By IANS
Kathmandu : An umbrella of nearly 60 communities, which were the first settlers of Nepal, have called for a countrywide shutdown on Friday to protest a nearly seven-year judgement that they say discriminates against their cultures.
The Nepal Adivasi Janajati Mahasangh, which since last year has been fighting for a federal government in Nepal with autonomous states for different indigenous communities, has given a call for the protest to pressure the eight-party ruling alliance into striking down a verdict given by the kingdom's apex court in 2000.
A dispute over three municipalities – the Kathmandu municipality and two in the Terai plains – led to the Supreme Court giving the verdict that the work of all municipalities should be conducted in the Nepali language.
The "sons of soil" are agitating against the decision, calling it an unfair imposition of one language over all others.
A senior Maoist minister, Dev Gurung, who is local development minister and comes from an indigenous community, is said to be supporting the strike in principle.
The Maoist organisation of ethnic groups also announced it would support the shutdown.
This is the second general strike called in two weeks.
Earlier this month, schoolteachers called a Kathmandu valley shutdown to press for pay parity and higher perks.
Nepal's history is being rewritten with a series of conquests 238 years ago now being regarded as colonisation and the beginning of exploitation.
Prithvi Narayan Shah, king of Gorkha, a small principality in western Nepal, overran the other small kingdoms in Nepal and founded the Shah dynasty, to which the present king Gyanendra belongs.
When kings reigned absolute in Nepal, Prithvi Narayan was regarded as the unifier of Nepal and his feat is lauded in textbooks taught in Nepal schools.
However, after the royal family started becoming unpopular and King Gyanendra's direct rule was overthrown by a public uprising, Prithvi Narayan Shah is now vilified as a coloniser who imposed his kingdom's rule and culture on the others.
During protests against monarchy, crowds vandalised the dead king's statue while the new government cancelled the national holiday observed in the past as Nepal unification day.