Bureaucracy's Anger

A Nepali saying goes like this: " One can only pray Almighty to a deer already sliding in a steep slope". This is exactly what has been happening to, unfortunately, this once glorious and peaceful country-until recently a Shangri-La and the land of the brave GURKHAS. The country is being equated with the deer and many say that the next unfortunate incident would be that this nation will be declared a failed state by the international community should the men handling the system continue to exhibit their meaningless arrogance in a manner that they have been doing now.

The leaders have gone astray. We don’t have any statesman as such. Leadership quality has already been tested whose net result is there for all to see. The intelligentsia is divided on partisan lines. The academics feel more comfortable in carrying the political bags of the political parties, which suits them most. The bureaucracy is corrupt and heavily politicized thanks the kind courtesy of the political parties and their leaders. The so-called Fourth Estate, the media, too is heavily dependent on political parties for their own known and unknown reasons and in the process have been cheating the national population with their sponsored views. The mushrooming NGOs, the so-called pressure groups and the civil society too have their own drums to beat. In effect, the NGOs have become a money-spinner in their own rights and the highly politicized civil society is as good as worse. The rest of the state units too one way or the other have either remain defunct or were made defunct thanks to the kind courtesy of all those who have been staking their share in the system of governance-mal governance. The net result is that the country is sliding on a path that will ultimately strip-off its whatever legitimacy and credibility the nation so far enjoys both in home and abroad.

Taking clue of perhaps this sliding situation, the men in the bureaucracy have started deriding at the system of governance in the country wherein they themselves form a part of the same paraphernalia.

No less surprising is the fresh statement made by none less than the Government’s Chief Secretary—the highest post of the government’s bureaucracy in this country, Monsieur Bimal Prasad Koirala wherein he carefully points out that Nepal is a failed case. In his opinion, Nepal was a failed state in the bygone Panchayat days and continues to be a mess even in this democratic era. Not only this he prefers to claim that it was the lack of the institutionalization of a sort of system in this country that resulted in the failures of the two systems, the one that collapsed of its own weight and the present one that is perhaps, in his saying, awaiting a similar collapse.

Dr. Koirala is talking sense. He is correct when he says that it was the lack of a proper system that has retarded the growth of Nepal in all possible sectors. He is once again correct when he say that a country’s progress is measured by two major indicators: the first one is linked to economic growth and the second one with country’s law and order situation wherein according to the highest bureaucrat, Nepal’s performance in both these sectors were far from satisfactory. Good enough Dr. Koirala that you have pinpointed the shortcoming and provided a prescription for the country.

With due respect and honor to Dr. Koirala, what we wish to place on record is that he is the one who has been in the government’s service that stretches from the erstwhile system to this system as well. Now any responsible Nepali citizen can pose him a simple question as to what had been his own personal contribution as a bureaucrat then and now in facilitating the institutionalization of a sort of system to which he favors now? In effect, his presence in the Nepali bureaucracy has been for decades and decades. As a responsible citizen and being a qualified bureaucrat, why he could not envision these shortcoming then and what factors restricted him in doing so whilst being in powerful positions after the advent of the present system?

Does this not mean that he too remained a silent spectator all along his bureaucratic career and since that he is already in the fag end of his service he prefers to put on all the blames on the heads of all those who have been mercilessly ruling the country beginning the autocratic Panchayat and the present order which is being given an image that it too were no less autocratic than the previous one.

It would be wise on the part of the bureaucrat if he pleasingly accepted his own contributions in having failed in making a system in the country so that the nation functioned smoothly and not in an adhoc basis to what he presumably hints at.

But then yet one has to admire his courage that there is one bureaucrat who dared to speak the truth. Will others follow his suit? This will have to be watched in the coming days.

The gist is that Nepal has ever been ruled by a set of non-representative government(s) and more so hints that the present one is more non-representatives one than the previous sets.

With corrupt and senile leaders; with highly politicised bureaucracy; with a sliding economy and ever down going law and order situation; with a non-representative sort of government at the center

Not bad Dr. Koirala!

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