Jay Mandal's Questions

I have never met Jay Mandal in person. But his has been the first big city chapter of the ANTA, in Chicago. On December 21, he emailed some of us a whole batch of questions.

My interaction with the Pahadis in the Nepali diaspora has brought me face to face again with how fundamental this issue is to my identity. My Madhesi identity is a huge part of who I am, and that is to be a lifetime reality. The Madhesi-Pahadi dynamic also speaks to me at other levels. Race is the number one reality in my life. My thoughts on politics, business and technology emanate from that. The Madhesi dynamic helps me think through the race dynamic. That is also why I like to learn of gender issues. They help me better understand issues in race.

It is not like there is a group called Pahadis, and there is another group called Madhesis, and the Pahadis dislike the Madhesis. It is more like there is something called the Madhesi identity, and both Pahadis and Madhesis dislike that identity. How else to explain the self-hate among the Madhesis?

I think that also applies to issues in race and gender.

The only other group that are like Madhesis I know of are women on the planet. They have the numbers, but they don't have the power. And I think it is harder for women to make progress because men are so interwoven into all aspects of their lives.

ANTA is not militant enough, not political enough for me. That is why I have so far refused to hold any official title within it.

Coming to Jay's questions.

Hello Binay and Ritesh,

Congratulation to NY Chapter whole team on doing a great job. Please let me know if you need anything from me.

I am currently working on plans to develop the process and ways of the support from ANTA can do to all the chapters.

Please let me Newyork's Chapter ideas and views and plan about creating methodological process to build the system of chapter creation and support for the Chapters. The whole ideas is to create the system sothat people can run the chapter and ANTA can support the chapter in a such a way that it will function smoothly.

I would appreciate if you could give some input from the New York Team like following questions.

1) How many chapters we want to open in AMERICA?
2) How many positions we want to create on the local chapter?
3) How many members will need to form a Chapter?
4) How are we going to divide the logistically all the chapters sothat member can be served well?
5) What kind of activities want to do in local chapter to be in touch?
6) How are we going to put the all the chapters links to ANTA web site sothat people can all the information?
7) As we know our member from Terai community are very, how are we going to contact with the new comers and how we can add value to them so that they also can be part of the network?
8) How many people will be in the local chapater level executive committee? etc....

These questions are just some thoughts. ANTA is still a toddler. We need to build the organisational in a such a way that it has a system and it will run for the coming future without much problems.

It is a just like say that Wall mart is opening store in certain to location to serve the customers in that particular area. We got to figure out regional wise how are going to serve madhesi in that area.

I believe that Chapters main role will be to facilitates the ANTA's purpose and goals and serve the members in that area through it chapters. Motto will something like ANTA.. "ACT and SERVE Locally..be nationally in North America" These are also some ideas I am throwing you guys,

Thanks again for doing great job. At this stage I am trying to gather every one's view. After getting every body's ideas.. I will compile everyone ideas and forward to all for discussion to executive committee. After that according to our set criteria we will open all other chapters in different part of the country.

I look forward to here from you.

br

Jay M

I think we should make use of our website, Terai.org. That is our office, our only office. For a group as geographically dispersed as we are, that is it. And it should also grow to become a resource site for the Madhesis back in Nepal.

We want to open as many chapters all over the US as possible. It does not have to be just in the big cities. If there are two Madhesis in some small little town, they should launch a chapter.

It is for each chapter to decide how many officers they will have. Some might have just the president, some might have president, vice president, secretary and treasurer, some might have more. The process should be decentralized. ANTA is not a top-bottom organization, it is bottom-up.

If a local chapter meets once every two months for tea, that is good enough. It is for each chapter to decide how much more they want to do.

The website should have an inside zone for members.

Next step: lay a strong claim to the Desi identity. Personally I hope to build a strong, pan American Desi Caucus. But that ties in with Dean 2008 for me.

Madhesi-Pahadi Disparity In NYC

Sunday evening there was a Madhesi get together at Dr. Binod Shah's place. It is up north, outside the city boundaries, so I refer to it as Upstate. It can be called a Janakpur get together. Everyone was from the greater Janakpur region. Including his family members about 10 people were in attendance. Binodji is like the Bhishma Pitamah of the Madhesis in town. This was my first time at his place, first time seeing his wife and two children. His wife is from Darbhanga where I was born.

I drove a group from Brooklyn up there and back. This is the most driving I have done since I have been in the city. There is that feel to getting onto the entry ramp and changing lanes. The semis on the road looked so big. How do people drive such things?

It was a long, flowing, loud conversation. Many people and topics were discussed. There were four doctors in the room, two engineers, and one Other, me. Two of the doctors were new arrivals. They were going through their round of job interviews.

One topic that really got me was the numbers game and how it plays out for Madhesis. Being a Madhesi in the Nepali community in the city can feel like being in the army or the police in Nepal: there are few and far between.

Half the people in Nepal are Madhesi. But hardly 1% of the Nepali population in NYC is Madhesi, "and I know all of them," as Dr. Binod likes to say. Coming to America/NYC is a socioeconomic achievement. It is like getting a government job in Nepal. What accounts for that disparity? This discussion is important because it is important for the Madhesis in America to feel they really are not that better off than the Madhesis in Nepal, politically speaking. The numbers game disparity is still there.

How do people come to America? Student visas, DV lottery, business visas, cultural exchange visas, as athletes, to attend conferences. The student visa thing has been mostly a Kathmandu thing. And that tends to be a Pahadi thing. Few Madhesis attend the top Kathmandu schools, and those few pay a heavy emotional price. Pahadis have a near total domination of the cultural, athletic, journalistic realms. They are the big Kathmandu business types. Even with the Diversity Visa lottery thing, you have to have personal contacts in the US before you can cash a lottery you might have won. And that heavily favors the Pahadis.

Dr. Binay Shah, president of the NYC chapter of ANTA, mentioned there are 50 Madhesis he knows of in Nepal who have won DV lotteries but are lingering back because they so far do not have local sponsors in the US. Perhaps that is a project right there for ANTA. Maybe set up a two room lodge in Jackson Heights. Keep a revolving door. People stay while getting set up, and then they make back payments once they stand ground.

Last night I also met up with Ritesh Chaudhary, vice president of the NYC ANTA, and Divita Mehta, the militant Madhesi on Wall Street. Divita looked the happiest in months. She is quick on her feet. She was in the middle of making some suave moves at work. She bought me a Malaysian dinner, and the to-go part also came my way. When she talks of Madhesi issues, there is this freshness she provides because she has been in the US since when she was 13. She is not one of those Madhesis who have been numbed down because they saw it all so often, it all became part of the backdrop. Besides, she is more a New Yorker than a Madhesi, I think. But then, those are not two separate identities. That is the beauty of this city.

Ritesh made this analogy during our walk to the meeting place, a Chinatown Malaysian restaurant, that the hurdle in front of the Madhesis is this mountain of snow. Got to raise the temperature, and the snow will simply melt away. As in most of the work cut out for the Madhesis truly is among the Madhesis. Got to build the pride, got to fight the self-hate, got to unite, got to raise voice. We have got to talk up our experiences as Madhesis. There is no escaping the Madhesi identity, so you might as well wear it with pride. And why postpone the political work? You just end up giving homework to the next generation. That would be lazy.

The get-together was on the first day of the local transit strike. I saw so many people walking. The rest of NYC is catching up with me. My internet access has also been down the past few days. It has felt like the first few days of rehab.

The day before I also revised my Proposed Constitution with the idea that democracy does not automatically lead to social justice.

1. The Pratinidhi Sabha will have reserved seats for the four groups, Dalit, Madhesi, Janajati and Mahila, 10%, 20%, 10%, and 25% with some overlaps. So the half of the seats for women will cut across that of these four groups as well. For example, of the 10% seats for Dalits, 25% of them will have to be women. And the 10% for Dalits will be half in the Terai, but that is not to cut into the Madhesi reserved seats. 10, 20, 15 and 25 are half the supposed shares of the populations of these groups, to be revised each census. The reservation for a group is discontinued once its share in the Pratinidhi Sabha hits 80% of its share in the national population. When identifying the seats for the Dalit, Madhesi and Janajati, the Election Commission will seek constituencies where the groups have their largest share of populations. No three contiguous seats may be reserved seats.
   
2. Other than the specified groups, the Muslims will get 2%. The Newars will get one seat in the Kathmandu valley.

The conversation is on.

Poor ANTA Website

It is pretty, but it is not interactive. And that is greatly impeding a rapid expansion of the organization. Some suggestions.

• Himanshu Shekhar of MoneyToNepal.com is super busy as a person, if not people like him could get together and whip up a site like that of SEBS. Or we could just make those features available some other, better ways, simply by signing up for web services that are already available for free and take a few minutes to sign up for.
  
• We should accept payments over PayPal for membership.
  
• We should encourage members to sign up at Friedster and link to each other.
  
• We should adopt the Progressive Nepal Google group as our discussion board. SEBS has its General Forum.
  
• Upload Terai photos at Flickr.
  

These are just some ideas. If you would like to add to them, please do so in the comments section.