COMMENT

Bandhs  will not take us forward

Barely a week in office, the Girija Prasad Koirala led government saw a crippling bandh take place on Monday. The bandh was organised by the NCP (UML), the largest opposition party in the Parliament. However it is another thing that the UML had announced plans for the bandh before Koirala became PM. So considering this fact, it might be just a bit easier for the new government to not feel responsible for the protest. However within another ten days, the nation is about to see another similar bandh programme, this time, the strike being organised by the Maoists. As the Maoists have been carrying out a violent “People’s War” for the past four years, the people are more apprehensive of the coming bandh. Thus they expect the government to initiate some measures to, if not at once solve the insurgency movement right away, then to at least insure extra security for the time being.

But coming back to the frequent bandhs, it is indeed strange why a nation like Nepal, which actually should be moving full throttle ahead, sees so many such protests or even chakka jams, that virtually bring the nation to a complete halt. How much damages such forms of protest cause to the entire nation, is perhaps incalculable. In an alarming development, these days, one even sees the general people taking things in their own hand and calling for chakka jams any time there is a road accident, specially on the highways. Roads are blocked for hours as the agitated people vent their frustrations, which may have nothing to do with the issue at hand. Such acts of anarchy are not doing any good for the cause of the people. In fact it is the ordinary middle class, who travel by road, that get affected most by such “on the spur of the moment” strikes.

The present government can initiate firm action to discourage such protests and even bandhs that are organised by national level political parties. Of course, this does not mean the government should use force to disallow such protests, though that may be necessary to free the highways. But at the political level, what can be done is, the government can initiate dialogue with the opposition and listen to what their demands are. Those in the government must realise that some concessions must be made for the demands by the opposition, as in the long run, this will be more beneficial than when a head on confrontation is made. Like even in the case of the growing Maoist insurgency, had the government poured in huge amounts of money in development projects in the remote areas, instead of now spending millions for security personnel and other logistics required for them, the situation might have been completely different. But that didn’t happen and now the country is in a serious mess, as far as security concerns in some districts is concerned. Meanwhile, the opposition too must think of better ways to put forward what in their view is the plight of the people. Naturally everyone has the right to protest in a democratic set-up, but such protests should not be made at the cost of the people themselves. That would be counter-productive for the nation and thus for all people too, no matter which political ideology they may belong to.

Take off soon

The Nepalese tourism sector has been hit hard after the Indian airlines flight stopped operating in the country when an aircraft of the airlines was hijacked soon after it took off from the Tribhuvan International airport on December 24, 1999. Though much hue and cry was raised as a reaction to the decision, not much was done to make up for the yawning gap in the tourism industry; that led to a loss of 1.5 million dollars in two months. Indian Airlines had 17 flights coming in every week and carried 30 per cent of the inbound passengers. Concerned  sectors like the Hotel Association of Nepal, Nepal Association of Travel Agents and others did their best to raise their voices against the stoppage of the flights. Now, it seems there is a ray of hope with talks of resuming the flights being initiated; a team headed by the Joint Secretary at the Indian Civil Aviation Ministry is holding talks with Nepalese officials. In interest of the passengers of both the countries, hopefully, the talks will materialise into concrete action and bring back normalcy in the harried sector soon.

The travel and tourism related industry in the country should also draw a lesson from this incident and work towards developing its infrastructure - so that incidents like these do not hit us hard. It is crucial for the nation to be self reliant in such sensitive sectors, rather than depending on others and having to literally beg them to help our industries.

A practice in democratic exercise

By Jagadish B. Mathema

Democracy is a system, where majority rules. When 69 members of the parliament belonging to Nepali Congress submitted a no confidence motion against Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, he lost the legality to govern. Prime Minister K.P Bhattarai should have immediately. Instead, after long haggling, he chose to address the parliament and announced his resignation. His last speech in the parliament was full of emotions, which touched the hearts of everyone who listened to him. During the course of his speech, he expressed his feeling that the leadership should be handed over to the second generation.

Although Prime Minister Bhattarai is the only founder member of Nepali Congress who is alive and has struggled continuously for four decades for the restoration of democracy in Nepal, his health had failed him. He also failed to demonstrate that he is an effective and strong leader during his ten-month’s governance. The Maoists insurgents spread havoc by killing innocent people. Policemen and the people started fleeing from the affected areas. During Prime Minister Bhattarai’s rule inflation hiked due to the increase in diesel price, as well as in electricity charges. He could not take actions against some of the ministers, who were labeled as corrupt, immoral and unscrupulous.

Under these circumstances, there was no alternative but to replace the leadership of the government. At a time when the country is facing acute problems of law and order, ever increasing inflation affecting day to day lives of the common man, what is needed now is a strong leader. Therefore, the majority of the members of the parliament belonging to Nepali Congress felt the necessity to change the leadership of the parliamentary party. This is simply a democratic exercise in any democratic nation. We know that in Great Britain, the leadership of Margaret Thacher was challenged and Prime Minister Thacher had to give up her leadership to John Majors.

During the course of electing the new leader in the parliamentary party, Girija P. Koirala was challenged by Sher Bahadur Deuba, who is considered a second-generation leader. It is a healthy practice. In democracy, every competent person should be given an opportunity to compete. Competitiveness is the core element in every democratic society.

We have just started to practice democracy in our country since just one decade and I think that we are on the right track. And we still have a long way to go. However, we must keep in mind  “Democracy is not perfect, but of all the systems practiced democracy is the best.”

Woes of a writer

C. K. Lal’s Fifth Column (Pocket Money, March 22) on contributing writers and columnists receiving the butt end of the worst possible payment deal from Nepalese publications is worth noting. How can columnists indeed fill their pockets in the present scenario - which is years old already and firmy institutionalised by now - is also beyond my comprehension.

As a contributor to publications, I have raised my personal heckles with some of their managements for their criteria on payment. Do they pay per word? No. Do they pay a certain amount for a piece between, say, 250 to 500 words, or between 500 and 750 words? Not really. What about an article with 1,000 words? Well, they never decided on that either. What about longer articles or serializations? Forget it!

What about payment procedures or modalities, if they pay at all? There was one lady staff at Gorkha Patra Sansthan who doled out payment in cash from inside a handkerchief of her handbag. “Are you Peter J. Karthak? Yes? Pukka? Well, you get forty two rupees.” That was in the late 70s. She had no list of any kind with her, nor was any signing on any documents involved.

Payment in cash is still the norm because writers’ “remuneration” or “patram pushpam” is not of the digits which must warrant issuance of cheques. More than half the payment, if you indeed get paid that day, is gone on taxi fare - forget about Lal’s vegetarian meal.

The PR departments of the Nepalese publications is again quite another matter. They do not exist as far as informing the writers is concerned. They have changing pay days - it can be Tuesdays and Thursdays, or changed to Mondays and Fridays. They have no way of asking contributors to visit them for collecting their payment.

Publications basically pamper advertisers and VIPs for whom they throw five-star parties once in a while. Of course, regular contributors are also invited, but as if on second thoughts.

There are bodies, societies, associations and councils pertaining to journalists this and patrakars that and for their rights and development and other advocacy. But no lobby has yet been created or spearheaded as far as payment modalities are concerned. Many publications owe me money because when I visit their accounts departments - such humiliating experiences they are, believe me! - my name is missing, or the accountant has gone out for tea. They also want me to cite the titles of my articles and the dates of their publication.

Therefore, I have developed my preference for writing more often for my selective foreign publications because they have set and established criteria - so much for features and so much for Op-Ed pages.  They pay me in dollars, too, and their payment frequencies are also quite okay. Indeed, Lal, payments made by these publications have financed my new desk top computer (though “assembled”) at home.

Peter J. Karthak
Kopundole, Lalitpur
Via Internet