http://www.kantipuronline.com/kolnews.php?&nid=56954

Friends,

What inference can you draw from Peter Karthak's so nicely expressed views in this article? Particularly the last three concluding paragraphs might be indicative of the situation we are in Nepal?? Let us say it is a very interesting article, to say the least.
Mr. Karthak is an excellent writer who seems to express his views as he sees them. Imagine where he would land if he begun to write on the Nepal politics.

My, my - Mr Karthak himself speaking on the subject! Dilasha, thanks for making it happen. Mr Karthak, I am suprised and humbled by the fact that you have responded . I honestly did not think you would care to repsond to comments by obscure posters like myself on Sajha but I am happy to have been proved wrong!

Yes, Sajha is indeed an interesting collection of minds . My own motives for coming to Sajha are to kill time and mingle with a medley of anonymous minds. I dont have a particular knack for splitting hairs - I got tickled by that comment :) - but I have a tendency to speak my mind and have no hesitations asking questions of others when I think there is ambiguity in what they are saying. Thank you, sir, for addressing some of that - I may not see things a 100% your way always - but your response has given me more insight into a mind I have come to like and respect. I look forward to reading more of your works in the days to come.

Hope all is well with everyone else on this thread.

:)

Since I started it, I would venture again to put in my rambling thoughts to this interesting thread. I feel honoured that Peter Karthak himself chose to visit to respond to some of our thoughts, wondering and inferences. I hope other writers and reporters will do the same in some future discussions.

The subject of "jaat-paat" remains to be an intensely discussed in Sajha. Behind the cyber names, including myself, the diaspora is even vocal in showing the same narrow minded attitude towards jaat paat as it is prevalent in Nepal. The only difference being that some educated people have a different set of frontline teeth to show while there is no real mind change in attitude even in diaspora when it comes to a jaat paat issue. The same narrow mindedness hatred of "jaatpaat" is carried to a place like New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Texas and Toronto, and so forth.

Even there seems to be a struggle going on in sharing the loot among those who are at the helm of the power. You can feel the venomous words targeted to bahun cheetri when you visit a Newar or a Newa organizations and vice versa. And, this is not limited to these castes only; others freely chime in as well in their selected words in this free for all topic. While they all advocate for social equality outwardly, at the same time they would unhesitatingly address in the sycophantic words like "baksiyos, khaisyos laisyos," and "hajur or raja", etc., to certain castes not out of respect from the heart but more out of age old caste consciousness and perhaps flattering. And, there are the so called educated or elite people who profess the democracy but at heart, again, "jaat paat" seems to be the prime driving factor even in their public decision making affecting others.

The rampant practice of "jaatpaat" is number one social enemy in Nepal that is now fully infected to politics and administration. If Nepal is to be a fulbari of all castes, and continue to maintain the harmony of the multi-ethnic fiber in its true sense, why only three to four castes or groups in Nepal continue to dominate the mainstream of the Nepali politics and administration and grow even further? The same group ruled before democracy and the same group is ruling now. If you look at statistically, even during the last 15 years of so called democracy, mostly the same select groups or castes have prospered. Why hasn?t the successive administration paid much needed attention to include more from other castes into the mainstream? The answer to this question is perpetuation of the "jaatpaat" based politics and administration. Almost every major action in Nepal is taken with prejudiced view of caste in mind, obviously to benefit those select groups.

Every time there is a list of appointments in Nepal or when you see a list of who is where in a government post, and when I see the make up of the administration, a question pops up in my mind. Are there only a few select castes in Nepal who continue to get the ghee to the extent of choking their own health and also to the detriment of the country?s health? The diaspora suffers from the same ill and their views are reflected in Sajha discussion.

The country is pushed to near hell situation due to continuing practice of "jaat paat" politics and jaat paat prejudiced administration, which seems to be the number one ill that we need to remedy. IF there was really peace, prosperity and good governance in the country, and a great majority of the countrymen, not just a few select groups or castes, were being benefited, then the credit would have automatically gone to the make up of those who are and were at the helm of power. Unfortunately, it is NOT so when you look at the events of the last few decades. This select group, based on caste bias is in majority in running the country, has hopelessly failed.

In view of the aforementioned rambling thoughts, I find Peter Karthak?s above referenced article very timely and interesting. If you live and Kathmandu, one has to be either on the receiving end or fully blind not to notice the "jaat paat" bias prevalent in every sphere of the administration. "Jaat paat" is everything as it appears. The caste group mentioned absence from environmental friendly Badamatam Company is interesting. If you have a termite, an immediate treatment is needed before it eats up your whole house.

With my apology to Peter, as he may not have meant it the way I put it here. I, as his ardent admirer and reader, take the liberty to draw my own inference in light of aforementioned situation, that Badamtam Company offers a management good model to try it out or at least there is a hint in it that we ought to pay attention to.

Thanks to all the discussants here; I have learned a lot from your postings. Also, I am thankful to Peter Karthak whose article led me to participate in the discussion on this important topic.

As the originator, a big thank to you for getting the ball rolling. A couple of quick comments on the subject:

- I feel caste sensitivity and outlook is affected by several things like age, class, education level etc. I certainly think caste is not as big a deal amongst *most* (not all) younger people as it might be amongst, lets say, their grand parents. Casteism will die out with time. But pro-active measures need to be take to ensure that it indeed does.

- My own thought processes these days are focused more on the solutions to the problem. The issue needs to be tackled at different levels - intellectual, political, legal and social amongst others . I feel a controlled form of affirmative action or reservations will help in this process. An example of such affirmative action could be putting aside a quarter of government jobs for underrespresented ethnic groups and leaving the rest open to merit based competition. There are countless other combinations and permutations of reservation that we can talk about. I would also advocate building in measures to avoid abuse of the system - for example if a father was the beneficiary of a reservation, the children will not qaulify for it etc.

On a social and more personal level, I hope with more and more Nepalese becoming educated and leaving the confines of their sheltered lives for jobs elsewhere, people will learn, over time, to appreciate and respect other castes and cultures. With awareness and mutual respect it becomes easier for people to engage in dialogue and discussion and develop objective viewpoints about caste, ethnicity and culture.

Hi all,
Peter J Karthak's new article is out. The read is enjoyable, as always. And the write-up superb. Just a couple of comments though on the stroy that Mr. Karthak mentions, by Somerset Maugham. I read the story a long time ago, and may be mistaken, but I do remember some details. Please correct me if I got it wrong, please correct me.

The protagonist of the story is an englishman who is not originally a "blue blood" arsitrocrat by birth, but acts like one. He does manage a plantation in Malaya or somewhere. He has friends in the high society in London. The setting is in WWII, we know this because newspapers are delivered late because of the war. The englishman however is a strict observer of customs, rituals (social) and acts like an English lord, even in the middle of the jungle. He dines in formal settings with two servants waiting on him and in full formal evening dress-jacket even when he is alone. Not a snide remark - but I bet he would speak with the same old queen's English as Sandhurst L.

Tha antagonist is a recently arrived assistant manager, but not, as Mr. Karthak says, "fresh from an English public school, idealistic and full of modern ideas. He has all sorts of progressive strategies and plans for the rubber plantation and its workers", but an ex-army man rough and tumble who does not have time for social niceties and attachment to English customs, especially in the middle of the jungle. He is ill at ease in the first dinner setting invited by the protagonist, but nevertheless goes with a formal attire. The new guy sooon falls to the ways of the local people, takes in a local woman, dresses like them, gives up his formal attire and so on. He changes into a "native" mode from an Englishman.

The protagonist, of course, does not like this all. The assistant manager is heavy handed with a local person. The manager tries to explain, but in return gets insulted by the assistant manager. The crux of the insult is that the manager is not a true "blue" blood even if he follows a lifestyle of one. And in fact, he is a running joke in the social circles back in London.

And the next mroning, the assistant manager is murdered, by the local whom he had wronged. The manager deftly manages to hush up the matter, lets the local guy escape and buries the whole incident. He then goes back to his old ways of organaization and quiet dinner with two servants waiting on him.

This is from memory, I read that particular more than 10 years ago or so. So I do apologize if I got it wrong.

The second comment that I wanted to make is in a way not related to the article, and is related in a way. A dichotomy, but neverthelss an important comment in my view. This thought struck me last night, after a couple of pegs of Napoleon :) so might be a lame thought after all. But nevertheless here goes.

Nepal was and is primarily known for 1. Mount Everest. 2. Gurkha Soldiers, 3. Sherpas 4. natural beauty etc. When getting into conversations with foreigners, any Nepali will definately bring up these subjects and that's what Nepali's are most proud of. Natural beauty and Everest (should have a formal name change on that, I think), Nepalis have nothing to do with, that's a gift from nature. Now Gurkha soldiers and Sherpas, mostly come from the most marginalized segments of our society, yet they are the ones who give an identity to Nepal in international arena. They are so famous, brave and appreciated outside of Nepal and marginalized inside. The world sure is a strange place, ain't it???

Kundale - Can you please post the link to the article. I tried TKP archives and google to no avail :) And the search functionality on Kantipuronline really sucks .. he he

I agree that TKP archives is not so user friendly. I found the article though it's buried under a ton of new. The link is http://www.kantipuronline.com/nwcollection.php?id=2&pubdate=2005-11-20. I am also posting the whole article, I hope Mr. Karthak or TKP do not view this as a copyright infringement.

EXPRESSION
---------------------

Darjeeling's tall tea tales - V


By PETER J KARTHAK


- Life was good in Badamtam Tea Estate because by far the most influential and powerful Nepali in Badamtam was its Manshi (Munshi in Hindi) Babu. In those years, the Manshi Babu was a Subba. The much paan-chewing Manshi Babu had more than a dozen sons and daughters and his bustling company house was called the "barrack" where the kitchen was never allowed to remain cold. His fecund wife, the Manshini Babuni, was a roly-poly bundle of Limbu joy who kept the family together.
Among other things in retrospection, the couple were the proud parents of the famous Nepali footballer Benu Kumar Subba who played for the biggest Calcutta clubs and is remembered as a guru to the previous generation of footballers in Bhutan, Sikkim and Kathmandu as well.

Typically, the Manshi Babu was the be-all and know-all of the garden. No less than a godfather, he knew the genealogy of all the families in his domain, their birthdays, age, the marriage dates, number of family members, their virtues and vices, education, job descriptions. He was everything to them - their guardian, leader, guide, teacher, philosopher, and arbiter, minister, judge - in fact, the first and the last resort: the alpha, omega and everything in between. He handled the labour force of Badamtam by all the means at his disposal. He explained to them, threatened them, cajoled them, convinced then, reminded them, counselled them, preached to them, praised them and advised them - all in order to get the maximum from them. He amicably settled all types of ethnic disagreements, labour disputes and cultural differences among his wards. By the versatile virtues of his multiple roles, Badamtam never saw a uniformed policeman entering its green world. Internally, I never saw a single case of male drunkenness, wife beating and child abuse nor any woman going around rumouring and gossiping. This was not a mean feat and was an exemplary track record, considering the volatile temperaments of the workers, especially the "raw" Yakha community who entertained no second thoughts in unsheathing their khukuri-s at the slightest provocation or pretext.

The Limbu Manshi Babu also saw to it that his people got all their rightful salaries, benefits and facilities deserved by them exactly when they needed. No different from the Gurkha Major Saheb in the British Brigade of Gurkhas or the Subedar Major Saheb in the Gorkha Rifles of the Indian Army, the Manshi Babu was the first and the last word in the labour management of the tea estate. Period! Woe be to the British planter - most of them were, in any case, dubbed "kanchha" or "kachcha" sahibs by the Nepali veterans of the tea garden - who failed to pay heed to the Manshi Babu's wise counsels and timely advice and all-important warnings that would govern in no uncertain term the whitey or Gora manager's own outlooks and official decisions. The two British managers' personal attitudes and professional discretions were shaped and moulded by the Manshi Babu. Stray, deviate and show just a faint waywardness, and the manager concerned would pay the right price at the right time for his wrong actions.

Such was the fate of a particularly autocratic and stubborn senior British manager who promptly earned the sobriquet of "Khapparay" because his khappar or forehead was neatly cleaved by a tea labourer who used his "khurpa" knife for the artistic carving. This happened when the white manager acted arbitrarily and unilaterally against the male worker, and the latter, in a typical local political form, reacted by denting his pink forehead right above the eye. The scar would remain on the brow of the planter for the rest of his life and no length of hair would help cover the dimple.

Ironically, the manager had his second tour of duty in Badamtam, perhaps a sign of disfavour from his bosses in the owning company, and he remained cowed and drunk most of the time in the gulag of his luxurious bungalow. This was a reconfirmation of the spoiled foolhardiness of someone superseding the Manshi Babu's domains, and justly paying for the unprofessional digression. In one sentence, the Manshi Babu was the pivot and pilot of Badamtam Tea Estate, and its workers hinged on him and swivelled around his office which he ran from his crowded and noisy home.

In this, I see a classic parallel to a typical Somerset Maugham-like short story of a rubber plantation in Malacca. The veteran senior planter is happy with his settled life of post-breakfast morning inspection of his labour supervisors and coolies, then his laidback afternoon of gin and tonic, lazy lunch and reading the copies of the last fortnight's The Times that arrive in bulk to his port every fifteen days from London. He repairs to the planters' club in the evening, gets shoddily drunk on scotch and soda, has his sumptuous dinner there and retires to his fanned bedroom with his local concubine and repeats the same schedules the next day.

Not so is his recently arrived assistant manager, fresh from an English public school, idealistic and full of modern ideas. He has all sorts of progressive strategies and plans for the rubber plantation and its workers, quite in contravention of his senior's proven principles of "let the local sleeping dogs lie" and "don't ruffle the endemic feathers, for goodness sake". The older veteran warns and counsels the younger upstart, but to no avail whatsoever. Back to the gin and The Times, then!

As expected, the younger planter is shortly found with his head cleanly chopped off by a Dayak's sharp machete. The Empire's statistics is slightly lessened, by one head, by the untimely demise of one of its own while the experienced planter's status quo ante continues unabated and undisturbed. Ah, but I did say so, didn't I? Back in Badamtam, the Manshi Babu is the wiser one while the Gora manager the fool. But his fate was the worse: He had to make his second appearance in the tea estate, this time with his disfigured skull for all to see. But then, the people had their one and only Manshi Babu who prevented the Bada Sahib from being rendered six inches shorter from a local's khukuri swipe.
pjkarthak@yahoo.com

Kundale - Thanks. Good stuff, Mr Karthak. I think I know the footballer he is refering to - he used to be a football coach at one of the schools in Darjeeling. Anyways, I am eagerly looking forward to getting my copy of the novel - its over a week since I ordered but I guess delivery from India is slow :)