Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Who will be the loser?

Presumably in politics also it does exist as in other domains. The aggrieved party waits for long and long in order to take revenge from the one who has caused harm to the other. Moreover, the culture of South Asian politics at least at the grassroots level has been accultured to this phenomenon. The politics of revenge thus appears inevitable here in our country as well time permitting.

To come to the point, if the Nepali army , on the one hand, has done immense harm and damage to the mental psyche of the village population through several and countless abuses, on the other, the rebels too have not lagged behind in acts of harassing, killing, abduction, torture and mutilating the innocent population under one pretext or the other. The rebels can't escape this blame for which the population that has been hard hit by their acts of torture appears in a mood to seek revenge from them at an appropriate time.

The businessmen have had been the prime target of the rebels not so in the distant past and the practice appears not to have come to an end even as of today. Or else why they should have come to the streets this time to ventilate their inner feelings that it has been enough and they no more will tolerate the rebels' acts of harassment. The political animals of different shades and colors that differed with the theories and practices of the Maoists party too have had the same fate more so in the district and the villages. The educational sector more so the school going children too were not spared by the Maoists under one pretext or the other. Similarly, the media men too have had bitter experiences while dealing with the Maoists. Unfortunately, some of our professional colleagues lost their precious lives even. The media still appears not to have become Maoists friendly but pose to be so. And why they have been posing to be so is any body's guess.

The tourism sector, more specially, got a severe blow from the state-rebel conflict for over a decade to the extent that several first class hotels and resorts concluded very intelligently that it would be better for them and their business if the

entire systems were shelved for good. They did this under coercion as people in other sectors have had to do.

And finally those families who lost their precious souls from the attacks of the rebels are the ones who have been the hard hit. How they would react at a later stage to the Maoists previous assaults on their families will have to be watched.

All put together, what appears imminent is that the aggrieved parties will converge at a point and do the needful to seek appropriate revenge of the wrongdoings of the Maoists.

It would be advisable to the Maoists' central command to take note of these scenarios and act accordingly. Failing to satisfy the aggrieved parties either through seeking public apology or making it known through the media that they have had to do so under a different political context and that they will henceforth not repeat the blunders of the past.

If they do not do it so in the immediate future, it has been presumed that all those who have been hit by the rebels in the past in one way or the other will exhibit their disagreement with the Maoists at time of the Constituent Assembly elections.

The sooner the Maoists leadership understood this inner nitty-gritty's of the country's politics, the better. Failing to act as the people have advised them would boomerang at time of the elections. Take it for granted. No escape from the wrath of the aggrieved ones.

Fortunately, the Maoists have so far told the public that it does happen at times of revolutions and movements and they lament for the losses they have caused to the people. But then yet the rebel leadership must go to the people and convince them all that all that they did was for a mission. If not, the loss awaiting them will be a colossal one.