While many other parts of the Tarai have seen renewed turmoil, Birgunj remains relatively quiet. The simmering discontent is widespread but the people are growing desperate, swinging as they are between hope and disappointment. “Every time there are talks and a sign of progress, something new happens. Either a CPN-UML leader tries to spoil the atmosphere or the police start killing people,” Pradip Yadav, coordinator of the Madhesi movement in the city tells me.

So every time there are talks between the political parties, the people of Parsa tend to become more and more sceptical and disappointed. In the last few days, as dialogues have progressed in Kathmandu, the police started shooting people in Tarai, the administration desecrated a religious site with dogs and boots to facilitate the visit of the president, and the UML leaders started inciting people with acerbic words. As a result, the situation in Birgunj has grown

tense overnight.

Hope versus disappointment is not the only duality present in Parsa. The whole of Madhes is living with contradictory impulses, and unless these dualities are recognised, political settlement between the parties will remain difficult.

Below, I describe several other dualities that have a significant impact on Madhesi consciousness.

Centre versus periphery

Michael Mann, a historical sociologist, in describing sources of power, illustrates how the use of military force is constructive and positive at the centre, while it is terroristic and negative at the periphery. Even ordinary people of Parsa have realised this duality that individual police officers can have an impact on the level of violence and the course of the political movement, the cases of two superintendents of Nepal Police in Birgunj being a case in point. The relative peace in Birgunj in the past several weeks is the result of an individual officer’s restraint. It is their policy unless directed otherwise from the centre.

It is perhaps a destiny of all the marginalised people throughout the world to have a dual nationality. A hill Brahmin can speak Nepali and call it his own mother language. He can wear daura-suruwal and Dhaka topi and remember his grandfather doing the same. He can call Nepal his own nation and not even pause for a moment to think that anything otherwise is possible. Not so for the Madhesis for that matter. They always live with a dual nationality, and constantly need to prove allegiance to the supra-identity that they need to live with. Having a dual nationalism is natural for the minority groups, as is the case globally, but somehow, the dominant groups refuse to understand the sentiments of such divided consciousness.

The Madhes movement, as far as in Birgunj, its de facto headquarters, is an assertion of Nepali nationalism. It is a result of Madhesis seeking a share in the state sponsored nationalism. If you talk to the young Madhesi activists and professionals leading the movement, there is no cause to fear Nepal’s national identity or sovereignty. On the contrary, it is just the opposite: they generate hope. The movement is driven by young educated professionals whose discourse is filled with reason and love for the country, and does not reflect any hate or ill will towards the hill community (except maybe the UML leaders). The drivers of the movement are aware that the path of violence and communalism will undermine their cause. But they are worried that they may not be able to hold the movement much longer, and blame the centre for trying to incite communal clashes and armed groups.

Greed and grievance

The discourse on the duality between people’s mandate versus the electoral mandate has a completely new meaning when one visits a village some 16 kilometres west of Birgunj. Even now, only the NC and the UML have organised presence at the village level. All those people contesting elections, including those from the NC and the UML, had espoused the Madhesi cause during the elections. Once elected, most—including those from Madhes-based parties—betrayed the Madhesi people and their cause. In other words, electoral representation has completely failed in the Madhes and not just because of the NC and UML that have consistently sidelined and suppressed the voice of their Madhesi representatives.

There is a thin line between greed and grievance. Historical and perceived grievances, combined with a discourse of rights, are driving the Madhes movement. However, grievances alone may not be enough to sustain the movement. The persistent element of greed is undermining the political agenda. Greed is portrayed as the single factor responsible for the betrayal to the Madhesi cause, whether it is by aligning oneself with anti-Madhesi forces, engaging in smuggling of fuel from bordering areas, or aspiring to hold positions of power. As people’s patience runs out, greed may well dominate grievances and complicate political dynamics in the southern plains.

Sustained political movement has made life in the plains much difficult, much more so than in the hills. The farmers are finding it difficult to sell recently harvested rice, whose prices have gone down by 20 percent. Kamarudding Miya Teli is a farmer who sold his grains to pay rent for his son’s cyber store. “There is much hardship,” he says, “but we will not give up.” Sustained hardship has generated an informal means of survival and there are questions whether the Madhes movement can last much longer. However, people appear to have devised ways to live with the hardships, a factor apparent in Kathmandu as elsewhere. Teli, like many other people, including leaders in Birgunj, tells of the impatience of the younger generation and the impulse to carry out an armed rebellion.

Not the right path

The most important duality, however, is between the micro and the macro. Perceived and objective grievances, everyday lived experience, and a discourse of rights, have become the norm in Madhes. What is missing is a larger social dialogue about the means to right the wrongs. There are few leaders and opinion makers who appear to have the ability to connect the ground realities to the larger picture of the nation. There are certain issues that must be resolved through constitutional design, some issues that require a larger national dialogue, and some issues that need to be addressed through a shift in political discourse. However, we are moving in a trajectory that can only lead to violence. First, we had differences. Then that difference appeared as a contradiction while drafting a new constitution. We allowed that contradiction to polarise the nation. Our behaviour and speeches are only heightening that contradiction. As experiences of countless other nations indicate, such trajectory can only intensify conflict and lead to direct violence. For a party that espoused political stability and prosperity as its primary goal, paving a path towards violence and telling the minority groups that expression of their grievances is ‘stupid’ only indicates that it is politically immature and racist.

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