— Walt Whitman
Since my arrival in Nepal, which was a month ago, I have attended numerous cocktail parties and tea parties and met people from all walks of life. The conversations always started and ended with “election date,” politics, politicians and “development”. That is when I realized we Nepalis are very patriotic and responsible citizens. The duty and love we feel for our country is so deep that we find it a necessity to talk about it even in our recreational time. However, to my amusement, most of the times, negative remarks and attitudes overshadowed the positive ones.[break]
A certain percentage of our population has been fortunate enough to gain exposure all over the world: having the opportunity to see the rapid development of Shanghai, being a part of development in India or settling in the US in search of better lifestyle. To an extent, this has helped our country monetarily, but at the expense of our biggest asset, human capital.
Even our first job teaches us work ethics, ownership of action and the link between positive attitude and work productivity, a few competences we carry on for life. However, we fail to apply these simple notions for the betterment of the country.
Comparing Nepal to developed countries is one of our biggest weaknesses. Most certainly there will be some sort of deficiency in terms of infrastructure, technology or the so called “luxury goods” in this unraveling political scenario. But these types of comparisons, whilst our country is taking steps towards political stability, normally leads to destructive criticism, which further abets the Great Exodus.
We all wish for a prosperous nation and compare ourselves to developed countries. However, we often overlook the work they put to reach that position and the time it took. China, Japan and post-war South Korea are some countries that developed rapidly and benefitted from Arthur Lewis’s much talked economic development—the labor-surplus model. But this model can no longer benefit our economy with the never-ending outmigration. However, we can benefit from other advantages, for instance the “second mover advantage” as we no longer have to devise our own “industrial revolution”.
In other words, there is no need for investment in development of equipment or new manufacture processes. Development process can be replicated to an extent. Investment in purchase of these facilitators and harnessing existing human resource can speed up our development and go some way towards recouping the lost years.
The country’s major goal at this point has to be fair election, political and economical stability and increment in business confidence. We do not ask for a democrat or a communist. What we demand is a government that is capable of leading us towards development and recouping our lost years. We demand a visionary leader who focuses on critical national issues rather than individual goals. It is no more a question of who from which political party will win the election, but about how to stimulate development. What are the goals, how can we attain them and as Nepali citizens how can we facilitate the process.
Related story
Desperate search for missing girls as nearly 80 dead in Texas f...
