Tame the wild cats seated in Singh Durbar!

Symptoms that are considered to be bizarre appear to have gripped Nepal's Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. In the process he is attacking each and every one whom he considers the villain of the Nepali society. He has gone crazy in the recent days and weeks.

Prime Minister Deuba at an official program of the Nepalese business society made acerbic remarks against those who invited him to the venue and later invited wrath to the extent that the same community began targeting him for his obnoxious remarks. Deuba loses his temper to the extent that he dubbed FNCCI President Binod Bahadur Shrestha as "Comrade" indicating the chieftain of the business apex body as to have been close to the Maoists. The entire business community took Deuba's remarks not in a good taste that was only but natural.

Only the other day, Deuba ventilated his ire and annoyance mixed with anger against once his own best friends, the Nepali bureaucracy, wherein he made it copiously clear that it was this untidy heap of officials seated in Singh Durbar whose sheer negligence and utter disgusting behavior meted out to the denizens that the Maoists insurgency swelled to this strength. Well this was a sort of direct attack on the nation's bureaucracy for the first time in Nepal's history made by any sitting prime minister of the country. This was not all, prime minister Deuba hinted to the lecture-attending bureaucrats that had he were equipped with the needed laws and regulations, he would have sacked the erring bureaucrats at a go and replace the bad apples with sweet oranges. How the civil servants listening to such fiery criticisms digested Deuba's blunt and perhaps insulting remarks will have to be seen. Intellectuals say that the bureaucrats were the best enemies or acknowledged opponents of any establishment that they themselves constitute. However, what has got to be much-admired is that Deuba could collect the needed courage and could lambaste at such a conglomerate that has done more harm than good to the country so far as their rendering services to the people and the country is concerned.

Deuba has made correct remarks. He should have done it much ahead. He has told the truth because it is this chunk of rotten eggs who have already become a burden to the government and the society. It is this bunch of junk material that neither works on its own initiative nor allows others to work and thus impede the developmental process sponsored either by the government itself or initiated by outside groups or for that matter individuals. It is this set of corrupt people seated in lucrative posts that twist the laws and the regulations if that benefited their own material, financial and political interests. Nowhere in the world the bureaucracy assumes a political role for itself except Nepal. The political parties facilitate bureaucrats to act as politicians. Bureaucrats are promoted, demoted or transferred according to the political tilts they possess. Instances galore wherein a particular bureaucrat is sent by the political ministers to the customs, revenue generating departments or excise collection offices upon ascertaining carefully the bureaucrats' political leaning. Add to this, during such transfers, promotions or demotions, under table money comes into action. Such ugly scenes were created by practically each and every governments formed after 1990. This should not mean that the pre-1990 governments run by the Panchayati stalwarts were sacrosanct. It was not that. What is happening today is the extension of the same corrupt practices initiated by the managers of the previous regime. After the 1990 change, what was expected of the government was that they would bring to an end to those practices. However, that was not forthcoming. But instead corrupt practices have increased to the extent that it would be harder to locate one non-corrupt bureaucrat than finding a diamond from the heap of carbon.

Deuba is correct when he says that the nation needed effective laws that act as a deterrent to the lethargic and corrupt practices of the Nepali bureaucrats. The nation now demands laws that penalize those who do not serve the people's causes. Unless this is done the bureaucrats will continue to keep the entire bureaucratic machinery in their grip. There has got to be a legal mechanism on how to punish the government salaried officials found guilty by the laws of the land and that only clearing the Public Service Commission examinations should not exempt them from being punished.

Let's presume that prime minister Deuba has begun speaking the truth and only the truth vis-à-vis the bureaucracy's indifference to the people's genuine issues.

The wild cats of the Singh Durbar have got to be tamed at the earliest or else the nation will continue to reel under their whims. Better late than never, the prime minister has spoken the actuality confronting the nation since the very first days of the commencement of bureaucratic system in the country.

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