The UCPN Maoist had called a day-long general strike it had ordered on Kathmandu, Chitwan and Gorkha districts to protest the arrest of a party cadre arrested for the conflict-era murder of a civilian in Chitwan in 2004.
But the party, which won the last election in 2008, seems to have badly miscalculated the public mood. Saturday was the day before the festival of Teej, a day many Nepali women look forward to all year because they can spend time at their parents' home to feast, rejoice and prepare for the fast the next day.
The UCPN(M) circulated statements through the Internet to protest the arrest of Ram Prasad Adhikari accused in the murder of Krishna Prasad Adhikari. Krishna Prasad's parents Ganga Maya Adhikari and Nanda Prasad Adhikari have been on a hunger strike for the last one and half months demanding action against their son’s murderers.
The state has hounded them even since they brought their protest to Kathmandu from Gorkha. Slamming them into a mental asylum, deporting them back to Gorkha and harassing them. The elderly couple is now in ICU at Bir Hospital being fed intravenously, and their condition is said to be deteriorating.
The Maoists tried to enforce the strike like they have done before by terrorising commuters. But this time the people fought back.
Thousands of women and children were stranded all over Kathmandu on Saturday morning when no buses showed up, and they hadn't even heard about the strike. But angry women on their way to their 'maiti' at Kalanki didn't take it lying down, they chased away strikers who were driving vehicles off the road.
Women dressed in red sarees and shimmering 'pote' with children in tow and lugging bags full of gifts looked confused when public transport ground to a halt. A woman who had boarded a tempo at New Baneswor stopped and made a U-turn at Gaushala, and the dumped the passengers.
The traffic police looked helpless in front of the five Maoist cadres who had blocked the lane from Gaushala onwards. “Bahini, ask someone to fetch you on a bike or just go back home,” a policeman told me when I said I needed to get to Golfutar. “What can we do, why don’t you ask those protestors why they called for a shutdown.”
Women were frantically making calls, some cancelling their visits home. Some tempos that tried to venture further up stuffing as many people as possible were also forced to turn back before reaching Chabahil.
Downhill from Chabahil to Mandikatar, the road was a sea of red -- not of communist flags, but women dressed in auspicious red saris. Nearly everyone was cursing the "thugs" who had blocked the roads. "I am still waiting for my daughters who are stuck at their coaching class in Putali Sadak,” said Maili Lama who was waiting near Om Hospital in Chabahil calling her daughters every few minutes. She was carrying a bag full of fruits and had to go to Buddhanilkantha to visit her only sister in town.
As more and more people started venturing out, the protesters at intersections seemed to lose their resolve. Word of the resistance in Kalanki spread through social networking sites and blogs, and were carried as breaking news on tv and radio. This emboldened even more people to venture out with their vehicles.
At UCPN(M), leaders held a hurried meeting and determined that their strike had backfired. They leaked information to media that they were preparing to lift the strike after 12 noon. This was met with even more ridicule and derision on Facebook and Twitter.
Most people didn't even wait till noon, but were driving around by 11 AM. However, women and children and families were still stranded because public transport took some time to get back to normal.
Later in the afternoon, speaking at a press meet UCPN(Maoist) spokesperson Agni Sapkota said that the party would launch protest programs if their cadre Ram Prasad Adhikari was not released.
Bhrikuti Rai