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Kathmandu Tuesday November 20, 2001 Marga 05, 2058.
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Leaders
whither ?
For the last few
days, we have been reading that a new English newspaper with international investment and
interest is starting its publication in Nepal soon. The fourth estate that has been the
domain of Nepalis, which has made tremendous strides since the restoration of democracy,
now faces intrusion. The expression of the press, for whatever its worth, that has been
purely based on national interest till date, now runs the risk of being dictated by
foreign conditions.
What worries me more
is the impotency and inaptitude of this government for the fact that while we read of even
the Prime Minister expressing against the idea, we have this newspaper being allowed to
operate by the same government, clearly establishing lack of vision and direction. Even
more surprising is the fact that the chairman of the ruling party and ex-prime minister
has been openly favouring this foreign encroachment in the name of free enterprise.
This may appear more
as a move to embarrass the incumbent Prime Minister but is something that has become
natural for a person who has scuttled his own majority government to a mid term poll to
save his own neck, connived to defeat his own party chairman in a by-election, conspired
to bring down the cabinet led by his own party member and has a track record of double
talk with consistency only when it comes to matters of thinking of himself and his
coterie. But the fact remains that since the advent of democracy, we have had the
misfortune of having to tolerate the governance of the so called leaders who have become
leaders by accident rather than by design and have given many a time reasons to question
the loyalty towards this nation.
What is even more
disturbing is the fact that the nation has had to tolerate these old myopic leaders sans
vision.
Jaya Dev
Baidya
Thapathali, Kathmandu |
