Manjushree is the daughter
of a high-ranking Nepali official who served in various capacities under three
Nepali kings (Mahendra, Birendra, and Gyanendra). Much of her own higher
education was abroad, and she has split much of her recent time between Nepal,
India, Canada and the United States. She is one of the generation of younger
Nepali elite who has seen Nepal from inside and outside, growing up in an
almost ethereal third-space. Her writings—fiction, opinion pieces, literary reportage—are
not only vibrant and engaging but resound with and give voice to much of how
those of her generation have experienced Nepal. As an adult third-culture kid
(ATCK) from Nepal, I count myself among those.
One of her more
recent works is a collection of her opinion pieces written and published in
various newspapers, journals, or magazines from 2003 to 2010. This work can be
seen as a follow-up to probably her best-known non-fiction work Forget Kathmandu: Eulogy for Democracy (2005),
which traces the history of Nepal. These opinion pieces follow the events
leading out of Nepal’s Maoist insurgency: ending the war in 2006, deposing the
240-year-old monarchy, the drawn-out process of electing a Constituent Assembly
to draft a new constitution, the Maoists moving from a geurilla force to the
elected leading political party in Nepal, the integration/non-integration of
the PLA (People’s Liberation Army) into the Nepal Army; and the roles of
foreign aid, the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), and (begrudged)
big-brother India in the (non-existent?) peace process. In these pieces, she not
only touches on what democracy, republicanism, and ethnic federalization, mean
for Nepal, but weaves or unravels her own thoughts, reactions, and personal
actions during these unfolding events.
While these pieces themselves
are well written, the book itself transparent in its construction. The
introduction provides a chronological overview of the events in which these
pieces were written. Each piece then is bookmarked with a summary
of the context in which in was written, and the date and publication in
which it was originally published. The result is a well-framed a
commentary on the overarching Nepali political situation, grounded in distinct
personalities and events. The collection ends with a piece recounting and
reflecting on Manjushree’s visit to the Narayanhiti Palace Museum—the former
residence of Nepal’s monarch, turned into a museum upon their deposition. This
piece serves to reorient the events in the book back on her and her family’s
experiences. While Manjushree in no way sets up herself or her family as
representative of how other Nepalis have internalized these events, it provides
the reader with a picture of how these events have affected a Nepali family.
Two essays that I
found particularly applicable to my own situation as a foreigner in Nepal were
“Educating the Influential Foreigner” and “Some Home Truths for the Donors.” Her
biggest critique is that these influential foreigners, be they diplomats,
donors, or aid workers, do not inform themselves about Nepal’s complex history
and current cultural and political situation. Most of their information comes
from “cocktail-hour chatter [rather] than…in-depth study” (pg. 79). She quotes
one aid industry consultant who described this situation as the development
sector in Nepal having “no historical memory” (pg. 80). That bodes bad when the
majority of Nepal’s GNP comes from foreign aid (with family remittances in
close running). Manjushree shows that this lack of historical memory causes
diplomats and aid workers to misread where the majority of Nepalis stand, and
end up on the wrong side of political situations. For example, the
international community in Nepal had much of its weight thrown behind the
monarchy—Manjushree described them as “cooperating with a repressive absolute
monarchy, helping to uphold it against the interests of peace and democracy in
Nepal” (pg. 84)—and were shocked to realize that the majority of Nepalis
thought differently when that monarchy was deposed. Manjushree’s solution to
this lack is for “influential foreigners here to read, read, read—and not just
newspapers [the English-language ones read like bad gossip columns--TD]. Actual
books. And if there aren’t enough good books around, then support the
intellectual ferment gathering force today: invest in new scholarship” (pg.
81). She also indirectly tells donors to get out of Kathmandu and see for
themselves how things are in other parts of Nepal, rather than just hob-nobbing
with the Nepalese elite in Kathmandu. Manjushree herself has traveled widely in
Nepal. Many of the pieces included in this collection are from visits she made
out West, and she has another collection of writings commenting on development
in the Mustang region of Nepal, entitled Mustang
Bhot in Fragments.
A foreign friend
recommended Manjushree Thapa’s work to me when I asked for something to read
during my stay in Nepal in 2010. Manjushree quickly became one of my favorite
commentators on Nepal. There is a growing number of good scholarly works on
Nepal, but I find Manjushree’s candid and considerate observations and
opinions, not veiled or overwhelmed by anthropological theory, to be
refreshing. They both confirm and challenge my own thoughts on where Nepal is
going as a country, and what role I, as a foreigner, should or should not have
in these developments.
