Milestones in cooperation

A new highway, the shortest link between Nepal and China is in the pipeline.

The good news is that both Nepal and China are very interested in connecting Syabrubesi in Nepal with Kerung in the Autonomous Region of Tibet. To this end, officials from both countries are working to speed up the Syabrubesi-Rasuwagadi highway project. Three years ago, the two governments had agreed in principle to open this new road link. Last year, the Chinese government had allocated 670 million rupees for the project and it is currently in the process of awarding contract for the mapping work forthe proposed highway through the central mountainous district of Rasuwa.

Nepal too has allocated rupees 51 million to the project. According to a news-report, only 19 kilometres of the road needs to be constructed. This highway is vital not only for NepalĘs development, but also for enhancing trade relations and strengthening cooperation between the two countries. Both the Nepalese as well as the Chinese side recognise that both countries stand to benefit from this new road link. NepalĘs topography has always proved an obstruction to its development effort. As a result of the transportation difficulties involved, the remote hill and mountainous regions have remained undeveloped and cut off from the mainstream.

Some of the regions are so remote that when there is food scarcity, people starve to death because it is very difficult to reach those places with food supply.

The new highway will ease this problem largely because it will be easier to reach these places with food relief from the Chinese side for the inaccessible areas of the western and mid-western regions. In economic terms, the new highway will reduce dependence on the Arniko highway by opening up an alternative trade route and new trading connections. The road should also provide the necessary infrastructure that will usher in further development activities in these remote and therefore backward regions.

There is no disputing that development in the hill and mountainous regions of the country can be possible only when these areas are well connected with roads and other forms of transportation. The development costs are prohibitive for a poor country like Nepal. In this backdrop, the scope for cooperation between Nepal and China is tremendous and so are the mutual benefits of enhanced people to people relations that can be reaped. ChinaĘs role in helping Nepal develop its infrastructure has been very impressive indeed. China has shown great interest in linking different parts of Tibet with Nepal. Very recently, during the Nepalese Foreign MinisterĘs visit to Nepal, the two governments agreed in principle to build two more road links ū the Mustang-Lhizi road and the Kimathangka-Dingri road to facilitate tans-Himalayan trade. When these are completed, they will stand out as milestones in Nepal-China cooperation, which can only grow with the years.

Indo-British conspiracy cannot be concealed

Madan Regmi

On the eve of Dashain, the British government subsidized electronic media, the BBC, slugged the Nepalese. This channel, also well known for its mischievous tendency towards money and muscle, has once again endorsed Napoleon’s idea, which referred to Britain as the nation of shopkeepers. It has opened a preposterous subject by soliciting the abolition of Nepalese sovereignty to India. The Nepalese were reminded just how treacherous a role Britain has been playing with Nepal since the 1814-16 war.

Through this invasion, Britain occupied more than one third of Nepal’s rich land areas inhabited by Nepalese. These are now under India and the Nepalese have been displaced by Biharis, Bengalis and others.

From 1816 onwards, the British imperialists started recruiting Nepalese in the army to sustain its colonies. The British, even after humiliating Nepal, never abstained from inflicting as much damage as possible. They continued to hack away at Nepal. Britain's anti-Nepal policy was constantly evinced in those days. Governor General Auckland of British-India in 1837 acknowledged Nepal as the "most dangerous enemy the British faced" in South-Asia. In the words of its C-In-C General Fane, "Nepal was a thorn which most greatly paralyzed her efforts, where and which it behooves her to pluck out and eradicate at the earliest favourable movement". Thus it is beyond question that Britain tried utmost to whip out Nepalese independence by forcing it to become a nation of mercenaries.

This strategy of the imperialist mindset presumably emanated from the phobia that Nepal was capable of striking back and they longed for the vast region which lay across the Himalayas. So they adopted a strategy of depriving Nepal from even the slightest chances for it to recuperate. To accomplish this mission, the British installed autocratic Rana rule, deprived the Nepalese people even from education. They kept them so much impoverished that the British could acquire as many Gorkhas they needed. During Rana rule, Nepal had only a few educational institutions that too concentrated in the capital where commoners had little chance to get enrolled. Since 1816 to this day the British have been draining out Nepalese blood. There is no official figure of how many Nepalese have lost their lives fighting for the British cause. However, even western historians have written that during the Second World War, the Gurkhas were not only exempted from being acknowledged for their glorious role they played but were punished in practice. The British provided minimal economic aid to rehabilitate two lakh Gurkhas who were decommissioned once the war came to an end. Nepalese veterans believe that thousands of Gurkha troops were killed the Second World War alone and that in battle, they were given the most difficult tasks. This is visible even today. When the British army contingent was sent to Kosovo in 1999, the Gurkhas had to do the job of mine clearing while the British soldiers were at a safe distance.

Indian intellectuals claim that it was the British who brainwashed Jawaharlal Nehru to change his policy towards Nepal. Some writers, quoting the authentic document have proved that the British, before forming India, suggested Nehru to carry on the same policy towards Nepal which they had tailored. The writings of freedom fighter Nehru also substantiate this. Prior to being bestowed with a big Kingdom, the creation of British conquest, Nehru was found unequivocally condemning the recruitment of the Gurkhas in the British army and also of the British occupation of Nepalese territories such as Kumaun, Naini Tal, Dehra Dun, etc. But on August 1947, a week before the British Empire announced the independence of India, the so -called tripartite agreement was signed by the British, Indian and Nepalese which facilitated the bulk of the Gurkha regiments to be part of the new Indian Empire.

Coming back to the latest manoeuvre of the BBC to muster international opinion in favour of India’s bid to annex Nepal, it is without doubt an Indian motivation. It can in no way convince any sensible person that the Indo-British condominium created slightly before 1947 is surreptitiously working since then against Nepal. It is a pity that the British government should pretend to forget that Nepal was the first country in Asia to have its embassy in England.

One of the reasons why BBC mingled Nepal in India is Nepal’s poor economy. It is true that Nepal belongs in this category of least developed countries. But in terms of resources, Nepal is one of the richest countries which has been aiding India. Nepal is the fifth largest export market of India which it has monopolised. From trade, India makes huge profits. Millions of Indians are earning their bread in Nepal. Mr. Aditya Man Shrestha Bleeding Mountains of Nepal writes, "When we take the existing irrigated land acreage of 5 million hectares in India from the regulated water from Nepal for a period of thirty years, the benefits to Nepal can be as high as Rs 3,671,250 million. There are other benefits to India from the joint ventures with Nepal in terms of flood control and averted damage to life and property in India. In total, if we compare the amount of aid India has provided to Nepal and the gains she has made from the joint projects, the difference looks staggering. India’s aid to Nepal totals Rs 5 billion whereas the benefits it derives comes to Rs 3, 671.25 billion. Is there any rational explanation for this?

Shrestha’s findings prove that India is cheating Nepal. Besides, the world should know that culturally, religiously and socially also, Nepal is different from India. Nepal’s culture is different. Nepalese religion is mixed. Even the Hinduism of Nepal is different from that of Indian Hinduism. To cite one difference, Nepalese Hindu deities are worshipped with the blood of sacrificed animals. Because in its social matrix, the dowry system never existed, there is no killing of daughter -in -laws for dowry. BBC's latest official claim that its postulation of raising question mark on the viability of the Nepalese sovereignty and then implicitly suggesting to turn Nepal a part of India, was observed by only "some people" is a deliberate attempt to undermine Nepalese sovereignty itself.Hence, BBC cannot be pardoned without paying penalty.

Fighting price hike the Nepali way

By Jai Singii

How is the wife of Mr Ram Krishna Tamarkar, the Minister of Supplies going to deal with the recent price hike? Well, she will no longer serve him warm food when he comes home late after a meeting over how to solve the Maoists insurgency. Nor will she use gas to make tea and coffee for guests. She will offer them mineral water or cold drinks instead. We have all seen hoardings with the message: " Oil does not last for ever". One ad hammered home " One litre of petrol saved equals to10 kg foodgrain. So it would be wise to save and drive only when necessary." But then, petrol accounts for only five percent of the total oil products, and besides, nobody bothers in Nepal.

The main opposition communist Party, UML have called for strike and demonstrations but offered no solution to rein in the oil price hike. Even if the opposition succeeds in bringing about a price revision through time-tested methods, they cannot put off the inevitable. If not today, the people will have to bear the burden tomorrow and such a burden will be heavy. So, it is better to bear the pain today than be crippled tomorrow. Who knows the future? Present time is the most important time.

Charlie Chaplin, in one of his latter day films, dreamt of making gasoline out of seawater. While that may sound wild, in Nepal, work in the area of using Himalayan water and hydrogen along with fuel cells is not a fanciful idea. And if a miracle did indeed take place, that would make the world less dependent on fuel.

The petroleum crisis has become an annual ritual,. The international prices of petroleum go up the petroleum import bill rises, the oil fund is put under pressure, and the government dilly-dallies a while and then does the inevitable - hikes the adminstered prices of petrol, diesel kerosene and cooking gas and aviation fuel. Then follows the ritual flurries of protest threats which cool down in time for the next spur in international petroleum prices.

Since the restoration of democracy in Nepal in 1990, the hike in petroleum prices has been inflationary as the printing of currency. Transport costs have gone up more than proportionately and consequently, all retail prices down the line. This happened last year and it has been repeated this year.

It appears that in another 15 days, everybody will have forgotten this year’s crisis. All those concerned appear to have settled down to the idea that government can do nothing but hike adminstered prices in tandem with the rise in international crude prices.

The grapes of wrath

MR Josse

In the "Post Platform" on Saturday, Suyog Mainali made an open, impassioned plea for the emergence of a Nepali Hitler to stoke the fires of "national pride, patriotism and determination"; to instill "discipline" at the popular level; to awaken people from their "slumber"; and, above all, to lead society "against terrorism, social injustice and alien domination."

Anguish & anger: Mainali made it plain that he was not calling for a Hitler of the gas chambers but, rather, for a "man of action, not a useless spider that builds up webs of sweet words and hides behind bushes in times of peril."

Among the salient points made in Mainali’s cri de coeur were the following: "It could mean the end of democracy. But at least the country would survive. And a country is worth much more that you, sir, much more. You can be sacrificed for the country, sir; the country can’t be sacrificed for you or your so-called freedom."

Those gloomy sentiments, by and large, conform to what an increasing body of commentators have now begun to say openly, even with a vengeance, in print.

Of those ventilating their anguish at the unholy mess made in the country today by fat-cat politicians cynically invoking the fair name of democracy are those living abroad, including those in that great land of Lincoln and Jefferson: America.

Indeed, it is instructive to note that, of late, even well-known Nepali Congress intellectuals have begun to boldly question the quality of democracy being presently served up to the people.

For sometime now, as is known, individuals such as former Rashtriya Panchayat member, Dirgha Raj Prasai — presently coordinator of the Democratic Revolutionary Nationalist Society — have been loudly urging the King to take over the reigns of power "to rescue the country."

Be that as it may, today none but the stone deaf would have failed to have heard the angry sentiments being expressed freely at the street level against the present breed of politicians and MPs — especially ministers.

Neither can they fail to note that more and more ordinary folk are increasingly asking to be rescued from the present morass — more so, against the backdrop of the crushing recent increase in the price of POL products, especially that of kerosene which has been doubled.

As one who frequently makes use of public transport, permit me to relate some insights into the angry public mood today.

Vox populi: Travelling in a three-wheeler the other day, I heard an elderly man who had all the outwardly hallmarks of a Brahmin, loudly bemoan that there is no Nathuram Godse (the unrepentant assassin of Mahatma Gandhi) around, echoing sentiments not very different from that of actor Mohan Niraula last July which created such a stir, including that in parliament.

Noticing that his comments had the ears of all other co-passengers, he went on to say that he was 75 years old; that he had seen it all; that the present political order was worse not only than the panchayat system but even than that of Rana times!

(Unfortunately, his use of an earthy expletive to describe the present political dispensation may not be repeated here.)

Others chipped in to say that "all limits have been crossed" by the government of the day. One traveller added that today the level of corruption had easily overtaken that seen or heard of in the bad old days of the Panchayat order.

Yet another lamented that bribe takers today were "brazen" or even "shameless" about their acts while adding that the government did not even think twice of using money from the flood relief fund to finance foreign junkets!

Another fumed that MPs today had grown so arrogant that they refused to recognise the very people who had fed and consoled them in their days of travail. He went on to charge that many of them today even owned apartments or houses in America!

Another protested ex-IGP Achyut Krishna Kharel’s impending ambassadorial assignment: rewarding Kharel’s controversial role in the counter-Maoist campaign was not right, he felt.

All commuters wanted an escape from the present political quagmire but were not sanguine as how that could actually happen.

On another recent occasion — also in a public transport — two women loudly lamented that Nepalese were killing Nepalese in the name of the anti-Maoist campaign. A man was awfully sorry that King Birendra’s health prevented him from taking a more active role; another lauded his father’s vision and courage.

They, in any case, were of the view that the present political order favoured only a few, particularly businessmen and politicians! While the rich had become richer, the poor had become conspicuously poorer, they charged.

So much for a sampling of the grapes of street-level wrath.

(I recommend that politicians, senior bureaucrats and other worthies regularly use public transportation, in disguise if necessary, to get an accurate feel of the popular pulse!)

The voices of disenchantment heard in the salons and parlours of the elite in Kathmandu are understandably much more subdued.

Same verdict: For all that, the verdict is pretty much the same: the current political system — or more so the bunch of politicos that have come to be synonymous with it — has failed to deliver.

So, what now? What can be done to clean up the Augean stables? What instrument can be used to put an end to the incipient civil war? Are hundreds, if not thousands, more condemned to die merely to maintain the status quo, the bank balances and the mega egos of our present ruling class — in the hallowed name of democracy?

Finally, it might be germane to recall Shakespeare’s lines from Julius Caesar: "There is a tide in the affairs of men,/ Which taken at the flood,/ leads on to fortune;/ Omitted, all the voyage of their life / Is bound in shallows and miseries."