Road: Many things to lose than to gain... #dolpo
Before few months back, I got a chance to interact with one of my brothers who came back from Dolpo. He was especially jubilant over the fact that he succeeded to assist in a village level budget preparation which also finalized a budget for the construction of a road connecting his remote and marginalized village, one of many villages within Dolpo. It was over two hours of discussion and in this I will try to summarize how we interacted the development during the conversation.
The ongoing road construction in Dolpo connecting especially Dho and Tingyu VDCs (the present Dolpo Buddha Rural Municipality. Photo copyright belongs to: Phurwa Tashi Dolpo (Dralung Futado)
There are several points to reconsider in his interaction. Basically, he argued that with road construction connecting many still to be connected villages within Dolpo will allow many villagers of Dolpo to get many goods cheaply. Till date, he believed that many Dolpo faced a lot of difficulties in that regard.
During this discussion, my main concern was on education and health and whether he try to do anything in that regard? Did he ask the municipality chairperson to separate the budget for the damaged school in that village? Did he try to discuss the issue of increasing health problems faced by locals and what kind of programs the municipality budget could offer or assist in to improve that situation? To my dismay, he confirmed that he did not really get into those issues. Obviously, it is always hard to discuss those issues especially when the district such as Dolpa itself is now more concern with the road development than anything else. Road in every villages was one of the main 'populist' agendas for the politicians of Dolpa who won in the parliamentary and provincial assembly elections. Marginalization and dehumanization of the remote community and the lack of formal education to critically understand the theoretical and practical aspects of road development and how many indigenous communities have become more vulnerable with the road construction only helps those demagogues to sell those ideas cheaply.
My agreement and disagreement with my brother revolved around the later argument considering Dolpo's rich natural resources and how that could be further exploited with the ongoing road construction. I tried to convey him that it would have been lot better if he could have at-least try to weaken those marginalization aspects by talking more on the subject of education and health issues of that particular village and why we need to work in that direction at-least for another two to three decades and how that could eventually at-least help us to critically understand the road construction and properly negotiate with the heterogeneous state. Especially when the informal education including indigenous knowledge is somewhat failing to counter such capitalist oriented developmental ideas and practices, and also made invisible by the state and its political agencies, I shared that the present road construction will not benefit the larger people of Dolpo still facing many socio-cultural, economic and political challenges. Though it might benefit few household elites within Dolpo, it will largely only benefit many contractors from lower Dolpa and other markets of Mustang and Dolpa. For instance, how one Dolpo can benefit from the road construction when many indigenous locals are excluded from the planning phase of the road construction? Many are still unaware about the ongoing road construction. The discourses including discussions in Nepal is heavily conducted in non-Dolpo language, i.e. Nepali language. How Dolpo will benefit especially when our local knowledge and economy is neglected by the state? How Dolpo will benefit when there are not really anyone in the higher level of state mechanism to properly listen and address our silenced voices and struggles? How Dolpo will benefit when many of our village leaders have become a mere puppets to many non-Dolpo politicians? How Dolpo will benefit when we do not have even a single contractor to compete with those non-Dolpo contractor? How Dolpo will benefit when we vote these non-Dolpo leaders only because they helped some of us to get an easy ticket ride from Jhuphal to Kathmandu? Finally, how Dolpo will benefit when the state has a lot-lot-lot to do to improve the state of education and health issues?
I do not really know how our conversation really ended but... Dolpo has many things to lose then to be and remain victorious in this uphill battle of road development at-least at this point of time...
Let's hope that we would soon realize and act beyond this sense of false consciousness...
There are several points to reconsider in his interaction. Basically, he argued that with road construction connecting many still to be connected villages within Dolpo will allow many villagers of Dolpo to get many goods cheaply. Till date, he believed that many Dolpo faced a lot of difficulties in that regard.
During this discussion, my main concern was on education and health and whether he try to do anything in that regard? Did he ask the municipality chairperson to separate the budget for the damaged school in that village? Did he try to discuss the issue of increasing health problems faced by locals and what kind of programs the municipality budget could offer or assist in to improve that situation? To my dismay, he confirmed that he did not really get into those issues. Obviously, it is always hard to discuss those issues especially when the district such as Dolpa itself is now more concern with the road development than anything else. Road in every villages was one of the main 'populist' agendas for the politicians of Dolpa who won in the parliamentary and provincial assembly elections. Marginalization and dehumanization of the remote community and the lack of formal education to critically understand the theoretical and practical aspects of road development and how many indigenous communities have become more vulnerable with the road construction only helps those demagogues to sell those ideas cheaply.
My agreement and disagreement with my brother revolved around the later argument considering Dolpo's rich natural resources and how that could be further exploited with the ongoing road construction. I tried to convey him that it would have been lot better if he could have at-least try to weaken those marginalization aspects by talking more on the subject of education and health issues of that particular village and why we need to work in that direction at-least for another two to three decades and how that could eventually at-least help us to critically understand the road construction and properly negotiate with the heterogeneous state. Especially when the informal education including indigenous knowledge is somewhat failing to counter such capitalist oriented developmental ideas and practices, and also made invisible by the state and its political agencies, I shared that the present road construction will not benefit the larger people of Dolpo still facing many socio-cultural, economic and political challenges. Though it might benefit few household elites within Dolpo, it will largely only benefit many contractors from lower Dolpa and other markets of Mustang and Dolpa. For instance, how one Dolpo can benefit from the road construction when many indigenous locals are excluded from the planning phase of the road construction? Many are still unaware about the ongoing road construction. The discourses including discussions in Nepal is heavily conducted in non-Dolpo language, i.e. Nepali language. How Dolpo will benefit especially when our local knowledge and economy is neglected by the state? How Dolpo will benefit when there are not really anyone in the higher level of state mechanism to properly listen and address our silenced voices and struggles? How Dolpo will benefit when many of our village leaders have become a mere puppets to many non-Dolpo politicians? How Dolpo will benefit when we do not have even a single contractor to compete with those non-Dolpo contractor? How Dolpo will benefit when we vote these non-Dolpo leaders only because they helped some of us to get an easy ticket ride from Jhuphal to Kathmandu? Finally, how Dolpo will benefit when the state has a lot-lot-lot to do to improve the state of education and health issues?
I do not really know how our conversation really ended but... Dolpo has many things to lose then to be and remain victorious in this uphill battle of road development at-least at this point of time...
Let's hope that we would soon realize and act beyond this sense of false consciousness...
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