Celebrating The Martyrs’ Day

Celebrating The Martyrs’ Day

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

For me the four martyrs such as Sukraj Raj Shastri, Dharma Bhakta Mathema, Dasrath Chand, and Ganga Lal Shrestha are the four divinities among the numerous deities that have followed them in the battle against the demonic rulers and sacrificed their lives for destroying the evil regimes, as I would not have been what I am today if they had not sacrificed their lives. The confrontation between the divine and demonic spirits has continued even today, as the evil spirits have been returning back to power again and again. Divine spirits also have to come back again and again to finish off the evil spirits as we read in our Hindu and Buddhist scriptures.

The State celebrates the Martyrs’ week anniversary starting on Magh 10 (Jan 23) and ending on Magh 16 (jan29), and the Martyrs’ Day on the last day of the Martyrs’ week. They were the divine spirits; so, they could challenge the demonic rulers even though the demons were looked like formidable. Those divine spirits opened up the door to the common folks to rise up against apparently the mighty demonic rulers not once but again and again and finish them off. Even today, some politicians have been carrying the evil spirits on their minds and they talk about the demonic rule as the correct one. So, the politicians having the divine spirits need to fight against the evil spirits prevailing in some politicians.

I was born when the Shah-Rana demonic rule prevailed. At that time, I had the chance of eating four eggs a year: one each on the birthday, the body worship day (Mha puja), the brother worship day (Kija puja), and during the Dashain festival on the eighth day called Kuchhi Bhoya. At that time, I thought I was the most fortunate boy among so many boys that never had a chance to see any egg in the life.

Not only that Nepalese children had no chance to eat an egg but also they had no chance to eat a meat-with-rice dish called “masu-bhat” except in the great Hindu festival called Dashain, as all the resources and wealth Nepalese had created, the Shah-Rana rulers consumed leaving nothing for the common folks that had to work hard every day from dawn to dusk for creating whatever resources required for maintaining the demonic Shah-Rana regime. So, “masu-bhat” dish has been so famous among the Nepalese even today.

The devilish Shah-Rana rulers had denied the common folks everything except for working in the agricultural land; then the rulers took away major portion of the agricultural products leaving something on which the common folks could hardly sustained. Common folks had no time to engage in other activities as most of their time was drawn to the agriculture.

So, commercial production of poultry was not there at that time; whatever the egg and poultry were produced were just good enough for the Rana families. Anybody even having some money could not buy eggs in the local market. If anybody needs to buy ten eggs then s/he needs to go every store to find an egg, as any store did not have more than one or two eggs to sell. The Shah-Rana rulers were to keep the common folks in poverty as they believed that the well off people would seek civil rights.

The demonic Shah-Rana rulers took the lives of those four divine-spirited energetic men in 1942. Demon ruler Juddha Shumsher Rana was the prime minister; Tribhuvan Shah was his demon king. Sitting at the Singhdurbar: the so-called Rana palace built with the blood of hundreds of thousands of the common folks, Juddha passed the death sentences to the four political activists called Sukraj Raj Shastri, Dharma Bhakta Mathema, Dasrath Chand, and Ganga Lal Shrestha for asking the basic civil rights, and Tribhuvan signed off the document giving Juddha the rights to execute those four brave men with the divine spirits that gave them so much of courage to face the death instead of enjoying the luxurious lives they had at that time.

The blood of the four divine-spirited men Juddha and his king Tribhuvan mercilessly executed for nothing more than demanding the civil rights for common folks to live like humans gave birth to many other divine=spirited people to face the demonic rule of the Shah-Rana rulers. The demonic rulers could not repress the divine spirits for long even killing so many divinities. The demons had to quit the regime. However, one demon in the name of Tribhuvan Shah remained even after the autocratic Shah-Rana regime was abolished in 1951.

Common folks with the divine spirits thought that Tribhuvan was one of them and let him run the administration. Common folks got every civil rights back they had lost to the evil spirits of the Shah-Rana rulers starting from the Prithvi N Shah in the 18^th century to ending in 1951. With the rights to do everything possible following the law of the land, common folks have moved very fast to the self-development. The vast resources the Shah-Rana rulers had consumed were to share out among the common folks.

However, the demonic spirits had not totally gone out of some demon rulers that wanted to restore the evil regime. Devil King Mahendra reinstated the evil regime again in 1960 taking back almost everything from the people the blood of the four martyrs had given them. Again the common folks had to do everything for the demonic rulers at least to be alive even though their life expectancy was the shortest possible at that time.

The devil king Mahendra executed another divine-spirited young political activist Durga Nanda Jha for heralding a bomb on the jeep he had rode in Janakpur adding another divinity to the divine martyrs pantheon in 1962. During the decade from 1960 to 1970, the devil king murdered a number of political activists to subdue the uprising of the people for the fundamental civil rights.

Then came the turn of Birendra to be a demon king and later on a devil king as Birendra murdered more than his demon father Mahendra did. He publicly murdered Bhim Narayan Shrestha and Yagya Bahadur Thapa in 1978, many more politicians on the pretext of running away while transferring them from one jail to another, and disappeared even more before his own end in 2001.

In fact, these devilish kings were the descendents of the monster king Prithvi N Shah that took a great pride in cutting off the noses and ears of the females, children, and old people, and killed many opponents in the 18^th century.

The third eye of the divine spirit opened up in the bravest iron man called Ganeshman Singh. The divine spirit guided him to bring all the scattered divinities under his command and led them all to kill off the demonic regime. With the great reluctance, the demon king Birendra gave up his evil regime to the people’s divine regime but the demon remained in the palace dormant. The divine spirit of Ganeshman Singh could not realized it at that time rather thought that the demons had died forever.

Ganeshman Singh remained a divine and left this mundane world for the heavenly abode with the divine spirit but his colleagues gave way to the demonic spirits again. Some demons came back to life in different names, and had been looking for an opportunity to reinstate the evil regime. Again the demons had a major say in the so-called divine rule. Demons were to displace the divinities any time at the opportune moment as the demonic spirits had been relentlessly waiting for staging a comeback.

Again the demon king reinstated the demonic regime in 2005 even though the demons could not take away all the divine rights the common folks had enjoyed. The ugly head of the demon king showed up under the canopy of seven-serpent heads. However, the divinities had been so strong that the demons had not been able to reinstate the evil regime of the past in totality.

In 2008, the politicians having the divine spirits declared that the demonic regime was abolished once and for all, and enforced the divine rule with all the civil rights for the common folks to enjoy. However, the demonic spirits had not gone totally from the minds of some politicians that took every small opportunity to sing the songs in praise of the demon kings. For example, every year some demonic politicians and intellectuals gathered around the statue of the demonic king Prithvi N Shah, and celebrated his anniversary. Some demonic politicians have been going against the federalism and federal states in the hope of reinstating the demonic regime again. Some demonic politicians have been trying to restrict the people’s regime in the name of being nationalists.

The Statues of the four divine-spirited martyrs remained under the statue of the demonic king Tribhuvan at the Shahid Gate. One popularly elected government wanted to remove the statue of the demon king sitting above the divine martyrs but the Supreme Court stopped the government from doing so stating it was the cultural heritage. However, common folks anticipate that one day, the statue of the demon king will go leaving only the four divine spirited martyrs once the divine spirit enlightens the minds of the honorable justices of the Supreme Court that the statue of Tribhuvan is in fact not the cultural heritage but humiliating the divine martyrs at the Shahid Gate.

Every year the local government runs a program to commemorate the divine martyrs for a week in January, and the State marks the last day of the martyrs’ week as the national holiday for the prime minister and the president to go to garland the martyrs’ memorial but the State shamelessly has been ignoring to teach the school children the lives and values of the martyrs and why they sacrificed their beautiful lives to keep up their principles and beliefs.

During the demonic regime called Panchayat, the then demon rulers made the teaching of the demonic values and principles of the demonic king Mahendra mandatory at schools. However, even after all the demonic kings have gone but the teaching of the principles and values of martyrs has not been made mandatory at schools. Consequently, school children did not know why the four martyrs and subsequent divine fighters shed their blood for the people’s rights and how the common folks benefited from the sacrifices the martyrs have made.

Today, nobody needs to wait for the birthday to eat an egg, or wait for Dashain to eat masu-bhat. However, every child has born elsewhere in Nepal has not the equal rights to enjoy. A girl child in the remote western Nepal ends up staying at a makeshift shelter during the monthly period, and at the childbirth when she reaches puberty. Some women still suffer from the domestic violence. All the martyrs shed their blood for ending such demonic traditions but some people have to suffer from the evil traditions the demons have set even today means the remnants of the demonic regime has continued to haunt the Nepalese.

The struggle between the demon-spirited and the divine-spirited politicians have been continuing today. The demon politicians have been trying to retract the divine-gifted Constitution, and trying to reintroduce the demon-spirited provisions in it. The anti-federalist politicians are the devilish politicians and have the spirits of demons that are for killing everything good for the common folks. The struggle between the divinities and the demons will continue for some time to come. The victory of the divinities over the demons is sure to be as has happened in our Hindu and Buddhist mythological battles between the demons and the divinities.

January 30, 2017

Index

Bhim Narayan Shrestha, 2

Birendra, 2, 3

Buddhist, 1, 4

Constitution, 4

Dashain, 1

Dasrath Chand, 1, 2

Dharma Bhakta Mathema, 1, 2

Durga Nanda Jha, 2

Ganeshman Singh, 3

Ganga Lal Shrestha, 1, 2

Hindu, 1, 4

Janakpur, 2

Mahendra, 2, 4

masu-bhat, 1

Panchayat, 4

Prithvi N Shah, 2, 3

Shahid Gate, 3

Shah-Rana, 1, 2

Sukraj Raj Shastri, 1, 2

Supreme Court, 3

Tribhuvan, 2, 3

Yagya Bahadur Thapa, 2