By DM Thapa
Virtually everyone is aware that Nepal is a tiny country, that also with difficult terrain in most parts of its territory. There is only little land, which also shares borders with India which has a huge population, that grows the necessary staple diet of the majority of the population here. But now due to encroachment from its bigger neighbor, the size of Nepal has grown smaller as time elapses.
We know Nepal is puny in size when compared to China and India, which are not only economic giants with the world’s biggest populations, but also two very powerful military powers.
There is no question that Nepal is either fighting China or India, but at the same time the people of this country are almost totally dependent on the military for any internal strife and other cases of emergency the Maoist rebellion for example.
The decade-year-old Maoist insurgency which caused more than seventeen thousand casualties besides other destruction is a big number for a country like Nepal. This internal strife also required the total involvement of the Nepal Army to in some way bring peace to the country. That the Nepal Army was successful not only by determinedly waging a campaign to bring the Maoists rebels to the peace table but also by making sure that the rebels would not go totally berserk and changed the political structure of the nation or to say it more candidly, they could have come to power through the ‘barrel of the gun’. Thank God for the sake of everyone, including the established political parties, this did not happen. Nepal could have been a war-torn nation as we see in many other parts of the world, but fortunately, this did not happen.
But at this critical time for this tiny nation, there still is a network of people, who are crying out to cut down the size of the Nepal Army. These individuals, who have started writing in almost a serial manner are many good ‘cronies’ of the twelve journalists accused of wrongdoings by the shooting star journalist/politician Ravi Lamichhane, who himself is embroiled in different controversies. But this once more proves that no matter how good talking a politician is, they are exactly like the older ones, which in this case means they are pulling the wool over the innocent peoples’ eyes and emptying the government coffers through different means.
This might not be a time to make comments about our crooked politicians, but one thing that has been made clear to the public is that there are also the so-called ‘well-known’ journalists and also civil society frontmen, who are actually on the payroll list of foreign governments or other powerful foreign institutions. These exactly are the individuals who have always put pressure to reduce the number of Nepali Army personnel time and again.
Not that the army bigwigs and those driving in shiny four-wheel drives with a driver and guard at hand are anybody’s favourite soldiers to have on our side, but still, the Nepali Army has proven its salt in hot spots in many parts of the world as a truly professional soldier and they sincerely do their duty.
The Nepal Army is a respected institution in many parts of the world and the United Nations recognizes it as one of the best armies to maintain peace in many war-torn spots in dozens of places. The Nepal Army has also shown its brilliance in coping with difficult situations with the least bit of casualties. Imagine, now in an economically very hard-hit country like Nepal, Nepali soldiers by working in different UN military missions, brings in more than twenty-four billion rupees annually helping significantly to bolster the nation’s fragile economy. At present, there are thousands of Nepali soldiers trying to maintain peace around the world and it may be astounding to know that almost one thousand Nepali women soldiers are working/fighting shoulder to shoulder with the men. Many other nations are increasing the number of their soldiers or increasing their defence budget, take Ukraine for example, but here we hear different sorts of opinions.
No matter what a wonderful image the Nepali Army has, it was a depressing sight when generals in the army went to make happy the very fellows who were their enemies not a long time ago, but they entirely kept mum about the then King, who was their Supreme Commander and the dynasty along which the history of the Nepali Army started. This author also mentioned this shortcoming of the army, and except for the usual ‘we are a professional’ army reply, the army officers had no other convincing answer to make. Yes, most armies these days are professional, but they also have some loyalty to some institution or some individual. Why do you think more violence is taking place in many Mid-East countries, the armies were loyal to somebody and they would not give up just because a more powerful nation virtually destroyed them.
Here in Nepal, except for the Maoist insurgency, which even experts admit lasted for a short period because of the efficiency of the government army, the soldiers have also participated in many humanitarian campaigns. The soldiers have also worked on development projects which have been more efficient than the ones carried out by private contractors.
Therefore, maybe this may sound foolish as this is going against the voices of clever leaders, journalists and civil society leaders, but the fact remains that we must try and increase the number of our Nepali Army soldiers for many other reasons than just fighting two friendly neighbours.
One another uncanny coincidence is that most of the time the voices have been raised to decrease the number of Nepal Army soldiers, it has always been after some significant political upheaval. For instance, way back when Nepal was freed from the dictatorial Rana rule, an absurd suggestion was to reduce the number of soldiers to less than seven thousand. This has happened after every political revolution and now also, when the country is in a political mess and the country’s economy is almost on the verge of being bankrupt, such voices are being heard. Who are these people who want to erase the glorious history and tradition of the Nepali Army and also make it weak? There is no doubt Nepal is now in a condition to spend lavishly in different sectors but the country’s strength and economy will not be bolstered by reducing the number of Nepalese soldiers. That is unless people who subtly make such suggestions may be working for outsiders and are the real enemies of the nation.
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