As a start-up project of the May 18 Photo Exhibition, there has been the photo exhibitions under the title of "The Great Heritage of Democracy" in 4 South Asian countries(Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan) from April 15th, 2016. Here is a vivid report from the field.

A photo exhibition was organized by Institute of Human Rights and Democracy from 16 to 28 April 2016 in Kathmandu, Nepal with support from the May 18 Memorial Foundation, Republic of Korea. Exhibitions are generally organized in swanky white-walled galleries, but it was done in the public college situated in the heart of Kathmandu with the aim of reaching out to as many audiences as possible. In the exhibition, 52 photos of Gwangju democratic uprising and 10 pictures of Nepal's 2006 democratic movement were displayed. About 5,000 audiences including college students, teachers, political activists and general public turned out to watch the exhibition. All the photos in the display had captions underneath in English, Korean and Nepali languages that helped visitors know about each picture. Moreover, fliers were published in Nepali language containing background and objectives of the exhibition. The fliers helped disseminate the message of the event to the people. It was the first exhibition of this kind in Nepal.

All about the exhibition

The exhibition was organized to spread the message of the democratic movement of Gwangju. The theme of the event was, therefore, chosen as "The Great Heritage of Democracy: May 18 Gwangju Democratic Uprising". However, the pictures displayed in the event also included that of the 2006 peoples' movement of Nepal. The reason behind the display of pictures of two different democratic movements was to give the audiences an opportunity to understand the nature of democratic struggles happened in different parts of the globe. Gwangju, the sixth largest city in Korea in terms of population, saw a massive uprising in May 1980. Citizens of Gwangju took part in the uprising against the military government of Chun Doo-Hwan, who curtailed democratic rights of the people and suppressed them by using martial law. To quell the peoples' democratic movement, the military junta undertook an operation in Gwangju and killed about 154 persons made 74 disappeared and severely tortured more than 4,141 people¹. The Gwangju democratic uprising did not achievean immediate success in establishing democracy in the country, but it became an inspiration for the democratic consciousness that played a crucial role in overthrowing the military regime within a decade. In June 1988, with the advent of the sixth republic, the uprising was renamed as the Gwangju Democratization Movement in order to restore national harmony.

The Gwangju democratic uprising did not achieve an immediate success in establishing democracy in the country, but it became an inspiration for the democratic consciousness that played a crucial role in overthrowing the military regime within a decade. In June 1988, with the advent of the sixth republic, the uprising was renamed as the Gwangju Democratization Movement in order to restore national harmony. In Nepal, the 2006 democracy movement was the agitation against the direct and undemocratic rule of King Gyanendra, who overtook power by dismissing the cabinet of elected Prime Minister SherBahadur on 4 October 2002. This act was strongly opposed by Nepali people. Seven political parties then made a 12 point accord with the Maoist insurgents and launched the mass movement against the King's government. The movement went on for 19 days from 6 to 24 April 2006 that made the King return all executive power to the people. The parliament was restored and a government was formed under the premiership of Mr. Girija Prasad Koirala including members of seven political parties in the cabinet. The same government signed a comprehensive peace accord with the Maoists on 21 November 2006 and brought the 10 year long Maoist insurgency to an end. In the movement, 26 people lost their lives and hundreds became injured².

The pictures of these two democratic movements demonstrate how people took part in the uprising and sacrificed their lives for democracy and human rights in their respective country. The pictures show that the degree of damage might be different, but the nature of suppression by the dictators is almost same everywhere. The dictators don't let people speak their mind and hold peaceful demonstrations as they take it as a threat or challenge to their regime. Thanks to the brave photographers, it was possible to capture the moments of democratic fights of the people.

Impact of the exhibition

It is said that pictures speak more than words. When pictures and words come together, they describe something in a way that produces a strong feature in people's mind. That was what the Kathmandu exhibition did. The pictures and the captions underneath made the audiences feel how the democratic uprising had taken place in Gwangju more than three decades ago. The audiences, most of who didn't even hear the name of Gwangju before, have now become aware of how the people of Gwangju fought for their rights and freedom putting their lives at risk.

In the course of writing this piece, I talked to many people, who had visited the exhibition, to get their view of the exhibition. In the conversation, some of them said that democracy and human rights are the essential ingredients of modern societies that promote the meaningful existence of human lives. Yet these ingredients do not come easily; thousands of people have made sacrifices for it. The pictures of the Gwangju democratic uprising in the exhibition have conveyed the same message. Other audiences illustrated that the exhibition helped them understand the heroic fights of Gwangju people against the military dictatorship which curtailed their democratic rights. They said that the illustrative pictures in the display inspired them to do the same as Korean did for the nation and the community if need be.

The majority of the audiences were young students from colleges who had heard and read about the political movements but no idea how they happened in Nepal and elsewhere. When they visited the exhibition, they got shocked by seeing the pictures of brutality perpetrated by the military on the people. Mentioning a caption of a picture, one of the young visitors expressed that she had never thought the military could be so brutal and ruthless. The caption she referred to reads as follows. "A pregnant woman held her stomach as she waited for her husband to come back home, but was shot in the chest by a martial law army man, and died. However, the child in her womb was still alive. The town residents loaded her body on a cart and begged the martial law army men to let them through to get to the hospital. ‘The woman may be dead but the child still lives. If we take them to the hospital, the child has a chance to survive so please let us pass.' Instead of replying, the soldiers struck down the heads of the citizens with their clubs. The citizens could do nothing. The child in the womb ended up dying." Then she said the criminals who committed heinous crimes against the fellow citizens should be duly punished otherwise there would be no meaning of having democracy and prosperity; justice should be prevailed to prevent such crimes in the future.

Some audiences got fascinated by seeing the pictures of the Gwangju people cooking foods on the street during the uprising. When the martial law army sieged the border of Gwangju to isolate it from the rest of the world and bring its democratic fighters under the military control, the Gwangju citizens brought out all they had to the streets to share with all the people and militia and protected them from starving. It indicates that whole community of Gwangju was in movement. The audiences understood from the picture that without the support of community people, whom leaders are supposed to fight for, no movement achieves success.

After having seen the exhibition, a senior political cum human rights activist shared that he was motivated to get into politics and human rights movement after hearing news on the BBC about Gwangju democratic uprising. When the citizens of Gwangju were fighting for democracy in their hometown, political leaders of Nepal were involved in underground politics, as they were not allowed to operate their activities against the undemocratic regime of the King. After listening to the news of Korean people's struggle for democracy, he also decided to fight for human rights and democracy in Nepal being associated with the political parties. He added that he was so happy to have seen the pictures of the Gwangju uprising that inspired thousands of youths around the globe to fight for democracy. His suggestion was that such exhibitions should be organized in different parts to motivate new generations to protect and promote democratic values including human rights in their societies.

Conclusion

The exhibition of this kind was a new experience in Nepal. It gave an opportunity for the audiences to observe how the democratic movements were operated and oppressed in Gwangju, Republic of Korea and in Nepal. The main focus of the event was to display pictures of the Gwangju democratic uprising and spread its message to the people of Nepal. However, a few pictures of Nepal's 2006 democratic movement were also put on the display with the aim of providing a comparative view of the democratic movements to the audiences.

¹ See more at: http://eng.518.org/ease/menu.es?mid=a50202000000 (accessed on 9 June 2016)
² See more at: http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/printedition/news/2013-01-19/101-martyrs-from-2006-and-onwards.html (accessed on 9 June 2016)