Olympic Fantasies In Nepal's Torch Rallies

Protesters in Nepali torch rallies having daydreams that they are carrying the Olympic 2016 torch instead of protesting some issue with an ordinary flaming torch...First, this quite peaceful fantasy of carrying an Olympic torch helps to deter the protesters from using the flaming torch for arson, and hence this fantasy may be thoroughly crafted by the figures like the road-side Television stores that do not wish to see physical disturbance through torching. However, this fantasy of being an Olympic sportsperson leads to a moment when the protesters become more athletic, making the protests louder, more physical and even more violent.

The Nepali torch rally becomes a site of sports-like competition: who can run the fastest without tiring? Who can shout the catchy slogans the loudest? Who can cause the most disturbance in the streets? Ultimately, whose body is more healthy and better? This competition fractures the unity of the protesting crowd, dividing the protest itself between winners and losers.

It is entirely possible that a small team of very athletic athlete-politicians win in the torch rallies of all the political parties and hence cement a leadership position in all the political parties, forming a kind of authoritarian element in the whole political system and thereafter dominating the other losing political figures. Indeed, the danger of Nepal's unhealthy and non-athletic politicians is that it will allow authoritarian power to develop among an athletic set of political figures who keep winning the torch rallies across the political spectrum.

In the torch rally, it is the body of the protester which is scrutinized, not his/her mental ability with regards to politics, or even his/her emotion or passion towards a cause. Especially in the case of Nepal, with aging politicians, politics in the public event of a protest becomes a thoroughly bodily activity: the body dictates how long the politicians walk, and the unhealthy politician's body's need for exercise may be accompanied by an upward surge in torch rallies.

But for some politicians the torch rally is not an exercise or a training for a bigger athletic-political event, rather it is itself the most important event for which they prepare with other lesser events such as charity football matches. Whereas in a more romantic time in the past, the body was given up in the fight for a cause, as for instance through lengthy imprisonment of the body, today the politician's body has to be kept fit and well-exercised in order that there be sufficient energy for winning torch rallies across a variety of causes. The cause in the torch rally has stopped dictating the protester, rather, the distance of the protesting route may be more important, or the protester's diet. In the future, as a kind of real blow to the passionate politicians' attempts to be sensitive to real problems, the torch rally may be made more routine, with the artificial manufacture of more and more dubious causes to protest, if the torch rally becomes part of the exercise routine for the leading politicians.