Women of Nepal

Sahana Pradhan

Former Foreign Minister
Former member of Standing Committee of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist)  

Born in Kathmandu, in July 1927

"I didn't enter into politics with strong determination. But when I was a teenager I used to think that I want to change the society which didn't allow daughters to study. I later came to know that thought led me to politics." Sahana Pradhan, senior most woman politician in Nepal, started her life in politics more than 60 years ago almost unconsciously. Now her life-long contribution to Nepal's politics, especially to women's participation in politics, has made her an inseparable part of this country's political history. It can be said that Shana who had fought for a vote and multi-party democracy is a living history of women's movement in Nepal.

Although she was born in a Newar family of Ason, the center of old town in Kathmandu, she spent her early childhood in Burma (present Myanmar) where her father used to do business, importing Nepali goods to sell them to Nepali migrants there. She had a few memories of her childhood. Looking at her sweet behavior, her grandfather used to call her "Chini", which literally means sugar. Only after returning to Kathmandu from Burma, her younger brother gave her the name Sahana. After having lived in Burma where the society was more liberal than in Nepal, she returned to Kathmandu at the age of 13. She was not so happy to come back to her mother country as she had to encounter the conservative society of Nepal which forbids girl children from going school and even going outside of their houses. She felt it unfair for her to be discriminated because she was a girl.

She remembers that she had a revolutionary character since she was a small child, which dragged her to politics. "My concern was against thoughts of the society in those days that women should not study. Rana rulers thought that there should not be schools for women. I wanted to change those situations and stood against Ranas, which later shaped my political life," she says. In a picnic that was organized in Mhepi of Kathmandu in August 1947 Nepal Women's Association was formed, with the purpose to make women active in politics. Around sixty women including Sahana and her elder sister Sadhana participated in this picnic. Mangala Devi Singh, wife of a founder leader of the Nepali Congress and a supreme leader of 1990 People's Movement Ganesh Man Singh, became a chairperson and Sahana as well as Sadhana became founder members of this first political association of women.

Sahana and Sadhana used to have similar thoughts and started their activities against the autocratic Rana rule in 1950 through Nepal Women's Association. Movement like hers helped Nepal liberate from the clutches of the 104-year-long family rule of the Ranas and democracy was first introduced in Nepal.

However, democracy in those days did not mean freedom for all in Nepal. Election of municipalities was declared in 1951 but the government did not grant right to vote to women. Sahana joined the protest programs against the male decision makers of the state. The rally went up to the palace of then Prime Minister Mohan Shamsher Rana. The protest programs eventually gave women right to vote for the first time in Nepal. Furthermore, the same movement provided a room for women to file candidature and Sadhana Pradhan, Sahana's elder sister, finally secured a seat from the Communist Party of Nepal. "The zeal for women's equality and fellow women's support helped me dedicate myself to women's cause and I thus became a politician," she says.

Having witnessed the Second World War and India's Independence Movement while she was in Burma, Sahana grew a sense of confidence in her that liberty from all sorts of tyranny and injustice is possible if people fight against them wholeheartedly. And the same confidence gave her the strength to do something for changes in Nepal.

She raised voice for women's equal rights when even a group of women were not allowed to sit together. Sahana and her colleagues organized their group through going for picnics and visiting house to house. "We had to fight to get right to vote. Now, women can freely speak in the parliament. Some six decades ago we have to cry to get women admitted in schools. Now education has been compulsory and they also have equal share in parental property. I think women of this age are very fortunate. To have 197 women representatives in the present Constituent Assembly is not a small thing," she says. At the same time, she warns that having an opportunity to enter the Constituent Assembly itself is meaningless if they cannot handle the challenge of putting forward their demands in a proper way.

In 1955 she got married with Pushpa Lal Shrestha, a founder general secretary of the Communist Party of Nepal which was formed in 1949 in Calcutta. Her marriage opened a new horizon to her political career as she could work even harder after a marriage, thanks to her husband's support and care. She met Pushpa Lal for the first time in Tri-Chandra Campus and they worked together for the party and this drove them to be in nuptial knot. "He began to see me as a life partner since our first meeting but I learned about it only later," she says. Sahana's family was against their marriage but Pushpa Lal's family supported them even in political activities. Her relationship with the in-laws was so dense that she used to consider her father-in-law like a friend and she even taught him English. However, after a sudden demise of Pushpa Lal in 1978, many of her dreams could not be materialized as her responsibility to the family grew unexpectedly. Among others, she could not complete her doctorate.

She spent quite a long time in jails from the beginning of her political career. She was in custody for several days in 1947 during a revolution against Ranas. Then in 1952 and in 1985 she was arrested in the context of participating in protest programs to demand political rights. In 1990 as well, several days before the People's Movement was launched by then 'outlawed' political parties on February 18th she was detained by the police from her own residence and put in the Women Jail until negotiations between political parties and then king Birendra began in April. She found opportunities even those tormented days in the jails.  She used to gather women of different backgrounds and discuss on women's rights. She even taught a lot of omen to read and write in jails. As a political prisoner life in jails had to be a torture. In addition, she had to undergo further discrimination of being a leftist and a woman.

As a senior leader, her contributions are remembered also in the field of unifying the leftist parties and leaders. She used to think that not only leftist parties but also personalities who have leftist ideology should be unified. When the United Left Front was formed in the middle of January 1990, on the eve of the People's Movement, by seven leftist parties, she chaired the 21-member committee of the Front, in which she was the only female member of the committee. Although she had to spend in the jail during the whole period of the People's Movement she was released on April 7th, the next day of historical demonstration in Kathmandu, to participate in the negotiations with then King Birendra as one of representatives from the United Left Front. At late night of April 8th, as soon as the negotiation ended, King Birendra declared to restore the multi-party- system after 29 years through the national media. Sahana became a minister of the interim government which was formed as soon as all the Panchayat institutions were dissolved.

Her party CPN (Marxist) had merged with the CPN (Marxist-Leninist) to form the CPN (Unified Marxist-Leninist) after the political change of 1990. The CPN (UML) became the second largest party after the Nepali Congress in the general election of 1991. In this election Sahana contested from one of constituencies in Kathmandu and won, becoming one of seven women members of the Parliament among 205. On the other hand, she could not save herself from the impact of party splitting which frequently occurred on leftist parties. When the CPN (UML) split into two factions in 1998 she chose to be with the broke-away faction CPN-ML. Her party had to face a negative effect of split when none of their candidates who stood for the general election in 1999 could win. The two parties were reunited in 2002.

Sahana believes that present achievements that women of Nepal could have obtained were made comparatively in a short period with a small struggle. She wants the women activists in younger generations not to forget about the struggle what women in a half century ago had done to get very basic rights to study and to vote.

Sahana Pradhan along with other Standing Committee members whose names were in a list of proportional representations of the CPN (UML) declined to be elected as members of the CA, taking responsibility of being badly defeated by the CPN (Maoist) in the CA elections. She reminds that all the people in the Constituent Assembly as well as in the leadership has the same challenge and responsibility. "From house to parliament, women have double responsibility. Even a small negligence would send the women's movement and Nepali women far behind. No matter which party they represent, all women should be united in women's issues," she stresses.

She has a special request to women members of the Constituent Assembly to work with strong commitment for their own gender. "When the whole world is taking women's participation in the Constituent Assembly in Nepal as a model, if they fail to do that it would be just an insult for the whole Nepali women."  She thinks that the declaration of Nepal as Federal Democratic Republic on May 28th 2008 will make little change in the women's condition in general because though the king with a crown had been abandoned, traces of "autocratic" and "patriarchal" society can be traced in every house, committees, political parties and so on.

"We are still hearing news that a husband has burnt his wife because she failed to give him a son. You can imagine in what stage of women's liberation we are enjoying. See, how can women feel the pleasure of living in a republic country when their plight is such miserable?" she asks. She stresses that women activists have long way go to achieve their goals, which can be achieved only by obtaining political leadership. "So, women should be involved in the politics. Women should get the leadership," she adds.

She is of the opinion that all women should be involved in some sort of politics. Just like women used to have desire of being a doctor or an engineer, they should have a dream in politics. However, Sahana's own children are not seen in political arena. Her daughter Usha is in teaching profession and son Umesh is a pharmacist. "Of course, I wanted them to come to politics. But I cannot force them to do anything they don't want. Maybe, they preferred to stay away from it, after looking at miserable life of their parents," she concludes.

Thus, she stands today as a living legend of a women's rights activist and a politician to seek democracy. Her struggle for life, for women's liberation as well as democracy has been an inspiration of thousands of women in Nepal and her achievements could be considered as a dream fulfilled for the women of this generation.

Written by Laxmi Basnet