Wednesday, September 21, 2005

Is this a sincere repentance or a ploy?

Hindu knowledgeable have enlightened that when one individual feels in his inner heart that whatever he did in the past have had its tremendous negative bang on the well being of the society and repents, he is a newly born human being. This means that a person after proper remorse and avowal of not repeating the same mistakes or for that matter the blunders is a genuine personality who could be trusted for his future actions believing that the person concerned will not commit the mistakes that he committed in the past. The convention in the Nepali society is that when such repentance is made by the people(s) concerned, his or her past conduct are forgotten and the person is allowed to act on his own once again. However, illustrations are galore with contradictions when it has been found that the person seeking pardon from the society gets involved later at a convenient time in the same business-as-usual thus troubling the society in a much more rude and crude manner.

Well this happens in a society everywhere as the society can't be freed from human weaknesses.

But then what if such blunders are committed by organized and prominent political paraphernalia whose past discreditable and sordid deeds have had terrific and devastating effects on the overall health and the prestige of a country's national glory and independence? How the society should take those blunders, which have insulted the national honor and sovereignty? How to take the calamitous effects that have had by the political paraphernalia's on the country's politics?

Are such Himalayan blunders justifiable and thus pardonable? Could any rational individual who knew the consequences of what impact did the wrong decisions of some political parties have had on the integrity of the nation would voluntarily provide a clean-cheat to that political personality simply that the person concerned is in a mood to repent for his past wrong doings? The damage is already done. The nation has already felt the impact of his or her blunt and capricious and irrational decisions.

Are such faults worth clean-cheat? What of the compensation in terms of national pride?

To come to the point, two UML stalwarts, better late than never, have appealed political parties, apparently suggesting that they were talking of their own as well, to "make an apology" with the voters for whatever slip-up they committed in the past. The suggestion appears to have come in good faith hoping that if the parties, the representatives of the people so to say, did acknowledge their past follies and vowed to work all in the name of the people as it should have been in effect, the people in turn might cuddle the political parties and the political animals engaged in politics much the same way as they did at time and after the 1990 mass movement for the restoration of democratic order in the country.

In effect, this admissal of the two gentlemen from the UML does hint that the communists have recognized that they did commit blunders of the highest order while in power for all along twelve years or so of the democratic years and hence have presumably concluded that the people's pointed and visible lukewarm response to their "agitation" could have been the political parties' faults or else the people would have come to the rescue of the agitation that is centered to Kathmandu only.

Well, asking for an apology is not a bad trend either. Let people or for that matter political leaders be allowed to suffer from this mental agony for some time and then be allowed to seek forgiveness. Good idea indeed.

But the million dollar question remains: what of the most controversial Mahakali water resources treaty that was endorsed primarily by the UML party at time of its ratification by the Nepali parliament? What of the blunder and the loss to the national economy when Mahesh Acharya was officially and pleasingly permitted to sale China built several factories at an almost what could be said a "dirt price" under the instructions presumably of those who preferred Nepal to remain in a "stone-age" state sans basic infrastructure and rely on them for all time to come? Is this loss to the nation in terms of economy is forgivable?

What of the Tanakpur agreement signed by the then Prime Minister Koirala which was not in the overall interest and favor of his own nation state? What of the loss that Nepal have had to suffer from this agreement-turned-treaty? Is this act a pardonable one?

And above all, will asking for a pardon by the acclaimed and declared dishonest leaders mean handing over the entire money thus acquired illegally by them while in power back to the state? Well, if the corrupt leaders voluntarily wish to deposit such money(s) to the state, the people will consider twice on what to do with their seeking of exoneration. Or else, the acts of providing pardon to the known and wanted corrupts would only mean providing them all with yet another chance to loot the already looted nation, in terms of wealth.

All said and done, still when political "top names" feel shame from within and wish to "be sorry" over their ugly deeds, and for their utter neglect of the marginalized section of the society and for their remaining instrumental in disfiguring the very acclaimed and universally established and accepted credentials of a democratic system, and vow not to repeat the same missteps in the future, the people should consider their remorseful attitude and thus allow them to work in the society again. The people henceforth must provide them with the same prestige and honor much the same way as they poured on them well after 1990. After all, the fact is that the people do not rule directly. They have to rely largely on their "people's representatives".

Thus the fiery leader of the UML, Bamdev Gautam and a legal practitioner cum communist leader of the UML, Subash Nemwang, deserve praise for their courageous admission that they did commit blunders in the past while in power. As a matter of tradition, the parties should be given a chance if they in effect apologize.