‘Hrithik Roshan’ riots
What a start to 2001 it was twenty years ago. After a horrid year in which there was the Maoist attack on Dunai, strikes that shut down the country and the hijacking of a Kathmandu-Delhi flight, anti-India riots that started in Chitwan spread to Kathmandu after Bollywood start Hrithik Roshan purportedly said he hated Nepal and its people.
No one knows whether the actor actually said those words. Long before fake news, trolls and hate speech on social media, the rumours spread like wildlife fanned possibly by the far right and far left elements out to create chaos.
There was arson, looting, attacks on Nepalis from the plains. Five people were killed, a curfew was imposed 26-27 December. The violence showed how volatile Nepal had become, all it took was a spark to set the country ablaze. But little did we know that 2001 had more tragedies and disasters in store for Nepal.
Excerpt from the Editorial titled ‘Autopsy’ in Nepali Times 24 from 5-11 January 2001:
An Indian actor doesn’t say something and five people are dead. What would have happened if he had actually said what he is supposed to have said? What does it say about the state of our polity, the psychological state of this country that a harmless rumour which should have been laughed off as a joke, turns deadly serious and picks up a communal flavour? As someone said: “All you need is an ‘ass’ to turn laughter into slaughter.” How fickle is our national pride, how volatile has our society become, that something like this can light the fuse of conflagration.
Unknown to most of us, we seem to have imported the insecurity and paranoia that we used to observe south of the border. How rumours of Ayodhya set off carnage across India, how Indira Gandhi’s assassination triggered a pogrom against Sikhs in Delhi. Last week’s violence was also an indication of what happens when you mix prejudice with politics. There is latent bigotry and an undercurrent of racism and intolerance in every society, but it is not until some cold-blooded and calculating politician comes along that society’s hidden vice manifests itself as overt violence.
The environment was tinder dry, waiting for a spark. And as the flames spread, there was no shortage of those who wanted to cash in: the Congress factions, the nine leftists, the ultra-right, the Maoists, communal chauvinists. It was never about Hrithik Roshan, it was not even about India-Nepal relations, and it threatened to degenerate as we had warned last week into a hill-plains rupture within Nepal. Who were the architects of the anarchy? Just ask: who had a motive, who benefited? Those who want to roll back parliamentary democracy. And who were the losers? The Nepali people.
From the archives of Nepali Times of the past 20 years, site search: www.nepalitimes.com
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