As a former company commander of the Maoist militia, Niraka Gharti Magar used to raid banks and government offices. But 18 years after the end of the conflict, she now has to work regularly with bankers and bureaucrats to expand her handicraft business.
Despite being good in studies, Niraka dropped out of school and joined the Maoists to undergo guerrilla training, and soon saw action attacking police posts, army bases and government installations across Nepal. She firmly believed in the cause, and the Maoist goal of establishing a ‘New Nepal’.
The supreme commander of Maoist guerrillas Pushpa Kamal Dahal is now prime minister for the third time in Kathmandu, and three decades after the start of the conflict, much has remained the same here in the rugged mountains of central Nepal.
Niraka has found that perhaps peacetime struggles are more difficult than waging revolution.
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After the ceasefire in 2006, Niraka joined nearly 20,000 former guerrillas in UN-supervised demobilisation camps. The Maoists came down from the mountains to win elections. She could have been inducted into the national army, but stayed home to take care of her daughter and husband, also a former guerrilla who was wounded in battle.
It was too late to resume where she had left off with her education, and returning to her husband’s ancestral village in Rukum she got involved with a community forest users group. But she found it difficult to get a job because of the stigma of her Maoist past.
The family moved to Musikot of Rukum district for a fresh start in 2016, and Niraka enrolled to be trained as a weaver. Business grew, and soon she could not keep up with demand for handcrafted woollen mats and blankets, cloth bags and garments, some of which are exported to Singapore and elsewhere.
Today, her Prem Dhaka Udyog in Musikot is not just a successful business but also provides income to hundreds of women in the district which in turn empowers them with financial independence.
