Campaigners representing the movement hitting the streets and excesses of the state during those demonstrations used to fuel further the movement for those ideals.
In the initial phase of such protests, political parties used to be conspicuously absent. Why? Because of their own doing, mostly. Because they had, after winning over the forces of the yore after a tough fight, with widespread support from the public, had themselves become the figures they used to detest. Like the faces of the old regime, they too had become, more or less, tyrants donning the garb of democracy and grown corrupt, bothered only about petty interests of their kith and kin at the expense of the larger public. Naturally, they would prefer to wait and watch. Apparently, they would want to join the movement only after finding that the movement of the ‘civic society’, a motley group of liberal-minded people representing various walks of life, had gained significant strength. After Nepal’s switch to a federal secular, republican order, those campaigners from the civic movement appeared to have lost steam. Perhaps the campaigners thought their mission was accomplished. Or they thought that milk and honey had started flowing in the country. But a rude awakening seems to have come to them after police excesses against the victims of loan sharks, who were demanding justice from the state. On Tuesday, a group under the Wider Citizens’ Movement hit the streets, staging a march pass from Shanti Vatika to the Parliament Building in Baneshwar. Issuing a press release, the movement has drawn the attention of the government toward the plight of the victims and the atrocities committed against them. Is this pointing toward the revival of the civic movement? It will be too early to tell.
