By P. Kharel
Ambassadorial assignments
Gone are the days when ambassadorial figures like Matrika Prasad Koirala, Yadu Nath Khanal, Jharenadra Narayan Singh, Keshar Bahadur KC and Ranadhir Subba added exalt to the job as a task for the competent with refined approach, added with discretion and dignity.
In loktantrik today, any Tom, Dick and Mary can get the job, provided s/he has close contacts with the bosses in power. The appointments are treated as the outcome of the personal pleasure of top-notch political bigwigs in the incumbent ruling class.
Advance payment in green dollars led to the reward of the diplomatic post. Nepotism and favours shower accordingly to hangars-on or NGO buff pretending to know the ropes of impressing upon foreign governments, which is nothing but bunkum as far as the veracity of the claim is concerned.
The latest appointments follow a familiar pattern taking nation for a ride, as if the postings are something to dole out to hangars-on and yes persons whose prime qualification is the personal loyalty and meek submission to the man or woman in power or in close proximity to the big bosses in the seat of power.
Casual and cavalier is the manner in which such important assignments are given, foreign capitals might put up a diplomatic face but the whole process in Nepal send a poor signal. For that matter, it is known that some appointments are made on the tacit recommendation of the very country that a Nepali ambassador is supposed to be accredited to!
Cash-carcade
So President Bidhya Devi Bhandari wants yet another luxury car and carcade. “Security” concerns are the ruse for the motor vehicle that has attracted huge criticisms. Members of even her UML faction in the Nepal Communist Party are dissatisfied with the development.
At a time when KP Oli’s NCP government, with a two-thirds majority, is foundering in public image, Bhandari’s name being dragged with such controversy only adds to the prime minister’s already piling up woes. “This does not add to the good name of the late Madan Bhandari,” rued a leading figure in the progressive intellectuals’ group that is affiliated to UML.
Then the bombshell came announcing that sprawling the Nepal Police Academy premises would be used to expand the next-door Presidential Palace, as the police drill and training sessions created considerable “disturbances” to the president. It was also given that a helipad would be constructed to facilitate a smooth mobility of the president, who, apparently, takes great pleasure in opportunities for public visibility.
Without regret
Came across one of the numerous interviews of all shapes and forms I have given over the decades. This one attracted my attention this particular time to recall a small segment of it for sharing in this column:
I consider my assignment as the Gorkhapatra Sansthan’s full-time correspondent stationed in New Delhi in 1989-90 at the height of an impasse over trade and transit treaty between Nepal and India as one of the most challenging tasks I faced during my entire journalism career. I also happened to be the first regular correspondent working for a Nepali media. (The national news agency RSS a few years earlier, had deputed two or three of their staffs for brief periods as “an experiment”, as a result of which Delhi-datelined news from RSS trickled very sparingly.)
That was also the time when the then Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, with three-fourths majority in parliament, faced corruption charges that $640 million was pocketed as bribe in the world’s most populous democracy. Most opposition MPs resigned from parliament in protest against the government’s failure to form a probe committee.
All along, Nepalis were suffering from the hardships because of the stalemate over signing a new treaty with India. Unhappy over some of my dispatches from the Indian capital, the Indian External Affairs Publicity (XP) Department summoned me thrice but stopped such practice after I told its director that I would move the foreign correspondents’ association in New Delhi if such harassment continued.
As a result, my press accreditation card was never upgraded to a regular one and I joked with other foreign correspondents that I was the “senior-most” foreign correspondent among those holding “temporary” ID card. Temporary ID meant having to renew it every month, also depriving its holder from being listed in the official list of foreign correspondents. This meant that I would have to personally make calls and visit members of the diplomatic corps and government officials, among others, to introduce myself. When the Rajiv Government lost the November 1989 elections, things improved a little, with the foreign ministry officials there visibly friendly. By the time I was nearing completion of a year in Delhi, I was recalled to head as the editor of the impending publication of Gorkhapatra Sansthan, Sunday Despatch.
As to joining the now-defunct National Journalists Association Nepal in 2005-6, my firm stand:
Outright political activists heavily dominate all such organizations, including the Federation of Nepali Journalists, Nepal Press Union, Press Chautari and the Maoist Press Centre. Political activists of the pro-monarch make also dominated the Federation of National Journalists Associations. If I could become a simple member of FNJ even if its office-bearers were elected on party lines, why not accept the leadership of the newly formed group, even if heavily dominated by also activists projected as pro-monarchists, I thought. But FENAJ’s Constitution clearly stressed on professionalism and inclusiveness. I was an interim president for six months until a general assembly elected the editor of Jana Bhawana weekly, Nirodh Raj Pandey as the new president. I have no regrets, though the group is disintegrated today.
Without comment
Senior advocate Balkrishna Neupane, at an interaction programme on corruption-control the other weekend in Kathmandu: “Terminal disease has become as an essential qualification to become prime minister in Nepal.”
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