Soaked in sweat in the scorching heat, the 24-year-old student was vigorously sloganeering against the 601 CA members who even at the end of their second term in office are failing to draft a constitution after Nepal became a republic in 2006. [break]
“If we, the youth, aren’t going to do anything now, who is going to do it?” he asked as he marched along with some 2,500 participants, mostly youth, on Saturday.
Saturday’s march called for the timely drafting of the constitution.
And it was the social networking site, Facebook, which actually provided a springboard for the youth to organize a mass rally in support of the constitution.
Since the past two weeks, groups like Nepal Unites and Come on Youth Stand Up have been actively engaged in making youth a part of the conversation, to make them understand the issue and importance of a timely constitution and peace process.
Umesh Ghimire, the founder of the event page, Come on Youth Stand Up, who garnered the support of more than 9,000 people through Facebook, said the main reason for creating the page was to network with ‘strangers’ striving for a common goal.
“Our main aim is to pressurize our CA members,” said the 26-year-old MBA student, adding, “We’ll continue to do so until they focus and actively engage in accomplishing the task of writing the constitution.”
As the May 28 deadline set for announcing a new constitution inches closer, the urban youth came up with their pressure campaign directed at the CA members.
Their modus operandi included encircling the CA building, chanting slogans, and lashing out at CA members for their inefficiency. Amid their synchronized slogans, the crowd burst out singing patriotic songs and also the national anthem followed by applause and cheers.
Joining hands with the youth were people from all walks of life, from politics to business, media and glamour.
While Rameshwor Prasad Khanal, former finance secretary, said he offers his full support for the youth movement, Anil Shah, chief executive officer of Mega Bank, said the rally is a step toward starting a conversation away from living rooms and dinner parties.
“I see this as a meeting of minds to vent frustration,” he said, adding, “A lot of youth here are very frustrated; there’s a lot of negativity. So the challenge of the organizers is to use events like this to change that negativity into positivity.”
The organizers shared the same concern.
Stuti Basnyet, one of the architects of the Facebook group Nepal Unites, shared that the events like these are “an effort to send the message, especially to the large youth population, that all of us are equally responsible for what’s happening in the country, not just the politicians.”
“It’s a call for all of us to collectively start speaking up, send the message, and demand accountability and truthfulness from our politicians,” she said, adding, “enough is enough.”
Another young participant, Shikshya Khatiwada, who also discovered the event through Facebook and believes in the movement, shared, “It’s high time we proactively engage in the country’s affairs.”
“It basically means I want to stop hating my country,” she said, as she walked holding one side of the Nepali flag along with her friends in the apolitical parade.
“Every time I come back [to Nepal] I get frustrated because nothing’s getting done. At this point, I’m ready to say, ‘I’m not going to sit and do nothing’.”
The idea behind Saturday’s campaign clicked when enthusiastic youth came together on Facebook, thanks to the power of social networking, which was used recently in countries like Tunisia and Egypt.
Jeevan Raj Sharma, researcher at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University, in an undated interview, pointed out that social networking and the Web, if moderated well, have the potential power to create changes or make an impact on society.
“If there’s a space that helps them to saturate on issues, and if there’s a space for them to come together, that will be some sort of a complete action, a long-term, concrete activism,” Sharma said.
And at Baneshwor, this activism was truly reflected in the crowd as they marched for their fundamental rights-constitution. The participants walked, talked and chanted for a common cause.
As the voices of the participants echoed, the campaign was a clarion call to action on a vitally important issue, constitution, for the country’s future, progress, and development that those at the helm of affairs can no longer ignore.
As Shah puts in, “They must meet the May 28 deadline. Constitution is not the rules of the game; it is a determination of which game we’re going to play.”
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