An ant rushes to the hospital to donate blood!

I fail to understand why some people rate themselves very high. Indeed, if one is of high standing then very pleasingly the society where one lives will automatically take him or her in high esteem. When the Nepali society has offered us all this leverage then I really do not understand as to why some personalities pose that should they be down-rated heaven will come down to earth. In my own opinion, no body on this earth is complete or a perfect person. By the same token, if one dies, others from his own family or from the society will take up the matter and the void thus created by one's demise will be automatically be filled. It is a perpetual phenomenon. This is nature perhaps in my modest knowledge.

An ant, I was told recently, was seen running towards the Bir Hospital's Intensive Care Unit, ICU. The ant's friends asked the ant as to what was the reason behind the small creature running towards the Hospital. The ant in his simplicity replied," Don't you know! My intimate friend elephant had excessive bleeding when he met with an accident and hence to compensate the blood, I'm going to donate my own blood. This might save the life of my friend".

This is a joke indeed but yet one thing becomes amply clear from the ant's assertion. Firstly and finally, either the ant has rated his self-contribution to be very high or is excessively attached to the elephant through the bonds of friendship.

Girija Prasad Koirala, for example, is behaving like the ant.

If one were to analyse his fiery lectures which he has made after the vertical split in the congress, one is forced to conclude that he is overrating himself in the present scheme of things. But then yet no one can challenge his contributions made in sustaining this system for long. It is altogether a different matter that Koirala too could not be absolved from the allegations that he was the one who singularly brought about so many seen and unseen political aberrations in the present day democratic order.

While on the one hand his commitments towards the consolidation of the new order can't be challenged even by his foes, equally true is the fact, on the other, that it was only Koirala who introduced his own sort of "'cracy" in the system which ultimately damaged the very face of the order for the restoration of which, I am told, he had no significant contribution.

The Sujata-Cracy came as a new discovery for the Nepalese people immediately after the 1991 elections. The word Sujata which was missing in Nepal until 1990 suddenly landed in Kathmandu from Bonn or Berlin. Since then the word Sujata has become an epitome of intervention, highhandedness, unconstitutional body and what not what not.

A personality of the stature of Koirala who introduced all the evils into the mainstream of the system is today giving an impression to the people that should he close his eyes, the system is gone. To put it more simply, he is making us all to believe that the present day order is continuing in the nation simply because he has been guarding or protecting it.

The fact is that he is the one who has weakened the system over the years.

But then equally unquestionable is his "organizational" capabilities. It is simply superb. No one else in the congress possesses this ability. This notwithstanding, Koirala is himself again the destroyer of his own organization. The manner he steers the party gives an impression that he is a democratic-dictator. For him, what ever he does or utters becomes democracy and democratic. The fact is that the entire congress party never was a Democratic Party simply because decisions were not taken by consensus or in a democratic manner. What Koirala imposed from the top was ultimate and hence final and binding on all. It became a democratic decision only because Koirala said that.

It is yet time that Koirala understands his weaknesses and delegates his powers, whatever are left with him, on the shoulders of his trusted aides belonging to the second generation. Failing to do so will further damage the prestige of Koirala.

It is also time that Koirala leads the party as a real guardian but not as the party's top hat. If he does so will instantly enhance his image and popularity among the masses and his supporters. It is up to Koirala now to decide whether he wishes a new height for himself or a bad name in the congress' history.

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