Fond Memories

EXACTLY one year has gone by since that dark day when the nation woke up to hear that King Birendra and Queen Aiswarya had been killed in a shooting incident inside the Narayanhity Royal Palace. The whole family of the late King perished in the tragic shootout and several other members of the Royal Family also lost their lives. The entire nation was stunned when they came to know of this and for most Nepalese, the tragic incident was one of the most shocking events that they had ever heard about. It could be called one of the darkest days in the country’s history and an irreparable loss that the nation had to bear. Even now, most citizens recall that late King Birendra, was one of the most popular Monarchs of the Shah dynasty. With his ever smiling face and selfless concern for the people, he had been able to win the hearts of all his subjects during his almost three decades of reign. Right from the time he was the Crown Prince, late King Birendra had shown he was a Monarch of the people by showing great concern about the state of the rural poor of the country. It is almost a legend now of how he went from door to door in different remote villages and ate and lived with the poor folks and talked to them about their needs and aspirations. He travelled on foot and saw and experienced the hardships of the common people. Later on as King, he made it a routine to visit one development region per year and personally look after the development needs of that area. Late King Birendra met thousands of common people during such visits.

That he heard the peoples’ voice and agreed to what they said, can easily be vouched for by the way he granted their wish, even when as a King with absolute power, he had to make a great personal sacrifice. First in 2036 B.S. (1980), the King announced a National Referendum when a section of the people sought change in the political system in the country. Then again, during the Popular Peoples’ Movement in 2046 B.S. (1990), the King relented to give up absolute power and usher in multi-party democracy, rather than see Nepalese citizens lose their lives in street demonstrations. The Nepalese people in return gave more respect to their King and this respect grew day by day. After the establishment of multi-party democracy, late King Birendra played his role as a Constitutional Monarch without any flaw and all political leaders recall even now, the great respect they had for him because of his exemplary behaviour. Internationally also, late King Birendra won respect far and wide for his visionary and thought provoking views on both international and regional issues. There are perhaps few leaders in the world who has won such universal acclaim and popularity, at home and abroad. On this day, all the Nepalese solemnly remembers the popular King and the equally popular Queen and pray for the eternal peace of the departed souls.

Learning From Farmers

IN a seminar entitled "Farmer-managed irrigation system in the changed context" that was organised in the capital city the other day, the erudite American speaker and currently the Arthur F. Bently Professor of Political Science of Indiana University, Ms. Elinor Ostrum, observed that we can learn a lot from farmers who, for centuries, have been managing their irrigation systems. She further observed that had it not been for the farmers’ inherent capacity to govern themselves, they would not have been able to manage the irrigation systems. Through centuries of practice, Nepalese farmers, like the sons of the soil worldwide, knew about the deep-rooted linkage between irrigation and enhanced crop yields. Since to farmers bountiful harvests mean multiple benefits, Nepalese farmers, be they from the mountainous and hilly regions or from the flat alluvial plains in the south, have never let go any available opportunities to tap nearby water sources to irrigate their farms. They did this by constructing gravity defying irrigation systems that passed through challenging terrain. That too, by using indigenous materials which, in some cases, even included huge dug-out tree trunks that still hug the contours of the mountains and are being held in place by bamboo-made scaffolds! Similarly, to ensure perennial supplies of water from their precariously built irrigation systems, they worked out unwritten accords concerning the irrigation canals’ maintenance and use. The fact that such indigenous irrigation systems are still going strong speaks eloquently of the farmers’ inherent ability to stick to their unwritten agreements for their common weal.

However, with Nepalese farmers increasingly hard pressed to feed more mouths with the unenviable yields from their fast fragmenting farmlands, the need to come up with more irrigation systems to boost harvests from their farms has become urgent. Towards this end, the government, with or without its development partners’ aid, has constructed modern irrigation systems. To ensure optimal utility and benefits from such systems, it behooves upon the concerned authorities to incorporate time-tested management and users’ practices in vogue among farmers before handing them over to users’ committees.