Is Nepal Ready for Change?

A question that raised doubts over my belief, something that had me, for once and for the first time, contemplating migration to a place where people actually understand, a question that is easier to read than to understand analytically: Is Nepal ready for change? Are Nepalese ready to bear the responsibility? Are they really up for the challenges for the road ahead?

Well, I have been talking about quite a few things in the last few months and this piece comes to you as no surprise and you probably are already thinking, “Oh! Here we go again. Here comes another critical analysis of the recent turn of events in the Nepalese political scene.” Well, I am sorry to disappoint you all who think this is the same thing done in a different way and I would like to iterate that we can get tired of eating food, even if it could be presented with a different course with a different zing and a different garnishing. After all we’re all ordinary humans, we do run out of patience from the persistent monotonousness; if we had that extra little patience, we’d all be successful and should not be since there can be no utopia; it is all but a fallacy.

So before I begin, let me clear out on a few issues about the education system of Nepal, the shrine for every student where the fundamental principle states: Ignorance is Bliss, that will put the scrutinizing eyes of a political party’s disciple under the radar who are, but bulls on a parade, running havoc after every red print they see, like the disciples do, obliterating every obstacle that stands in the streets in front of campuses on every little technically tough economic paradoxical event that transpires in Nepal, for instance fuel price hike, that is not taught to them in class to understand, which is: Campuses and Colleges are not places to be for the faint-of-hearts; you’ve got be ready to pelt a few stones, may be a few large bricks and pour some fuel over government official’s vehicle and try to burn it down without caring much about who is inside and if it is a life-form that crawls and is left at the helm to run for its (and not his or her) dear life to stay safe from the fire that could catch on to its (his/her) fuel dripping shirt.

Who could blame them that they don’t understand. After all the education system’s policies and the courses were designed by people who didn’t understand them in the first place; they just copied and pasted from the libraries of Ivy League universities around the world, more prominently from USA. After all who cares about the thing called Education; it is for the ones who want to study in campuses/colleges, which for most is a place to sharpen their political skills and network to strengthen their nepotism skills and PRs, and then graduate to be disappointed at the government’s inability to provide jobs to satiate their daily needs.

Well, this outlines another incompetence of the government- to provide sufficient jobs to all of us. But then can we not create jobs? But why should we? Why should all of us innovate and be entrepreneurs only to toil too hard and to struggle more than our parents without guarantee of the state’s security for the wealth we could earn. Why work hard on our own, when we can relax and work at our convenience in government provided jobs? Well, isn’t it the bureaucratic jobs that the politically inclined students and the likes are demanding- be created? Or else what more can the state do than to encourage the people to take initiatives privately to create more jobs? But why would we even bother what the policies are made for; policies are for the makers to understand and use; we just want to demand for more jobs because demanding is our right because it is our basic citizen right; that is the current cult that our beloved forefathers showed us and paved similar paths for our destiny.

Well these are just secondary analyses; the primary issue is something that I had set out with to present to you before writing this, a question, that raised a few eyebrows of the karma-guides inside me, the voices that guide me through all my mortal karmas: Do Nepalese know what they are doing or are they just doing because that’s what they grew up seeing but have no real clue as to why they are doing and if it is really what is the absolute necessity of the hour to resolve the current political-economic stalemate; a state of the country where economic and political welfare has been ensnared to halt the progress? Are Nepalese like Bulls on Parade, who have herd mentality but have gone wild, only because the first one saw a cult that it didn’t like, more like the red print that triggers the bull’s rampaging run towards anything that moves; it is not the red colored cloth held by the Matador that snaps the bull’s temper but the hours long incarceration inside a small box like space, where the drunk bull has absolutely no mobility, that enrages the bull to go rampaging after anything that moves and red obviously catches its eyes/attention.

Similar is the situation here in Nepal; people feel confined and so they have been, as they have been kept away from the elusive education for so many years, something that provokes, encourages and enables expression. How frustrated would I be if I couldn’t write all that I felt and feel free while expressing like this, the way I am writing right now? It is obvious that my frustration would be boundless and it could protrude out in the form of absolute violence or even erupt, annihilating everything around me and all that I would require is a cause, a reason, to be mad at something. And that is exactly what the people of Nepal are going through. Nepalese are enslaved by their inability to express, what one could do through education, the education that could teach every one of us ways to learn to do things that would define what we are, how we are, where we are and more importantly what we want.

But there, obviously, is something that our educational system finds itself short on. It has not been able to quench our educational thirst, our thirst for knowledge and skills enhancement. Well, our educational system teaches us theories but leaves us in oblivion, from where we see no practical use of the theories that we’re taught in class. We are not taught skills to learn, but skills to mug up theories without reasoning the very existence and emanation of those theories. We are taught to take what we are given but not take what we want. This is where it all starts going wrong; if only we were taught to take what we want, we would know what we want, in the first place, then learn that we have to earn to achieve what we want, then learn to learn and develop skills that we want to use to earn what we want. That way, we would be self sufficient and not too demanding like a spoilt brat of rich parents. In turn, we would be less demanding saying it is not our inherent right but rather teach us to fight the right fight the right way to earn our right to earn what we really want from everything, life is the least in that regard of wanting out of.

Well instead of implanting such analytical desires and thoughts, we’re taught to seek shorter ways out from this political, economic, geographical, societal, and in so many more ways oblivious nation that have held our free mind hostage, captivating our imaginative minds into thoughts that show that education simply doesn’t suffice, it needs the backing of public relation skills and political link ups for sheer need of nepotism to have a very good job placement which could earn us enough to satiate our daily family necessities which is but unhindered by the imminent inflation. The figure of the inflation simply awes most lower-middle to middle class people and gives Goosebumps at the thought of falling victims to that ghost-of-a-thing called poverty. It is a recently revealed fact that the 10% inflation in the economy of Nepal last year left 6 Lakh Nepalese into that trap, that grip of a monster called poverty, something that staves off families from proper healthy food and nutrition, and gives diseases, something that the affluent class people aren’t quite aware of, and certainly not aware of the horrendous ill-effects stemming from that alien thing called poverty.

And so emanates an absolute necessity to have political linkages and be the political disciples of different political affiliations without understanding the core values of those theologies. What is more inexorably disturbing is the fact that you wouldn’t get admission to a college without a political reference, thrusting politics into the mind of every free soul that may or may not be there for sheer education. This is less of a political distortion compared to the renowned fact that campus chiefs are chosen by students who lobby for the chiefs, evidently proving that all systems are run by the students who didn’t devise the system, rather they are the puppets, the byproducts of the disorganized unethical system called politics. Well that’s what politics is to all, who don’t want to have to do anything with it. But still they will vote and choose people, running for campaigns, to run the system yet they will stay afloat from the dirt and filth of politics and later complain about the very policy-and-implementation level incompetency of their chosen representatives. Well why would we try to delve into these issues of politics? Let the manipulators do it; we will all but complain about them among ourselves in our social gatherings and parties. Well that’s one share of beliefs of the self-considered intellects of Nepal who would just witness all malady that transpire around them yet stay timidly in the comfort of their upper middle bungalow and higher class mansions watching/reading the news, belittling every low life who dwindles around such political fuss, saying nothing is okay but still they don’t care, since they have higher things to contemplate and advocate issues that require their immediate attention. Yet, change they can’t even if they wanted to, if only they understood the root causes underlying every theatrical upheaval stirred up by all unethical political assemblages. They are higher beings in their self-belief, yet could be enlisted in a different set of books for human douches.

So it is pretty evident that politics is not a luxury for students and the people seeking political asylum or affiliation but an absolute necessity. And like they say necessity is the mother of all inventions and innovations, new political wings emerge from absolute void, without a firm core theological values but just a modification based on needs of the needy; needy in this case are the people seeking political backing and not the people in dire need for change.

Now I slowly draw you upon a malady that shaped up outside a campus right under my nose, a theatrical scene that could shake up even the firm heart ones let alone the faint of hearts, and with this scene shook my belief on the people for whom I believed I could do a little, if anything at all, to change lives and touch lives. The more prominent questions that oozed out of my conscience were, will they understand who did what for them and for what and the sacrifices made for them. Can they discrete between their well-wishers and their nemeses, the masquerading friends who stab them on their back, the very back that gave them the lift, a support to rise beyond human reach to the status of stars, upon whom, they bestow all faith to carry forth the torch of radical progression through trusted leadership? Can one be absolutely sure that the very mass, he/she propelled forward will not overwhelm with brute force to quench their insatiable desire for self proficiency and self development? More importantly, I asked myself, “Is Nepal ready for change; are Nepalese ready to bear the burden of responsibility of running their country?”

Okay avoiding further bewilderment, let me portray the scene in front of Tri Chandra campus in the Jamal passage where tempos and micro buses stop to queue to off load passengers en route to the Tourism Board lane, which still is picturesquely Ratna Park as per the ticketing staff at the micros and the bus drivers. How ironically convenient to call that place Ratna Park and for the passengers to still say they’re going to getting off/on at Ratna Park?

As I looked exuberantly in hopes that there was no turmoil around that area from a slowly running micro, I was onboard, offloading the passengers, the ticketing staff asked everyone onboard to get off at Jamal, since, to my disappointment, there was a traffic blockade caused by mass student protest shaping up outside T.C campus area and all micros were going off course to take a different route back to transporting commuters and travelers alike. I had to be at Koteshwor before my watch hit 9:30 am, which was showing 9:15 am when I peeked in to my watch, and I started walking towards Ratna Park area, ironically for me as well, since it is the old bus park area, and not actually Ratna Park, to catch another micro. Amidst the traffic chaos that was shaping around that area, I was struggling to cross the road to the T.C campus wall side as I stopped to give way to a sedan in front of me when I heard a rollicking smash, unaware that it was the sedan’s rear window that two students had smashed with bricks, since it was a bureaucratic car that was transporting a government bureaucrat, and they are the ones who suffer the wrath of the outrage of politically motivated students for the only recently obvious reason- the fuel prices were hiked unrelenting to the fact that fuel prices rose globally, more advertently in India, I tried to cross the road.

(Here also, knowledge of economics beyond class room theories is required which is not spoon fed to students who question a rather harmless question, “why did the government raise price of fuels since that will contribute to inflation,” still unaware that knowledge cannot be completely assimilated in a book taught in school in a period of 3 very long years till graduation which less than abroad where all they do is waste their 4 precious years without getting to practice political nepotism skills according to our compatriot students. For them, this question is still elementary; why would you study 1 extra year when you learn everything that you need to learn in those 3 long years in college. They must be illiterates to not understand the economic value of 1 year in job market or nepotism as compared to an extra year in school.)

As I walked ahead, two other students ran right across me with what looked like petrol to me, at that instant, in a mineral water bottle and smeared the whole bottle inside the car from the open space in the rear window left by the crushed glass, thoughtlessly callous about the fact that there was a man, a human before he was a government bureaucrat, inside the car, who desperately reached out to the door knob, opened it hurriedly, and rushed out to safety to save his dear life, as the third student torched the vehicle without second thoughts about the repercussions of his/their act. As quick as the government official ran away to safety, I ran away from the scene fearing any accident that the situation was prone to witnessing and got on another random bus that was leaving the scene, frantically too, to avoid any confrontation. Thankfully, that bus was Nepal Yatayat destined for Koteshwor, lucky enough for even though it was certain that it would not take me to my destination on time. Yet I was glad that I had escaped any injury but left very disturbed at being as hapless as any individual would be caught up in an impromptu ambush by the vociferous students chanting anti government slogans on top of their lungs.

That disturbed conscience of mine was drawn deep into thoughts and then for the first time, I questioned myself about my determination, “Do I even want to pursue my dreams and future to help create something that could help shape up the economy with many people able drawing inferences from what I do and how I do?” Then stirred up another set of questions: could migration be a better option for me, now? This was the first time ever that such doubt had crept inside my rather sturdy-willed mind and I hoped, after recoup to my old resilient self, that it hadn’t sowed a seed of doubts over the nation and with it the people.

As the day progressed, more questions formulated inside my mind like, “Am I not part of this country? I should support the people’s cause since that’s what we are- compatriots.” But then, what have we done on our part to question authorities about their deeds being right or wrong? Do we even understand how we're being bewildered by a phenomenon called herd mentality where we do things we don't even know why we are doing it right now, or continue doing it anymore?? I was absolutely livid with every darn thing that was transpiring in Nepal and what I witnessed on the street, in front of T.C triggered it with more ferocity.

So here’s an inference I drew from this incident: In the name of protest and fight against tyrannical government, we, the people, have become monsters who're being devoured by our thirst for violence and our fumed, enraged wrath befalls the innocent, who are left at the helm to run away for their dear life, like today itself, for being part of what the people consider are the tyrants- the government and the bureaucrats. So do I run on helm away from this madness and run away unable to tolerate the suffocation of this raging conflict between two groups which fabricate, but more importantly, complement each other and in Nepalese context are irrevocable parts of the eminent system? And I say, “What irony!!!!”


- Written By: Romeo Maskey (रोमियो मास्के)