The available indigenous tools of the country could well be unutilized to address the malaise that grip the local commune

Yub Raj Koirala, Political Analyst

He is not an unknown person for the regular readers of this newspaper. In essence, he has appeared in these columns in the past as well. However, this time we have invited him to share his views not only on national issues but also on contemporary international events as well that we presume will arouse some critical interest among the readers.

He is Yub Raj Koirala, a personality who understands Francis Fukuyama and Samuel P. Huntington comparatively better than others do. He is an expert on international relations and hence his views have been presented for your perusal.

We approached this scholar last week for a short tête-à-tête and here is the result: Chief editor.

TGQ1: Talks on conflict resolution is a buzzword now. Scores of seminars and workshops are being held. The conflict as such remains intact. What say you?

Mr. Koirala: White Man’s burden, Mr. Upadhyaya. They tend to think that their garbage also needs to be globalized and who fail to appreciate the fact that conflicts are specific to cultural context. Firstly, we need to understand who we are and what is our family and societal make up that determines our behaviors. By doing this we can easily discern the patterns that give rise to such conflicts and hence the tools to solve them. In our own case, while we tend to ascribe to Ram, Krishna and Buddha’s footsteps and on the other hand our academics are busying themselves in interpreting those teaching as hostile and incompatible with the Western believe and systems which now dictate much of the third world population’s personal feeling and their mood of indigenous conflict managing processes. That is why conflicts are rising everyday in our part of the world. In the meantime, I wish to take note of what Mr. Shrish Rana told you in your previous columns that the available indigenous tools of the country could well be unutilized to address the malaise that grip the local commune.

TGQ2: The king acquires a posture, which he should have not, say Nepali academics. Is his silence justifiable? In effect, what he should do or should have done?

Mr. Koirala: The underlying assumption of his philosophic " life is so short and there is very little time you can actually do things for your country" makes it clear where and what the monarch stands for. He is merely acting like a referee with references to plenty of national characteristics, who sees that the ball (political parties) is not hitting the post (nation’s objectives). He can still do a lot for the people and for the nation by simply adhering to the foot steps of his late brother King Birendra who always believed in popular consensus and that is why he will always be remembered. It’s time that the Monarch acted like glue in binding the nation together and seeing his people lauding his contribution in uniting the already disintegrated nation together. Albeit the Maoists as well.

TGQ3: How you have been viewing the constitutional monarch’s moves specially after last October 4 initiatives which dismissed the Deuba government? Allegations are that HE MADE THESE MOVES UNCONSTITUTIONALLY? How you take the King’s moves and the subsequent allegations?

Mr. Koirala: The political leaders before the King’s October 4 initiatives had already violated most of the constitutional norms. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal does not only guarantee a parliament with multi party democracy for the leaders to manipulate the system to their own end. There are many rights enshrined in the constitution that seeks a just society with justice, progress and prosperity. The leaders have failed this we know. Therefore whomever works for the general health of the nation should be considered constitutional. Rests are matters of mere legality that needs to be overcome correspondingly.

TGQ4. SAARC is generally classified to be a poor men’s club. As a student of international relations how you rate its performance since its inception in the mid 80s?

Mr. Koirala: I would not normally agree with such assumption that it should be seen as poor men’s club. However, the problem with SAARC is that it has remained all along entangled over the Indo-Pak conflict over Kashmir, which has undermined other important issues of regional cooperation. Unless those two countries patch up their differences SAARC is as good as no SAARC.

TGQ5: You have been offered a UK university scholarship to study Post-Colonial Politics. What it is all about? What benefits in concrete academic terms this country will have upon your completion of the said degree?

Mr. Koirala: Post colonial politics deals with issues that determine the relationship between the colonial power and former colonies. It moves beyond the traditional international relations and third world studies by abandoning the dichotomy between industrial and underdeveloped countries. Instead, it regards these areas as mutually constitutive, as producing each other and explores past and present processes and relationship that connect them.

I have purposed to work on the theme: Degeneration- a Buddho- Hegelian perspective which seeks to offer a purely Nepalese perspective on development refuting some of the central arguments that have been made for the issue. I will be looking at Kant, Hegel, Marx, Buddha, King Prithivi Narayan Shah, Nietzsche Fukuyama, and Huntington to determine the strength of above work. The Nepalese modality should enable the leaders and policy makers to view development issues in a very different light, which currently governs the North -South divide.

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