Following Nayan, we soon arrived at a local house. A few of the boys had run ahead and set up benches and mats on the ground. Once there, Dipek and I were pushed into the most comfortable seats and given water. It did not take long before the aguwas started to arrive. First came the older aguwas, too weak to work the fields they stay close to the village herding buffalo or working around the house.

We all made our initial introductions until the younger aguwas began to arrive. Many still glistening with sweat from a day preparing the fields for the coming rain, the assembly grew to include some twelve aguwas and a handful of local youth. Last to arrive was the badhghar who strolled in unannounced and quietly took a seat behind the other aguwas. Each aguwa wore a traditional nepali hat and sat crossed legged on a straw mat. Facial expressions ranged from serious and concentrated, to slightly amused and curious to completely confused.

I introduced myself and why I had come. Dipek was the interpreter and he quickly and efficiently turned all my words into Tharu language. Our conversation started out slowly, just going over information about the village and its inhabitants. A few aguwas took the lead in offering answers but eventually everyone in attendance became involved and engaged in the discussion. Generally the aguwas agreed on most points, but the youth would often offer dissenting opinions. When asked if the aguwa system was still suitable as people in the village became more modern, the older men were unanimous in saying it was still the best system. Younger men shook their heads quietly at the aguwas answers and when cajoled into speaking their minds they said they desired more participation and communal decision making, while they spoke their dissent they shot apologetic looks to the aguwas and mostly spoke to the ground. It is worth noting that there were no women present to offer their opinion of the system.

We asked about human rights, local dispute settlement and communal activities and found that most decisions regarding these matters were made by the aguwas after they listened to village opinion at open meetings. For small, petty crimes the village preferred not to get the police involved and would settle things internally with the aguwas acting as mediators. Distrust of the police runs strong in most rural communities.

Mohammadpur VDC was one of the most seriously affected by violence during the conflict period. Mohammdpur has a population of around 2,000 people, during the conflict 250 villagers, police and Maoists died in the VDC. With Maoist activity having been so high in the area, when police went out into the villages they acted under the assumption that every young man was a Maoist. This meant indiscriminate beatings of young men and often illegal detentions. Needless to say these actions did not create trust between local communities and the police, but despite these actions the villagers were still willing to concede that they preferred the presence of the police to the Maoists.

When asked about politics and whether the aguwas got involved in such discussions, everyone at the meeting burst into laughter. It seems that two of them are constantly bickering about party politics and it is somewhat of a running joke among all of the men. During actual village deliberations though party politics has never come into play it is just a subject for conversation after work is done. Discussions of politics brought us to the topic of the upcoming elections, which we found all the men knew about but none understand. At this point Dipek detoured into a brief explanation of the constitutional assembly elections while in my mind I started planning a program to spread information about the elections at the local level.

Our final topic was finally whether they were at all interested in the program I am now writing for COCAP. In fact they were very enthusiastic about the idea and offered a lot of ideas for the composition and activities of the peace committees. They encouraged us to ensure we create proactive committees that will really take interest in community issues and they recommended we choose committee members from of the VDCs 9 wards. Their recommendations and enthusiasm in turn increased my excitement for the program and offered a lot of help in conceiving of how exactly our committees might serve the communities they would represent.

Our meeting ended with a group photograph which was a great source of amusement for all of the participants. I offered one final namaste to the aguwas before the young men ushered me into the house for a traditional Tharu welcome; chicken and local.