ANTA Expansion Hurdles

Ratan Jha and I discussed the three issues I raised. We had a long phone conversation. I thank him for his time: he is a family man. (Time To Reorganize The ANTA Perhaps)

And he told me about his visit to Nepal, about his interaction with Upendra Mahato ("I am not rich, I am very rich.") and his meetings with Hridayesh Tripathy, Bharat Bimal Yadav, Girija Koirala, Madhav Nepal and others.

1. Mental slavery. This is truly the number one issue. Some of the Madhesis are more Pahadi than the Pahadis. Some of the fiercest critics of the Sadbhavana are Madhesi, not that ANTA is a Sadbhavana thing, it is a social, cultural outfit. It is about creating a social network, once in a while getting together for some nasta pani. Education and wealth do not seem to cure the Madhesis of the mental slavery. It is a political disease and asks for political cures. ANTA should have been expanding like a forest fire, over email and the phone. But the expansion has been quite slow. This is a problem. Madhesis have been refusing to come out of the closet. They carry the mental inertia from Nepal.
   
2. The caste equation. Madhesis who are raising this issue fall in category (1). This is a grassroots thing. Form your city chapters. And then during the convention in summer, there will be elections. Aspiring Madhesis from all caste backgrounds are welcome to contest for the central leadership posts. Heck, if there are people from divergent castes really eager to hold central leadership positions now, they should go public with that desire. Maybe space can be created for them now. But if you are not aspiring like that, and only sitting back and complaining, you are only exhibiting your mental slavery, and contributing to Madhesi disunity. There are several Madhesis who put in a lot of work into the Pahadi organizations in the US, and at the end of the day go unrecognized. It is almost like you are invisible to the Pahadis in those organizations. Get out of that zone of disrespect. Dissociate if you have to. Make some noise. ANTA is the vehicle to make some noise productively.
   
3. The ANTA has been registered as a non-profit, a non-political organization. The organization can not give out political funds. But individual members of the ANTA are more than eager to contribute to the democracy movement in Nepal is all ways they can, not just with money.
   

The fourth reason might be Madhesis are few and far between. 50% of the Nepalis are Madhesi, but Madhesis are less than 5% of the police department in the country. Similary I think less than 5% of the Nepalis in the US are Madhesi. And most Madhesis define their social realities through their immediate Pahadi circles, in most cases compromising by suppressing their Madhesi identity. Because, let's face it, these Pahadis, when they create their mini Nepals in the US also try to recreate their anti-Terai prejudices in many cases. As long as you are not assertive, and ignore an occasional "m" word, and ignore getting ignored, looks like things are okay, but they are not. Putting up with it is highly unnecessary. Respect yourself, speak up.

You don't assert your Madhesi identity as a favor to other Madhesis, or as a favor to ANTA, or as a favor to the Madhesis back in Nepal. You do it for your self-esteem, for your own emotional health. You are a Madhesi if you are a Madhesi, sorry but there seems to be no way out.

Me, I am hard core Sadbhavana. I am a no democracy without federalism person. But that's me.

ANTA is a social, cultural organization. It is about social networking. I encourage all Madhesis in the US to become part of it and set up chapters in all US cities. In all states. Often all it takes is you set up mailing lists, and help the central leaders compile a large mailing list of all Madhesis you know. And once in a while you get together for refreshments. That is all, piece of cake.

Dear Paramendraji:

Thanks for your comments about re-organization of ANTA. Let me answer some of your comments:

1. When we started ANTA, we didn't think along "caste-line". We approached people from Terai whom we met at different Nepali Conventions. Like, Jay and Naveen at ANA, Denver; Mukesh and Parmod Kanth at ANMA, Columbus. Jay later proposed Mrs. Deo's name whom he had met at NASeA, Atlanta. These people also have played some sort of leadership role in existing Nepali organizations. Given the challenge with forming a Regional organization - that too in the background of your Comment No. 1, I thought people with such backgrounds would be conducive to start with.

Personally, I didn't know for sure which caste Pramodji or Mukeshji or Annapurna ji were. If we differentiate people based on caste, we won't be any different from the "Pahadis", and what they're doing to us. We need active and dedicated volunteers/leaders who can galvanize Madhesi mass under one umbrella - ANTA. In the interest of an unified and dignified Teraian community in North America, I sincerely urge all of you not to bring the trivial issue of "upper caste/lower caste". We are already a minority here in America - we don't want any further division in ourselves. Please.

2. So far as ANTA supporting the democratic cause is concerned, we are already doing that through NAC (Nepalese Americas Council) - which is a Coordinating Body for some 24 Nepali organizations in North America - ANTA being the newest member of NAC. I think it is more effective approach than going solo. On behalf of ANTA, I just endorsed a petition by NAC president condemning recent attack on Kantipur FM.

ANTA, being a non-profit and non-political organization, can not get involved with directly contributing moniest to the 7-parties in Nepal. As you may know, only PAC (Political Action Committees) can raise money for political activities. Personally, I am always ready to support this kind of movement.

I'll call you to discuss further.

With warm regards,

Ratan Jha

President - ANTA.

Paramendra Ji,

We all admire your hard work and we are very proud of you. With respect to Re-Org. of ANTA we do need to bring people from all walk of life from Terai. I totally agree at the same time I also agree with the Ratan that we should not do anything which can divide limited people from Terai here in North-America.

We have been approaching several people to join ANTA executive committee. Hopefully, very soon we will be expanding and workign together.

All of us are very committed to work with everyone to advance the agenda and mission of ANTA. In my opinion despite of his busy schedule Ratan is giving lot of time to ANTA. I am personally, very grateful to him for his great leadership. Within eight months of its inception Ratan has took ANTA to the national and International level. I saw him personally how much time he spend in Nepal to talk about ANTA. We cannot have a great leader like him who has real passion to do something for people of Terai. Therefore, I personally request all of you to support Ratan.

I really admire your support to us and assure that we will work with you very closely to achieve our goal.

Once again thanks so much for everything you are doing for Teari in particular and Nepal in general.

With Best Regards to all of you,

Mukesh Singh

Time To Reorganize The ANTA Perhaps

I had a rather long conversation with Lalit Jha last night. We talked at length about his trip to Nepal. He described the militarization in the country, the fear and apathy among the people, the remittance economy, the wealth and squalor in Kathmandu, and the NRN conference where Paras was the chief guest and officials talked like the absolute monarchy is here to stay.

One thing that came up was as to why the ANTA has not been expanding faster. Three major thoughts came up:

1. Madhesis in the US still have the cobweb of mental slavery around them. To join ANTA is akin to coming out of the closet.
   
2. The central leadership are overwhelmingly high caste. That has turned a lot of people off. Last names of the central leaders are: Jha, Singh, Mandal, Kantha, Dutta, Deo, and Jha.
   
3. The ANTA so far has remained neutral on the democracy movement in Nepal. That has to change, because if it does not, I myself am going to distance myself from the organization.
   

I think these issues have to be tackled. The first step has to be to reorganize the central leadership along a 30-70 formula, as in not more than 30% should be high caste. Then the ANTA has to commit itself to the democratic cause. And a massive membership drive has to be carried about. Then we can tackle (1).