The draft is misogynist, regressive and surreal. It treats women, the one-half of the population, as second-class citizens "Hami murkha chhaun, tyasaile hami bahadur chhaun; Hami bahadur chhaun, tyasaile ta hami murkha chhaun."
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("We are stupid, therefore we are brave; we are brave, therefore, we are stupid.")
— Late Bhupi Serchan
Only recently, a new crop of brave deities—masters and their minions—have emerged in Nepal and we are singing paeans to them. Let me start with the minions. The latest of them are Labor Minister Tek Bahadur Gurung and General Administration Minister Lal Babu Pandit.
Gurung, who is also a manpower supplier, has decreed that no manpower agency can charge any visa fee and transport costs for Nepali employees going abroad to work. He is, he argues, only trying to protect the poor workers.
But manpower suppliers do not agree. They assert that the minister is monopolizing manpower supply, that the voluntary contribution he would extract from the recruits would outstrip what they were paying the suppliers, and that the foreign hiring agencies were already switching their supplier countries in view of the change in rules in Nepal.
Pandit pushed the new Civil Service Act that forces civil servants with residency in the advanced countries to renounce the residency or resign from their posts in Nepal. Those who fail to do so would lose jobs and benefits and face criminal charges. Pandit says such residency proves divided loyalty and lack of nationalism.
Opponents of the provision argue that Pandit is in this witch-hunt with malafide intentions. They say, Pandit has kept politicians and ration-card holders in neighboring countries above the law and has introduced the new law to promote his supporters and acquire personal glory. He, they say, is unfair, undemocratic, anti-globalization, and unlawful. One hundred twenty countries have no such prohibition. In normal circumstance, a new law cannot be retroactively applied to those who had the residency before its enactment if it affects them negatively.
Both sides might be partially right. But the public, mainly the Facebook and tabloid crowd, has cheered Gurung and Pandit.
However, the bigger irony relates to the bigger masters of our country—Sushil Koirala, KP Oli, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Baburam Bhattarai and Bijaya Gachhedar—who have claimed pseudo-bravery for giving us the draft constitution after seven years.
The draft is misogynist, regressive and surreal. It treats women, the one-half of the population, as second-class citizens. It pledges to build socialist society, carrying the decayed corpse of communism. And it proposes to create eight states; and guarantees state goodies from cradle to grave—free education, free health service, a job, a house, a... everything.
Do we have resources to keep the promises of our masters? Will we ever have? Even the richest countries do not have such fantastic commitments in their statute. We, and mainly the Facebook and tabloid denizens, still gush with accolades for our masters for fraud—a rights-based draft constitution.
It seems we are in league with North Koreans, who are compelled to call their most tyrannical state by the most democratic-sounding name—Democratic People's Republic of Korea. By coercion or blind faith, they treat the dictator Kim Jung-un as the benevolent supreme god in blood and flesh.
Similarly, we cheered those who told us that the removal of the Ranas would make Nepal heaven on earth. Then those who said cutting the Shah monarchy down to size would do the trick. Then those who called for the removal of monarchy to make our country great, glorious and glowing. Like North Korea, Nepal has become more corrupt and more backward.
For the masters and their minions, Nepal has always been great, glorious and glowing. For the Ranas, the Shahs and the elected leaders alike. The last ones are worse as parasites of the people than their predecessors.
They have monopolized state power, privileges, treasury; they have engaged in more corruption than their predecessors with impunity; they travel to foreign countries even when they have cold, more than their predecessors. The new constitution and new rules, it seems, are designed to fortify their power and privileges and to let them steal further from the people.
Otherwise, how can you justify 275 members in the lower house of parliament for 28 million people? At this rate, India would have 12,768 and the United States 3,045 lawmakers for their 1.3 billion and 310 million citizens, respectively. How can you justify eight states for Nepal? At this rate, India would have 371 states and the United States 89 states. They actually have only 545 members and 28 states, and 435 members and 50 states, respectively.
I do not know how our Teflon masters and minions justify it. But for everything else, somebody else is to blame. The Shahs and India are perennially there. Now the manpower suppliers and Nepali diaspora, particularly civil servants who have residency in rich countries, have become new devils.
Our political deities would not admit that their policies have kept Nepal poor and conflict-ridden. Neither would they admit that their policies have kept 60 percent people in multi-dimensional poverty, 50 percent people in functional illiteracy; have converted city roads into marshlands and incubators of diseases; have allowed a large number of children to die before they turn five; have laid pipes that spit out swarms of ants rather than drinking water.
Yet we citizens continue to cheer them.
Therefore, part of the blame lies with us, ordinary citizens. Blinded by ideology, faith or tribal loyalty, we praise our leaders for their sleight of words. We stigmatize people for making a choice that is good for them and their children, without harming anybody else. We only protest when the axe falls on us.
We have never asked who made four million people flee the country. We have seldom reasoned that if our new idols—the Koiralas, Olis, Dahals, Bhattarais, Gachhedars, Gurungs and Pandits—had worked for the country after 1990 or even after 2006, those people would have found employment in Nepal and the country would have been much richer.
Blaming the victims is an old trick of rogue rulers.
Our political masters and minions: Do not ever ask whether you are responsible for the poverty and backwardness of Nepal and whether you forced so many young people to flee the country for foreign shores. Those are regressive and inconvenient questions for you. Find a way to explain away your failures and blame the victims, oppress them, and make money off them.
Do not worry. You will have plenty of us cheering for you and worshipping you out of ignorance, blind faith, ideological leanings or tribal loyalty, because we are jealous of others.
A Roman adage says, "Stupidity and bravery are twin brothers separated by results." No wonder, Bhupi said, "We are stupid, therefore we are brave..."
