By P. Kharel
Move for movement
Some sections in the Madhes-based parties and ethnic groups are said to be itching for launching a protest-unto-success campaign with the onset of this winter. If that were true, would it be the first time such a major political rally to be launched? No, far from so. The seven-point agreement that seven political parties and Maoists reached in November 2005 occurred at the behest of India, following which “People’s Movement II” burst onto the streets of Kathmandu Valley. The rest is history.
Generally, it is the start of the spring season that sounds the first shot of a well-organized political programme, triggered by students or some other groups that put forth a list demands whose unfulfilment enables the campaign to gather steam. Although solidarity is expressed from different quarters, the main focus is in Kathmandu. Police “brutalities against the peaceful campaigners” is roundly condemned by numerous organizations that are basically fronts for the protesting groups. Shops are shuttered down under intense pressure and threats from the “peaceful” rallyists, and scarcity of various commodities and services is thus created. The “great hardships” of the people also get added to the vocabulary of slogan-chanting activists.
General strikes are the result. Burning of motor-tyres on the main thoroughfares of the highways and cane-carrying police personnel deployed to control the situation become common sight. In the name of raising the voices of the people, stone-throwing youth and baton-brandishing police get engaged in the process. The government of the day is then termed “authoritarian” and invectives are hurled against government members.
Hundreds of rallyists court arrests and voluntarily get onto police motor vehicles, only to be released after a few hours. Some of them manage to court arrests twice in a single day. Many of them get the distinction of such arrests almost daily for the cause of democracy and people’s right. If the demonstrations get violent and police resort to firing, the rally leaders are warned that they no longer control the campaign while the protestors call for the dismissal of the government.
If some sort of a compromise gets reached, there are demands for declaring the ones killed during the protest rallies as “martyrs” and a probe committee is set up, whose report is invariably dumped in the cluttered cloisters of government office, gathering dust for eternity without any follow-up action against those the probe found “guilty”.
Pocketing money
Strange is the way “youth” is defined in Nepali politics. As long Girija Prasad lived well into his 80s, Sher Bahadur Deuba and Ram Chandra Poudyal were treated as “youth leaders, even if they were well past six decades. Many “youth leaders” of major parties, today too, are into their 50s but savour their status as “youth” as if that led people to automatically repose faith in their energy and dynamism.
Quite a few youth leaders rose from the ranks of students leaders during the campus/university days. A few did exceedingly well and established themselves with distinction. Others did not earn any merit except to wager about their “student leader” tag. Interestingly, however, student leaders during the panchayat days, whether they are democrats or progressive, had a far better record than their successors after the restoration of multiparty democracy.
Retirees who served as campus administrators and/or university office-bearers privately admit that, if proper auditing were to be held or investigative agencies to professionally scrutinise student union accounts in the last three decades, there would be glaring discrepancies. Such procedures would disclose incriminating details about quite a few “youth leaders” who flutter around in the national political mainstream today. The irregularities are said to be seen and heard from authoritative sources to be believed for real.
But who dare do such investigation at a time when it is not who in high places are corrupt but who really are not! And former students would be only termed as “small fish” while the sharks swim in absolute immunity.
Bubble bursts
Prashant Jha, a product of Jawaharlal University who, after marriage to a girl of a large business house in India, had a quick climb to the upper rungs of the Hindustan Times newspaper, recently was compelled to resign from his editorial job as a bureau chief. The reason for the abrupt ouster, under the stare of a stern management, was charges of sexual harassment by a former colleague of his. The circumstantial evidence proved too strong for the newspaper management to overlook. Had Jha denied and stood his ground, a sack order would have been issued. Hence he opted for a relatively less ingenious exit. The so-called “MeToo” fever, though generally not unwelcome, carries an inherent risk of being one-sided and in favour of jilted lovers and jinxed hearts.
It is not pleasant to see that the scribe who for a brief stint scribed for news publications in Nepal met such a fate. But even journalists wear different hats and, at times, masks.
Without comment
Leftist leader CP Gajurel, in a write-up carried by Annapurna Post: People are depaired with the KP Oli government more than with previous governments because the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) had promised much more than others and doing nothing about it.
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