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In Nayabajar at the foot of the hilltop town of Kirtipur, about 2,500 demonstrators on Monday sat down on the slopes above the road listening to university student Mani Kafle recite revolutionary poems.
Organised by students, farmers, housewives, young boys and social workers from across the capital, the crowd clapped and cheered, laughing at the satire. Even gun-toting, baton-swinging armed police stood listening with rapt attention for five hours, sometimes chuckling themselves.
"A new phase of our movement has started with civilians participating wholeheartedly and spontaneously," said Shambu Maharjan, Kirtipur coordinator of the People's Movement.
Kirtipur residents who had earlier hid in their homes and women who only peered from windows rushed out in the hundreds to join the anti-king rally. There is a sense of historical justice being played out here this week: after all it was Kirtipur that held out longest against the siege by Prithivi Narayan Shah in 1768.
It wasn't a politician that took the lead in Kirtipur but a wise old professor, Krishna Khanal, who teaches political science at the nearby Tribhuban University. "No stones my friends, let's do it peacefully," the grey-haired prof told demonstrators. Young men who had clutched bricks when the security forces arrived cast them aside and sat down to listen and applaud the poetry.
And when the army's armoured personnel carrier moved in menacingly to clear the road of the crowd defying the curfew, Kirtipur residents lay down on the road in true Tiananmen fashion. Khanal showed how the moral might of a peaceful rally can overpower repressive state forces.
In the end, no stones or bricks were thrown, no smoke billowed out of burning tyres. There were no bloodstains in the hot dust, no tear gas that made people cry, no rubber bullets lodged in the bleeding backs of demonstrators. And yet, it was a victory for the people who prevented the regime from entering their town to enforce an unnecessary curfew.
At the other end of the Ring Road at Gongabu, however, it was a war zone on Monday (pic above, right). Over 100 APF paramilitaries had taken cover on the highway embankment, their SLRs trained and cocked to open fire at a crowd of hundreds of agitated protesters. Another 50 or so RNA soldiers were lined up behind them with machine guns.
Human rights activists and Red Cross staff were all rushing out. "You guys better go back," one of them told us, "we were chased out of there." From the warren of Gongabu's alleys we could hear gunshots. The APF and RNA had taken up defensive positions because they were convinced it was the Maoists shooting.
It turned out to be policemen guarding AIGP Rup Sagar Moktan's villa who opened fire to scare away protesters who were trying to storm it. One of the policemen, Nanda P Tamang, was caught by the mob and was being badly beaten. "Help me, please," he pleaded to journalists, who managed to calm the youths and rescue the policeman.
Gongabu actually started as a peaceful demonstration in an area known for its large and unruly transient population. Witnesses said both the demonstrators and security forces were to blame for Sunday's violence that could easily have been a major massacre.
Unlike elsewhere, there were no political or community leaders here to control the protesters when they started running amok. On the other hand, police and soldiers kept pushing into the demonstration provoking the youth. When it ended, over 30 protesters were injured after the police fired both rubber and live bullets and brutally flailed at them with batons.
Nepalnews.com photojournalist Kumar Shrestha got a bullet in his arm and human rights activists looked helpless as the situation got out of control. The journalists constantly pushed them to take a position between the two sides but the mob was furious at the activists for earlier rescuing policemen from inside the AIGP's house.
"My god, I don't know where things went wrong," said one local woman, "it started out so peacefully."
Back in Kirtipur on Tuesday the peaceful movement turned into a public debate on the pros and cons of parliament reinstatement. After initial disagreement, even the student unions seemed to have learnt to compromise. A short speech by pro-NC student leader Prakash Neupane calmed the students down and the two groups joined hands and walked towards the curfew area to resume their sit-in front of soldiers and police.
Every demonstration in Kathmandu this week has been different. Nepal itself is poised between a Kiritpur scenario and a Gongabu scenario. Which one will we choose?
