October 4, 2007 Update
60% of Nepal’s population is under the age of thirty—an incredibly young population, as it is in much of Southeast Asia. In principal, that aught to be a huge asset for Nepal. So far, it is not. It remains an asset untapped and, in many cases, intentionally ignored by the elite congregation of old men who wield real power. Nepal’s Prime Minister is in his mid-eighties, too frail to attend many state functions, including his own inauguration. Politically, the youth are exploited to do the parties’ work out on the street but, at the end of the day, they are not to be trusted or given any meaningful say in party business. Unlike American society, where a rapidly aging majority is marginalized by youth culture—it’s borderline shameful to grow old in the United States—Nepal is thoroughly patriarchal and the youth are, at best, patronized and, at worst, utterly dismissed.
Discrimination of youth is one of the great underlying reasons for Nepal’s instability. The youth really are the future of Nepal’s political transformation if democracy is to prevail. It is, after all, the youth’s future. But the elders have refused to focus on how to develop the economy, how to nurture, how to create opportunities for the youth in order for them to have a sufficient stake in their nation’s future. The result is a great exodus of youth and, for many of those who remain behind, a crackling interest in joining insurgent groups.
One of the younger generation’s most talented and promising leaders is Gagan Thapa. In terms of Kathmandu’s political powerbase, he is also one of the most underused. He’s intelligent, articulate, brave, open to new ideas and charismatic. Over the years, he has been increasingly effective in organizing rallies and leading protests in favor of democratic reform. Until three years ago, he served as General Secretary of the Nepal Student Union, the youth wing of the Nepali Congress Party, the largest political party in Nepal. Recently, I had an opportunity to sit down with Gagan Thapa and discuss the underlying problems of the younger generation’s lack of representation in Nepali politics. Excerpts from that interview are below.
INTERVIEW WITH GAGAN THAPA
DUNHAM: Why are you currently not holding any official position?
GAGAN THAPA: While General Secretary of the Nepal Student Union, we had some problems with the Nepali Congress leadership. There was a falling out. For the last two-and-a-half years, we have tried several times but it has not been possible to hold a convention of the Student Union. The party sacked all the student leaders from their positions and they nominated a new group of student leaders—a new committee. Since then, the Party has dismissed and nominated and dismissed.
DUNHAM: It sound like the Party leaders are dictating what the Nepal Student Union can and cannot do.
GAGAN THAPA: Yeh, to some extent. In fact, the various student unions that are now functional in Nepal are not independent student unions. They are the official wings, the sister organizations of their corresponding parties. For instance, the Nepal Student Union is the official student union of the Nepali Congress, and All Nepal Nationalist Student Union is the official student union of United Marxist Leninist, so—to some extent, they have been dictated by the party leadership, even though it is written in our constitution that we are independent. We are sympathizers of the Nepali Congress Party, but they are not supposed to dictate. It is written that only general members of the Nepal Student Union can elect their official representatives—who can hold office. And it’s not just the case of the Nepal Student Union. It is almost the case of all the student organizations.
DUNHAM: Do the Maoists have a student union?
GAGAN THAPA: Yes. In their case, the party leadership decides who is going to be the next president of the student union.
DUNHAM: There is no election for office-holders of the Maoist Student Union?
GAGAN THAPA: There is no election.
DUNHAM: OK. I think this is a good way to segue into the marginalization of the youth. Would you care to comment?
GAGAN THAPA: Nepal can be considered a young nation. The majority of the population is below thirty. And within that demographic, we can distinguish three separate groups.
The first group is youth from pretty good families, who have major control over resources and opportunities—families who have access to the good schools—that is, families who can afford quality education for their offspring. And the tendency of these young people is that, once they have finished their schooling, their primary target is to get out of Nepal. They want to go abroad to pursue their higher studies. They are looking for more opportunities. They blame this country’s system. They don’t fit in into this kind of system. 
The second group is youth who can afford to go to public schools, at less cost, and some of them even manage to go to the universities. Their educational background is inferior to the first group. Some of them turn to student politics and become members of the political parties. The young political leaders come from this group. They seek opportunities here, in Nepal and they are the ones who form the basis of all kinds of political movements. If we look at the Maoists and even if we deeply analyze the participation in other political parties, all the young people who are right now in the mainstream politics, they come from this group: Those who can afford to go to the public school system and graduate—at least from grade twelve. They are the ones who seek opportunities here. 
The third group consists of those who don’t have access to the schools and who mostly don’t even know the value of political participation. They lack education and the means for better opportunities. For them, life is about the basic conditions of life. They care more about their shelter, their food and their personal future. They would also like to get out of this country, if they could manage to pay the price. They would go to India or the Middle East, with the dream that they could earn some money and come back here and start a good life. These are their primary concerns.
DUNHAM: What is the percentage of youth in the third category?
GAGAN THAPA: They are the largest group. But it’s changing. Even though, in general terms, Nepal’s economic progress is going backwards, the middle class is also growing. Nepal is changing. If one person in a family can manage to go outside Nepal and work in the Middle East, and earn a small amount of money, they can come back here and start a new life and they can then be considered a member of the middle class. Their children can then afford to go to public schools. So it is changing.
DUNHAM: Does your organization, the Nepal Student Union, to any extent represent the third group?
GAGAN THAPA: All the student organizations claim to represent the third group. But in reality, they don’t represent the third group. The student organizations activities and functions—they are more confined to the universities and the schools. Only those young people who have access to the schools and universities can join the student unions. The problem with this is so obvious: If the student unions are restricted to the premises of the schools and universities—even though they claim to represent all youth—in reality the third group is not represented.
DUNHAM: So the student unions aren’t really addressing the third group’s problems?
GAGAN THAPA: Yeh, I don’t hesitate to admit it. The issues of the third group have never been the primary reason of the student movement here. The students recommend that the university fees should be reduced, the curriculum should be this and that, and the students should get this and that facility—those sorts of things. But they never talked about the youth who don't have access to the schools. The issue of the unemployed, uneducated people has never been the primary reason of the youth movement. In practice, they are just paying lip service.
DUNHAM: Is there a group that represents these people? Do they have a political voice?
GAGAN THAPA: The political parties claim to give them a voice. In some cases, the trade unions that are affiliated with the political parties—they claim to give voices to them. The women’s wings or other wings claim to give voice to the voiceless. But again, if you look from a different perspective, the young people who belong to the third group—let’s not distinguish between the women, Dalits [the so called “untouchables”] or ethic minorities—I mean, they might be young, but if we categorize these people to belonging to the third group, no one is representing their voice.
So, what I believe is that, from the very beginning of the Maoist insurgency, the third group of youth formed the bed of that movement. The Maoists started mobilizing this group—from the disregarded rural pockets that didn’t have access to the schools. It was very easy to motivate them.
Society became more open after 1990: We had democracy, we had free press, we had a free political movement. The political parties made some effort to mobilize the rural and uneducated people, but the third group never got the opportunity to really interact within the political system. And then the Maoists used that vacuum. Even though they weren’t getting access, the third group was getting to hear new ideas and the Maoists took over the vacuum. Now, the Maoists can claim that: “We represent this group of people.” But what I see is that, in practice, they simply used this group to get what they wanted and now they are frustrated with the Maoists as well. This is a large group of people.
DUNHAM: Are there now a lot of splittist groups within the youth—disenchanted with the Maoists and who are now forming their own groups? Has it gotten to that stage yet?
GAGAN THAPA: My point is that the most of the people from this group don’t want to identify themselves with any of the political parties—not even the Maoists.
DUNHAM: They regard themselves has independents?
GAGAN THAPA: Yeh, I think so, and the political equation would depend more on this group if the various parties had succeed in getting their confidence.
The Maoists strongly believe that they will have success if they have the support of this group. But I have traveled to 42 districts in the last six months, and I came away unconvinced that the Maoists had absolute support of this group. They have been claiming this but I didn’t see this when I interacted with these people. And the other parties can’t claim they have this group’s support.
DUNHAM: It’s not very convincing when the party leaders are dictating the choice of youth leaders.
GAGAN THAPA: Yeh.
DUNHAM: The youth are given a very short rope.
GAGAN THAPA: Exactly. In the beginning, it’s easy to sell the dreams, when people are living hand-to-mouth. The Maoists did that at first. And the young people listened. But now it is time for delivery of those promises. You can’t just string along this group of people for an indefinite period: Saying that “we are going to have a new Nepal in the next twenty years or the next thirty years” doesn’t work. They want to have a change in their lifetime. That’s what they are looking for. If it’s easy to initially mobilize and motivate these people, it’s even easier for this group of people to get frustrated. They are tired of hearing the rhetoric that “we will make Nepal this and this.” In particular, they are judging what has happened in the last year since the 19-Day Uprising. They now have a new perspective: What changes in this last year have occurred in my life? Am I now getting better access to quality education? Am I getting better access to quality health service? Is the government going to solve the unemployment problem? They look from this angle. And they get more frustrated.
DUNHAM: Have they become cynical?
GAGAN THAPA: Yeh.
DUNHAM: Because no one has come forward to gain their trust?
GAGAN THAPA: Yeh.
DUNHAM: Let’s talk now about the youth in the Terai. A year ago, I didn’t even know there was a problem down there.
GAGAN THAPA: It wasn’t only you. The political parties here in Kathmandu didn’t think that, at any point in time, there was significant unrest in Terai. At the start of the People’s Movement, I went around eight or nine districts in Terai. I interacted with the young people there, and then I came back here in Kathmandu and I talked with senior leaders of my political party.
DUNHAM: When was this?
GAGAN THAPA: It was just after last April [after the 19-Day Uprising]. So it was July-August of last year. I went to some public programs in Terai. I came back here and I talked to senior leaders in my party and some civil society leaders. And my argument at the time was that, if we fail to understand that Terai is burning, if we fail to realize the psychological state of the youth in Terai, it’s going to burst at any time. I tried to convince them. But none of them listened to me. The youth in Terai were looking at the political problem from a whole different perspective. We—the people from the hilly areas and from the Kathmandu Valley—we thought that the People’s Movement was over. But for many, it was just beginning.
It was different in 1990. In 1990, the political parties thought they owned the movement—not the people. But this time, the people were looking for their identity. They were looking for equal respect, for their culture, their language and all those things. There was a mood that “we will wait for some time.” Now that the regime has changed, it will unfold in a different way. The Madeshi were passive for some time, but when nothing happened, the Madeshi and the Forum--which is leading the movement down in the Terai-- said, “It’s all bullshit!”
And if the Madeshi and Forum hadn’t appeared, it might have come from a different group. If you’ll just analyze the Madesh movement, those who participated and led the movement at the grassroots level were members of different political parties: Congress, UML, Maoists, etc. Even though they didn’t split from their political parties, they were looking for some kind of informal network.
DUNHAM: The clock is ticking. This is the time for the political parties to get it right-- a great opportunity to hear everyone’s voice. If, in the next year or so, the political parties can’t move in the same direction and the youth continue to feel marginalized, what do you think the young people will do?
GAGAN THAPA: The difference between the young people and the senior leaders is that the senior leaders succeeded in sitting down to a round table—they succeeded in looking at each other and saying, “this is a consensus”. But the young leaders moved two steps forward and they sat down and they managed to look forward in the same direction. That is the difference. Time and again, before the April movement, the youth proved that they were more committed, more open and more ready to accept change. In the end, I strongly believe that we will see more space provided for young leaders.
But the young leaders who claim, “I am young,” and think that is enough—that is not going to work any more. They have to assure the people that “we have new ideas and we can work better together than these older lads.” Lip service is not going to work anymore. At this point in time, I cannot even imagine that the worst scenario will happen. Because I still believe that—maybe the leaders could fail—but the people of Nepal are not going to fail. I’ve seen that the youth still have faith in their own abilities. And if the current leaders fail, the youth are prepared to take over.
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