A communist prime minister under a parliamentary system is an oxymoron that can happen only in the proud nation of Mount Everest, Handigaun Festival and one-horned rhino where the apostle of peace Lord Buddha was once born and which then supplied some of the fiercest fighters to the British Empire for over two centuries.Little else of note has happened since the military victories of Gorkhalis in the la-la land of Never Ending Pandemonium and Laments. Progenies of King Prithvi destroyed flourishing Malla civilization with their decadent ways. Usurper-Premier Jang turned the entire country into a giant prison for over a century where inmates toiled for the benefit of the family of jail-keepers. King Mahendra wound the clock back by at least few decades in an attempt to reestablish a family fiefdom.
A putative armed conflict in the name of Maoism produced a gaudy leader that flaunts 18-kg garland around his neck or worships buffalos to drive away evil shadows from his horoscope. And then Nepal got its first standup comedian as the head-of-government who claims to be a 'nationalist' of the same category in the second decade of the twenty-first century. His courtiers have to be ready with whatever are the verbal equivalents of a bedpan, a warm water jug and a washcloth whenever their boss opens his mouth to say something in public.
Premier Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli came out quite pompous in the media when he talked about the one-horned rhino, which he insisted needed to be called a Gaida because nothing like it existed in English-speaking countries. When not in the uniform of Nepali nationalists, he dresses so colorfully that even jaded camerapersons of entertainment industry emerge out of their sessions with him vastly impressed. He never fails to regale his interlocutors with tall tales and Xanadu dreams.
Premier Oli's promises about gas pipeline into every kitchen, wind power to pull railways, multiple international airports to handle tourist influx, and metro trains for urban transport in one of the poorest countries of the world, from where youngsters are forced to escape to work in slave-like conditions in countries of western, southern and south-eastern Asia, causes amusement rather than derision. When ordinary consumers even in the capital city have to face at least 16 hours of power cut every day, they learn to appreciate black humor.
Cylinders of LPG can only be bought in the informal market at highly inflated rates, but the poor bear the burden of having a comical Prime Minister with a grin as they chitchat about absurdities of the government with a laughter accompanying every crackle of the firewood in the makeshift hearth at the height of winter.
The famed resilience of Nepalis is perhaps too charitable a way to explain away the collective indifference of the people with their own sufferings. There must be a better reason behind the subjugation of an entire country for over a century by a single extended family of rulers and their loyal lackeys in society. The risible demeanor of scholars manufacturing apologia for the indefensible regime can't just be dismissed as mere hogwash. The malaise perhaps has much deeper roots in the larger society. Could it be a case of longstanding collective delusion around the idea of showcase nationalism? That probably results from being shut-off from the outside world for much of the history of the country.
Silent sheep
It's not for nothing that Ganesh Man Singh is called the Iron Man of Nepali politics. No one else would have had the courage to publicly compare the people of Kathmandu with a flock of sheep and then chastise them for being what they were. To his legion of critics in the capital city, the towering statesman was merely being resentful of voters that rejected his family members at the polls. Late Ganeshman—actually, he needs no adjective or qualifier and stands taller with his bare name—was made from a metal different from most of his contemporaries. He knew the hollowness of nationalism in a dirt-poor country better than the most educated theorists of his time.
Like religion, mantras of nationalism have the power to transform even proud lions into cowering sheep that are destined to follow their shepherds to the grazing ground, pen or the slaughterhouse with equal ease. When driven into collective delusion, perfectly reasonable human beings begin to behave like rams in high heat—agitated, but their herd instinct still intact—that follow their leader in the hope of physical and psychological gratification.
After all, who could have guessed that a nation of philosophers, poets and musicians will one day begin to rally around a former soldier singing nothing but Sieg Heil (Hail to victory) with a raised right arm? The Fuhrer is undoubtedly an exemplar from the extremes, but excesses are often more useful in understanding a phenomenon than run-of-the-mill demagogues spouting rhetorical nothings.
Without catchphrases there can be no mass-delusion. Religions—the opium of the masses—have their holy chants, hypnotizing hymns and mesmerizing mantras. The intoxicant of nationalism runs on catchwords and labels. A patriot is the one who never questions the decision of the leader. A nationalist has to have an enemy in order to exist. A dissenter is a traitor in disguise. Quest for autonomy and self-rule is tantamount to separatism. Anybody familiar with the coverage of Nepali press can easily add dozens of such homilies in a jiffy.
All one needs to do these days to serve the nation is to denounce India and hector Madheshis about unity, integrity, sovereignty and piety of the Land of Pashupatinath—the Lord of Keepers of Animals. Everything else then becomes forgivable.
Little did the White Shirts that went to the Indian Embassy with bottles of petrol to donate realize that they were pouring the inflammable liquid over the fire of mistrust raging between two of the closest neighbors in the world. Collective delusion does that to sensible people.
The Pahadi Rights Defenders protesting against the so-called Indian Blockade failed to contemplate over absurdities of their own action. The primary duty of protecting its population lies with the government and not with diplomatic mission of any other country. How often does one hear Pahadi Rights Defenders speaking on behalf of victims of state repression in Tarai-Madhesh? Unless the media have been consistently ignoring their pleas, they appear to have remained conspicuously silent about excesses of security forces almost throughout the six-month protests. Catchwords have the power to energize or sedate, depending on the issue involved, even the most considerate of all activists.
Bleating goats
Former Speaker of the Pratinidhi Sabha Daman Nath Dhungana is an exemplary constitutionalist. Padma Ratna Tuladhar is an irrepressible rebel committed to the cause of downtrodden. Writer and commentator Khagendra Sangraula has a sterling reputation of speaking truth to power against all odds. Mahanth Thakur is one of the cleanest politicians in contemporary Nepal with impeccable integrity. When reputations of such people are brought into controversy, perhaps it's time to worry about collective health of society.
Kedar Bhakta Mathema is an aristocrat, but with a deep sense of noblesse oblige—privilege entails responsibility—that made him serve as an education administrator, diplomat and then a public intellectual. Dr. Govinda KC is a lone warrior in the tradition of ascetics. When the state is bent upon legitimizing profit-making enterprises in education through legislation over the head of their recommendation, it's time to worry about the health of the nation.
The media, however, is either circumspect or silent. The civil society is largely complicit in the government's diversionary discourses. When interests of the Permanent Establishment of a country are equated with the Nation itself, the resulting silence can become suffocatingly deafening.
Perhaps it's now time for the goats to begin bleating. There must be something that separates goats from the sheep.
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Hail Comrade Chairman!
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