The Play of Gender Roles in Sheeba Shah’s Facing My Phantoms

Setting the novel in different time-periods (Rana regime, Panchayat System and Maoist movement), Sheeba Shah’s Facing my Phantoms has depicted the condition of Nepali males and is considered a historical document. This article aims to examine the factors that constrain the male characters to traditional and anti-traditional gender roles. It also studies the consequences faced by the characters while performing and defying gender stereotypes. To address this objective, Butler’s and Connell’s ideas have been used as they have claimed that masculinity and femininity like any other human attributes are fluid; in fact, it is constantly reconstructed in response to socio-political changes under the pressure of social norms. According to Butler, gender is something that is not a corporeal thing, but it is reproducing, changing, and moving. The significance of this article is to find insights in understanding the condition of males in the Nepali society. It concludes that the male characters of Shah’s novel oscillate between traditional and anti-traditional gender roles. Under the social pressure, they perform the roles of an assertive and authoritative father, aggressive and ruthless lover/husband, and rational and responsible son. Likewise, when they get influenced by socio-political changes, they fail to stick to stereotypical gender roles. Consequently, they appear in the emotional, docile, dependent, confused, and unassertive roles.

People’s Movement under a Revolutionary Brand: Understanding The Maoist Movement in Odisha

A dominant narrative understands the Maoist movement in Odisha as a spillover effect from the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh. On the contrary, the Maoist movement in Odisha can be well understood through the resistance movements led by the communists, tribals, peasants and the labourers. Along with these movements, the Maoists in Odisha have evolved through many forms and shades. While the Maoist movement in Odisha, in its present form, claims to have brought together multiple people’s movements under its brand fold, many of these movements continue to be functioning without any link with the Maoists. Despite their independence in nature, these people’s movements are mostly engaged with and understood through the prism of the Maoists. The process of linking the people’s movements with the Maoists converts the ‘social’ aspects of the issues, grievances and demands to ‘security’ centric. Drawing from such understandings of the people’s movements and their interactions with the Maoists, the article critically engages with the Maoist movement in Odisha. A major objective of the article is to identify issues and contenders around people’s movements and the process through which they interact with the Maoists.

Assessing the impact of the Agriculture Perspective Plan (1995 to 2015): The maoist insurgency on rural lives in Nepal and reflections on the current Agricultural Development Strategy

The fifteen years between 2053 and 2072 in the Nepalese calendar (approximately 1996 to 2015 in the Gregorian calendar) were potentially dramatic for rural development in Nepal. A twenty year market oriented, Asian Development Bank funded and technically assisted, national Agriculture Perspective Plan (APP) was in the early stage of implementation and a Maoist movement was about to launch an armed struggle in rural area that would become a national civil war lasting ten years. The APP had envisioned agriculture intensification for agriculture based economic growth adequate to generate employment to combat poverty in Nepal. The comparison of two Nepal Living Standards Surveys (NLSS) results from 1995/96 and 2010/11 suggests that agricultural production has not changed substantially in the topographically advantaged west rural plains (terai) areas, where the Maoist insurgency had relatively small direct influence. Overall, the Nepalese economy appears to be both moving away from agriculture (share of non-farm income rising from 15% to almost 40%) and feminising (women headed households in the rural western terai rising from under 9% to over 24%). However, over fifteen years there have been significant changes in the livelihood patterns of different caste/ethnic/religious groups. This paper deals with identified five different types of changed behaviour to show the range of responses and links are made to misrecognised key elements in political economy of Nepal, the Maoist insurgency and the Nepal State conflict.

Nepal: From Constitutional Monarchy to a Republican State (1990-2008)

The peoples’ movement of 1990 was a great landmark in the history of modern Nepal for it ended the three-decades of the old dictatorial rule of the king and established a parliamentary system with the king as a nominal head of state. But unfortunately, the country could not form a good government because of inter and intra-party conflicts. To add fuel to the flame, the rise of the Maoist movement and the royal massacre put the country in a state of confusion and uncertainty. The new king tried to revive dictatorial rule once again by suppressing the political parties and the Maoists. But his attempts failed, and the 19-day movement in 2006 re-established peoples’ sovereignty in the country. The first meeting of the elected constituent assembly in 2008 formally ended monarchy and declared Nepal a republic. But the first constituent assembly ended its four–year term without drafting a constitution. The second constituent assembly has pledged to promulgate a democratic constitution by January 2015, but all indications are that that the country is unlikely to get a constitution in time.

Pod rękę z Pol Potem. Komunistyczna Partia Robotników wobec Czerwonych Khmerów 1975–1981

The aim of this article is to examine relations between the Norwegian Workers’ Communist Party and Pol Pot’s Democratic Kampuchea between 1975 and 1981. The Norwegian Maoist movement held a deeply positive view of the Khmer Rouge regime, which resulted in its sending a delegation to Phnom Penh in September 1978. In the article I will analyze how they interpreted the regime, focusing on delegates’ memoirs and debates after the fall of the Khmer Rouge government.