Nitish Kumar inherited the mess that former chief minister Laloo Prasad Yadav and his wife Rabri Devi had created. When Yadav went to prison on corruption charges, he got his wife elected to his erstwhile post. Yadav’s party, the Rastriya Janata Dal, mismanaged Bihar for 15 years. His attempt at dynastic rule failed only when Kumar’s United Janata Dal came to power. In interviews, Kumar has stressed improving infrastructure, controlling crime, women’s empowerment and social equity as keys to his success (Nepali Times, July 1-7, 2011).
While Kumar had to clean up the mess the Yadavs left behind, Bhattarai leads the government after a bloody ten-year war (that he himself masterminded) and post-2006 Maoist conspiracies at state-capture. The country’s resources during the war-years went to combating the rebels, and development stood still. According to some estimates, the Maoists’ decade-long war put our country 30 years behind. The rebels destroyed schools, government offices, hydro-electric plants, bridges and temples. They created communes promoting Red education, recruited child soldiers, glorified violence; and, as their cadres now sorrowfully admit, ruined the future of thousands. Thanks to the Maoists’ brinkmanship aimed at their pet People’s Republic project, our country stands on the threshold of uncertainty. The peace process and a democratic constitution have yet to be completed; and none can predict what’ll happen on/after May 27.
Bhattarai has paid lip service to emulating Nitish Kumar’s Bihar, but will he?
IMPROVING INFRASTRUCTURE
Kumar excelled at building highways that crisscross Bihar in a relatively short period. We can congratulate Bhattarai for his efforts at improving our country’s own roads. He has stressed the prompt building of the fast track from Kathmandu to Nijgadh. Here, we see some tangible progress, as people who have lost land to the project are receiving compensation. The second international airport in Nijgadh will have no meaning without this road because some passengers who alight there will want to come to Kathmandu and travelers from the capital will want to leave the country from there. We don’t read of any progress on the airport itself.
Bhattarai’s government has begun to expand roads not only in Kathmandu but other cities as well. Is he imitating the building of North Korea’s Pyongyang? The Korean War destroyed the city; but the Soviet Union rebuilt it with extensive parks, broad boulevards and high-rise apartments. During the building process, the dictator Kim Il-sung showed no regard for people’s private property. If our country wants to remain a democracy with due respect for human rights, people who lose houses or land in the name of road-expansion need to be properly compensated.
CONTROLLING CRIME
Nitish Kumar succeeded in placing criminals behind bars. Now, businesses in Bihar can continue well into the night. In our capital, a court-convicted Maoist criminal (also a parliamentarian!) like Balkrishna Dhungel walks back and forth to the House without any hindrance. Not long ago, another Maoist, Agni Sapkota, accused for the murder of Arjun Lama, served as Information and Communications Minister. Pushpa Kamal Dahal confessed that his party appropriated state payment for 3,000 "soldiers" that never existed. Yet, Bhattarai warned that going deeper into the matter would imperil the "peace process".
Is real peace possible without justice? While Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta goes to jail for amassing 8 million rupees illegally, the leaders of UCPN (Maoist) who have cheated the country’s treasury of three billion rupees face no censure. Bhattarai and his ministers are looting the country as Laloo Yadav and his wife did in Bihar.
Bhattarai will never be able to control crime in our country as Kumar has done in Bihar simply because of the double standard he follows while treating criminals. When Maoists confiscate private property, it’s land reform. The draft constitution that Bhattarai prepared puts the judiciary below the legislature. Maoists don’t envisage an independent justice-system, the backbone of democracy. On February 13, Pushpa Kamal Dahal stated that the "people’s court" was higher than the Supreme Court. Maoist justice would render true the Nepali proverb: law for the small; luxury for the big (saanalai aein, thulalai chaein).
WOMEN’S EMPOWERMENT
Nitish Kumar began with empowering the Bihari women of the future—school girls. Simply building separate toilets for girl-students increased their enrollment by thousands. Realizing that many discontinued with their studies because of poverty, lack of secondary schools nearby, unavailability of transport, and early marriages, Kumar provided money for school uniforms from class three onwards, bicycles to those that reached grade nine, and a fixed deposit of IRs 2,000 in banks for pupils from poor families. On turning 18, girls have access to money for studies; and parents don’t feel the pressure to marry them off early.
Because of his past follies, Bhattarai can only dream about things that Kumar has done for Bihari girls. At present, he has to deal with the monstrosity he and other Maoist leaders created—the Young Communist League. YCL members, real fighters whom Maoist leaders cunningly whisked out of cantonments and kept in the society for their "people’s revolt", now demand the same treatment and perks as "soldiers". Only after he satisfies the YCL can Bhattarai channel government resources to empower Nepali women of the future.
SOCIAL EQUITY
On the scale of 100, Bhattarai earns a zero in this area. The Orwellian dictum that all are equal but some are more equal (read: the Maoists) holds true in Nepal’s case. Bhattarai hasn’t even started crawling towards establishing social equity which Nitish Kumar and Bihar are marching towards. A radical party like UCPN (Maoist) can never attain it because it brands those who hold different opinions "feudalists", "regressive", "revisionists", and "people’s enemies". The party recruited child soldiers during the war, and has recently even called back those that United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) sent home. Bhattarai rides a Mustang. Can he persuade his wife and Dahal to do the same? Maoist cadres complain of sleeping in huts while Dahal snores in his Lazimpat mansion.
We had hoped that the UCPN (Maoist) would treat all women better. In vain. Maoist women soldiers, choosing voluntary retirement, complain that their commanders steal checks they have received. Rajesh KC’s classic cartoon (Republica, February 8) says it all. A "PLA" soldier running to the police station screams, "Hide me…save me! I just received my check." See how few women ministers Bhattarai has chosen in his group of 49! CP Gajurel’s daughter-in-law, Sunita Pokharel, has written on how her parents-in-law demanded dowry, abused her, and then forced her to divorce their son (Himal kharbarpatrika, June 30-July 16, 2011). Many Maoist male cadres, like battalion commander Lokendra Dangi, have left behind their wives of combat times and eloped with others.
As Bhattarai used the term Biharikaran with derision in the past, Indians may similarly coin the word Nepalikaran (Nepalization) in the future. Then, Nepalikaran will include the worst of the fanatical Maoism, the detested Prachandapath that Bhattarai has advocated. Bihar can be a true development model for Nepal only if Bhattarai and his fellow Maoists can emulate Nitish Kumar’s liberal, caring democracy.
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