Nepal: Beauties and the Beasts? · Global Voices
Ujjwal Acharya

Protests of beauty contests are nothing new. For the hardliner feminists, such contest gives a false sense of outer beauty while for those supporting it; it's an opportunity to showcase the talents. When Miss Nepal 2007 happened, there were protests outside the venue and police even used force to disperse the crowd.
And, the Maoists who just joined the government put some ghee on the fire as Information and Communication Minister Krishna Bahadur Mahara saying to a delegation that he would look into the matters to see if the stopping of the live broadcast of the pageant by the state-owned Nepal Television is possible.
Hisila Yami, minister for physical planning, too spoke against it (of course, Food for Thoughts named her beauty queen after she attended the oath taking ceremony of the Maoist ministers in jeans).
Nepal Through My Lens witnessed the protest:
Everybody inside BICC Hall was cheering for the participating Miss Nepal contestants. But the condition outside the hall was not so good. A thousand woman protesters were demanding to stop the event. More than 18 protest were injured when they clashed with the police.
But Miss Nepal 2007 went on with Sitasma Chand winning the crown. And bloggers, who wrote about the protests and contest, were not too happy with the protest. Mero Guff believes:
I don't see why those protesting groups are blindly accusing the organizers for women exploitation and so. For me, the act of protesting is nonsense. There is no glance of profanity or nudity during the whole show event. In fact, occasionally it was enriched with cultural themes and music in background. I've personally watched that show and my judgment suggested me that there is nothing wrong with it.
Who are these Women Activists to protest that way? Are they jealous? Is it not their freedom to take part in? Has any contestant yet come and cry in front of these women activists for the case of abuse by their organizers? When I heard one of the women activists yesterday in one local FM stations being interviewed, I pitied on her miserable blaming which was just pointless.
The winner herself commented beautifully on the issue of protest. She told the media: “I respect the opinion of all the women who are protesting against the pageant. However, all the participants here are above 18. So the protesters should also respect our right to form our own opinion.”
Meanwhile, Deepak's Diary makes a point that to be a hero, one doesn't have to be physically beatuiful. In the post about a successful differently-able government officer, he says:
But, to me he appeared to be a kind of inspiring figure, an unsung hero who refused to bow to the preconceived notion of society that believes disability is a sin, a crime.