Chaitra 26 Remembered
AS THE Nepalese come together across the nation to observe
the People’s Movement Day the political leaders are busy assessing the achievements
of the past 12 years of democratic exercise. All of them concede that not all has gone
well in the last 12 years but are still hopeful and making fresh vows to lift the country
out of the myriad difficulties. It was on 26th of Chaitra that the people of Nepal were
given their civil rights and embarked on a democratic journey with multiparty democracy
and constitutional monarchy as the two major cornerstones of the new polity. The
democratic Constitution promulgated after the Popular Movement has clearly spelt out that
no citizen will be discriminated irrespective of age, sex, creed or cultural background.
In other words, the democratic Constitution has given all the democratic rights to the
citizens to pursue their individual progress and the progress of the nation at large. The
ushering in of a democratic constitution enabled the citizens to back the nation’s
development endeavours without any apprehensions. The nation did witness a great deal of
progress in different social and economic fronts. The positive aspect of the past twelve
years of democratic exercise was that all the major political parties: the Nepali
Congress, the CPN(UML) and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party stepped into power and
experienced the challenges of running the government. The fact that many constitutional
provisions were activated in the course of democratic exercise contributed to the
consolidation of democracy. All the experience gained must now be used to do away with the
anomalies and perversions besetting the Nepalese society. At a time when the onslaught of
the Maoist insurgency is posing a huge setback to national development, the political
parties must shun all their differences and come forward for the consolidation of the hard
earned democracy. Problems do arise as the society goes on witnessing rapid changes but it
is the responsibility of individual citizens to address the problems through the process
of dialogue and consensus. In his address to the nation on the occasion of the Popular
Movement Day, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has appealed to all the political parties
to lend their support in the onerous task of democratic consolidation. Individual
Nepalese, be they political leaders, teachers, lawyers or journalists must be enlightened
by the fact that the task of nation building and democratic consolidation will always lag
behind unless they live up to the democratic ideals in the true sense. Given that all
democratic forces are united, no evil forces can ever inflict damages to multiparty
democracy, the only system which can assure the development of individual citizens.
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