Young politicians frustrated with Nepali deadlock (News Feature)

By Pratibha Tuladhar Nov 12, 2010, 8:08 GMT

Kathmandu - Regmi Regmi, 25, struggles to lift her 10-month-old baby out of the cradle. Her prosthetic leg makes it hard for her to move without difficulty.

Regmi, whose alias was Yojana when she was a member of the Maoist People's Liberation Army, lost her left leg in fighting in 2004.

The insurgency lasted from 1996 to 2006, killing over 16,600 people.

Her husband Praksh Rijal, a platoon commander, was killed during the battle of Khara a year later.

'It was only 17 days after his death that I was informed,' says Regmi. A photograph of her late husband kneeling behind a machine gun in combat, his chest draped with belts of ammunition, hangs on the wall.

Regmi could not return to the battlefield due to her injury. When the Maoists signed a peace deal with the government in 2006, ending the decade-long insurgency, she joined a Maoist newspaper in Kathmandu, where she met her second husband, Dhurba Adhikari, 30, also a former combatant.

Adhikari was moved to Kathmandu at the end of the war following a brief stay at the Chitwan camp for former rebels and employed at the spokesman's office at Maoist party headquarters.

'There's hardly any work for anyone to do now,' says Adhikari. 'It's only the top leaders who seem have the right to do the thinking.'

He sounds resentful as he explains how the hardships of war have become pointless because of the lack of political change.

'This is not what we dreamed of in the movement,' says his wife. 'We joined the war with the dream of a different Nepal.'

Nepal is mired in political limbo as parliament has made 16 failed attempts to pick a new premier. The country has been under caretaker government since prime minister Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned under Maoist pressure in June.

On Wednesday, the country's highest court ordered parliament to end the 'meaningless election' and find an alternative way to form a new government. The lawmakers responded with silence.

The political deadlock has also affected the economic state of an already poor nation, hurting the health and education sectors as much as administrative and development work. The budget is due to run out next week,

'The major parties are busy warring over the budget,' says Pratima Gautam, general secretary of the youth wing of the Nepali Congress party, the second largest in the parliament.

'We're a nation that came out of a civil war and so many people have had to pay a price for the sake of peace,' says Gautam, who was active in the 2006 movement that brought down the monarchy.

'But it has not been meaningful, because our leaders are focused on the politics of gaining power.'

Talks between the politicians to form a new government have been inconclusive.

'The leaders have to forge an understanding so that the nation is not hostage to such political crisis,' says Rabindra Adhikari, former general secretary of Youth Federation Nepal. It is aligned to the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninists, the third biggest party.

'We've struggled for years so that democracy can be institutionalized,' says Adhikari. 'But we're faced with confusion and disappointment at how our politics is going.'

Dhurba Adhikari and Regmi, the former Maoist fighters, live in a rented apartment on the outskirts of Kathmandu. Some of their neighbours are fellow former combatants, who decided to leave the camps for civilian life. The decision about what to do with the combatants was taking too long due to wrangling between the Maoists and government.

Over 19,000 Maoist combatants live under United Nations supervision in seven camps, awaiting rehabilitation. How to deal with them is on the back burner due to bickering over who is to lead the government.

'We believed the war meant change,' says Regmi.

'Just because I have a TV set now does not mean our lives are better,' her husband says.

'What has throwing off the monarchy achieved for the people?' he asks. 'It might have affected a handful, but for the people, nothing has changed.'

His wife finishes feeding her baby, and props herself on her good leg to put the baby back into the cradle. 'I don't want my daughter to get involved in politics,' Regmi says. 'I want her to become a doctor and heal people.'

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