Environment and Planning t): Society and Space 1994, volume 12, pages 559-578. Backstreets, barricades, and blackouts: urban terrains of resistance in Nepal.
Environment and Planning t): Society and Space 1994, volume 12, pages 559-578
Backstreets, barricades, and blackouts: urban terrains of resistance in Nepal Paul Routlcclgc Department of Geography, Bristol University, University Road, Bristol BS8 ISS, England Received 12 July 1993; in revised form 27 November 1993
Abstract. In this paper I apply aspects of sociospatial theory to the revolutionary context of urban Nepal during the democratic uprisings of 1990. The urban spaces of Kathmandu and Patan were two of the most important sites within which power was contested, and terrains upon which space itself was contested. As I will show, the location of struggle emerged from conscious movement choices (as to tactics, efficacy of mobilization, etc) and influenced the character of collective action. An analysis of the spatial mediation of social movement agency provides us with what 1 term the 'terrain of resistance*—the specific geographical, historical, political, economic, ecological, and cultural context of movement agency. Such analysis can provide us with important insights into why movements occur where they do, the spatiocultural specificity of movement practice, and the language by which people articulate their discontent, understood through the 'cultural expressions of resistance'. In the early months of 1990 the people of Nepal arose against the autocratic rule of King Bircnclra in an attempt to reestablish a multiparty democratic system within the country. Although only partially successful (and although the nascent democracy continues to be beset by political, economic, and cultural problems), the people's movement for democracy provides us with some important insights into the character and spirit of social movement agency. Both power and (urban) space were contested in Nepal. By an analysis of this terrain of resistance, I argue for a narrative of collective action that is subject centered and historically, spatially, and politicoculturally contextualized. An understanding of the spatial mediation of social movement agency can provide us with important insights into why movements occur where they do, the spatiocultural specificity of movement practice, and the language by which people articulate their discontent, understood through the 'cultural expressions of resistance'. This reading of the events in Nepal 1990 is a contribution to the critical discourse of a geopolitics that (de)centers analytical focus away from the state, and inquires into those 'voices on the periphery', who frequently pose challenges to state-centered notions of hegemony, consent, and power. Although political scientists may disagree as to whether the events in Nepal constitute a revolution, this is the name the people of Nepal give to the dramatic events of 1990, and it is, therefore, in respect for their struggles and sacrifices that I use the term in this paper.(1) (^Theoretically, the metanarrative of revolution can ignore social differences and particularities, involve reified categories, transform moral and political conflicts into technical and metatheoretical disputes, and locate social movements within a purely temporal dimension (see Seidman, 1992). As such, it is of questionable explanatory power. Although Nepal's Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) was inspired by Eastern Europe's revolutions of 1989, and although the communist factions within the movement also drew inspiration and influence from earlier revolutions and revolutionary theory, the events of spring 1990 were spatially contextualized within the specific political, economic, and cultural landscape of Nepal. As I will argue, a spatialized analysis, examines the local narrative of revolution, in this case as it was manifested in Nepal.
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What follows is an account of the events of 1990, based primarily upon interviews with activists and residents of Kathmandu and Patan, and partly upon my own experiences of the revolution. A spatialized analysis of conflict I have argued elsewhere that, because the political, economic, and cultural conditions of domination and resistance vary across space, analysis of collective action that pays due attention to the spatial mediation of movement practice can provide an important complement to existing social movement theories, acknowledging the contextually dependent voices of social movement actors (Routledge, 1993). What becomes apparent in the analysis of the Nepal revolution is the importance and effect of (urban) locality upon movement character. The urban spaces of Kathmandu and Patan were two of the most important sites within which power was contested, and terrains upon which space itself was contested. As I will show, the location of struggle emerged from conscious movement choices (as to tactics, efficacy of mobilization, etc) and influenced the character of collective action. Hence an understanding of the places where social movements emerge and conduct struggle helps to elucidate the particular social, economic, political, and cultural context in which movement agency challenges the dominating practices of private capital and the state. To contextualize movement practice spatially I use Agnew's (1987) conceptualization of place as constituting locale, location, and sense of place. Locale refers to the settings in which everyday social interactions and relations are constituted, whether formal or informal. Location refers to the geographical area encompassing the locale as defined by social, cultural, economic, and political processes operating at a wider scale (nationally, internationally). Sense of place refers to the subjective orientation that can be engendered by living in a place. I use this concept of place not as a fixed grid of explanation but rather as an interpretive framework for a spatialized analysis of social movement experience across a variety of scales. A spatialized analysis of conflict provides us with at least three crucial insights into social movement experience. First, it informs us of why social movements occur where they do—which economic, political, and cultural aspects of location and locale contribute to the emergence of resistance—and of the context within which movement agency interpellates the social structure. Second, it informs us of the spatial and cultural specificity of movements, because the particularities of place (and its constituent elements of location, locale, and sense of place) inform and affect the character, dynamics, and outcomes of movement agency. Third, research paradigms that are sensitive to place provide the means of understanding the spirit of movement agency, elucidating what I term the 'cultural expressions of movement resistance', that place-specific language of discontent' (Guha, 1989, page 3)—that which inspires, empowers, and motivates people, understood, for example, through a movement's ideology and cultural idioms of protest. Therefore an understanding of the spatial mediation of social movement agency provides us with what I term the 'terrain of resistance'—the specific geographical, historical, political, economic, ecological, and cultural context of movement agency. The terrain of resistance A terrain of resistance refers to the dialectical interplay between hegemonic and counterhegemonic powers and discourses, between forces and relations of domination, subjection, exploitation, and resistance.(2) More specifically, a terrain is an W Subjection refers to a form of power which makes individuals subjects. This can mean being subject to someone else by control and dependence, as well as being tied to one's own
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interwoven web of specific symbolic meanings, communicative processes, political discourses, religious idioms, cultural practices, social networks, economic relations, physical settings, envisioned desires and hopes. Terrains of resistance, then, arc assembled out of the materials and practices of everyday life. They represent sites of contestation between differing beliefs, values, and goals; and between powers to dominate and resist that arc spatially and culturally contcxtualizcd. As noted above, the constituent elements of place (locale, location, and sense of place), and their mediation of movement agency, provide important insights into the landscape of struggle and its spatially contcxtualizcd character. A consideration of location provides us with the (regional) economic, political, military or strategic, and geographical factors that can contribute to the emergence of a resistance terrain. A consideration of locale provides us with the local economic, political, ecological, and social relational factors that can contribute to the emergence of the resistance terrain, and the structure, ideology, and motivation of the social movemenrnt, A consideration of sense of place provides us with cultural, ideological, religious, and psychological factors that can shape the character of the social movement and its terrain of resistance—the language of the struggle. As a site of contestation, a terrain of resistance is not just a physical place, but also a physical expression—be it the construction of barricades and trenches (as in the town of Patan), or the construction of towers [as in the Narita airport struggle in Japan (see Apter and Sawa, 1984)]—that not only reflect a movement's tactical ingenuity, but also endow space with an amalgam of meanings—be they symbolic, spiritual, ideological, cultural, or political.*3* A terrain of resistance is thus both mctaphoric and literal. It constitutes the geographical ground upon which conflict takes place, and is a representational space with which to understand and interpret social action. Because the terrain reflects a dialectical relationship between domination and resistance, it is also important to consider the response of (dominating) power to particular movements—how domination juxtaposes (and, at times, overlaps or is entangled with) resistance.^ Although responses to the emergence of movements by state authorities frequently reflect the coercion and consent of Gramsci's (1971) (continued) identity by conscious self-knowledge. Domination refers to ethnic, social, and religious coercions. Exploitation refers to the social and spatial relations that separate individuals from what they produce. These economic, cultural, and political forces and relations are interrelated (Foucault, 1983; see also Soja and Hooper, 1993). Resistance against such forces and relations can range from individual to collective action. Collective action frequently takes the form of social movements, but can also include voluntary organizations, nongovernmental organizations, religious organizations, community groups, self-help groups, pressure groups, and informal networks (see Ekins, 1992). (3) In this paper I confine my analysis to openly declared resistance terrains. However, Scott has shown that resistance can also take disguised, unobtrusive forms at the material, status, and ideological realms of political struggle—a practice he terms "infrapolitics" (1990, page 183). Tarrow (1992) notes the importance of understanding the differences between everyday resistance that is a prelude to compliance and that which results in organized collective action. (4) Whereas Foucault (1980) has noted that, in contemporary Western societies, the state is only one of many forms of power that exist within society, Said (1983) counters that a central dialectic of opposed forces (for example, between rulers and ruled) still underlies modern societies. In the resistance terrain articulated by Nepal's MRD, the state is the primary target of resistance and source of domination, although other forms of domination exist within Nepal. Of course, a terrain of resistance can also address other forms of domination, for example the Dalit movement's struggle against caste oppression in India (see Joshi, 1986). There may also exist terrains within terrains, such as struggles over issues of gender and ethnicity within particular social movements.
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definition of state domination and social hegemony, Parajuli (1992) argues that in Nepal elements of persuasion, repression, collaboration, and resistance have all been present. The Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) enacted resistance within the sphere of civil society by challenging the relationships of power that are predicated upon the cooperation and consent of people to domination by the state. Civil society, then, "is seen in action terms as the domain of struggles, public spaces, and political processes. It comprises the social realm in which the creation of norms, identities, and social relations of domination and resistance are located" (Cohen, 1985, page 700). Before discussing two of Nepal's urban terrains of resistance in detail, I will briefly place the movement in the historicocultural context of power relations within the country. Autocratic power and resistance in Nepal The relations of power within Nepali society include premodern (feudal) and modern elements, and comprise an interwoven web of caste, class, patronage, and kinship. Nepali society is permeated with traditions of status and privilege, and economic and cultural differences that reflect caste and ethnic inequalities and feudal land relations. It is predominantly agricultural—91% of the population are dependent upon agriculture for subsistence. The Nepali economy, amongst the poorest in the world with an estimated GDP per capita of US$160, exhibits the familiar inequities of a feudal system: 9% of the total households own holdings of above 3 ha and control 47% of the total cultivated land, whereas 66% of the total households have landholdings of less than 1 ha which accounts for 17.4% of the total cultivated land (INSEC, 1991; 1992; Yadav, 1984). Social, economic, and political inequalities are further compounded by the caste system, which is dominated by the Brahmin, Chhetri, and to a lesser extent the Newar castes. According to Shaha (1990) 80% of the positions of political and religious power and economic profit (especially through the ownership of land) are held by these three groups. Meanwhile, the majority of the population are condemned to the ravages of grinding poverty, bonded labor, illiteracy, and inadequate health care. At the apex of the social order sits the royal family (Chhetri) headed by the king, who, as a rationalization for power, was declared the reincarnation of the Hindu god Vishnu, both omnipotent and irreproachable. Historically, Nepali society was controlled by four groups: the royal family, the religious (Brahmin) hierarchy, the army, and landed interests. After 1951, these groups were joined by modernizing political, bureaucratic, and military elites, and traders and businessmen (Shaha, 1990). These groups constitute the caste elites and their objective has been to maintain a social, political, and economic order that has enriched them at the expense of the majority of the population—over 60% of Nepal's approximately 18.5 million population live beneath the official poverty line (INSEC, 1991; 1992). The absolute power of the palace was maintained through the coercive force of the army, controlled by the king, and through the inequalities of power institutionalized in the panchayat system. Based upon a pyramidal structure of village, district, zonal, and national councils, with the king at the apex, the panchayat system provided the king with autocratic power over the political, economic, and cultural life of the country. This power was institutionalized through a variety of repressive laws, designed to curtail any opposition to the government.(5) Both parliament and (5>The Public Security Act, 1961, empowered the government to detain or imprison anyone suspected of antigovernment activities, without recourse to the judiciary, on the grounds of security and peace within the country. The State Affairs (Crime and Punishment) Act, 1962,
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the judiciary answered only to the king; freedom of peaceful assembly and association was denied; imprisonment without trial was legally sanctioned; and torture and deaths within prison were commonplace (FOPHUR, 1990b; INSEC, 1991; 1992; Shaha, 1990). In addition, the power of the palace was provided with cultural rationales through the co-option of religious festivals by the royal family. Despite their dominance, the hegemony of the ruling elites in Nepal has constantly been contested by the subaltern classes, for, as Parajuli notes; "There has always been some deficiency in the hegemony of the ruling class. Although the dominant groups have shifted their strategies of persuasion, the repressive mechanism has always overrode the persuasive principles. In that sense the state's grip over the subordinate populace in Nepal is a 'dominance without hegemony'. Elite hegemony has thus to be changed according to pressure from below" (1992, page 2). The MRD had historical antecedents in various movements and struggles for democracy that had been waged in Nepal during the previous fifty years. In 1950 the Rana oligarchy that had been in power for 104 years, was overthrown by an armed revolution, from bases in India, led by the Nepali Congress Party. This resulted in the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under King Tribhuvan, and an interim government, controlled by the Nepali Congress Party, to oversee parliamentary elections. However, the feudal character of socioeconomic relations remained unchallenged, and the Rana family retained much of its political power through matrimonial tics with the royal family and by the Rana dominance of the military, which continues to the present. The power of the palace increased throughout the 1950s, especially after the accession of Tribhuvan's son, Mahendra, to the throne in 1955. This was facilitated by the factionalism and feuding between the principal political parties, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party. It was not until 1959 that the first multiparty constitution of Nepal was 'awarded' by the king to the people, and general elections were held. The Nepali Congress won the elections and formed a government. However, within eighteen months King Mahendra, assisted by the military, dissolved parliament in a coup d'etat, suspended fundamental human rights, arrested political leaders, and banned political parties. In December 1962 King Mahendra replaced the multiparty constitution by the partyless panchayat system (see above), and proceeded to consolidate his power through repression of oppositional groups. Driven underground, the opposition responded to the repression with sporadic resistance. In 1962 the Nepali Congress launched a short-lived and unsuccessful armed struggle, again from bases within India. During 1 9 7 1 - 7 2 Maoist factions within the communist movement launched an armed peasant insurgency in the Jhapa district of eastern Nepal which was eventually suppressed by the army, Following the crowning of King Birendra, after his father's death in 1972, the Nepali Congress again launched a short-lived and unsuccessful armed insurrection. Subsequently the party embarked upon a policy of reconciliation with the ruling regime. Following a nationwide student agitation in 1979, the king called a national referendum in 1980 (continued) empowered the government to punish anyone showing a disrespectful attitude against the working of the government, and barred the courts from any jurisdiction over those arrested under the Act. The Organization and Association (Control) Act, 1962, proscribed political parties, demonstrations, political meetings, public expression, and the publication of articles. Offenders could be imprisoned for up to three years. The Police Organization Act provided the police with wide powers of arrest, search, and detention, and the Press Act banned the independent media and brought the news media under government control (Baral, 1977).
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ostensibly to enable the Nepali population to choose between the panchayat system and a return to multiparty democracy. The restrictions placed upon the political parties were partially lifted.(6) In what the opposition argued was a rigged vote, the referendum result favored the retention of the panchayat system.(7) The general elections of 1981 and 1986 were boycotted by the major political parties, and in 1985 the Nepali Congress launched a nonviolent civil disobedience movement against the government. However the satyagraha was called off within a month after a series of bomb attacks claimed several lives. It was not until 1990 that the various oppositional forces in Nepal were to unite in an attempt to overthrow the panchayat system. Catalysts and coalescence of resistance Landlocked between China and India, Nepal is heavily dependent upon trade with India which accounts for 40% of its foreign trade (Ali, 1989). During a 1989 dispute over a trade treaty between the two countries, India closed thirteen out of fifteen transit points along its border with Nepal, seriously curtailing the flow of imports into the country. The economic blockade precipitated the rationing of kerosene, petrol, and diesel within Nepal as well as sharp price increases, and exacerbated economic problems within the country and fuelled popular dissatisfaction with the government that had manifested itself intermittently throughout the past forty-five years. The emergence of the resistance of 1990 was aided by several factors. First, communications and transport facilities (for example, roads, telephones, televisions, etc) had been improved during the 1980s, enabling improved communication between underground opposition groups. Second, improvements in education had increased the literacy rate in Nepal from 10% in 1960 to 35% in 1990, improving the awareness of the population (through the local press) about the inequitable character of the country's political economy (interviews, Kathmandu, 1992). Third, emboldened by the success of popular movements in Eastern Europe in 1989, and benefitting from the improved international media communications which enhanced their visibility, the principal opposition parties, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the United Left Front (ULF)—a coalition of seven of Nepal's communist parties—decided to join together to launch a nonviolent Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD). In this context, the spatial dimension of protest included an international component, the global space constituted by the news media. According to movement activists, the N C - U L F coalition was a result of several factors. First, party activists in both the NC and the ULF argued that earlier rebellions had suffered from the absence of a united opposition. Social movements organized by the NC had not included the involvement of the communist parties, and leftist movements had been boycotted by the NC and had also suffered from factionalism. Both the NC and the ULF, despite ideological differences, decided it was in their mutual interests to form a coalition. Second, an increase in government repression of activists helped to unite the opposition forces. Third, the 1989 election of the Janta Dal government in India boosted the morale of the NC, because the former publicly supported the movement for democracy(8) (interviews, Kathmandu, 1992). (6> Most of the communist leaders, however, remained in prison. (7) Two million votes were cast in favor of the multiparty system against 2.4 million votes for the panchayat system (Shaha, 1990). At an NC party meeting on 18-20 January 1990, the partyleader Ganesh Man Singh announced to 4000 participants the launching of the nonviolent movement. Nine Indian Parliament Members were present, including future Indian Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar.
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During 1989 the opposition to the regime gained momentum through underground meetings between political partymembers, and through articles and commentaries, criticizing the regime and calling for the restoration of democracy, published in the local press and in student and human rights publications. These were mostly published in Nepali, with some in English and the other languages of Nepal. The commencement of the movement was called for 18 February 1990, the official 'Democracy Day' commemorating King Tribhuvan's commitment to multiparty democracy thirty-nine years before. The MRD's notion of democracy was that of a one person-one vote, multiparty system with a constitutional monarch. However, profound differences existed between the Nepali Congress and the communist parties about economic policy, for example the former favored a free market system whereas the latter favored radical land reforms. For other activists, the notion of democracy implied an end to poverty and royal corruption, and the safeguard of human rights (interviews, Kathmandu, 1992). Led by the N C - U L F coalition, the movement also saw the active participation of many facets of civil society including trades unions, community organizations (for example, the Informal Sector Service Center), professional organizations (of doctors, lawyers, teachers, and journalists), artists, student organizations (particularly the All Nepal National Free Students Union affiliated to the ULF, and the Nepal Students Organization affiliated to the NC), and human rights groups (particularly, Human Rights Organization of Nepal and Forum for Protection of Human Rights, FOPHUR). These groups set up action committees in liaison with the political parties and conducted various forms of resistance. An underground steering committee was established to coordinate the movement, because the government had begun to arrest party leaders, particularly from the NC. The movement's demands focused on the dismantling of the panchayat system, the restoration of parliamentary democracy, and the reduction of the king's powers to those of a constitutional monarch. The MRD was expressly nonviolent in character, as demanded by the NC-ULF alliance. There were several reasons: (1) armed struggle was seen as having no mass base among the population; (2) armed struggle was expected to incur extreme government repression as in the past; and (3) it was believed that a commitment to nonviolence would be likely to elicit international support and sympathy for the movement's demands (interviews, Kathmandu, Patan, 1992), reflecting the movement's self-location within a global as well as local and national context. Terrains of resistance: space and power contested in Kathmandu and Patan During the revolution outbreaks of resistance were widespread throughout Nepal. Demonstrations were conducted in the urban centers of Pokhara, Biratnagar, and Janakpur as well as other towns in the Terai region of the country. Despite difficulties of communication, demonstrations and strikes also took place in rural Nepal (see figure 1). For example, demonstrations were held in Nagarkot and Jasnatpur and strike action was taken in Jumla district in Western Nepal (FOPHUR, 1990a). According to some activists, increased peasant mobilizations in rural Nepal during the latter stages of the revolution added momentum to the resistance (interviews, Kathmandu, 1992). However, movement leaders agreed that the principal terrains of resistance against the panchayat regime were located within the Kathmandu Valley, and particularly in the capital city of Kathmandu, and the surrounding towns of Patan, Kirtipur, and Bhaktapur. The urban spaces of the Kathmandu Valley became both the sites of the contestation of power (between the king's panchayat regime and its opponents), and the terrains within which physical space itself was contested.
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Within these urban spaces, Kathmandu and Patan saw the most concentrated and sustained resistance, and in this paper I will focus primarily upon these sites of conflict. This is not to deny, however, the important contribution made to the MRD by resistances in Bhaktapur and Kirtipur.
Figure 1. Physiographic regions and sites of struggle in Nepal (source: Dutt and Geib, 1987). The spatial mediation of movement agency We can convert the palace into a deserted grave We will knock the cruel system down and end all black laws in smoke (from "Volcano of Revolution" by Ramesh) Factors of location and locale help explain why Kathmandu (and, as I shall explain later, Patan) became the focus of the resistance, the sense of place of the inhabitants of Kathmandu and Patan crucially informed movement practice—the spatial tactics of the urban habitat. Kathmandu's location as the capital of Nepal, the home of the king (and hence the center of royal power), and the locus of political, administrative, and economic power made it an appropriate site for the contestation of such power by the MRD: the potential impact of the movement would be greatest if directed at the heart of power. This was further facilitated by the improved communications that existed within the city, and the valley; the fact that communications outside the valley were difficult^, and the dense concentration of population that existed within the city (400000) and the valley (800 000). These factors facilitated mass mobilizations within the urban areas which were not possible elsewhere in the country. Kathmandu was also the location of the principal organizing headquarters for the main opposition political parties (excluding the Labor (9) There is only one major road out of the Kathmandu Valley. Although this impeded communications outside the valley, it did enable the movement to blockade the road out of the city successfully to disrupt the flow of goods and supplies to and from Kathmandu (interview, Kathmandu, 1992).
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and Peasant's Organization which was located in Hhnktapur), and for the student organizations which were involved in the movement.*10* The surrounding rtiral villages of the valley, were at times used as shelters for movement activists, because the rugged terrain and dispersed location of the shelters impeded detection by the authorities (interview, Kathmandtu 1992). With regard to the social relations of the locale, the Kathmandu Valley (and especially the urban centers of Kathmandu, Patau, Bhaktapur, and Kirtipur) is the traditional home of the Newars. As Levy (1990) notes, after the Gorkhali conquest of the Kathmandu Valley in the late 18th century, the Newars ceased to be the people of Nepal with their own kings. Instead they were only one of approximately seventy linguistic and ethnic groups in the enlarged territory of Nepal and a conquered one at that, ruled by a Gorkhali king (pages 14-15, 47-52). Although some Newars held positions of power in both the Rana oligarchy and the subsequent royal regimes, there was widespread discontent among the Newar community at what they perceived as discrimination and repression by the predominantly nonNewar government, and a non-Ncwar king (interviews, Kathmandu, Patan, 1990, 1992). By focusing the movement in the valley the movement was able to mobilize popular frustration and anger against the regime. The urban structure of both Kathmandu and Patan also facilitated insurrection. Neither urban area was too large to diffuse rebellion, and neither city had been subjected to the exigencies of Haussmanncsquc counterinsurgent planning. However, the existence of a few wide streets enabled mass demonstrations to assemble. Meanwhile, the narrow streets of both cities facilitated clandestine movement activities. Last, the urban population was in close proximity to the authorities, the royal palace located just outside the old city, making mobilizations against those authorities more effective (see Hobsbawm, 1973). The withdrawal of consent
To contest power, the MRD adopted a variety of nonviolent sanctions, ranging from intervention and noncooperation to protest and persuasion. The strategic use of sanctions was premised upon the withdrawal of popular consent and cooperation from the panchayat regime in an attempt to secure movement demands. In the use of many of these sanctions, the movement articulated specific cultural expressions of resistance. Several countrywide strikes {bandhs) were called. These strikes were notable because of the participation of a wide cross-section of Nepal's civil society. Notable absences in the movement were rural landlords, and the panchas (village, town, and district administrators) whose power and privilege were dependent upon the system that was challenged by the MRD. Although the bandhs were most effective in the urban areas (where mass mobilizations were possible), they also took place in rural areas, as previously mentioned. An estimated 50000-60000 teachers and 30000-40000 workers were involved in the strikes (interview, Kathmandu, 1992). Numerous demonstrations were conducted within the urban areas, particularly Kathmandu, Patan, and Bhaktapur, with slogans calling for the end to the panchayat regime and a return to democracy. During the demonstrations, student groups initiated corner demonstrations whereby small groups of students would assemble at a strategic location within the city, shouting antigovernment slogans, burning effigies of the king, and distributing movement literature; then disperse if the police arrived and reassemble at another location. Often many of these corner demonstrations (io) Tribhuvan University campus is located approximately 6 km from the center of Kathmandu, outside Kirtipur.
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would be held simultaneously at various locations so as to stretch police capabilities of deployment. Various diversionary tactics were employed by activists [for example, running through the streets with mashals (burning torches)] to draw police attention away from movement meeting sites. During several of these demonstrations conflicts would occur between demonstrators and the police. Deviating from the nonviolent discipline of the movement, some activists battled against the police with rocks and street stones, which were met by the lathis (wooden nightsticks), tear gas, and bullets of authority. In Kathmandu residents would keep their house doors open to shelter activists if police attacked a demonstration. When police fired tear gas into the crowds, residents would throw water from their rooftops to dampen the tear gas. The public contestation of space inscribed upon Kathmandu a mosaic of signs which spoke of the ferment in its streets: broken windows of government offices and shops; burned-out skeletons of government buses; torn-up street stones, used in battles with the police, lay strewn across streets and sidewalks; prodemocracy and political party slogans began to appear on the walls of the city and its temples. More importantly than this, the urban landscapes of Kathmandu and Patan (and, indeed, Kirtipur and Bhaktapur) were consciously transformed by MRD activists into a tool of their struggle, into a terrain of resistance. The movement gathers momentum in darkness
One of the most potent expressions of resistance enacted during the revolution, and one that provided the catalyst for increased public participation in the movement was the blackout protest. The movement organized a series of these protests, whereby all of the households in the city (of Kathmandu and Patan) were asked to turn out all of their lights as a symbol of dissatisfaction and resistance against the government. These protests were often called during the evening curfews that were imposed by the government in an attempt to quell the movement. Although the blackouts were called by the movement leadership, the communication of the action was conducted by city residents. Residents passed the message of the action from rooftop to rooftop across Kathmandu.(11) In doing so, they drew upon and utilized various spatiocultural practices. Traditional Newar houses within the city consist of only three, four, or five stories. The upper story opens out onto a porch (kaisi) which is used for various rituals. One of these—the flying of kites during the Mohani festival as a message to the deities to bring the monsoons to an e n d involves symbolic communication (Levy, 1990, pages 188, 748f). The porches are also used for more secular activities such as the drying of clothes and talking with neighbors. By informing their neighbors of the blackout protests from their rooftop porches, residents utilized a cultural space that was already important for both community and symbolic communication. The space was transformed into a tool, and a place, of resistance. This was facilitated by the propinquity and low elevation of the city dwellings, and the fact that they were out of the purview of government forces. Once on the streets, people set fire to car tires to act as temporary barricades across the narrow streets, and pitched battles between armed riot police and stone-throwing demonstrators ensued, the incendiary of protest lighting up the darkened city. The blackouts served simultaneously as a tactic of visibility and disappearance for the movement. First, they symbolically communicated popular resistance to the (11)
According to some student activists, houses that did not turn off their lights were marked as enemy houses: their windows were broken and threats were made that the houses would be burned if they did not extinguish their lights the next time (interviews, Kathmandu, 1992).
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government; second, they enabled city residents to grasp the extent of popular support for the MRD and acted as a morale booster to the movement; and, third, they enabled increasing numbers of people to show solidarity to the movement and to challenge the curfew and join demonstrations under cover of darkness without fear of being arrested. As an activist noted, "the movement gathered momentum in darkness" (interview, Kathmandu, 1992), for it was also during a blackout protest that the barricading of Patan took place, In the face of power, a liberated space The most dramatic contestion of power and space occurred when the town of Patan, 2 km from Kathmandu, was defended against incursion by government forces for a period of one week during the revolution. Patan, a Newar and communist stronghold, also served as the base of operations for the movement's underground leadership during the duration of the MRD. Interestingly, the residents of Kirtipur also attempted to liberate their town, after burning down the police station and erecting barricades. Their attempt neither lasted as long nor had the psychological impact upon the movement of the Patan Uprising (interviews, Kathmandu, 1992). The movement consciously used the urban topography of Patan to accommodate the exigencies of underground activism, and converted the landscape into a terrain of resistance. Within Newar towns, community relations are focused around villagelike spatial segments of the town called tmv, which represent important loci of personal and household identification. They constitute the realms of interpersonal community beyond the extended family (Levy, 1990). Usually a two: will be centered around a spacious square at the center of a matrix of narrow winding streets and bazaars. These squares arc usually paved and used for various agricultural and commercial purposes, as well as serving the immediate communities as a focal point where the inhabitants of that particular community meet. The numerous squares within Patan were used by the MRD as meeting places for the discussion and planning of movement strategies, In this way, the uses and meanings of these sites were transformed from places where the local communities would meet, to places where movement activists would organize resistance. Being interlinked within a labyrinthine web of streets, the squares afforded a protected space out of the purview of the government. The narrow streets of the town prevented any mass deployment of government forces or the deployment of armed vehicles, while aiding the escape of activists from the police. The interconnected network of backstreets that traversed the town enabled activists to avoid the main streets, and to move unhindered from one end of Patan to the other, and from Patan to Kathmandu without detection. Throughout the revolution, the movement was able consciously to utilize the spatiocultural configuration of the urban to break government curfews, and maintain communications between movement members in Patan and Kathmandu concerning actions, and conduct meetings. Indeed, this use of urban space enabled the underground leadership of the MRD to remain uncaptured during the entire uprising.(12) This use and transformation of the urban formed part of a conscious spatial strategy of resistance. Following student attacks on the local panchayat office and district court (on 30 March), and subsequent police shootings and ransacking of private homes, the residents of Patan organized a blackout protest. Under cover of darkness, the seven tools, and sticks) and did not want to incur unnecessary bloodshed; (2) it did not want to delegitimtee its predominantly nonviolent character; and (3) it wanted to avoid a direct confrontation with the army, The strategy of the movement was to challenge the panchayat system rather than the army or the king directly (the army being under the king's control rather than the control of the panchayat) (interviews, Patan, 1992). Despite the government intervention in Patan the town continued to act as the base of underground operations of the movement. In contrast to Kathmandu, Patan possessed several characteristics that contributed to its use as a movement base: (1) the town had a history of communist activity and was, at the time of the MRD, a stronghold of communist support*14*; (2) unlike the mixed (migrant) ethnicities of Kalthmandu's population, Patan had a homogenous Ncwar population, which was easier to organize (especially given the strength of the communists and the Ncwari resentment against the government) and more difficult for government agents to infiltrate; (3) unlike Kathmandu, Patan was neither the center of government nor the place where government coercion was most concentrated (interviews, Patan, 1992). Given the aforementioned spatial advantages, and its close proximity to the capital, Patan proved to be a strategically vital component of the resistance. The Patan Uprising itself provided the movement with inspiration and encouragement, "the barricades set the public imagination alight1* (interview, Kathmandu, 1992). Civil society and the cultural contestation of power In the mobilization of the different facets of civil society, the MRD articulated various cultural expressions of resistance. In Nepal the color black represents disagreement and disapproval. The color was used by the movement as a potent visual and symbolic expression of resistance. The movement held a black day during which demonstrators wore black armbands and displayed black flags as a sign of protest against the government. Writers, poets, artists, and musicians wore black gags over their mouths to symbolize the restrictions on free expression under the regime. The blackout protests mentioned earlier also evoked this cultural expression of dissatisfaction. The movement used traditional folk songs (Jhyaura) to communicate political propaganda. Popular, traditional song forms were retained, while the words of the songs were changed to articulate the causes and demands of the resistance. The use of songs to convey the movements message was particularly important in rural areas where illiteracy is widespread. The movement also made use of 'voice dramas' as vehicles for political satire. Recorded in activists' homes, these satires were recorded onto cassettes and then distributed throughout the urban centers of Nepal. Poems were also used to articulate the goals of the movement and the injustices experienced by the majority of Nepalis under the panchayat regime for, To express such feeling To write a poem is also a new war (from "A New War" by Arun Prakas Mishra; translated by Totraman Gurung) (14) According to Patan activists, the town had a history of peasant movement revolts, particularly against the right-wing Gorkha Parishad during the 1950s (interviews, Patan, 1992). During the Patan Uprising, two communist groups were particularly active in the town: the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) (Unity Center), a coalition of the CPN 4th Congress and CPN Mashal; and the CPN (Marxist-Leninist), now the CPN (United Marxist-Leninist) (interview, Patan, 1992).
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Some of the poems evoked images from Nepal's physical environment as symbols of social commentary and drew upon traditional Hindu texts to provide a folkloric and religious precedent to the movement. For example, in the following poem, Sashee evokes the image of the Himalayas to articulate the enormity of the problems faced by Nepalis, There are two Himalayas in this country One is the Himalaya of snow The other a Himalaya of poverty and human suffering and also evokes an episode from the Mahabharata (where the hero Arjuna fights a victorious war against his enemies) to compare the mythological struggle between good and evil with the movement's resistance to the government. We know that there will be war Arjuna will be the victor (from "Where is the Country" by Basu Sashee; translated by Totraman Gurung) Consciously evoking religious symbolism, the movement distributed photocopies dialogues from the Hindu epics, the Mahabharata and the Ramayana, that were being shown on Nepali television at the time. In these popular historicomythical dramas, the right livelihood and duty of the king were articulated. Within Hinduism, a fundamental concept within society is that of dharama, the moral code of proper conduct. As Robert Lingat notes: "The perculiar dharma of the king is the protection of his subjects ... the destiny of the king depends on the way in which he has been able to protect his subjects" (quoted in Levy, 1990, page 342). Activists distributed printed dialogues from the Hindu epics to show how King Birendra's actions (for example, ordering the armed repression of peaceful demonstrators) were not in keeping with the king's historical duty to protect his subjects.(15) Last, the contestation of public space by the movement also included the construction of photographic displays in the public squares. These depicted the victims of police torture and killings, in addition to political prisoners and activists who had disappeared. Political graffiti about human rights, political prisoners, and movement propaganda was inscribed upon the walls of temples. The MRD also saw the involvement of women in demonstrations, support work, and other activist roles. Women were involved within the various action committees, reflecting their occupations as teachers, nurses, lecturers, and students. One woman, Sahana Pradhan, chaired the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) (United Marxist-Leninist), and was a prominent leader of the movement. According to her, the movement provided women with the opportunity to assert their identity and to empower themselves through their involvement, although issues such as gender inequality were not addressed (interview, Kathmandu, 1992). As stated earlier, the improvement of communications technology aided the movement in its struggle. The movement (particularly human rights and student groups) made use of a well-developed underground press as a vector of dissent, to disseminate information about movement activities and the government's human rights abuses. Photocopying machines were used to print daily action reports, in Nepali and English, that were circulated both inside and outside Nepal. Also inside Nepal (particularly the Kathmandu Valley) telephones and couriers carrying verbal messages were used. The availability of fax technology enabled the movement to communicate events to six international sites (including the United States, Germany, Australia, and Switzerland) and keep the world watching, reflecting the conscious location of (15)
Lest the reader should underestimate the cultural power of these epics see Routledge (1993) on how images and symbols from these stories are evoked by contemporary Indian social movements in struggles against the government.
Urhrtn terrains of resistance in Nepal
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movement action within global (as well as local and national) space. As a result of this, the movement was able to elicit international support from US, German, and Swiss aid agencies, who threatened to withdraw aid to the Nepali government if the repression of the movement continued. The movement also gained access to the FM airwaves, enabling them to eavesdrop on the police and security forces. Hence during actions they could ascertain when the police were sending reinforcements and thus disperse before the police arrived, Whenever, through such eavesdropping, activists learned of certain phone numbers that were being used by the government, they would phone in and attempt to jam the phone lines of the government (interviews, Kathmandu, Patan, 1992), The reflex of power? from coercion to compromise The government's response to the movement was predominantly coercive, ranging from arrests and detention to torture and police shootings of activists. The government predominantly used armed riot police during the course of the conflict, although the army was mobilized in the later stages of civil unrest, Massive deployments of police and security forces were made in Kathmandu and police observation posts were erected throughout the city. During the height of the movement, curfews were imposed by the government (extending up to twenty-two hours in length). These attempts by the state to impose its power upon the urban space and population of Kathmandu were challenged directly by the movement, against a backdrop of burning tires, street barricades, and confrontational demonstrations. During the course of the conflict, the offices of human rights groups were ransacked; a solidarity group meeting of various professional groups at Tribhuvan University was surrounded by police and all of the participants arrested; and eyewitness reports spoke of police throwing students from the windows of campus buildings to their deaths (interviews, Kathmandu, 1990). During several confrontations between demonstrators and police in and around Durbar Square, I saw police fire indiscriminately into the crowds,(t6) and throughout the revolution, reports of police shootings in Kathmandu, Bhaktapur, Patan, Kirtipur, and elsewhere in Nepal were widespread (FOPHUR, 1990b). During a countrywide bandh called by the movement on 6 April 200 000 people held a nonviolent demonstration against the king outside the royal palace in Kathmandu. However, after police attacked the crowd with lathis, some of the demonstrators responded by throwing bricks at the police. The security forces pumped tear gas into the crowds and then, as demonstrators broke shop windows and defaced King Mahendra's statue, the security forces opened fire on the crowd, killing at least fifty people(17) and injuring hundreds of others in what became known as the 'Massacre of Kathmandu'
