On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
On 1 July, the Communist Party of China (CPC) celebrated its 100th anniversary of the foundation of the party.
Since its establishment, the party has never turned back. On 1 October 1949, the CPC formed the People’s Republic of China and since then, the party is continuously ruling the government, transforming a poverty-ridden underdeveloped China to present modern China. As everything about China is in front of us, there is no need to explain the achievements made by China in the past seven-plus decades.
Visionary leadership, political stability, united people for the cause of development, the people orient system, and peaceful development have contributed to the transformation of present China.
During the same era, in 1952, on 18 February 1951, the Nepali people achieved democracy by ending the Rana rule. Since then, we are practicing different political systems from a multiparty democracy to a partyless democratic system, again a multiparty democracy and now the loktantra.
After the introduction of multiparty democracy in 1951, we spent one decade in a political tussle. When the system didn’t function, King Mahendra introduced the partyless Panchayat System on 31 December 1960 by assuming the executive power. In almost one decade of his rule, King Mahendra gave the shape of modern Nepal along with the development of the infrastructural sectors on all fronts. The system introduced by King Mahendra lasted for three decades. Although today’s leaders denounce the Panchayat System as an autocratic rule, it was far better than the present loot-tantra. The nation had taken a shape and with an effective foreign policy, the country was able to play an influential role in the international arena. Unfortunately, since the restoration of the multiparty democracy in 1989, Nepal started to decline on all fronts. Those India sponsored leaders started to destroy one after another institutions vital for the functioning of a nation. On the domestic front, all the government-run industries providing employment opportunities to hundreds of thousands of people were ruined; the government encouraged political level corruption; the influential foreign policy was destroyed. Anomalies on all fronts have pushed the nation towards the path of a failed state. Everybody knows, the present system, which the leaders of the day say “loktantra” is unable to function in Nepal. However, they are ashamed of identifying themselves as failed leaders.
Prabhu Shah, a Maoist leader who fought the “people’s war” commanded by Pushpakamal Dahal Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai under the Indian sponsorship, has written an article describing the failure of the system. His remarks are enough to know about the health of the “loktantra”. He has explained that federalism has been failed and the system has become expensive for a nation like Nepal. He has suggested scrapping the present dysfunctional system without any delay.
The failed leaders are dancing to the foreigners’ tune and are engaged in daylight loot ensuring the future of their kids and relatives only. They commanded the “revolution” just to grab power and enjoy it as long s possible. Once they became able to grab power, they have developed a political syndicate ruling the country turn by turn. The present conflict between Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli and his rival-front of five ex-prime ministers has been witnessed when Oli wanted to rule the country alone and denied to share power with his other colleagues.
No doubt, the present system is not functioning and it should be scrapped. No doubt, we have no trust in the leaders and the political parties they are running. Every citizen, except those getting a share from those in power, are frustrated and seeking a political change. Unfortunately, they are not getting a leader or a party to lead them.
The honest and innocent citizens, when they saw no sign of removing and punishing those corrupt leaders, are even eying towards the Nepal Army for a takeover. It doesn’t sound good to talk about an army coup and there is no courage of the army to initiate a coup, the frustrated general public is even making such wishful thinking.
As the general public has no trust in the political leaders and political parties, the Nepali youths should become united and come up for a change. When the youths came in the streets with the slogan, “Enough is Enough” demanding medical facilities free of cost to the citizens suffering from the Covid-19 pandemic, a large section of the population had supported the campaign. However, this force has been disappeared. Alike the “enough is enough” campaigners, those educated youths should come down in the streets for saving the nation from a disaster. Let the Nepalis wake up!
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