On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
Our neighbouring country China has emerged as the largest economy in the globe. The Chinese leaders are celebrating the century era of the establishment of the Communist Party of China (CPC). The Chinese leaders are planning to completely eradicate poverty from the country. Just recently, China observed the elimination of extreme poverty in the country. They have defined the present era as the era of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Our other neighbour India has emerged as a vibrant economy. Another neighbouring country Bangladesh has emerged as the fastest-growing economy.
Where is Nepal among the neighbours, we can have self-evaluation. Of course, corrupt and non-visionary leaderships have destroyed this beautiful country rich in natural resources. No doubt, the downfall of the country started along with the dawn of the multiparty democracy in 1989. No doubt, the Maoist insurgency is the result of rampant corruption, bad governance, and brutality demonstrated against those innocent poor people in remote villages. Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda, Baburam Bhattarai, among others, cashed the situation and developed an armed group by exploiting those innocent but patriotic youths. In the name of patriotism, the Nepali youths were used for fulfilling foreigners’ interests. No doubt, India had sponsored the Maoist “people’s war”. Thousands of youths sacrificed their blood in the 10-year-long insurgency. Hundreds of them became physically disabled, nevertheless, a few leaders in the insurgency have secured their position, power and luxury lifestyle.
The political leaders have exhibited themselves as cheaters, fraud, and looters. They have no regret for their bad deeds, also, they are not ashamed of what the people are saying against them! I think, they even don’t visit those social networking sites, otherwise, they could have observed the public reaction against them. One can have very little hope that they would have corrected their personnel behaviour if they could have understood the anger of the general public!
Prachanda is found claiming that the nation has adopted the Maoists’ agendas — secularism, federalism, and republicanism. But these agendas have already been failed in Nepal. His party has already failed and the nation is on the verge of collapse since the adoption of the agendas backed by the vested interests of foreign powers.
Foreigners are trying to push the nation towards bankruptcy followed by civil war. And our leaders are serving their interests.
Our leaders are famous for giving attractive slogans. “Socialism” is the slogan they are lauding but a limited group of people belonging to the political family has become rich and the majority of the Nepalis have become poorer.
Socialism has become a political fashion. Perhaps, the leaders themselves don’t know the definition of socialism. According to Wikipedia, “Socialism is a political, social, and economic philosophy encompassing a range of economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production and democratic control, such as workers’ self-management of enterprises. It includes the political theories and movements associated with such systems. Social ownership can be public, collective, cooperative, or of equity”.
Are the political parties practicing socialism today? Of course, the erstwhile dissolved Panchayat system was fundamentally based on the concept of socialism and socialism was flourished enormously during that period. The economic and social systems were far better than today. There was a rule of law, the economic position of the country was better than today and the enterprises under the public, collective and cooperative ownership were flourished enormously. If one can recall, on 30 May 1985, when there was the Panchayat system, the foreign currency exchange rate of one unit of the US dollar was just Rs. 18.10. Today’s exchange rate for one unit of the US dollar, according to the Nepal Rastra Bank, is Rs. 119.48. In the past 36 years, how our currency has been devalued, we can compare it with the political system that we have adopted. It is not a secret that Nepal is spending foreign currency to purchase the Indian currency for importing goods from India. We are totally under Indian economic domination, which is very dangerous. Our exchange rate with the Indian currency is fixed at Rs 1.60 rupees for one unit of the Indian currency. This is the official rate. However, individuals are compelled to pay Rs 190 to get Indian Rs. 100. If Nepal will decide to keep her currency in the currency basket, we cannot imagine what will be the price of our currency!
The economy is the backbone of a country. Unfortunately, our economy has been further ruined due to the wrong policy adopted by those people who ruled the country after the restoration of the multiparty democracy and now loktantra.
Nepal has become an imports based economy since our major source of revenue has become customs duty on imports. For decades, the capital investment target has not been met, whereas the government’s general expenditure or say non-productive sector is increasing at an alarming level. Presently, the government is taking foreign loans to function the province structure, which is a wrong decision.
Indeed, we are inside a dark tunnel from where we cannot imagine a sign of light.
Maybe, a selected group of political leaders’ future has been secured but the future of the entire Nepali citizens is dismal.
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