‘Lajniti harayako Nepal ko Rajniti’:

Madan Bhandari died an unnatural death. His spouse is President of this country the second time. No attempt is endeavored to detect what caused his death; albeit, she used to cry loudly in the past asking then rulers to initiate for bringing the cause of her husband’s death to public. What a politics do we follow that makes us forget everything once we reach the power? What kind of affinity to the chairs is this that makes people forgets the cause of the unnatural death of even their own spouses?

The Supreme Court quashed the House dissolution decision proposed by Khadga Prasad Oli and endorsed by Bidya Devi Bhandari. Both of them keep occupying their chairs without feeling of any guilt and seem still adamant to justifying their House dissolution moves with an indication that another attempt to dissolve the parliament is not unlikely. An all-party meeting called on by Bhandari someday back looked like a platform where she along with Oli toiled best to impress the invitees this way. There is no shadow of doubt that both the President and the PM would leave no stone unturned to act in a manner that could make the early polls inevitable.

A hectic parley is in progress to offer an alternative to Oli’s government with almost no sense for those trying for it are infamously known for their Natwarlal culture—the conmen culture—with immeasurable notorieties in Nepal’s contemporary politics. A lukewarm race even amongst the racers for yet another PM is not at all a cup of tea of the commoners for they are fed-up with the possible names simply because they are tested over and over again and have proved to be the worse than the worst.

We have had many more PMs with the dawn of democracy in 1990. Except Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Manmohan Adhikary, all other PMs we got were just burden on us. I have no political biases against and for anyone and hence I do not hesitate telling it to my readers that the incumbent PM—that keeps talking with no actions and acts mostly on his own whims and vagaries— is not worse than anyone likely to replace him.

The plain and simple truth is that people have no any zeal for any leaders. But their wishes always remain: could Nepal have an organic PM—other than the one placed and blessed by the alien powers?

There exists an overwhelming aspiration among Nepalese that the responsibility of serving the nation be taken by good leaders that work hard for the country and its people and consume less of what they produce in the same vein as meant by the following Shlokas:

पिबन्ति नद्यः स्वयमेव नाम्भः
स्वयं न खादन्ति फलानि वृक्षाः ।
नाश्नन्ति शस्यं खलु वारिवाहाः
परोपकाराय सतां विभूतयः॥

I understand that wishes are never horses for wishes cannot make things happen. But hope for the best one must. The history around the world shows no one has been honored for what s (he) received. Everyone has been honored for what s (he) gave. Honor is a reward for what one gives, not for what one loots. Our leaders are the ones that keep taking much with almost no giving. Could we ever see the light of day that would bring good and great leaders with such an acknowledgement?

The second wave of the Covid-19 is likely to hit Nepalese hard with no knowledge of how many such deadly waves are to be encountered. How hard it is to hit is unpredictable. The infection graph has skyrocketed. Every day’s death toll is awfully increasing. People are dying for want of oxygen, hospital beds and intensive care services. A thanatophobia—fear of an unnatural death— is killing the people that are alive. A very few elderly people that have somehow been vaccinated with the first doze are at risk for they have not got their second doze even after two months (FYI: those that enjoy power and have proximity to power have got their second doze even after two or three weeks of the first doze. What discrimination and how hard is the life for the commoners in Nepal that do not surround the power and its periphery?). Vaccines are not available just because our buyers have been asking a heavy commission from the sellers—the Serum Institute of India that is producing Covishield—the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines— locally.

Against this entire backdrop, Oli at the Centre and his stalwarts at the provinces are busy making the deadliest horse trading and acting as the merchant of ministers and the provincial chiefs. Oli has outweighed many political emperors especially the ones that are infamous for doing anything for their stay put in power. Oli’s preference for politics to the Corona crisis has enabled him win the support of a fraction of the Jana Shakti Party at home front. He is equally effortful to garnering the external support having expedited the possibility of exploiting the geopolitical situations—the antagonistic situations between China and the US and India— at the external front. Oli is all set to heed most of what Janashkti Party leaders are demanding together with applying a learning that the US-India backing is more crucial for his politics than China’s.

This is why Oli—a once upon a time man that wished to replicate the Xi Jinping thoughts in Nepal—has once again voiced in favor of the MCC compact issue knowing it better that China’s headache is the growing partnership between the United States and India and their signing of an agreement aiming at strengthening strategic ties to contain the growing Chinese influence in the region. Beijing believes that the MCC grant of $ 500 million—a US program under the Indo-Pacific Region— is the American strategy to counter the Chinese investment plan in Nepal. China does not want America to enter Nepal in the name of MCC.

It was a once upon a time reality that Oli used to happen to be deadly against Madhesis—his reply to the Madhesis ‘ Samathar bhubhag jati ko eutai Pradesh chahane jati sabai Samathar India ma gaya hunchha—those demanding the entire Madhesh as one single province could go and live in India’ is still well remembered. He is now friendlier to a segment of the same Madhesis. What an amazing politics where politicians keep changing their bedfellows so strangely?

Amidst this, the NC—the so-called GOP— is in a compulsion to undergo its General Convention soon should it continue as a political party. Until someone—very much promising —yet untested but capable of breaking the NC culture that has reached to hell— contests and wins the NC presidential chair, the NC’s forthcoming General Convention is just to display a rat race wherein anyone winning any office bearer position could be no more than a rat. That is it!

Most analysts familiar to SBD’s expertise in playing any con game in politics (FYI: sorry for personifying an individual) observe that he is by all means equipped with most resources including external supports to win the NC’s Presidency. But what even if he gets the presidential chair once again? It may mean nothing except memorizing the story of a farmer and his dog. The story goes like this:

‘The dog used to sit by the roadside and run down the road barking and trying to overtake any vehicles that come around. One of the neighbors that have been watching it for long asked the farmer one day ‘do you think your dog is ever going to catch any car?’ The farmer very much aware of its dog’s behavior simply replied ‘that does not bother me; what bothers me is what it would do if it ever caught one’. The farmer’s reply suffices to mean that the commoners pay no heed to meaningless peoples’ meaningless goals’.

Good people that wish to win everyone’s faith keep looking back to redefine their values when they sense they are going to have an immeasurably undignified funeral and a hatred afterlife. It reminds me the story of a person who stepped back and started working entirely differently when he sensed he is going to be remembered with hatred and dishonor after his death. Long back, a man, while reading a morning newspaper, got astounded and dismayed having read his own name in the obituary column. His shock knew no bounds when he cast his eyes on what the obituary read: ‘the Dynamite-King— the merchant of death— dies.’ He asked himself, ‘should I be remembered this way?’ The answer was obviously ‘no’. The Dynamite King reported dead mistakenly was no other than Alfred Nobel—the inventor of Dynamite. Right from that day, he started working entirely differently and the first thing he did was he founded the great Nobel prizes. This is how the normative sense makes sensible people get an about turn and start anew once they feel whatever they have been doing is mostly all bad.

Brevity of backtracking above way requires the actors to possess a sense of déjà vu also for the future. The million-dollar question is: have we been bestowed on with such actors? The answer available so far is a ‘straight no’. ‘ Shame-politics—a natural feeling that makes people, especially the so-called leaders know what is right, what is wrong , and how they should behave in politics— is badly missing among Nepali leaders with no any moral sense and moral compass. They are ever accustomed to practicing the ‘Lajniti harayako Rajniti—a politics with no any iota of shame’.

Nepal’s underdevelopment does not only mean most of its people having less/no income. By and large, it means the existing shamelessness in politics and therefore calls for devising solutions to its underlying causes which involve more than having enough money. Under development in Nepal is in fact about the culture that accepts politics as ‘the conduct of public affairs for private advantage’.

I have chosen the word ‘Shame’ deliberately. Shame is a conscious subjective mental feeling. It is a sense of an emotion of what is moral and ethical while doing businesses— whether private or public. There are no written rules for it. But it controls human lives greatly. We expect people to follow their sense of shame as a moral compass. And when it comes to public figures, especially political leaders, we have even greater expectations for their moral standards. Call it an irony that public figures in Nepal feel no shame for any of their own behaviors but enjoy to raise fingers on others as if anything they do is all moral and what others do all immoral.

Shamelessness is a great threat to social order for it involves refusing to abide by agreed-upon social rules having disregarded the values on which the foundation of societies is built. Put simply, shamelessness is an extreme form of abuse of power. Nepal offers the choicest example of how political leaders ignore everything in a bid to serve their greed.

 

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