THE TRAILER FOR Dr CK Raut: The Passion opens with a fictionalised Raut in a navy-blue suit and red tie, standing above a crowd as it chants, “What do we want? Freedom!” Raut lifts his fist into the air and says, in Hindi, “Now we will not ask for Madhesh, we will snatch it away.” In a later scene, he is beaten by policemen and left bleeding. The blood drips onto a map of Nepal, cutting a line through the country’s southern belt. “Jai Madhesh!”, Raut shouts. At the close, unfazed after even more assaults, he breaks apart his handcuffs and growls, “Now Madhesh will not be a slave to anyone. The chains of slavery will have to be broken.”
The trailer is an accurate depiction of the mythology that surrounds Raut in much of the Madhesh region, in Nepal’s southern plains. Raut is thought to be a fearless advocate of the rights of Madheshi people, superhero-like in his grit and tenacity. His ability to articulate the pain of state oppression and neglect, manifest in the Madesh’s political disenfranchisement and economic despair, won him legions of supporters, and in 2006 Raut founded the Alliance for Independent Madhesh (AIM). The group described itself as an “alliance of Madheshi people, activists, parties and various organizations working for establishing an independent and sovereign Madhesh,” and demanded the withdrawal of the Nepali state’s “colonial” administration and security forces from the region. AIM’s message was simple: progress and justice could only come to the Madhesh if the power and the people of the Pahad, the historical centre of Nepal’s politics and government, were excised from it.
In the Pahad, the hill region stretching along the north of the Madhesh, this made Raut an object of ridicule, in keeping with the long-standing derision of Madheshis by Nepal’s Pahadi elites. Here, the idea of fragmenting the country was sacrilege, and Raut’s demand for an independent Madhesh a fanciful slogan with little political substance. But AIM gathered pace and popularity, particularly among young Madheshi men, who staged momentous demonstrations demanding a Madheshi nation-state stretching the full breadth of the southern plains. Raut was arrested and charged with sedition in 2014 under Nepal’s Crime against State and Punishment Act, prompting Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to call for his immediate and unconditional release. He was eventually let go, but continued to be in and out of prison for several years, solidifying his reputation in the Madhesh as a Mandela-esque figure fighting for liberation and justice. Raut’s supporters were targeted too: in August 2018, Ram Manohar Yadav, an AIM member, died in police custody after he was detained for waving a black flag at Upendra Yadav, the deputy prime minister.
Then, in March 2019, Raut shocked his supporters by signing an 11-point agreement with the Nepal government, ending his movement for an independent Madhesh and securing his release from jail. Raut accepted the existence of an undivided Nepal that includes the Madhesh, while the government committed to addressing the concerns of Madheshis through constitutional and democratic means. Raut described the deal as a “win-win”, but many of his staunchest backers saw it as a betrayal, an indication that Raut had sacrificed his radical ambitions for his own political gain.