{"id":10117,"date":"2021-07-17T14:50:00","date_gmt":"2021-07-17T09:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/?p=10117"},"modified":"2021-07-17T21:40:22","modified_gmt":"2021-07-17T15:55:22","slug":"pukar-bam-is-coming-to-terms-with-nepali-politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nepallivetoday.com\/2021\/07\/17\/pukar-bam-is-coming-to-terms-with-nepali-politics\/","title":{"rendered":"Pukar Bam is coming to terms with Nepali politics"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Kathmandu<\/strong>: When Pukar Bam came to Kathmandu after finishing his SLC examinations, in 2003, he wanted to become a doctor. Born in Dododhara, Kailali, he was an ace student all through his school, came from a family with doctors, and so wanted to become one himself. But he couldn\u2019t make it through the highly competitive medical entrance exams–an early setback. The setback also came along with a revelation: he realized that he was more interested in society, the lab of politics, instead of medical labs. He decided to join St Xaviers in 2007 to study social work. Life took a detour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Soon he found himself joining and organizing protests, peaceful strikes and counter-strikes. He went on to co-found a political party, stage a hunger-strike, and organize relief-distribution during the pandemic. As an impressionable teenager, he imagined that a swift uprooting of the vanguard of the older, \u201cinept\u201d politicians was possible, he recalls. But real power remains elusive. Nepal is still led by the same \u201cinept\u201d politicos who he so loathed when he was younger. That, however, hasn\u2019t deterred him from his mission. Bam, who is in his mid-30s, is now in active politics as the Secretariat Leader of the Bibeksheel Sajha Party, which is led by the journalist-turned-politician Rabindra Mishra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nepal bandai chha<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

During the 2000s, political parties, their wings and student unions used to frequently resort to street protests. Nepal bandha<\/em>s–nationwide shutdowns–would be called almost every other month. Realizing that the shutdowns would hamper the country\u2019s economy and set back its progress, young activists such as the late Ujwal Thapa and Anil Chitrakar used to lead counter-protests; their protests used to be more peaceful, in contrast to the ones led by mainstream political parties. Bam began to identify with the young activists and their motivation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe protests and showdowns made visceral impressions on me,\u201d Bam recalls. \u201cI got acquainted with peaceful protestors and their notions of what activism should look like.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whenever the political parties called a Nepal bandha, the activists would appear on the streets with placards labeled Nepal bandai chha<\/em>, a pun that also meant \u201cNepal is being built\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bam was a regular presence in these counter-protests. He might not have embraced a political ideology then. \u201cBut I certainly was politically aware by then,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The conscientious party<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2012, having failed to promulgate a constitution in time, the first of Nepal\u2019s two Constitutional Assemblies was dissolved. The nation geared up for the second of the two elections. People under different banners started taking it to the streets both before and after the dissolution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By then a group of Nepal-returned graduates, entrepreneurs, and students, among others, had started to get together in Kathmandu. As Bam was taking part in these protests calling out the expensive Assembly and demanding a constitution anyhow, he found himself on the opposite end of a discourse ongoing inside the group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He, and a few other group members, believed that the protesting group needed to transform into a political party. On the opposite end were exclusive believers in social activism, the likes of Ujwal Thapa, Pradip Pariyar, and Anil Chitrakar, he recalls. The latter lot, Bam recollects, believed that active politics would undo even the staunchest idealists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe freely rented Godavari Alumni Association\u2019s hall in Thamel started hosting many heated discussions on the topic around this time,\u201d he says. The discourses culminated in the formation of a political party–the Bibeksheel Nepali Party. The choice of party name–Bibeksheel translates to \u201cconscientious\u201d in English–was carefully made, Bam recalls, aiming to \u201cprevent moral evasion\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trials and tribulations<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bibeksheel Nepali party was formed in 2012, with Bam as a co-founder. The party merged with the Sajha Party in 2017, saw a split in 2019, and eventually merged again in 2020. Bam contested in the second Constitutional Assembly of 2013 and the first Federal Parliament elections in 2017. As the co-founder and Secretariat Leader of the Bibeksheel Sajha party now, which has 3 seats in the provincial assemblies, he is yet to win an election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He soon found out that mere zeal and energy don\u2019t necessarily translate to success. That zeal might also be nothing more than naivety.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the elections for the second Constitutional Assembly neared, the first of such revelations came when the group had to collect 10,000 signatures to register their party. They missed the deadline, having verified only about 8,000 when the deadline crept in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were there wanting to run a party and many of us didn\u2019t even know we had to collect signatures to register one,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The members, then, contested the elections as independent candidates. Bam contested in the Valley in constituency 8. He lost. <\/p>\n\n\n\n