By Rabi Raj Thapa
It was great to see the Nepal Government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) hosting the fifth lecture series of the Professor Yadu Nath Khanal Lecture Series, in which former Prime Minister Dr. Baburam Bhattarai was the keynote speaker. However, it came as a surprise to many who had expected a keynote speaker who knew Professor Khanal more intimately and was well-read about his works, rather than someone who spoke more about himself than about the person in whose honour the programme was organized.
Firstly, many people questioned the selection of Dr. Baburam Bhattarai as the keynote speaker because he has often shown disdain towards the monarchy, under which successful foreign policies were engineered through the efforts of seasoned and experienced foreign ministers, foreign secretaries, and ambassadors such as Yadu Nath Khanal, Sardar Bhim Bahadur Pandey, Bhes Bahadur Thapa, and many others.
Among Nepal’s most successful and prominent foreign secretaries and ambassadors, Professor Yadu Nath Khanal served Nepal as Ambassador to China from 1978 to 1982, Ambassador to the United States from 1973 to 1975, and Ambassador to India from 1962 to 1967. He later served as Foreign Secretary, where he recruited and groomed many diplomats and ambassadors of Nepal for decades. He wrote seminal books on foreign relations and diplomacy, which the keynote speaker did not mention at all.
It was, however, a paradox that the speaker happened to be a hardcore communist who believed that “power comes from the barrel of a gun,” while Professor Khanal was a loyal servant of His Majesty’s Government of Nepal.
In such an august gathering, Dr. Bhattarai distorted King Prithvi Narayan Shah’s old dictum that “Nepal as a yam between two boulders” by replacing it with his own phrase: “Nepal is a Lali-Guras (Rhododendron) between two rocks.” When questioned about the rationale behind this, he randomly explained that the old metaphor of “tarul” (yam) was more appropriate because Nepal was then newly born and had not yet blossomed. What exactly he meant by this, he did not bother to explain.
He further distorted the metaphor of “tarul” (yam) into “Lali-Guras” (rhododendron) to demean and dismiss those things that are old and valuable, ancient, and deeply connected to Nepali sentiment and sensibility.
Distortion of history is immoral, if not a crime. Nobody should be allowed to distort historical facts through falsification, omission, commission, or manipulation.
As a matter of fact, Nepal was not a self-made nation that simply blossomed like a flower, as Dr. Bhattarai suggested. Nepal was unified and created as a sovereign nation-state through sweat and blood, war and diplomacy — what the great German unifier Otto von Bismarck described as “blood and iron.”
During the session, Dr. Bhattarai also distorted and discredited late King Birendra’s Zone of Peace (ZoP) proposal by rephrasing it according to his own concept of a “nation of peace.” When asked about the reason behind this change, he replied that there was a difference between 1973 and 2026.
One possible limitation of Dr. Bhattarai may be that he spent much of his life abroad, underground, or involved in armed conflict and war, where diplomacy played a lesser role. It is natural that a hardcore communist who believed “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun” (Mao Zedong, 1927) may have a different perspective on kings and traditional institutions.
Today, Nepal would be more confident and mature in its diplomatic dealings, especially with its regional neighbours, if it had foreign secretaries and ambassadors of Professor Yadu Nath Khanal’s caliber. Diplomacy would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, with vague expressions such as “carefully recalibrating foreign policy to navigate the growing global power and influence of both China and India.” Besides, Dr. Bhattarai presented a new vision and concept that he called “scientific humanism.”
Most importantly, a question was raised by SAARC Secretary-General Md. Golam Sarwar regarding the future of SAARC. Professor Yadu Nath Khanal would have taken that question very deeply and seriously. However, Dr. Bhattarai’s reply was brief: “SAARC is paralyzed but not yet dead, and it may revive.” As a former prime minister of Nepal, and with Nepal currently holding the chairmanship of SAARC, such an answer appeared neither diplomatic nor appropriate.
Some invited guests reportedly chose not to attend because they were unhappy with the choice of keynote speaker. For example, one of Nepal’s prominent writers, journalists, and activists, Mr. Kanak Mani Dixit, wrote on his Facebook page:
“Will definitely not be attending the lecture hosted by MoFA…(Dr. Bhattarai) fawning over the neophyte RSP leadership in hope of being rewarded [with the] post of President of the Republic. Thanks for the invitation, but bad choice, MoFA, and a disservice to the memory of Yadu Nath Khanal.”
— Kanak Mani Dixit, Facebook, June 25
To sum up, if the hosts and organizers make a wrong or inappropriate choice, the responsibility lies with the organizers and hosts, not with the speaker, who spoke more about himself than about the person for whom the programme was organized.
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