Photo: Internet
By DM Thapa
We all know what the people across the country are talking about now, but all one can do is only make guesses about this event which has rocked and shocked this country.
Yes, we are talking about the issue of how top-level political leaders and also others were involved in sending or trying to send Nepali individuals to the United States in the guise of these people being Bhutanese refugees. Virtually all the media outlets have been fully stretched to give coverage to this issue and there have been no less number of ‘experts’ talking of what should or should not happen and how the government, the political parties and others should deal with this crime.
There is no doubt this event has been a big scandal and top-level leaders are being accused in the case of human trafficking. The people have been astounded not only by the money involved in this illegal doing but also shocked by the involvement of really, really top-level people in the scam. None less than a former deputy prime minister has been put in police custody along with a former home minister, who actually controlled the entire police force before. But many people are happy that at least a step has been taken to dismantle corruption in this impoverished country where the poor are getting poorer and the people in power are getting richer.
It was no surprise to read recently that Nepal has dropped into being one of the most corrupt countries in the world. This is no new information, as corruption has been the main cause for the ever-dwindling economy of Nepal and also for the misery of the people who are finding it difficult to meets ends meet and just to keep the ‘fires burning’ in their kitchen and survive. And this trend has been existing for decades.
Things really got worse when there was a major political change in the Nepali year of 2046 and different parties came to power. Several speakers on TV channels even said how many people who had come to Kathmandu in slippers, had turned into millionaires in a matter of years. This trend never slowed down and that is the major reason for the economy which is almost in its last gasp and it is mainly the general public who are suffering.
As this author has been saying time and again, the most important factor is that the mentality of the entire society has to change. Even now, people who earn massive amounts of wealth beyond their earning capacity, are concerned as ‘successful’. This does not matter whether you are a civil servant, police personnel, an industrialist, a businessman or such people.
After the floodgates of corruption were fully opened in 2046, there has been no looking back and no less than several IGPs, the persons who head the police force that looks after law and order in the country, have gone to prison and so have two well-known ministers have been incarcerated in the same manner. Thousands of other ‘smaller’ government officials have been imprisoned and these incidents speak for themselves about the level of corruption, especially in government bodies.
In the early Nineties, there was some sort of an economic boom for a short while, when illegally earned wealth was spent locally, but as could be expected, this did not last for long. Now, if it was not for the remittance sent by Nepalese workers working in alien lands doing tough work, our economy would have fallen flat many years back. One can still see hundreds of Nepalese people, especially youths, leaving Nepal from the Tribhuvan International Airport every day and almost all of them say that they see no opportunities for well-paying jobs here and it is impossible to raise one’s family with the prices of goods rising almost daily.
But to come back to the issue with which we started and which still has the nation and especially political leaders shocked, there are floods of comments on this horrendous act where Nepali people have been made into Bhutanese refugees through forged papers and large amounts of money have been fleeced from them promising that they would be resettled in the United States.
There is no doubt that this is a huge step forward in punishing those guilty of corruption, even powerful people. But the names of more powerful people than those arrested ministers have also been dragged into the scandal and this includes the names of two really high-profile women, who are sitting members in the present Parliament.
This sort of unheard-of corruption in Nepal is being monitored even by international agencies and the media. But one point which has not been raised by anyone, including our so-called ‘experts’ is how was the refugee crisis begun in the first place. It was started by the Bhutanese government which forcefully kicked out people of Nepali origin and India silently watched while these ‘refugees’ walked into Nepal via India. Now our political leaders, experts and also lawyers are talking of the involvement of the United Nations, the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the UN Mission to Nepal as also being a part of the resettlement scheme. There is no doubt that Bhutan started the game and it must also be made a part of how the present problem can be solved, but it must also be mentioned that UNMIN, in cahoots with some political leaders and clever journalists here, did a lot of injustice in the name of making smooth the peace process. Some top-level UNMIN officials, including its then-chief Ian Martin, should also be held accountable. What about the US? If it was to take in the majority of the refugees and resettle them in America, why did they not do this earlier, so that Nepal would not have suffered not only environmentally and socially but perhaps economically too?
As for the present corruption scandal, India must be watching it with a quiet smug smile, as it will have a bigger role to play in how Nepalese politics work and for our own government, it must be a difficult task to see how they can get out of this jam with the least bit of damage and the same situation must be hounding the police, who though they are getting applauds and praises now, know that things change fast in Nepal and for them it might be a short time of glory.
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