What follows is an article bt Pratyoush (with references to Gopal Siwakoti Chintan) Needless to say, Nepal's ideologically partisan human rights community, which does NOT like Chintan's asking uncomfortable questions, did NOT condemn those physical attacks against Chintan at the time. ****** ?Chintan?, IT and growing intolerance (Jan 2001) By Pratyoush Onta It is the month of Magh now. It means that the marriage season is going full swing. One mahamela, of the Nepali Congress, is over but another one - on information technology - has just begun. Between expensive marriage parties in Kathmandu, the NC meet in Pokhara and the IT tamasha, there is no dearth of analyses regarding what is ailing our country and what the medications are to make ourselves rich and ?developed." It happens to me every marriage season. Relatives and friends who I do not get to meet that often but who know that I live a life dedicated to the mind take pleasure in lecturing me about how "talking and writing will not take us anywhere!" Last Saturday, for instance, when 20 fellow graduates met in Kathmandu to celebrate the marriage of one member of the St. Xavier?s class of 1981, two of my school friends told me point blank that generating conditions that would enable us to do better analyses of our present situation - my long-standing project in life - is futile. "What we need," they continued, "is a benevolent dictator". I have heard this before. However I continue to be amazed by the consensus on this subject between Panchayati ideologues such as Dirgha Raj Prasai, supposedly liberal Green Party member Maitalal Gurung (who emphasized this point in a radio interview with me in 1999) and my car equipped friends who live comfortable middle-class lives! The desire to grow under the benevolence of a dictator is an indicator of the authoritarian streak that is pervasive amidst members of the comfortable classes in Nepal. Hence it is no surprise that there is so much impatience with reasoned talk, informed arguments and the need to build intermediary networks and institutions that would actually democratize our society. This is precisely why my relatives and friends provide me unsolicited advice on how a life dedicated to the mind is not very useful. It is also the reason why the likes of lawyer-activist Gopal Sivakoti ?Chintan? get beaten up. Whatever might be his faults, personal and professional, Chintan has done a lot to raise issues regarding the right of all Nepalis to live with dignity. He has been a pioneer in the right to information movement. He has forced various big players - our governments, our corporate bosses, our donor maliks including the World Bank - to seriously consider issues related to distributive justice regarding the benefits of development projects. He has helped to form networks of numerous activists who want their voices to be counted in the national and international arenas where decisions affecting them are routinely made. As a teacher of law and legal practitioner, he has contributed significantly to the movement of public interest litigation in Nepal. Through all of his activities, he has tried to give the culture of open and reasoned discussions a firm foundation in our otherwise closed society. Of late, he has forced the debate that it is not the job of NGOs to deliver bikas. A one-time left-party worker himself, he has openly criticized the Maoists for their murderous ways. Perhaps more than anybody else I know, Gopal Sivakoti ?Chintan? has continuously shown a mirror to those who have claimed to lead Nepali society and forced them to see their ugly selves in it. That is precisely why he has earned the wrath of so many people in our country. For years, members of the media have routinely published unsubstantiated charges against him. The Police once fabricated a false case against him and locked him up for a few days. And just some days ago, unknown assailants attacked him, causing severe bodily harm. Had it not been for the timely intervention of passer-bys, Chintan would have perhaps been killed. The attack on the likes of Chintan is unfortunate and it must be condemned in the strongest terms possible. However the incident also shows that precise analyses and network building - hallmark of Chintan?s portfolio of activities - done to provide a life of human dignity to all Nepalis do matter. It matters at a time when tolerance toward dissenting views is increasingly being dealt with in the safaaya model by the Maoists, violence against Nepali Madhesis is being justified in terms of vacuous nationalism of Panchayati vintage, and individual greed has overtaken the majority of the comfortable classes of Nepal. And this brings me to the last argument of this essay. In all the hype about the CAN Info jatra, I am yet to hear one well-argued case about the links between information technology and the institutionalization of democracy in Nepal. IT-enabled services, e-commerce, exporting software worth so many billion rupees a year - we have heard these mantras for some time now. We have even been told about e-governance! But where is the IT-talk that would increase the diversity (in class, ethnicity, and gender terms) of those who have access to instruments of information technology in Nepal? Through the work of cyberactivists elsewhere in South Asia, it is now clear that the one-machine, one-account, one-user model (the dominant model in the US) cannot work in our part of the world. Low infrastructure density, relatively very high hardware expenses, and expensive connectivity suggest that IT discussion in our country must be geared toward promoting one-machine, one-account but many users type of models. This requires the innovation of courageous individuals and intermediary institutions. Is there a single Gopal Sivakoti Chintan amongst Nepali IT activists? If so let us hear from him or her regarding how IT can be used to increase justice and human dignity in Nepal. And please do not give us e-cliches! http://www.nepalnews.com.np/contents/englishdaily/ktmpost/2001/jan/jan26/editorial.htm