The banda season is here, to stay

The banda season is here and it is likely to stay until the country crosses the May 28 threshold.

With the deadline of the Constituent Assembly drawing to a close, political parties and their sister organisations—particularly the identity groups—will get increasingly assertive in pushing their political agenda, and some of them will no doubt resort to bandas.

We witnessed one early this month, and a Nefin banda is slated for Friday.

Since January, Nepal has witnessed over 98 bandas in different parts of Nepal, according to Nepalbandh.com, a website that keeps track of bandas nationwide.

This trend will inconvenience people—students, hospital visitors and those who eke out a living from daily wages. It will also hurt the economy—from small businesses to big houses—and industrial output.   If FNCCI’s estimation is anything to go by, a day of banda costs the country a whopping Rs 100 million.

The Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (Nefin) has planned a banda on Friday, demanding a preliminary draft of the constitution before May 28, according to Raj Kumar Lekhi, the president of the janajati group.

Lekhi admits that banda causes inconvenience to the people, but insists that “without extreme form of protest, our voices won’t be heard.”

Senior vice-president of the FNCCI Bhaskar Rajkarnikar is critical of banda as a form of agitation. “Will banda accelerate the constitution drafting process? Even a single day of banda will have an unimaginable long-term effect on the economy.”

The tourism sector will be another victim. This year was supposed to be a no-banda year in view of the Nepal Tourism Year-2011. The government dream of bringing one million tourists to the country this year.

The political parties have reneged on their promise to not organise any form of banda or protests in the NTY 2011. More than 22 political parties had signed a commitment letter saying they would not organise strikes or any form of protest that would directly affect the NTY. Chhetri Samaj Nepal is organising Valley-centric programmes that includes

May 21-22 banda.

NTY Secretariat concern over banda

KATHMANDU: The Nepal Tourism Year-2011 Secretariat has expressed serious concern over banda called by Nepal Federation of Indigenous Nationalities (Nefin) on Friday. The secretariat on Thursday wrote to Nefin saying that the banda will send a negative message to the international community and affect tourism. It appealed to Nefin to withdraw the strike.

Int’l community concerned

 The international community on Thursday said that though it respects the right of organisations to express their opinions through any form of democratic and non-violent protest, bandas use the “threat of violence to restrict freedom of movement and people’s rights to normal life.” A statement issued jointly by the British Embassy and the Embassies of the US, Germany, Australia, Denmark, Switzerland and the delegation of the European Union to Nepal on Thursday said, “Strikes cannot be approved of or supported by the international community.”

The statement comes a day after the UK’s DFID decided to discontinue funding for Nefin. Nefin on Thursday wrote to the DFID calling its decision “childish”.  The janajati group said Friday’s banda call was based on the democratic and fundamental rights ensured by the interim constitution of Nepal.