A country which doesn’t have any national interests

Gone are the days when Nepali scholars would talk about civil society, democratization, liberalization; globalization and privatization. We have had enough of these buzzwords in the recent years. The Kathmandu seminarians appear to have become overly saturated. Presumably, a thousand plus seminars on these topics must have taken place in a short span of five years or so and millions of Nepali rupees would have been poured in into these subjects by willing international donors in order to let Nepali seminarians know about the nitty-gritty of the underlying messages contained therein in those special topics. The donors were not tired of funding such seminars. The Nepali academia, as usual, too ever exhibited its longing for the happenings of such seminars and in the process enlightened itself with the heavy doses of all the possible "….zations" and enjoyed the dinner or the lunch thereafter conclusion of the said seminar(s). The donors wished to support the Nepali academia, bureaucracy and the willing population considering that a new democracy of the sort what we have in the country must be made aware of the changes that have been happening in the world and that if done so Nepali population would be able to catch up with the changing situations in the world. The idea was not that bad and is perhaps not bad at all.

What the lay men benefited from such deliberations so far is not known and perhaps will never be known for so many understandable and obvious reasons. Whether the people liked it or not or even if the people listened to it or not or even if the people understood it or not, the Nepali media including the State owned Television went on providing the heavy doses of all the "zations" to the lay men perhaps hoping against hope that the people have come of their age and hence must be taught the catch-words those are currently in vogue in the world’s academic market.

The fact is that the talks about the "zations" consumed much of our time of the nation building task and that our leaders remained averse to the talks of the "…zations" due to the fact that they either did not understand the underlying messages contained therein in the talks of the …zations or preferred to continue their loot of the nation as the latter could be in their direct private interests. Clever Nepali politicians indeed.

Instead, our leaders wished to agitate the people for reasons unknown to us all. Our leaders instead opted to terrify the monarch with all the possible harsh and undemocratic words.

The fact is that our politicians preferred not to speak about the damaged caused by the recent floods; our leaders exhibited their less concern towards the plight of the families who were swept under the mud-slides in many remote villages in the rugged mountains; our political animals wished to brush aside the issues and the problems currently being faced by the teeming millions and instead wished to agitate them for their private petty political interests.

No wonder that they don’t talk of Mahali Sagar Dam and the Laxmanpur dam or for that matter about the Kalapani issue. They fear that to talk about these dams would weaken their foreign power base in Kathmandu.

Power hungry lots. Shame on them.

I, for one, feel ashamed at times and think twice as to why I took birth in such a nation where the politicians would be serving others national interests as if my country have had no political interests of its own or whatsoever.

I suppose, you too have been feeling the same sentiments. As a journalist, my duty is to arouse national sentiments among the people. So far I have remained a total failure. I admit this frankly.

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