However, our government will deny us this privilege. Almost one year after the lofty announcement, we’ve read nothing on the progress of the project to be completed by 2015.
Anthropologists like Dor Bahadur Bista (in Fatalism and Development) and Prayag Raj Sharma (in The State and Society in Nepal) have tried to understand the Nepali psyche, and pinpoint why progress bypasses our country. Bista locates Nepal’s backwardness in three things—fatalism, the culture of aafhno manche (literally, ‘one’s own people’) and sycophancy. 1) Fatalism is the belief that “one has no personal control over one’s life circumstances, which are determined through a divine or powerful external agency”. This results from the theory of karma, which states that one reaps the fruits of actions in the past life. 2) The culture of seeking help and rewarding ‘one’s own people’ doesn’t allow progress; the best qualified don’t get matching jobs.
Even worthy Nepalis have to resort to ‘one’s own people’ for advancement in society. 3) Sycophancy allows people to waste energy, gifts and time attending to father/mother-figures. These could be the office-boss, country’s PM, Chairman PK Dahal or First Lady Hisila Yami. People hesitate to take any decision for the fear of offending them, but may privately consult shamans for guidance. Further, Bista notes that Nepalis have no shame, which induces the urge to correct oneself, while the Japanese abound in it.
Prayag Raj Sharma finds our country’s religious belief an anachronism and the Indian “holy” influence a negative factor because it binds many Nepalis. He cites the craze for religious epics on Indian TV. Viewers even worship actors and actresses playing different deities. When the power supply fails, the watchers go on a riot. Indian politicians (ours too) run to gurus to seek guidance for political decisions, thus betraying their imprisoned mindsets. The practice of sati (widow-burning) survived in Rajasthan till 1988. The average Indian glorifies the past so much so that s/he can’t look to the future. Sharma believes that all states should adhere to secular principles.
Our political leadership is financed by taxpayer money. It is imperative they follow up on their promises to the people.
Both anthropologists expressed their views before the political changes of 2006. Thus they couldn’t have envisaged the present issues that hinder development: political patronage of criminals, radical trade-unionism, fanatical student activism, and sheer greed. However, reading them, one understands why Nepali governance hasn’t changed much, from Mahindra Shah to Baburam Bhattarai.
ANYTHING FOR RELIGION
When Kantipur published news of monkeys running on the runways at our only international airport, one reader responded (August 28, 2011) in favor of our four-legged companions. “We should first study who previously utilized the land (the present airport). In the past, both the religious and the material usage went hand in hand, so the monkeys remained satisfied. Now the spiritual aspect has dwindled, so the monkeys must be asserting their rights. We can’t solve the problem by just blaming the creatures. We shouldn’t snatch away from the monkeys land they have freely enjoyed for the last sixty/seventy years”!
A mouse took a free ride in a Nepal Airlines’ jet to Hong Kong and succeeded in grounding the flight for some days. This caused much amusement, attempts at justification and comparisons with other airlines, but no shame. Monkeys serve the god Hanuman; and mice, another deity Ganesh.
HAPPY GO LUCKY
According to my friends, the General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) which Nepal Telecom offers comes much cheaper than similar service offered by Ncell. So I phoned the concerned office and requested activation of my Namaste SIM card. I received the response that I should wait for 72 hours, and I would get the settings in a SMS message. After four days, I phoned again.
The lady advised me to wait another 72 hours because she had just forwarded my phone number. After 14 days of no activity, I visited the Telecom office at Tripureshwar. The guards told me I had come too late—the officer had departed at 2 pm, and I had missed him by 40 minutes! Meanwhile, Ncell activated its GPRS service for me in 10 minutes. No wonder, people prefer the privately owned, more expensive Ncell which offers a snappy service.
PM Bhattarai apparently gets to his Singha Darbar office at 9 am. Doesn’t he know that most government offices don’t start functioning until 11am (and shut down at 2 pm)? With officials spending only three hours in their jobs, the dream of Nepal’s conversion into Switzerland or Singapore within 10 years remains limited to wonderful headlines in broadsheets. In Western countries, an eight-hour work day is the minimum. Autocratic kings and democratic PMs dished out utopian dreams for our nation, but did nothing to change the work habits of lazy bureaucrats.
FAMOUS NEPALI TIME
Last year, the Road Department felled two trees on the Pashupati Gaurighat route. The authority took exactly two weeks to clear the road of branches and logs. Three months later, by building a retaining wall, they managed to widen the road by ten feet in some parts. Alas, we may have to wait for another decade to see the added section tarred! The present government widens the roads, but when will it pave them and move the intruding electrical poles? Why do contractors pave roads but leave on each side three feet of dirt which then travels on vehicles’ wheels to city-centers?
My village of Arubari got about 100 meters of tarred road every year, but not in 2011. When will this road reach Gokarna fully paved, I wonder. Some months ago, this government announced that it would energize Singha Darbar with solar panels. Then, I had a hearty laugh. For two years, the traffic lights relying on sun’s energy at the New Baneshwar have failed. The policemen/women prefer arms-exercise to replacing the batteries or cleaning the dust-covered solar panels. Incidentally, drivers say that the crossing was a delight when the solar powered traffic lights worked.
The pavement west of the present parliament building lost its concrete bricks in 2005.We have since had to walk on mud and dirt. The Nepali principle of kaam chalcha (it’ll work somehow) rules our governance. Did any administration do anything to improve the trolley bus service which the Chinese gifted us? Where have the garbage containers of the 1990s disappeared? Pokhara municipality hires trucks that go house to house to collect waste. Why does its Kathmandu counterpart still ask residents to dump garbage on the streets?
Blaming the ‘transition period’ won’t suffice. Our political leadership receives salaries from our taxes; it is imperative they follow up on their promises. Otherwise, for any future promises our leaders make, we may have more Nepalis volunteering to walk naked, even from Mechi to Mahakali.
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