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Thanks, everyone, for your heartfelt comments.
I sense that there's a lot of anger here against:
(a) civil society leaders such as D R Pandey et al.
(b) relative silence in KTM when village brahmins/village traders/village elites were being attacked or mistreated by extortionists.
(c) the way Nepal was declared secular "through the back door", and so on and on.
Because of a,b,c above, I sense that there's this sympathy-laced "Khucching", from some of our friends. That's fine. Thank you for your thoughts.
As for Himal's supposed (mis)coverage of issues, please do write letters to editor and do set the record straight whenever possible. Himal is NOT infallible. It is put out by human beings afte all. And, since I myself fundamentally believe in the separation between the editorial and the management sides of a media house, I, for one, have nothing to do with the editorial content, though I can surely share your grievances with the editor.
As for the kamaiyas, well, most have done much better; some have not -- like free people everywhere. To be fair, the verdict on the freed kamaiya is mixed, and my involvement was focused on their complete freedom of debt-bondage, and NOTon the ongoing, multi-year rahab work. Still, my sources tell me that all ex-kamaiyas are now FREE (though are poor) citizens of Nepal.
But wasn't that the mantra?
We'd rather be free and poor than be in debt-bondage and poor?
Justifying the practice of indentured servitude as an economically efficient social arrangement in public is a pedantically logical but a morally bankrupt position.
Even Robert Fogel, the economics Nobelist --- whose two-volume book "Time on a Cross" argued that agriculture done by slaves in the southern US was "efficient" than agriculture done by non-slaves -- was careful to separate normative considerations (i.e. Fogel opposed slavery) from positive ones (i.e. but Fogel showed that slavery made the efficient deployment of agricuture labour possible.)
More later, thanks again for your thought.
oohi
ashu