THE YAKHA: CULTURE, ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT IN ...

ut too preoccupied with what might be going on to do any academic work
or anything requiring consistent concentration, began to get quite
stif ling,
Everything seemed extraordinarily quiet on Sunday night, but we were
awakenad at 11.55pm by the sound of firecrackers and people shouting,
The king had agreed to Introduce a mu1 t 1-party system and the campaign
had been called off. Everyone was celebrating. The next day we heard
that six people were shot dead for coming out onto the streets in
jubilation before the security forces in their area had heard the
announcement that the curfew was lifted,
Monday was a day of celebration, We walked up the rubble-strewn,
rubber-stained streets to Durbar Square where large crowds had gathered.
Bfg processions were forming, primarily of young men, marching round the
streets whistling and shouting while onlookers clapped. Red gindur
powder was being dispensed liberally, as at the Boli festival, and the
colour red was also on flags everywhere - the red and white of the
Congress party, the hammer and sickle of the Communist party (Plate 41.
Waving such flags a week before would have led to arrest, but now people
on motorbikes and in cars cruised round the streets happily holding them
aloft. 'Democracy' was said to have dawned,
The sudden efflorescence of the pro-democracy movement was quite
unexpected and at the time was another disrupt ion to my research plans,
However, it was interesting to have been in Kathmnndu during the hetsht
of the disturbances and to return to Tamaphok and see how the political
changes at the national level panned out in the vf 1 lage. Contrary to
what many like to assume about core-perfphary relations in rural Nepal,
people in Tamaphok generally kept wull abreast of the events in