CK Raut is the Key Word
A cursory search through alexa.com of Nepal's online portals will quickly show us that CK Raut is the buzz word. I was checking the traffic on some tiny site for my official work, and I just lazily flicked through the top sites of Nepal only to be intrigued to see in one of them that among the 5 keywords , CK Raut was also one (other keywords mostly being referrals of the same website or something dry like Nepal or RSS). It piqued my interest and so I went through several other top Nepali websites, mostly newsy, and turns out CK Raut is a HIT. It's among the top 5 keywords in the following sites:
These site are 5 of the 9 most visited websites of Nepal. Note that among the top 25 websites (according to the traffic flow in the past month) in Nepal, only 9 are Nepali. Number one is of course facebook, and there are other giants like amazon, wikipedia, google etc rounding up the 16 top spots.
What does it say? From someone who the Nepali collective web consciousness merely knew existed, CK Raut has been jettisoned into the top spot. If it were Hollywood, we are talking about Kim Kardashian scale. You may love him, you may hate him but you cannot ESCAPE him.
And the juicy nerdy bit stops here. I now completely digress onto my own world of conflicting and confusing thoughts-to try to make sense of CK Raut and related phenomenon. Without making any sense. So please feel free to take a brake here.
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Freedom of speech comes with a heavy price. As long as you are using that freedom to vocal a limited number of things inside a fixed dimensioned box, you are safe. But once you start playing with the borders, try to jump out of or step completely out of the box-you will have to pay dearly for it.
In my mind, when I think of freedom of speech I draw up this infinite universe or circle which is of course the freedom to speak anything without worrying of "physical" consequences and then I draw a rather tiny box which is actually what we are "free" to speak about-this box with all the parameter of what can be safely said- right up to our voyeurism and anarchism limits.
But hey this model may just be too vague and unfathomable for all to make sense.
So I came up with a simpler model. I'm being ironic here.
If freedom of expression according to the price we have to pay was divided into four quadrants (ya same one as the X and Y we did in our trigonometry lessons), there would be one which would be safest (this in trigonometry would be where the X and the Y both are positive). It's a safe safe space. The very positive thoughts positive vibes about good life, or just very optimistic, world and nation friendly, PETA campaigns all fall into this safe, positive, happy quadrant - being in which you will never be caught, arrested, tortured, taunted, humiliated, beguiled or mocked. All the celebrity gossips and backbiting fall into this one. You can be an anarchist within this space but no harm will come to you. For example the rock and heavy metal bands led by often very immature teenagers who rage because life just overwhelms them easily fall into this space. They are anarchist but who cares? Also all those belonging to just a generation previous who screamed "we don't need no education" and are now safely cocooned in a comfortable life-but whose old anarchism sparks once in a while in the form of maybe a very expletive social media posts also fall in this category. Let me be very snob and say that those who are mostly comfortable with life, yet are unsatisfied of their personal life or the society in general all of them also fall into this category. Of course not so, if you happen to be royally anarchist like Julian Assange or Arundhati Roy then you fall into one of the other three quadrants. That small box with small dimension with all the permitted parameters of "freedom of speech" that falls squarely in this quadrant. So this is one very small tight quadrant.
Then there's the second and third quadrant which is also relatively safe but because of some limitations in part of the speakers, this tend to have the effect of disrupting normal so sometimes people exercising their freedom of speech in this quadrant might get in trouble (in coordinate geometry wherein either the X or Y is negative). May be not physically but they might be snickered at, laughed at or trolled. I think I fall into this category. My logic is that I'm a little more disruptful than the anarchists of safe space no. 1 because I am not a Hindu, I am not a male, I do not own a house in Kathmandu, and I hail from a small tiny non-consequential village (if villages were website, its ranking even in Nepal would be something like 999999999999999999999th of among all websites i.e. a ). But what still saves me, and lets me go by paying a relatively less price for my freedom of speech, is my urban upbringing.
Then comes the fourth and the most dangerous quadrant-that space which CK Raut has been trudging. We are already given plenty of examples of what price you have to pay if you dare to go to that fourth quadrant. This is the space where you are using your freedom of speech but neither are you anybody, nor do you belong to anything that can elevate your position to kowtow with those of quadrant 1, and what's more you go against the typical normal way things are running and spit fire and acid onto whatever is seen as truth and integrity. CK Raut what is he? He is neither from Kathmandu, nor does he belong to a community that would already soften many to sympathise (no the very community he comes from often is enough for people to label them as "traitors"), he never had a foothold in the upper circle of urban Nepal. And now he has dared to exercise his freedom of expression to bring forth ideas that go against the very basis of what has constructed the safe quadrant that I've already described. How dare he disturb the anarchism that is so well placed?
If somebody were to ask me an opinion about CK Raut, I would gladly tell them that I hate that (expletive) with all my heart. Again, my attributes here have to be brought forth to explain why I hate him? He is one pathetic male (reminds me of those roosters with their swollen chest just before a fight), who is out there to liberate Madhesh but I doubt if his Madhesh is any more better for women than it is right now, in this stifling sickening patriarchal bowel ruled by hypocrites. The words that he used to describe why he hates the Nepali establishment so much is enough to understand where his inspiration comes from (and I can relate to that) but his words are also enough to understand how little respect he has for his opposite gender. Maybe he is the PNS of our generation. What use did PNS have for women except marry one after another as a strategic ploy to get to his objective of "conquering". What use does CK Raut have of the women? His goal shining above the clouds is Free Madhesh (of men, by men, for men).
I hated Prachanda, and I hated Baburam in their heyday as the Combatant Revolutionary chief. But despite all my hate, they came to fore after a few years. I understand why they had the appeal they had among the mass, and I can understand why CK Raut has such a massive appeal right now. I tolerated them as I am tolerating CK Raut. Too bad, our establishment is trying everything to quash him and not the cause that gave rise to somebody being CK Raut. Anyway, the Nepal Government needs huge applauding for skyrocketing this relatively unknown "anarchist" to a nation wide fame figure who has already amassed a large following.
In this context, I have a heart to quote the very famous saying by Voltaire which now have been pointed out was not by Voltaire-I do not agree with what you have to say but I will fight to death your right to say that.
Now I even have some data (even though they are flimsy at best) to show that the CK Raut phenomen on is spreading faster than wildfire. The only other person who is a keyword in most of the sites was Mahesh Basnet (yeah right our notoriously "popular" industry minister) and oh also guess-Arpan Koirala (what's with Khusbu Oli, Ratopati and Nepali people's interest in all of it? Weird? No, totally Nepal).
One may or may not understand my "meticulous" system of four quadrants for freedom of speech. It is not important to understand how I try to interpret chaos of my unruly universe of thought. But what is important I think, is that in Nepal, there's a price attached to freedom of expression or freedom of speech. Yes you cannot jeopardize somebody else's life in the name of free speech nor is it tolerable that you inflict pain to others in the name of free speech, but if you happen to be somebody outside of the acceptable norm of society then whatever you say even if it does not hurt even a fly, you will have to pay a heavy price. Your speech and your expression might have more weightage than all those "we dont need no education" anarchists but you will be tortured, humiliated, ridiculed, arrested, and cornered because you do not belong to that class that dominates the game.
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