National Unity Day
THE nation celebrated 279th Prithivi Jayanti and National Unity Day Wednesday
by organising varieties of programmes and paying tribute to His late Majesty Prithivi
Narayan Shah the Great. The nation and Nepalese people are always grateful to His late
Majesty Prithivi Narayan Shah for his tireless efforts and contribution to unify scores of
tiny principalities into one strong nation. At a time when imperial power had already
taken over the entire South Asia, Nepal was divided into several small principalities,
which were hostile to one another. For the imperial power, it would not have been
difficult to take those tiny principalities if His late Majesty Prithivi Narayan Shah had
not unified Nepal and adopted a far-sighted approach to keep the imperial power at bay.
His late Majesty Prithivi Narayan Shah laid the foundation of a unified and strong Nepal
while his successors added bricks to it and consolidated Nepal’s nationalism. As a
result, we are now proud to call ourselves the sovereign citizens of a sovereign country.
His late Majesty Prithivi Narayan Shah not only laid the foundation of a unified and
strong Nepal, he also provided guidelines for governance, foreign policy and nationalism
of the country, which is still followed and applied in different ways. His Dibyopadesh are
as valid and relevant today as they were more than 250 years ago. Referring to the ethnic
and cultural mosaic of the country, His late Majesty described Nepal as a garden of four
castes and 36 sub-castes. Similarly, he provided guidelines for the country’s foreign
policy describing Nepal as a ‘yam between two boulders’. Recently, some elements
made their vein attempts to instigate people against long cherished social and communal
harmony in the country. However, people understood the hidden ulterior motive in time and
the government foiled it. As Nepal’s nationalism, sovereignty and territorial
integrity lies on the social harmony and mutual cooperation among different ethnic
communities, His late Majesty Prithivi Narayan Shah’s Dibyopadesh serve as very
important guidelines for building national feeling and nationalism in Nepal. Against this
background, Minister for Information and Communication Jaya Prakash Gupta said that social
fabric existing in the country from the time immemorial needs to be preserved and further
consolidated in order to maintain national unity and strengthen feeling of nationalism.
The celebration of the National Unity Day prods us to make collective efforts to
consolidate nationalism and maintain national unity by countering the conspiracy and
attempts to disturb social and communal harmony. Perhaps, this year’s National Unity
Day carries this message to all people in the country.
Women’s New Role
IN the last four decades, South Asia has produced more women heads of
governments and states than any other region of the same scale. But, it is an irony that
the majority of the women in the same region are compelled to live a miserable life. South
Asia is home to the largest number of women suffering from illiteracy, poverty and girl
trafficking — to mention only a few. The regional literacy and life expectancy rate
for women are the lowest in the world. This clearly indicates South Asian women are far
behind the women in other parts of the world. Lately, the increasing incidence of women
trafficking and the HIV positive cases are emerging as a great threat to the women in the
region. As such Nepal hosted a two-day regional Conference on the role of women
entrepreneurs in the new Millennium in the Capital. Inaugurating the Conference Prime
Minister Girija Prasad Koirala noted that as women are the best managers of the family,
they will be the best managers of the nation and its business and argued that they must be
given greater entrepreneurial role. In fact, the largest number of women in South Asia
have till date been confined only to household works: cooking meals, collecting firewood
and fodder and raising children. As such it is natural that only a few women are lucky to
get opportunities in the government and private sectors. Far smaller number of women are
successful entrepreneurs. Certainly, the patriarchal structure of the society coupled with
the problems of rampant illiteracy and poverty are responsible for the poor condition of
the South Asian women. In such a context, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has rightly
pointed out that the campaign now should be to change the role of women from the
management of household to the management of the national economy. To bring this kind of a
change in the women’s role we need a strong political will and the programmes to
educate the women. At the same time, long-term plans should be implemented both at the
national and regional level to free women from their problems, especially girl
trafficking. Only then will the region be able to produce women capable enough to manage
not only the national economy but also the regional economy. |
