Cultural Policy Of Nepal Correction Needed

By Shaphalya Amatya

IN NEPAL since the beginning of the Fifth Five Year Plan cultural heritage preservation has been receiving some sort of recognition from the government. Every year in the official address of His Majesty the King and in the budget speech of the Finance Minister a line or two on the issues relating culture and cultural heritage are being mentioned.

For a long time some acts like the Ancient Monument Preservation Act , 2013 and the Guthi Undertaking Act have been fulfilling the vacuum of the absence of cultural policy in the country.

Formation

Till 1983 no body gave any attention and thought for the need of formulating a cultural policy for the country. That year a High Level Committee called Cultural Policy and Programme Drafting committee was formed by the then government. This Committee submitted its report and recommendations in the same year, which was not at all materialised. In the same year at the request of UNESCO this writer prepared a monograph on some aspects of cultural Policy in Nepal. The monograph was published in the title of "Some Aspects of cultural Policy in Nepal" in the UNESCO series of Studies and Documents on Cultural Policies.

In 1991 government had set up of National Cultural Policy and Programme Drafting Committee under the Chairperson of Prof. Dr. Iswar Baral , the then vice-chancellor of the Royal Nepal Academy. This Committee submitted its report and recommendations in 1992 but those recommendations were also not fully implemented.

Whether the fathers of the Tenth Five Year Plan have seen all these above mentioned monographs or not, is not known. We just like to suggest them that they should read these reports before finalising their plans and programmes for this plan period. Generally the Ministry and Departments submit only those plans and programmes which are the priorities and preferences of the ministers and politicians. Because of the nature of political system in our country the ministers and the politicians are only interested in their own constituencies. They do not or in numerous cases cannot think beyond this.

In such a situation we can never expect any thing embracing national priorities, views and interests from them. For them local and regional priorities always superceded their national interests and priorities. Some ministers were found to be very reluctant even to accept
the richness and national characteristic of the culture of the Kathmandu
Valley. The super ego and
immature decisions of our politicians and ministers have been not only causing damages in our cultural values but also paving ways for their gradual disappearance.

Both culture and cultural properties are the product of history and time. Numerous generations of kings and people of our country have been contributing in enriching our culture since ages The Kathmandu valley is the best example of it. Every Nepali citizen should accept and should be proud of the cultural richness of this Valley. The Valley culture is not only our glory, prestige, and recognition in the international world but also our bread and butter through tourism industry. If we open all the cultural assets of this valley to tourism we do not need to toil a lot for generating employment to our youths and develop our home industries including handicrafts and catering. What we need is a broad national prospective and policy for developing cultural tourism in the country. Which ultimately demands a broad cultural policy and rational plans and programmes targeting towards this direction.

This century is the age of ethnic revolution. Minorities and ethnic populations of every country are fighting for their recognition and upliftment. This is a very sensitive issue. If we cannot satisfy and pacify them they can be the cause of national disintregation . We have the examples of Soviet Russia, Yugoslavia and numerous other countries.

In Nepal also our ethnic minorities have been suffering a lot since ages. They are poor, illiterate, and always dominated and deprived of opportunities by upper class privileged majorities. If we look into the civil service cadre more than eighty percent people belong to this class. This class has been controlling legal profession, teaching profession, politics and even business of the country. A sensible democratic government should always try to balance this type of unharmonious situation and establish harmony and peace in the society. Without peace and harmony in the society the country can never progress. Therefore every popular government should have a distinct and clear-cut cultural policy which will guarantee the minorities for their progress, development and cultural improvement.

History says after the formation of unified Nepal in 1769 the Thar Ghar who came from Gorkha with King Prithivi Narayan Shah became all powerful. With the rise of the Thapas under the leadership of Bhimsen Thapa the family belongs to the Thar Ghar gradually lost their influence in Nepalese politics.

The Ranas and ruled the country for more than a century. During the Rana regime the Brahmins received maximum benefit. The Ranas ruled the country arbitrarily but the Brahmans were exempted from execution even if they had committed heinous crimes.

The formulation and implementation of a sound cultural policy is thus the demand and need of the time to change the nature, attitude as well as the character of the Nepalese people. The government therefore should immediately revise and improve the 1991 committee report and implement it. The government should also be very careful and give immediate priority for the establishment of a separate Ministry of Culture. This ministry should include Guthi Undertakings and should be given full authority and participation in preparing curriculums of social studies from primary to the university level. Because for the improvement of our society moral study should be included in our curriculums . In the conception paper issued by the Ministry of Culture for the Tenth Five Year Plan it has aimed to provide benefit to the people by protecting and promoting both physical and non-physical cultural heritages of the country. By doing so, it aims at enhancing the prestige of the country. It also aims at protecting the intellectual property right or copy right of the writers, artists and other intellectuals.

Declaration

As its policy the Ministry of Culture has declared that it will be continuing the long term prospective plans of the Ninth Five Year Plan. The Ministry has identified about three dozens priority programmes which has included every possible thing in the conservation, protection and promotion of the cultural heritages of the country. It will certainly make the Tenth Five Year Plan document a voluminous book with plenty of never to be fulfilled promises as we have already experienced in numerous other previous plans. What we need is a comprehensive, rational and homogenous cultural policy and broad based multi-dimensional programmes and not a well written document.