Troubled coexistence

By MADHAB P KHANAL

Any one attempting to portray an objective picture of Nepal-India relations in their current perspective is likely to land himself amidst a hostile political landscape and be confronted with a barrage of accusations ranging from being a part of Pakistan sponsored anti-Indian bogey to an agent of diehard reactionaries or a staunch protagonist of the pro-Chinese political cult against Indian interests. The reality, however, is that due to India’s uncompromising stand on several issues, Nepal and India have visibly failed to cultivate any environment of mutual trust and goodwill, that are essential for positioning a multifaceted relationship like that of Nepal and India on an enduring track of meaningful cooperation.

The official facade of Nepal-India relations is indisputably deceptive as it does not reflect the inexhaustible source of Indian improbities that lies behind it. Having had witnessed her diplomatic vagaries on numerous occasions in the last fifty years or so, sensible people of this country are convinced that India continues to harbour an inherent prejudice against Nepal. In fact, ever since the late King Mahendra forged ahead with expanding Nepal’s bilateral relations with the People’s Republic of China beyond the frontiers of diplomatic rhetoric to the areas of viable economic cooperation in the early sixties, Indian behaviours towards Nepal have remained incessantly censorious.

Similarly, the historical proposal introduced by the late King Birendra that Nepal be declared ‘a zone of peace’ came under a persistent stricture from Indian leadership ever since its inception. Despite the fact that more than a hundred friendly countries had granted their unstinted endorsement to the proposal, India willfully brutalized it with utter disregard to its long-term bearing on peace and harmony in South Asia. Likewise, her unfriendly act of imposing an economic blockade against Nepal in the late eighties retarded the pace of its modest economic development by at the least ten years. Nobody knows how many more years the poor country would have to struggle again to pick up the momentum as a result of the serial destruction of its basic infrastructure by the CPN (Maoists) whose top leaders are operating their nefarious activities from the south of the border with apparent connivance of the local authorities there.

The callous attitude of India towards the humanitarian problem of Bhutanese refugees is another serious lapse in its moral obligations towards Nepal. In the face of the close diplomatic nexus that Thimpu has been maintaining with New Delhi ever since their friendship treaty of 1949, India’s cunning reiteration that the refugee stalemate is a bilateral problem to be settled between the two kingdoms simply shows her double standard with regard to the blatant violation of human rights by Bhutan. Similarly, India’s intransigence to resolving the border disputes involving its encroachments at more than fifty places and the unlawful occupation of Kalapani at the tri-junction for more than four decades, is another hindering factor in normalising relations between the two countries. Likewise, India’s unilateral decisions to build dams in the close vicinity of its border with Nepal and inundating thereby thousands of villages of the Terai people is not only a flagrant violation of international law and morality, it is yet another instance of her overbearing attitude towards a small neighbour.

What should have been a perfect model of an amiable coexistence between two contiguous neighbours with so much in common in many respects, an enormous chasm of distrust and doubt has divided the two countries. In fact, ever since Nepal and India entered into the lopsided treaty of Peace and Friendship in 1950 relations between them have never been friendly in the true sense of the term. An incurable pathology of ambivalence and mutual hatred among their respective political leadership is what would describe the texture of today’s Nepal-India relations. Unmindful of the fact that much waters have flown down the Bagmati river since the politically inchoative days of the early fifties, many of India’s diplomatic envoys to this country still entertain a fallacy that meddling with Nepal’s internal politics is a part of their mandated diplomatic terms of reference.

One of such intriguing examples was the political rendezvous of ambassador Shyam Saran with a couple of opposition politicians before his official call on the prime minister of the host country after he presented his Letters of Credence to His Majesty the King. Whether ambassador Saran’s diplomatic misdemeanour paid him a good dividend or not, his marked deviation from the established norms of diplomatic decency did not make a favourable impact on Nepali intelligentsia. Similarly, during his interaction programme at the Reporters’ Club recently what the Indian ambassador said in his opening statement that ‘India trusted Nepal with an open border’ justifies how India looks at Nepal currently. He could have added a little more lustre of authenticity to his statement if he had shown some magnanimity by saying that Nepal, too, was equally, if not more, generous in throwing open its eighteen hundred kilometres long borders to ‘Indian diaspora’ who have menacingly flooded the country as facilitated by articles 6 and 7 of the treaty.

Thus, viewing such fractured relations between Nepal and India one is tempted to echo the sentiments that Lord Melbourne, a Whig prime minister of Britain under Queen Victoria’s reign, had expressed in the nineteenth century: "What wise men had promised has not happened. What the damned fools predicted has actually come to pass." Though Melbourne’s exclamation was a part of his fits of exasperation over the situation in Ireland, his sentiments perfectly fit in with the type of diplomatic predicament that Nepal and India are ineluctably grappled with today. In view of Indian authorities admitting that India’s Maoist guerrillas might be frequently crossing into Nepal by misusing the open border, one would be prompted to ask them: Why should then the Nepal-India borders remain unregulated for eternity?

Given the type of disillusionment that Nepalis have had experienced over the years there is no reason to be optimistic about mutual cooperation on broader spectrum with India in any sector of common benefits. If viewed against the backdrop of Koshi and Gandak deals, sharing of equitable benefits from harnessing of Nepal’s abundant water resources is simply a diplomatic delusion. With regard to Mahakali treaty the role played by Pashupati Shumsher Rana and Dr Prakash Chandra Lohani during the Deuba-coalition was equally opportunistic. India’s meticulously laid out traps of Tanakpur and Mahakali projects, have badly exposed the vulnerabilities of some of our prominent leaders who always considered New Delhi as the abode of their political messiahs and guardian angels of democracy.

After having reviewed the troubled coexistence between Nepal and India for over fifty years a very pertinent question arises as to who is ultimately to be blamed for such deterioration in bilateral relations which is indisputably ill-affordable for both the countries? India’s political strategies might have their own contentions; but for the Nepalis it is undoubtedly India which is to be blamed for the obvious reasons that she never parted with her political vanity and unpropitious behaviours towards a neighbour which had always been at the receiving end in all respects.

Soap operas rule

By SMRITI JAISWAL

Dinner conversations at my home once revolved around politics. Papa’s friends from everywhere appeared miraculously at eight and angry repartees began immediately. Tables were banged, points asserted, debates put forward in different words. Everyone got angry and within the clamour plates of rice disappeared as quickly and suddenly as men do in wars. The women of the house walked on tiptoes, conversed in hushed whispers, trying hard not to disturb the elevated table talk. They served quietly, without complaints, feeling trifle and insignificant. After all, what could they contribute? They neither understood politics nor took the interest required. And they could certainly not understand what it was that got these men so mad and worked up, what it was that had them shattering the tables and the walls. So they walked on tiptoes and talked in hushed whispers.

Matters stand quite differently now. The women sit on dinner tables and talk in animated tones (tones that alternate between ice coldness to the warmth of hearths depending on the sides they take). The topic is invariably the Indian TV channels and their range of women dominated serials. The soap operas have invaded dinner talks with the same vehemence as politics once did. And anyway what can be more political and interest arousing than Ramola Sikand’s bold maneuverings or Kamolika’s sexy attempts at luring men away or Payal Mehra’s one sided smiles? Its all very hair arousing. It’s all very important too. Men today walk on tiptoes and are at a loss to comprehend what they see. Most of them crib about this "useless" habit their wives have cultivated - "they do nothing but waste their afternoons away before the television", they cry. (I must make a point here of the many husbands who have actually started watching their wives’ favourite serials once they have got done with the evening news. After all, they do remember how their wives take active interest in politics whenever they deem it necessary). It would be just as justified if women were to complain about their husbands wasting their mornings over newspapers. The end results of these two "wastings" are quite contradictory.

All the newspaper readings have not turned even the 1% of the readers into Prime Ministers (which I guess is the highest political status) or even into people capable of improving the country’s condition (which I think is politics’ highest moral objective). So much for that. As for women, well, they are ministering the homes more artistically today than they had before - and as a reminder let me add here that a country is made up not of political parties but of homes, if all homes were secured, happy and well ministered there would be no news for ghastly newspapers. Women today are also acquiring a better taste of things and are smart enough to know when they are getting duped. Once when TV had been more male oriented it had rejoiced in portraying females either as props for the stronger sex or as wronged ones seeking vengeance. These are not the only roles allotted to the female sex anymore. However much Parvati Bhabhi might grate the ears with her superhuman piousness or Ramola Sikand violate credibility with her supernatural luck, they are distinct individuals choosing their way of life according to their beliefs. They are not props or social products. The men in the soap operas fade off either as wimps or act as foils to accentuate the female strength. It’s very reliving to see tricks changed for once. No matter how noble Anurag Basu is, he is not nobler than the ever philosophizing Prerna and even though the once dead Meheer had to be brought back to life due to public insistence he leads a nonexistent life in Kyonki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi.

Of course, it cannot be said that the most awaited and miraculous change has occurred. For instance, even in these serials women in stretch jeans and/or purple lipsticks end up invariably as vamps and homebreakers whereas those draped in heavy Banarasi Sarees and traditional gold jewelry are holier than the holy. Society needs more time to digest that tight and purple is just as human and humble as are gold and silk, or that gold and silk often reek of greed and evil.

The point is not that roles have changed (though it is slowly happening) but that perspectives have. There still are a overwhelming number of intelligent Aristotles ready to swear women have only 20 teeth (!!), but there are a growing number of Madam Curies to set them straight.

China and SAARC

By M R JOSSE

Last week, this columnist participat-ed at a one-day seminar on China-SAARC ties organised by the China Study Centre. It was an eye-opener in many respects, including for the uneven level of academic effort or research that had gone into the preparation of seminar papers.

PREMATURE

Striking, too, was that a number of the papers addressed themes that had only a peripheral relevance to the subject of the seminar. If the absence of governmental representation at the substantive sessions was only to be expected at a Track II talkathon, it was revealing that there was no participation from the Maldives and Bhutan – let alone a presentation of a Maldivian or Bhutanese perspective on the subject.

An Indian pedagogue who was to have presented a paper did not turn up due, one was informed, to a death in the family. In any case, his contribution, entitled China and South Asia in the post-9/11 world, was more of a diatribe against the United States than anything else. Interestingly, the term "SAARC" was conspicuous by its total absence in his essay!

What also impressed me was that although the seminar took place against the sombre backdrop of the indefinite postponement, just a few days earlier, of the 12th SAARC summit slated for Islamabad for 11-13 January 2003 – due to India not confirming her attendance — its significance hardly seemed to have been appreciated around the seminar table.

This observer did, however, make the attempt not only to remind participants of the above reality but also of the fact that it was India’s objection to an internal Pakistani political development in October 1999 that scuttled a SAARC summit planned for later that year in Kathmandu.

Indeed, it was only in January 2002 that the 11th SAARC summit finally took place. As I reminded seminar participants, it was then that India made an unwitting contribution to shoring up China’s links with SAARC as its ban on overflights by Pakistani aircraft caused Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf to arrive in Kathmandu from China.

In retrospect, it can therefore be legitimately claimed that China’s cooperation was necessary for the convening of a SAARC summit – surely a first in the organisation’s history!

CHINA’S INTEREST

Before moving on to more substantive points and/or insights of the said exercise, I believe it will be in order to underline, at the very outset, that China’s interest in building linkages with SAARC is quite transparent. In fact, a couple of years ago, the Chinese government had even proposed to host a conference in Beijing to discuss that question. In the event, the said conclave did not take place reportedly because India did not take too kindly to the idea.

Incidentally, China’s continuing interest in SAARC was reflected in that the said seminar was organised by the China Study Centre. It was also sharply etched in the presentation made by a Chinese academic, of which more later.

As already noted, India is not – at this stage – keen on any bridge building between SAARC, as a whole, and China. She may not, however, be averse to a gradual or limited expansion in bilateral contacts such as envisaged in post-1999 sub-regional economic cooperation and development efforts between India, Myanmar, Bangladesh and China’s Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.

China’s interest in systematically developing relations with SAARC was underscored by all participants who took the floor. After listening to various speakers expound on the goodies which SAARC could enjoy with China’s blessings, one was, however, left wondering how such an Utopian wish-list could ever be realised – at least, in our lifetime – given the harsh ground realities within SAARC.

SAARC’s first secretary-general, Abul Ahsan, in his paper suggested pointedly that, over time, China’s interest in SAARC could take the form that it has vis-à-vis ASEAN.

What he left unstated, of course, was that no ASEAN member state has today any serious problems with China as, for example, the kind that persists between India and China. Nor, for that matter, is ASEAN bogged down currently by the heavy baggage of wars and unresolved disputes between its members, such as that between India and Pakistan.

Perhaps even more revealing was the point made by former Pakistani foreign secretary, Niaz A Naik. He linked prospects of future SAARC-China ties to China’s commitment to speed the all-round development of the Western region of the country, a commitment that was reiterated during the recent 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

As Naik reminded participants, the Congress decided, among other things, that: "China will step up regional cooperation and bring its exchanges and cooperation with its surrounding countries to a new height. China will continue to enhance its solidarity and cooperation with other Third World countries, enlarge areas of cooperation and make it more fruitful."

As the veteran Pakistani diplomatist pointed out, "the development project of Western China presents a new opportunity to Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan to deepen their relations with China in order to attain a higher standard of life for their impoverished populations."

He was of the opinion that, if formal China-SAARC links were not yet feasible, a "sub-regional economic and development cooperation arrangement between China and Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan seems to be highly desirable and profitable."

Naik also disclosed that "China is currently undertaking mega development projects in Pakistan including the creation of a deep sea seaport at Gawader (Mekran Coast) with the rest of Pakistan." He then went on to predict that "this would provide immense opportunities of transit trade to China and landlocked Nepal."

Nepalese participants were also understandably enthused about the idea of the rapid projected development of Western China, which would include the Tibetan Autonomous Region, and, in particular, of the projected completion of a rail link to Lhasa over the next few years.

REALISM

A breath of realism was provided by the Chinese participant, Prof Ma Jiali, who, inter alia, pointed out what he termed as "restrictive factors" hindering the blossoming of Sino-SAARC relations. Among them, he said, were divergent perceptions within SAARC. Thus, "when some bilateral relations remain tense, certain SAARC members are suspicious of close ties with China."

Also, "some scholars believed that from the bottom of its heart, India was against any other big power thrusting into South Asia and China was no exception. It should be the reason why India holds negative attitude towards any relations between SAARC and big powers. The absence of diplomatic relations between China and Bhutan is another unfavourable element."

Meaningfully, Ma also bemoaned: "Some people do not quite understand Chinese foreign policy; some even misunderstand Chinese security strategy; and still some are taking a wait-and-see attitude towards Chinese good-willingness (sic) of developing political and economic relations with its neighbours."

This observer, too, attempted to inject a note of realism into the discussion when he pointed out that, all said and done, no great leap forward could be expected on the China-SAARC front unless India’s relations with Pakistan and India’s relations with China are full. That, of course, means the amicable resolution of the long-standing Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan and of the Sino-Indian border problem. Neither is likely to happen in the near future.

Give sport a chance to restore peace

By SUMAN MALLA

It was the decision perhaps every Nepali sportsman and woman wished it was never made. The executives of South Asia Sports Federation (SASF), on April 5, 2002, decided to push back the already delayed ninth South Asian Federation (SAF) Games by a year.

The second SAF Games to be held in Pakistan capital Islamabad, initially slated for October 6-15, were rescheduled for March 29 - April 7, 2003.

The sports calendar in the sub-continent has suffered a major setback consequent to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington.

The first casualty was the cricket tour to Pakistan by New Zealand on account of security threat to the players. Later, Pakistan was forced to play its home test series against Australia in Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates.

The fate of SAF Games was left in serious doubt following the terrorist attack on Indian Parliament. And India is yet to overcome the grievances. Although Pakistan has repeatedly denied any of its involvement in the attack, the relations between the two of the nuclear-powered neighbours still remain sour.

The SAF Games, which were put on board in Kathmandu in 1984, to a major extent have established an arena for the sports talents of the region. Each event in the past postulated a theme mirroring the dream and aspirations of players, especially those from smaller nations.

Nepal braved all the odds to stage the inaugural event in 1984. The Games’ success was phenomenal and over the years the event became a much-celebrated affair. The cooperation among the South Asian countries could not have been well exemplified, as it was well exemplified at the first SAF Games: India offered trophies for athletics, Bangladesh for football, Pakistan for weightlifting, Nepal for boxing and Sri Lanka for swimming.

"Unity in Sports and Unity in Peace" that Sri Lanka projected when it hosted the event in 1991. It was also a time when the nation faced problems threatening its economy. Then, in 1993, in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka, it was an occasion to rejoice with the member nations of that "Victory Day" and spread the message of peace and economic stability in the region.

Looking back, the SAF Games have also helped the countries in the region to improve on their facilities, inspiring better performances from athletes as well as enabling themselves to bid for bigger events in future.

To a major extent the launch of the SAF Games have served their purpose.

In 1991, Sri Lankan sportspersons demanded attention by their performance when the biennial event travelled to the island nation where the Games were held in some of the finest sports facilities. Equally keen to earn an enviable place in the international sports map was Bangladesh in 1993. Dhaka was spruced up with new sports acquisition.

India may be in a different league; it certainly is, in experience. When the country hosted the 1987 edition in Calcutta the metropolis had the required facility to organise the event with the minimum of fuss. Yet in 1995, Madras exploited the opportunity that the Indian Olympic Association to make the city rich in sports infrastructure, including a games village for the first time in the history of the Games.

Nepali players too, more so for martial art players, would never have received so much accolades for their talents had there not been a forum of the exclusive SAARC club that came in 1999.

The old Dashrath Stadium, the only historic structure when the city hosted the inaugural edition of the Games in 1984, underwent a complete face-lift with the surfacing of synthetic track, electronic scoreboard and four 46-meter tall floodlights. Besides, the Games also brought up a spanking new sports complex with state-of-the-art swimming pool and shooting range.

These regional games also work as the stepping stones for youth. They get ready to face bigger challenges later in the sports arena. More so to most of the countries, for whom the Olympics and World level events are mere distant dreams. A success in the regional games bears a great significance, giving players enormous confidence. Otherwise who would have visualised that a small country like Surinam was going to produce an Olympic gold medallist in swimming.

If it is not so then there was no reason why a Washington Post staff writer should weep over the United States’ stunning loss at the hands of Brazil in the 1987 Pan American Games basketball final held in front of the home crowd.

Michael Wilbon ignored the 369 medals that the Americans won and finished on top of medal board, but he lamented that the country’s pride was hurt by the loss in basketball, the sport that the Americans think is theirs forever.

Even the Sri Lankan girls’ tremendous success at the world level track and field events has its roots in the SAF Games.

While the efforts to make the SAF Games an impressive exercise may be in tune with modern times, the cloak of regional political interference, commercial exploitation is gradually grabbing them.

It is unfortunate that the sports scene in the sub-continent should be subjected to such a spell of uncertainty, which is sure to affect the quality in the long run.

The situation calls for a pragmatic approach to make the best out of bargain. And all executives of SASF, when they meet next week, should make every possible effort not to allow sport lapse into inertia on account of the unsettled political climate.

Women politicians—not just cheer-leaders

By BEENA KHAREL

Be they social democrats, communists or national democrats—the presence of women in political parties’ leadership committee is noticeably invisible. But there is an interesting development in the recently concluded intra-party elections of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP). Prativa Rana, Renu Yadav, Roshan Karki and Durga Shrestha made it to RPP’s Central Working Committee (CWC). Ironically, this democratic outcome within the party, where their opponents find the vestiges of the "feudalistic civilisation" still zealously guarded, has been a kind of trend-setter in contemporary politics. And for other women, who are still fighting for their rights under the "patriarchal" wings of bigger political parties that unashamedly and relentlessly equate themselves with democracy, the development in RPP is remarkably unprecedented. The only hitch is that it took place in an "unlikely" quarter.

In all fairness, it must be said that the triumph of the RPP foursome should serve as a morale boost to the women in the rank and file of all political parties, irrespective of their ideologies. For their political participation is and should be for a broader cause: Changing the socio-economic status of women in general.

Political parties & parliament

What has happened within RPP, "the club of erstwhile Panchas", is not a landmark victory or anything of that sort. But when compared with the numerical strength of women in the leadership committees of the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-UML), no one can undervalue the 20 per cent reservation seats allocated for the RPP women in the 43-member CWC. Nonetheless, the number is still far from adequate. Under-representation of women in crucial decision-making bodies means under-utilisation of women’s talent. Bringing women onto the centre-stage of political activity gives them a chance to work as initiators of change, not just cheer-leaders.

It has been customary on the part of political parties to cry against gender discrimination at various forums. The lyrical call to grant equal status to women feature prominently on their election manifestoes. Sadly, it ends there. Women’s issues are usually treated as a social problem, and thus "politically" sidelined.

Women’s organisations are invariably the weakest wings in various political parties. The women’s wings of NC and CPN-UML are still fighting for one-third reservation at the parties’ local and central committees. A top-gear pressure on the parties’ male-dominated apex bodies is expected in the face of RPP getting the credit for promoting the status of women within the party.

An increase in the women’s numerical strength alone does not guarantee better performance, though. That strength must be accompanied by a qualitative shift in their power and the ability to wield it effectively. Invariably, women are relegated to the status of showpieces in their parties’ decision-making processes.

While fielding candidates or changing the party’s stand in tune with new turn of events, women members don’t have any say. At best, they are "consulted" as part of the ritual, but they don’t get to decide. On the other hand, women happily fit into the role of "yes-women." Such an attitude strengthens the party’s patriarchal system and severely cripples the women members’ decision-making powers. If women are not allowed to exercise their political rights within their own organisation, how can they be expected to perform a significant role in parliament? Little wonder, women parliamentarians are less convincing in parliament. Rarely do they cut across all party lines for the sake of women’s issues. This is a severe constraint, given the numerical disadvantage women have in parliament.

Going local

Let’s look at the composition of women politicians. An overwhelming majority is from well-off families, having a hereditary political background. Women from the grassroots level are few. Even those who fare well at the local level have less chance of making it to the party’s top echelons. This is because some women politicians are treated as more equal than their counterparts, that too, within the same organisation. Those having close proximity to the party’s bigwigs easily sail through the turbulent sea of intra-party power struggles, making the power delegation highly discriminatory.

Political parties boast "their thousands of women party cadres spread across the country" who are made to show their presence in protest programmes and street rallies. The public has not yet forgotten women’s massive participation in the People’s Movement. The 1990 revolution was not only for reinstating multi-party democracy, but for eliminating gender discrimination as well. Unfortunately, the direct beneficiaries of the restoration of multi-party have been a handful of urban middle-class and higher middle-class women. This clearly underlines the need for a bottom-up approach to empowering women from the grassroots level so that women from all spheres can participate in structured, institutional and formal political processes.

Quantitative & qualitative participation

So far, women are enjoying the majority status as voters and minority status as decision-makers. Top slots are reserved for men. Even seasoned women politicians have met the same fate. All were not as lucky as Shailaja Acharya, Lila Koirala, Sahana Pradhan, Bidhya Bhandari, Chanda Shah and their tribe. The Lokendra Bahadur Chand-led government is no different than the preceding ones when it comes to appointing women ministers. Assistant Minister for Women, Children and Social Welfare Anuradha Koirala was not given an independent portfolio, despite her remarkable contribution to addressing women’s problems.

Political parties talk about women’s rights to score political points, but they don’t put in concrete measures to raise their socio-economic status. Despite the rise in the electoral population, the women’s share of tickets for contesting elections has not increased proportionally. Their presence in parliament or parties’ decision-making bodies is thin enough. Their lacklustere performance makes that presence even thinner. As has been the case, those who ride to power on the crest of favouritism and nepotism are found to be shy and inarticulate, and pursue narrow political ambitions.

Without education, proper political training and implementation of legal and constitutional provisions made for women at all levels, the country cannot have mature and competent women politicians who can fight for equal access to resources, and determine development issues. And confidently too, without having to turn to male decision-makers for green and red signals.

Of set up and mind set

By Bimal Kadel

The relationship between a state and her citizens is a relationship, like any other relation, of reciprocity. The existence of a state is dependent on the existence of its people. The state exists for the citizens and in turn the countrymen take pride in submitting their allegiance to the state. The credibility of any state is dependent on how much concern and welfare it can generate for the people, who identify themselves with that nation. The state is supposed to be the father figure that feeds the hungry, clothes the naked and houses the homeless. Otherwise, it has no moral right to levy taxes and exercise its authority over the poverty grinded populace. The development of political thoughts in the subcontinent geared towards this welfare state, dates back to the third millennium BC.

The representative executives of the people and the personnel manning the state machinery do not seem to have been aware of what a modern concept of state is or how a modern state should be run. The officials manning the state machinery are supposed to serve the public. But ironically an abiding attitude is that the people are there to serve them. To interpret things this way is to put the cart before the horse. The irony of the prevailing state of affairs is that the two state elements that shoulder the task of nation building are on a virtual suicidal campaign. The ever warring and never performing semi-baked politicians, and the lethargic state machinery do nothing but stick to protocol, bask in the sun with self pride, exhibit arrogance, and generate ill feelings rather than build confidence amongst the hoi polloi.

Whether it is customs clearance, pollution permit, traffic tolls or licensing laws, all seem to be not only riddled with ambiguities, but a lack operational transparency.

The country is going through one of the worst times history has witnessed. To add to the rock-bottom economic performance, the state administration is goaded with rampant corruption and violence from both the state and the outlawed militia, which has become the order of the day. Social atrocities like thievery, ransom, arson, bloodshed are a long list of regressive indicators dragging the country back to where it was a century ago. The countryside has virtually become a theatre of undeclared civil war where both sides do not feel any obligations of self-restraint. Thousands of people in the western hills have begun to flee their home in order to look for safer place. In fact, they have been rendered homeless in their own homeland.

In the exercise towards nation building, in a country like ours, we need to have specific economic agendas, agricultural innovations, technological know-how, accessible health facilities, foster a feeling of awe and allegiance to the nation and impart pragmatic education based on functional utility, and not the prevailing stereotype rote learning culture, which is no way linked to the realities that surmount our nation. In helping ourselves to arrive towards an autarchic Nepal, where each Nepali can live a decent and dignified life, we should cultivate a work culture, and not a chakari (sycophant) culture, which will free the nation from the shackles of feudal tendency. The nation needs more a mental revolution, than any revolution, that will change our attitude, mindset and value system.

Any game is made interesting or successful by the players, and not the rule that dictates the game. It would be a sheer folly and callousness on our part to blame and discredit the democratic system of state management. The folly lies not in the system but in the people who manipulate the system.

It will be a big blunder to forget the fact that Nepal is an agricultural country that still harbors archaic and outmoded systems. The development issues in the countryside will ever remain a trump card for any political upheaval and future unrest if it cannot be developed at par with urban areas. The raging Maoist insurgency is an outcome of the power and privilege equation between the urban and rural polity. The chasm between the cities and villages could be best addressed if decentralization in terms of authority, assignments and allocation of resources can be maintained. This step will also save the cities from hazard of urban management and social crime and at the same time relieve the villages from being a breeding ground for conspiracies and political unrest that will eventually undermine the national unity.

Much snow has melted down the Machapuchchre, but the present government seems to have remained clueless in finding an amicable solution to reign of terror. It has not even made clear what its intentions are, leave aside the working out a model on which the peace talks will be based. It is dilly-dallying in trivial and dispensable issues, leaving the serious ones to be attended by the Almighty. It is making a banal repetition of the obvious: "The country is committed to safeguarding the economic interest of private investors ", or "the government will soon initiate dialogue with the Maoists", which is not enough. There has to be specific and concrete suggestion of modalities on which the problem surmounting the nation has to be solved.

Politics is too dangerous a game to be left in the hands of politicians, of the kinds we have. The need of the hour is to have informed leaders who know the world, know their business, can deliver utilities, feel the pulse of the nation and understand politics to be just more than mudslinging, image tarnishing, personal garbling, instigations, allegations and counter allegations for power usurp. The nation needs suggestions in terms of how to do and not just what to do. We need to develop an attitude of forward looking and solving rather than backward looking and quarreling. But before all this happens, the country has to be educated, morally upright and stand on the principle of pragmatic values and functional utility capable of leading the nation at the threshold of the new millennium.

‘The US has to lead’

By Jackson diehl

As the United States enters the new year facing crises and the potential for war in Iraq and North Korea simultaneously, an obvious question presents itself: Did the Bush administration bring all this trouble on itself? .

Most Europeans would say it did. So would several of the emerging Democratic presidential candidates. This, they would say, is the natural consequence of George W. Bush’s aggressive unilateralism, his militaristic new doctrine of preemption, his insistence on expanding a justified war against Al Qaeda to a misconstrued "axis of evil."

When Bush took office two years ago, this argument goes neither Iraq nor North Korea looked very worrisome. Didn’t Colin Powell himself, at his first press conference with the president-elect, dismiss Saddam Hussein as a "weak" dictator "sitting on a failed regime that is not going to be around in a few years’ time"? As for North Korea, the outgoing Clinton team seemingly had come to within inches of striking a comprehensive deal that would have ended the threat of weapons of mass destruction from Pyongyang. Dictator Kim Jong Il was engaging with the South and appeared ready to open his hermit state to the outside world.

Had the Bush administration stuck with Powell’s initial strategy of patching up the "box" in which Iraq had been contained during the previous decade and embraced his impulse to continue the negotiations with North Korea, the United States might be entering 2003 fully focused on winning the still formidable fight with Al Qaeda and stabilizing a still volatile Afghanistan - a pretty full plate.

Instead it is mobilizing tens of thousands of troops and juggling UN Security Council debates to deal with two dictators, both capable of defending themselves with weapons of mass destruction, who could have been managed or left to stew on back burners.

Or so goes the argument. Yet there is another way of looking at the history of the last -two years: not as a tale of an arrogant cowboy stirring up the world’s rattlesnakes, but of an initially cautious, uncertain and quasi-isolationist president reacting to the crystallization of a new global era. The Bush administration of pre-Sept. 11 seemed content to string along the old policies on Iraq and North Korea. Iraq hawks inside the administration were a distinct minority, and Powell eventually won the argument about whether to reopen talks with Pyongyang.

Bush’s foreign policy mostly consisted of trying to retreat from international treaties and foreign military deployments. His signature initiative was missile defense, which implied a strategy of ignoring rogue states until their missiles reached the territory of the United States.

This was a policy for the 1990s, when the minority of Americans who cared about international affairs debated the indiscernible shape of the "post-Cold War era," when a booming United States felt free to nurse along, or simply neglect, threats from the likes of Iraq. There was the luxury to debate whether it was worthwhile to intervene to stop a war of aggression, even if it were in Europe, or one of history’s worst episodes of genocide, if it happened in Africa.

Then a new era came knocking, and not just in the form of hijacked airliners. As sanctions on Iraq crumbled, it became more and more obvious that Saddam Hussein had not been contained. He had developed new weapons - drone aircraft and longer-range missiles - and was aggressively hunting for nuclear materials. The supposedly peaceable Kim Jong Il was discovered to have launched another secret bomb project even while Madeleine Albright was negotiating with him.

The minimalism with which a contented America engaged the world in the 1990s, and with which the Bush administration began, suddenly looked like a dangerous shirking of responsibility.

In a recent meeting at The Washington Post, my colleague David Broder asked a senior administration official why Bush had come to embrace "an almost imperial role" for the United States. The answer was long, eloquent and revealing.

"A few years ago there were great debates about what would be the threats of the post-Cold War world," the official said. "Would it be the rise of another great power, would it be humanitarian needs or ethnic conflicts? And I think we now know. The threats are terrorism and national states with weapons of mass destruction and the possible union of those two forces."

"It’s pretty clear that the United States is the single most powerful country in international relations for a very long time," the official continued. "It is the only state capable of dealing with that kind of chaotic environment and providing some kind of order. I think there is an understanding that that is America’s responsibility, just like it was America standing between Nazi Germany and a takeover of all of Europe. No, we don’t have to do it alone. But the United States has to lead that."

By that account, the conflicts that will shape this difficult winter of 2003 were mostly inevitable. It’s just that, as half a century ago, Americans were slow to understand the threat, and reluctant to take it on - until inaction seemed the worst choice. The Washington Post

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