest, but Nepalis of Jackson Heights in
New York City had installed money collection booths, the collections of which
would be sent to Nepal to support the SMS voting for Prashant from Nepal. Last
year, Nepalis in droves voted for Soumya Rai and Om Chhetri—two kids of Nepali
origin—in the Dance India Dance competition. As a result, Soumya came fourth,
and Om came second in the competition. This solidarity and unity in supporting
these candidates was seen not only in Nepalis in Nepal but also in people of
Nepali origin in India.
And, now, twice in the past three years, two Nepalis have won the CNN
Hero contest—Anuradha Koirala in 2010 and Pushpa Basnet in 2012. So, what do
these wins of Nepalis in cyberspace and TVspace tell us about ourselves? Did
Nepali support for Prashant have anything to do with us wanting to shed our
“bahadur” tag in India? Did our support to Om and Soumya have anything to do with
trying to prove to the billion plus Indians that Nepali kids were as good as,
if not better than, the other Indian kids? Was our support for Anuradha and
Pushpa, and their eventual wins, our way of telling the world that we matter?
There is no doubt that the people that nominated and campaigned for the
likes of Anuradha and Pushpa are young and tech savvy. In addition, this crowd
is idealistic and holds dear the democratic value of participation. There is
also an understanding among these “voters” that online and SMS voting are
democratic and fair. So, they invest significant efforts due to the belief of
existence of these notions of fairness and democracy in those competitions.
The same cannot be said of the ground level election process in Nepal
which, in a way, is also a competition between different participants.
Constituents from two different constituencies voted against Madhav Kumar Nepal
because they decided he wasn’t fit to be a member of the parliament. Mr Nepal
lost from both of those constituencies. He ended up becoming the prime
minister. It has to be noted that he did so through a legitimate process and no
rules of the land were broken. However, making him a PM despite losing from two
different places was a slap in the faces and logic of those constituents who
thought he wasn’t fit to become an MP, let alone the PM.
We should not be expected to keep supporting a democratic process that
gives us a PM out of a two-time loser. We cannot be expected to keep believing
in democracy when the version practiced here is different from the other
western versions of democracy that we grow up watching, reading and idolizing.
We are interested and invested in online voting because we feel they more aptly
reflect our ideology of a fair democratic process.
I keep hearing and reading about people and politicians complaining
about apathy of our youths towards politics and the political process. They are
apathetic because they see the reality where constituents and their wishes are
made fun of afterwards. We participate in online polls and voting in support of
candidates like Anuradha and Pushpa because they are “apolitical”, and because
the online voting processes and results are more democratic than our “real”
elections.
Labels: anuradha koirala, DID, Indian Idol, maiti nepal, nepal, om chhetri, prashant tamang, pushpa basnet, soumya rai
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]
Post a Comment