The poor section and the
fresh merciless hike in fossil fuel
The merciless recent price hike in petro
products by the Koirala regime appears to have agitated the common men for it is this lot
that will have to bear the real brunt of the fresh vertebral-column breaking price hike.
The lay men of this nation are simply great. They accept each and every government’s
decision wholeheartedly even if those decisions go against the strength of their wallet.In
some ways, we can describe this ‘silent majority’ as a group of the teeming
millions who possess no ill towards their government at the center. However, it is a
different matter that these people hardly care about the government at the centre. Who
runs the state, who is at the helm of affairs in the country is not of their concern.
Presumably, a sizeable chunk of this group may not have the idea whether they had been
living under the old and now collapsed Panchayat system or some new system has replaced
it.
Because of the massive illiteracy
abound in the remote areas of this Kingdom, the thinking of the people living in those
areas is simply natural. When one can not understand what is better for them; what is a
government or for that matter the ministers, the nitty-gritty’s of politics is of no
concern for them. Since they are illiterate so what ever is happening around them or at
the very center is of no significance for them. However, what they understand is that the
prices of the consumer items what they use perhaps one time a day should be cheap and
readily available. The other thing that is of their immediate concern is the fuel for
cooking their food, which is just for the namesake.
Now that the prices of the Kerosene oil has
taken a quantum jump, the people who fall much under the poverty line have started feeling
the crunch. An already deprived lot has now to bear the burden of the fuel price. This has
forced them to understand that the government at the center, if it were, has remained very
unkind to their pressing issues, for example K-oil here.
Since this lot is dumb and deaf, the
political parties of various shades are at the moment cashing on the mental agonies of the
destitute in. The people hit hard by this price hike understands fully well that if the
present champions of their cause were seated in the establishment, would have done the
same criminal acts. Only a lip service.
However, Nepal has already become (in) famous
for waging a sort of violent struggle at the interval of each ten years of the previous
violent movement. Who knows that this price hike issue coupled with so many other problems
currently confronting the nation, more so the people, will catapult in a violent
demonstration that will destabilize the already shaky Koirala government.
I wish to ask the donor community a very
simple question. The question is that if this community can support the establishment for
increasing the government officials’ perks and facilities, why they appear reluctant
in supporting the establishment in cutting down the prices of the petro products more so
in the Kerosene oil as it is this fuel which is being massively used by the poor section
of the society. Is it that the donors feel that if they keep the richer section of the
Nepalese society in good humor the system will continue? If this is their feeling then
they are mistaken hundred percent. Contrary to it, it should be the silent majority who
should be given due honor by the donors to what they perhaps claim. For, if this majority
comes to the street, no force on earth can subside their anger that is already piling up.
The wisdom would be to bring down the prices of the K-oil to the extent possible in the
name of the poor lot of this nation. Wisdom also demands that the government must remain
sympathetic towards the issues of this section. That’s all. |
