Stop window dressing acts!

It is said in Nepal that if any region of the country wishes to develop its basis infrastructures, she should invite the King in any pretext. Fortunately if the King accepts to the invitation then what is for sure is that the nation’s establishment at the center becomes instantly active and gears up all of its machinery at its disposal so that the visiting monarch could see the development that have already taken place and hence could conclude that not all were bad in that part. It has been in practice since long that the moment King’s visit to any particular area is announced here in Kathmandu, the entire State machinery makes it a day-and-night affair to provide a facelift to the places where the King is expected to visit. In the process, Nepal’s bureaucracy possesses the distinction of even cheating their own monarch by importing the Cauliflower produced in Kabhre district and then transplanting it in the western region to let the monarch understand that the production of Cauliflower in that region if given state protection could provide the producers an opportunity even to export their commodities in the neighboring India. It was said that late King Birendra, a thorough gentleman and a benevolent King indeed took the Cauliflower production in that area at its face value and is said to have encouraged the growers. At yet another instance, late King Birendra inaugurated a water supply scheme in a remote village considering that the state machinery ,more specially the water supply corporation, did a commendable job by providing regular supply of water in a village wherein water had become a rare commodity. However, the fact was just the otherwise. The officials did manage the supply of water in abundance at time the King opened the knob. Later it was made known that the officials had managed a few hundred gallons of water and kept it at a distance and made the water to flow through the regular pipe till the King witnessed the water coming from the sprout.

The Biratnagar people have thanked the King for it was his last visit to that town that the town got a face lift. As could be guessed, the state officials including the municipal officials decorated only those roads, areas and the likes from where the King was to proceed or to move. It is not surprising therefore that the Biratnagar people wish the King to visit their town again and again for understandable reasons.

Now that the King is all set to move to the Western region, what could be guessed in advance is that the same activities would take place as it happened in Biratnagar. It is for sure that the area where the King is supposed to live and move during his stay there would all be given a facelift and the King would apparently think that the government in place were acting completely in accordance to his instructions. However, the fact is different. Any government formed at the center beginning 1950s, have ever neglected the western region for unknown reasons. If the people living in the western and the remote western region speak that they have been neglected by the State from the very beginning it wouldn’t be a matter of surprise for any one. Even the namesake democratic governments formed after 1990 toed the same line and thus made the people of that area to consider that Kathmandu had no intention to encourage them to participate in the mainstream politics of the country.

No roads, no water, no health clinics, no educational institutions, no factories and the likes is the situation even today in the western region. When the people are denied their basic rights and when people do not get two meals a day and when people are forced to observe their sibling dying of hunger or for that matter for the want of a Paracetamol, they are forced to seek opportunities, good or bad, which allows them to survive. In the process a rebellion takes birth.

It is precisely these horrible conditions that contributed to the swelling growth of the Maoists insurgents. It is time that the government at the center, the King, the Maoists, the parliamentary parties and the international donors who wish peace to prevail in the country work in tandem so that the ever neglected western region gets every thing that the eastern region enjoys already. Failing to understand the gravity of the issue mentioned above might plague the country again at a later stage. If not the Maoists, some other groups might take up the arms and pose the same problems to the establishment.

Provide factories so that the people there get employment. Construct health clinics so that the poor people get medicines. Establish educational institutions so that the kids get education and understand their own country and the system better. Provide them potable drinking water so that they could keep themselves away from bacterial diseases. Give them roads so that they could sell their produce at some other place. Provide them a sense of participation in the system so that they too could feel that the country belonged to them too. Provide them good governance in order to make them feel that they don’t live in a rouge state. The message should be clear.

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