By DM Thapa
Nepalese politics is in real need of a rescue of some kind. In fact, we had predicted before the election that nothing to be happy about would take place even after the expensive political exercise though the people were expecting a change for the better.
But sadly there has been only political chaos, perhaps more chaos than Nepali politics has seen since the change in 1990. It is in bad taste to say something not good about a person who is no longer on this earth, but this author would like to emphasise once again that it was the late Gririja Prasad Koirala who unleashed such chaos right at the beginning, knowingly or unknowingly. He was amply helped by his obedient ‘Yes Men’ and also his pampered daughter Sujata, who at that time was married to a German national, but quickly came back when her father became the Prime Minister of the country which she had abandoned.
There has been no looking back since then. First the Commander of the 1990 revolution late Ganesh Man Singh was humiliated by Girija Prasad Koirala and later Sher Bahadur left the party again because of him. Then there was the mass sacking of many veteran secretaries of the government, the influx of Nepali Congress supporters in every sector, specially government institutions, rampant corruption and add to this list the most violent protests of the Leftist parties and the mysterious death of popular communist leader Madan Bhandari, whose wife is the President of the country, though she will be soon replaced by another person, though partisan fighting and one-up-manship is still going on choosing the winning candidate. We also saw snap polls at the behest of the late Koirala and the Nepali Congress. Then more chaos followed with a Hung Parliament being established with five persons becoming prime ministers in a short span of just about four years.
Then there were another snap polls and this time the Nepali Congress came up being the largest party. But nothing went as smoothly as expected, the violent protests continued hitting hard the economy of the nation specially the tourism sector, but the worst was yet to come in the form of an armed rebellion by the Maoists then led by Babu Ram Bhattarai. In fact, this can be taken as a turning point for the country, but for the better or for the worse, it is yet difficult to say. The saddest part of this political development is that thousands of people lost their lives, many more were maimed and there still are many who are unaccounted for. The trauma and the fear of this armed conflict will last a lifetime for hundreds of thousands of people and the worst part is that once harmoniously living people have been divided in a wily manner giving them individual identities while dividing them. This surely must be the scheme of outsiders rather than the Nepalese front runners. From political leaders to clever administrators, civil society leaders to media people among others, all have been used to the hilt to fragment this tiny and once harmonious country.
Meanwhile, the economic woes are such that unless we get remittance from our youths working in harsh conditions in the most difficult of countries, the government may not have enough to even pay the civil servants. Forget the market prices for daily consumable items, the plight of the poor is lamentable. It is not for nothing we are seeing a constant rise in criminal activities and people are being cheated on one pretext or the other. And the authorities just look the other way or shift blame and the police only arrest small timers no daring to catch the ‘bigger fishes’.
Right now besides the election of a new President some other mundane issues are also dominating national politics.
That the government is already in the doldrums can be easily witnessed by the factor that it is made up completely of different parties with totally different ideologies. It was some sort of achievement that these parties could at least come up with a Common Minimum Programme(CMP), but the sad part is none of the leaders in power seems to have done any homework to stick to the CMP and act accordingly for the benefit of the nation and the people. Everyone seems to be going in their own way and concentrating only on populist or self-praising works.
For example, is making it compulsory for pillion riders to wear helmets a major regulation within the common minimum programme? This seems to be just a whim of a minister with the backing of middlemen and helmet importers. According to reports, 39 hundred thousand two-wheelers are running on the roads of the country. Even if only 30,000 helmets are to be bought, the amount made by middlemen and importers of helmets is mind blogging. And that is if you buy the cheaper version of helmets which could cost from a minimum of Rs. 4600 to 65000!
Besides partisan politics, buying, selling or building only, there are thousands of works within the CMP, which could be done swiftly and which would directly benefit the public. Such works which will really show the work of the government would make much sense rather than just trying to beat one’s own drums only.
These days there are a lot of talk about the performance of former Home Minister Ravi Lamichhane and also Kathmandu’s Mayor Balen Shah. Both the young politicians came out with definite plans for what they would do, but both have been hounded as if they are destroyers instead of do-gooders. I don’t know any of these guys, but I felt they must be given a chance to do what they had in mind, but no, the old backroom players of the established parties and also the strong network of media people who always want to be in control have played spoilt sport. Balen is now being constantly criticized and Ravi was never allowed to work. Very cleverly they have manipulated the media against these two who probably could have done good work. But among the names Ravi pointed out among the media persons, he has hit the nail on the head by naming one person who tries to play the role of a ‘king maker’ while he himself is a mere stooge of foreigners. But to come back to our theme, before the political mess is cleared the problem-ridden economy must be tackled first. Only with a strong economy, the so-called network bosses cannot be controlled and with the funds they receive, they will keep on controlling Nepal and even two popularly elected individuals like Balen and Ravi may be able to do nothing.
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