As a Madheshi, it is difficult to watch another episode of violence unfold in the region I call home. The deaths of young men during the recent unrest, with hundreds injured, have reopened memories that many in the Tarai hoped had been left behind. For those outside the region, these deaths may appear as another tragic consequence of communal tensions. But for many Madheshis, they evoke a longer history—one in which moments of unrest repeatedly end with security force bullets, grieving families, and unresolved questions about how the Nepali state responds to crises in Madhesh in particular and the Tarai in general.
The recent violence, which began after tensions surrounding a religious procession and later spread across parts of the Tarai, has largely been framed as a communal clash between Hindu and Muslim communities. Public discussions have understandably focused on the origins of the conflict, questions of religious intolerance, and the urgent need to restore communal harmony. These concerns are important. In a diverse society, protecting inter-community relations and preventing further violence must remain a priority.
Yet another question deserves equal attention: why do episodes of unrest in the Tarai so often culminate in security force firing and civilian deaths?
This essay is not an attempt to deny the communal dimensions of the recent violence or to overlook the complexities that produce social tensions. Rather, it asks a different question: what happens when a moment of unrest becomes a moment of lethal state response? The causes of violence and the state’s response to violence are not the same. While the origins of the conflict require careful examination, the use of lethal force by the state demands its own independent scrutiny.
For many people in Madhesh, the recent deaths are not experienced as an isolated tragedy. They reopen a history that has never fully disappeared. The sound of gunfire recalls earlier moments when political demands, public protests, and social unrest were met with state force—from the first Madhesh Movement in 2007 to the major protests of 2015.
During these movements, demands for political recognition, dignity, and equal citizenship were met with extensive police violence. Dozens of protesters lost their lives, hundreds sustained injuries, and many continue to live with permanent physical impairments. But the consequences of those moments did not end when the streets became quiet. They continued in bereaved families, disrupted livelihoods, economic insecurity, psychological distress, and bodies that still carry the marks of violence.
This enduring afterlife of violence became increasingly visible to me through my research on the Madhesh Movement conducted over two phases. While travelling across Madhesh, I met families whose lives had been permanently altered by the consequences of state force deployed in response to peaceful protests. I met parents who continued to mourn the loss of their sons and wives, their husbands, families whose economic conditions deteriorated after losing their primary earners, and protesters whose bodies still carried the physical consequences of police firing.
What remained striking was not only the violence they had experienced, but the way that violence continued to shape their daily lives years later. For many survivors and families, the movement did not end when the protests stopped. It continued through the pain of loss, disability, financial hardship, and unanswered questions about justice.
One such widow said to me that she no longer followed political speeches because none of them changed her reality. Her words captured something much deeper than disappointment with individual politicians. They reflected the distance between public promises and private suffering. She added, ‘Political speeches came and went, governments changed, and new issues dominated public attention. But for families who lost loved ones, the consequences of violence remained part of their everyday existence.’
This is why the recent killings resonate so deeply in Madhesh. They are not remembered only as a new tragedy. They are experienced through memories of earlier violence. While public attention eventually moves on and political conversations shift elsewhere, those who lost family members or continue to live with injuries do not have the privilege of forgetting. Their grief, their damaged bodies, and their unresolved questions remain present.
The politics of closure: Shifting of public attention
Another troubling pattern has emerged repeatedly after episodes of violence in the Tarai. Firing by security forces results in civilian deaths; public anger follows; negotiations begin; compensation is announced; and those killed may eventually be recognised as martyrs. Material support and recognition undoubtedly matter for families who lose loved ones. Compensation can provide necessary assistance, particularly when a death creates immediate economic hardship. Recognition as martyrs may also provide families with a sense that society acknowledges their loss.
But an uncomfortable question remains: can compensation substitute for accountability?
Compensation responds to the consequences of violence. Accountability asks why the violence occurred, whether the use of force was necessary, who bears responsibility, and what institutional changes are needed to prevent future deaths.
When the same sequence repeats after every crisis, there is a danger that lethal force becomes normalised. Compensation, rather than institutional reflection, follows death; and mourning gives way to political negotiation rather than meaningful accountability. What should demand scrutiny of state conduct gradually becomes treated as an unfortunate but expected consequence of restoring order.
The concern is not that affected families should reject compensation or recognition. They deserve support and dignity. The deeper concern is whether these measures have become a substitute for confronting the conditions that produce deaths again and again in the first place.
In the aftermath of the recent violence, another development further complicated the public conversation. News and videos circulating on social media showed the country’s home minister engaging in a formal meeting with Hindu groups in Janakpur, where the possibility of declaring Nepal a Hindu state was reportedly discussed. While a government spokesperson dismissed the claim that any such formal agreement had been reached, the episode has already sparked significant public debate.
The Home Minister had visited the affected area, met with local communities, and engaged with bereaved families. However, instead of remaining focused on the immediate questions raised by the deaths, the circumstances of the security response, and the need for accountability, public debate increasingly moved toward broader questions of religious identity and national politics.
This shift in focus illustrates how moments of violence in Madhesh often become absorbed into larger political narratives. Debates over religion, identity, and communal relations are important in understanding the wider social context, but they can also draw attention away from an equally urgent question: how and why did the state’s response result in civilian deaths? The challenge is not to dismiss other relevant debates, but to ensure that such debates do not obscure the need for public accountability from state institutions.
Thus, the question that remains unanswered is simple but fundamental: why does unrest in the Tarai so often end with civilians being killed by the very institutions responsible for protecting them?
The language of harmony and the question of accountability
As always, after the recent violence, political leaders, civil society actors, and social activists called for communal harmony. Sadbhav (harmony) rallies brought Hindu and Muslim communities together in public expressions of solidarity. These initiatives do carry important symbolic meaning. At a moment of heightened tension, affirming peaceful coexistence is necessary and reassuring.
However, the prominence of these initiatives also raises another question: what conversations became less visible in the process?
Alongside calls for harmony, political commentators and analysts offered explanations for the violence. Some focused on the rise of Hindu majoritarian politics, others on cross-border ideological influences, or broader regional political dynamics. These are significant issues that deserve serious discussion. But explaining why communal tensions emerge should not come at the expense of examining how the state responds once violence occurs.
As public debate became increasingly focused on the origins of communal conflict, the question of police firing and civilian deaths gradually receded out of public consciousness. The danger is not in discussing communal harmony; such discussions are absolutely necessary. The danger lies in foregrounding harmony to become the only framework through which violence can be negotiated.
Communal reconciliation and state accountability are not competing goals. A society requires both. Peace between communities is essential, but peace alone cannot account for silence about state violence. Rebuilding trust between communities should not prevent us from asking whether the state’s own actions require examination.
The issue is not whether communal tension matters. It does. The issue is whether the deaths caused by state force should disappear from public discussion simply because another explanation for violence has become more politically expedient.
Remembering what remains
For many outside Madhesh, moments of violence eventually become news events that disappear from public attention. For those who experienced them, however, violence does not end when the headlines disappear. It continues through bodies, families, memories, and everyday struggles. The recent killings, therefore, cannot be understood only through the immediate circumstances that produced the unrest but also through the longer history of how the Nepali state has responded to moments of crisis in the Tarai.
If every episode of unrest follows the same trajectory—violence, police firing, civilian deaths, compensation, and political closure—we must ask whether the problem lies only in individual moments of conflict or whether this repetition reveals a deeper structural problem in the way the Nepali state manages or governs conflict.
The question facing Madhesh is therefore not simply how to restore ‘harmony’ after unrest or provide ‘compensation’ after lives have been lost. These terms can become part of the political language through which unrest is contained and brought to closure, often in ways disconnected from the everyday realities of those who have experienced state violence. For many Madheshis, violence does not end when political discourse turns toward ‘peace’, ‘harmony’, or ‘compensation’; it persists in bereaved families, injured bodies, disrupted livelihoods, and enduring memories.
A democracy must do more than compensate citizens after they are killed. It must ask why they were killed, who is responsible, and what must change to prevent such deaths from becoming another familiar chapter in the unfinished history of Madhesh. Without accountability, ‘peace’ can only become a language of closure rather than of justice.
