[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 152 (Wednesday, September 12, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6135-S6136]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
REMEMBERING SUVASH DARNAL
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I have spoken before about Suvash Darnal,
an extraordinary Nepalese Dalit activist who was tragically killed in a
traffic accident in Virginia on August 15, 2011.
Mr. Darnal was only 31 years old when he died, but he had already
made more of his life than many people who live to be twice or three
times his age. He grew up impoverished, with nothing to look forward
to. In large measure because of the adversity he experienced and his
inherent thirst for knowledge, he became a passionate advocate for his
people at home and around the world. As I have said before, his
integrity, his humility, his vision, and his dedication live on as an
inspiring example of why caste discrimination has no place in the 21st
century, in Nepal or anywhere else.
From 2008 to 2009, Mr. Darnal was a fellow at the National Endowment
for Democracy. Carl Gershman, President of NED, was among Mr. Darnal's
admirers and has helped to convey the lessons of Mr. Darnal's life to a
wider audience.
I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Gershman's account of recent events
in Kathmandu in remembrance of Suvash Darnal be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the kathmandupost]
(By Carl Gershman)
Aug. 28, 2018.--I visited Nepal recently to attend two days
of memorial events held in honour of Suvash Darnal, an
activist for Dalit rights who perished in a terrible car
accident in Washington in 2011. I first met Darnal a decade
ago when he was a Reagan-Fascell Democracy Fellow at the
National Endowment for Democracy (NED), the organisation that
I head. 1 found him to be an unusually gifted democracy
activist. He had a marvellously engaging personality, and he
impressed many people in Washington as a sophisticated
analyst of Nepal at a time when the country was just coming
out of a civil war. He was also an ardent and effective
spokesman against caste discrimination.
Darnal had the ability to make the Dalit issue come alive
for Americans, partly by
[[Page S6136]]
drawing parallels with America's own history of slavery and
racial discrimination. There are obviously great differences
between the US and Nepal, as well as between racial and caste
discrimination. But experiences have a way of travelling
across borders and cultures in our globalised world, and in
his public presentation as a NED fellow on discrimination
against Dalits, Darnal called for a programme of `affirmative
action', an idea that was developed in the US after the civil
rights movement to highlight the need for proactive measures
to address the deeply rooted problem of racial inequality.
One of the attributes that made Darnal such an effective
activist was that he understood the importance of
organisation and the need for institutions of civil society
capable of taking collective action. When he was only 20
years old, he took the lead in creating the Jagaran Media
Centre which was both the largest Dalit media outlet in South
Asia and an advocacy group fighting to eliminate caste-based
discrimination.
When king Gyanendra took power in 2001 and shut down
Nepal's nascent democracy, he helped found the Collective
Campaign for Peace, a coalition of 43 non-governmental
organisations that became the secretariat for the civic
movement fighting for the restoration of democracy. And when
he returned from his fellowship at NED, during which he had
thought deeply about the need to change the pure-impure
dichotomy of the caste-based culture and system in Nepal, he
created the Samata Foundation to bridge the gap between
politics and caste.
What has impressed me about the Dalit movement in Nepal is
that it did not succumb to discouragement by Darnal's tragic
death, but has found a way to build upon his legacy of
struggle and organisation. The programme of remembrance on
August 14-15 consisted of three major events--a conference at
Tribhuvan University at which five young Dalit scholars and
practitioners presented papers on different dimensions of the
continuing struggle against caste discrimination; an evening
forum where four prominent international scholars placed the
Dalit issue in a global context; and a concluding award
ceremony at Kathmandu's City Hall attended by 500 people at
which frontline Dalit activists were recognised for their
efforts to carry forward Darnal's vision of social justice.
These events took place at a time of deep anxiety among
Dalits over the rise of nationalism in Nepal that has led the
Left Alliance government to dismiss demands for minority
rights and the inclusion of marginalised groups as
inconsistent with the need for national unity. This problem
was addressed by a paper delivered at the Tribhuvan
University conference by Amar BK, a PhD candidate at the
University of Pittsburgh in the US, who wrote that despite
the hopes for an end to untouchability engendered by the
adoption in 2007 of a progressive interim constitution, the
recent rise of Hindu religious nationalism has caused an
anti-Dalit backlash. Other conference papers highlighted the
persistence of exclusion and discrimination in the judiciary
in Nepal and the need to refute `dominant narratives' against
affirmative action, such as that the policy undermines
meritocracy.
Despite the current backsliding on the Dalit issue, I was
heartened that the movement is pressing ahead at every level.
In Parliament, Dalit Members of Parliament are preparing
shadow bills on the critical issues of land reform,
employment, housing, health care, education and the defence
of political rights and freedom of assembly and association.
At the state level, the Samata Foundation is developing a
leadership academy to train new Dalit members of Provincial
Assemblies. Training and protection are also being provided
to the thousands of Dalits who have been elected to positions
on local councils but who are being blocked by old-line
forces from carrying out their responsibilities. And, of
course, there are continuing efforts to address the critical
long-term need for youth education and capacity-building.
What especially impressed me was the invariably positive
and hopeful attitude that the Dalit activists take to the
challenges they face, despite the legacy of harsh
discrimination and a bloody civil war. At the Tribhuvan
University conference, for example, grassroots activist Sona
Khatik movingly described the terrible injustices she had
suffered, yet said that she had decided early on to take her
revenge by doing good deeds, not by using violence. Darnal's
widow Sarita Pariyar also took the path of nonviolence by
invoking the memory of Dr Martin Luther King when she spoke
about ending the scourge of caste humiliation.
This positive attitude exemplified the spirit of Suvash
Darnal, who always rejected the politics of grievance and
victimisation. He never appealed to people's sense of guilt
over the injustices done to Dalits, nor did he ever ask for
sympathy, let alone pity. Rather than put people off with
rancour and righteous anger, he preferred to draw them in
with humour, warmth and wit. He always took the high road and
appealed to common ideals of social justice and shared
humanity. The Dalit movement is building upon what Suvash
accomplished, and is using his example as a model and
inspiration. If they succeed, they will make Nepal a stronger
and more successful country, and will give inspiration to
others around the world who are responding to new threats to
democracy at a very troubled time in world history.
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