When ideologies are tossed off with abandon and voices of reasoning suppressed, politics falls prey to vested interests, into the hands of people who rally around a scheme or project. Such people are not leaders as they do not have future strategy, plan of action or guiding ideology. In fact, they have no vision beyond what they stand to gain at the moment.
These people work to protect and promote their shifting interests at all cost. To maintain their relevance, they lie to citizens, become stooges of foreign forces, act as middlemen for businesses that support them; they worryingly protect criminals who can be mobilized to carry out illegal deals, maintain sway over their constituencies, and unleash terror on people and organizations that threaten them. Has our political system fallen prey to such vested interests? [break]
Whatever the politics behind the decision, the reason Baburam Bhattarai offered his resignation as UCPN (Maoist) vice-chairman says a lot about what is going on in Nepali politics.
“Personal ambitions are rife in the party. So, I have decided to quit for the betterment of the party,” Bhattarai said following his resignation.
Interestingly, something similar had happened in Indian politics a few weeks before. Upset over the rabblerousing by Narendra Modi’s supporters and his ultimate elevation as the party’s election campaign committee chief, LK Advani decided to relinquish all his positions in Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
“For some time I have been finding it difficult to reconcile either with the current functioning of the party, or the direction in which it is going,” he said. “Most leaders of ours are now concerned just with their personal agendas,” Advani said in his page-long resignation. BJP was no longer the “same idealistic party” created by Shyama Prasad Mookerjee, Deendayal Upadhyaya, Nanaji Deshmukh and Atal Bihari Vajpai.
This shift from ideology to personal agendas is turning politicians from leaders to mere clowns who survive by playing to the tunes of vested interests. I really don’t think it is worth talking about this lot. But I loathe the people in political and power circles who have bargained away their morals. These are the people who could be collectively called intelligentsia.
Among politicians, these are the people who have been sidelined because they have chosen to be subdued rather than speak out. Among bureaucrats, these are those who have remained silent to political overreach because they don’t want to jeopardize their career built upon decades of hard work. Among citizens, they are erudite men outside politics, yet fully aware of how corrupt government system functions.
I loathe these people, yet I see them as the only hope for Nepal, especially in view of upcoming election. I think it is time they came out of their cocoon of indulgence and confront their comatose moral self.
Every time, before brandishing their intelligence, I urge them to remember that part of intelligence is courage. History is full of intelligent people who confronted the rulers and status quo power mongers of their time with radical views, often at their peril.
John Milton gave a speech before the British Parliament defending freedom of speech in which he likened the government censors to an “oligarchy” and free speech to a “flowery crop of knowledge” (1644). Edward Gibbon called the loss of independence and excessive obedience the “secret poison” which corrupted the Roman Empire (1776). Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi raised their voice against the rulers of their time when people were being killed and persecuted for speaking out against the political system. In our country, Dasharath Chand, Dharma Bhakta Mathema and Ganga Lal Shrestha were hanged for their bold opposition of Rana rulers.
If all these people had kept silent, our freedom and whatever little development we have seen would have been delayed by a few more decades.
So it is time for the intelligentsia to organize and speak out against the old guard who have reigned unchallenged for many years and have grown oblivious to their own weaknesses. It is time that the voices that have been sidelined till now drowned the ruckus of power mongers.
The old guard must be asked to “kindly clear the way” because they have proven themselves inept despite several opportunities given to them. In fact using the term inept would almost sound like absolving them of the guilt of keeping the country and people in the dark through their false promises.
Will people believe Pushpa Kamal Dahal when he says, “If our party gets a two-third majority in the fresh Constituent Assembly (CA) polls, we would build a ‘New Nepal’ within five years, a prosperous Nepal within 10 years, and would make the people prosperous within 20 years”?
Will anyone buy Ram Chandra Poudel’s statement when he says, “We will make Nepal a heaven within 10 years through development of agriculture, hydropower and tourism”?
They will continue to make a mockery of themselves by making hollow promises in shameless manner.
But still people would have no choice until the courageous among the intelligentsia break themselves free and give the people political alternative against the old guard.
The author is a copy editor with Republica
amendrapokharel@gmail.com
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