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Oli-led Government-16
Oli Behaving As A Despotic Ruler
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
After nine months, the Oli government started off the ‘reconstruction mega campaign’ the president cutting the string letting a bunch of multi-colored balloons flying in the dimly lighted winter sky on the premises of Ranipokhari on the occasion of marking the 18th or 19th (not clear because the ‘gorkhapatra in its same news said both the date) National Earthquake Safety Day on Saturday, January 16, 2016, according to the ‘gorkhapatra’ of January 17, 2016.
Speaking at the ceremony Prime Minister KP Oli said that the reconstruction would have the total transparency, and called on the foreign donors to assist in it. He also said that the mega campaign was for creating an environment conducive to build houses for 800,000 families. Oli said that anybody taking unlawful benefits would not be tolerable; corruption would not prevail.
It sounds good but the reality is different. The reality had been that thousands of quake victims have been living in poorly done makeshift sheds in some villages such as Phulpingkatti, Naranthan, Luksingh, Jhirpu, Panthali and Selangkatti of the Sindhupalchok district for the last nine months. As the weather became cooler and even cold at night, and moisture in the atmosphere condensed on the gradually wearing-off tarpaulins; the dewdrops fell on the blankets they covered with at might. They had to live under tarpaulins, as the government-provided money did not buy the tin sheets required for making temporary shelters, and having no warm clothes for the winter the quake victims have been living in an intense misery, according to the news in the online newspaper ‘The Kathmandu Post’ of January 17, 2016.
Many senior citizens, children and women in other villages such as Chagam, Ghipche and Kanglang have been sick from the cold. Eighty-five-year-old Aaitimaya Tamang of Listi-5 said she had been denied treatment at local health post because of the shortage of medicines. She said people in the area needed to go to Barhabise for medical care, the news stated.
A local NGO called Zonta Club working for women distributed warm clothes to more than 1500 quake-victim families at Sirdibash and Kerauja villages in the district on Saturday, January 16, 2016. The club provided 666 households at Sirdibash and 884 others at Kerauja with blankets, sweaters, woolen hats, gloves and socks. Chairperson of the club Pramila Acharya said that various donors including ‘Helping Hands’ helped them distribute the clothes in quake-hit areas.
Quake victims in the Sirdibash village complained that they had not received any amount the government had distributed. Quake survivors in Ghyalchok, Mirkot, Deurali VDCs and Gorkha and Palungtar municipalities also said that they had not received any winter supplies the government was supposedly distributing.
Local Development Officer Premraj Giri said that he had no funding to provide the quake victims in the Sirdibash village with the winter supplies. “We need an additional Rs 300 million to distribute winter relief to all quake-hit households in the district,” he said.
Published: 17-01-2016 08:30
So, the transparency had been that the quake victims had been shivering in cold but Prime Minister Oli had been just speaking at the function to initiate the mega campaign for rebuilding the country the quakes had destroyed. The publicity of rebuilding had been high enough but the government had failed even in providing the quake victims with the warm clothes during the cold winter. Performances of the prime minister, his ministers and his president had reminded me the functioning of the Shah-Rana rulers in the past.
The then Rana Prime Minister Juddha Shumsher had collected some donations from the foreign countries and from the locals and he also added some to the ‘earthquake-relief fund” of that time he set up, and distributed the amount to the quake victims when the earthquake hit Nepal and destroyed the entire Kathmandu Valley settlements and other parts of Nepal in 1934. Juddha provided the poor with the grants while loans to the better off people. (Source: Earthquake of Nepal 1934: Brahma Shumsher Rana, Reprint 2015 in Nepali). Rebuilding had been fast even though it was mainly the initiatives of the individuals.
Juddha Shumsher had taken pride in providing some hungry Ranas with some handouts to make them live on, it was the statement carved into the stone below the statue of Juddha Shumsher at the crossroads of the New Road and the Basantapur Road in Kathmandu. Keeping the millions of Nepalese hungry, the Rana prime minister had fed their brethren.
Even though many quake victims had not received relief supplies, the then Prime Minister Sushil Koirala declared the relief stage had been done and then the reconstruction stage had reached. He deposited two billion rupees from the Prime Minister’ Disastrous Relief Fund into the ‘Reconstruction Fund’. Before leaving the office, Koirala had distributed billions of rupees from the Prime Minister’s fund to his near and dear ones and loved ones, and his party leaders and a cadre of his party, too, according to the local news and the social media. The largest amount of Rs 3.5 million receiver was Khum Bahadur Khadka: one of the tarnished leaders of the Nepali Congress, and convicted of bribery for which he had served fourteen-month jail term.
What was the difference between the behavior of Rana Prime Minister Juddha Shumsher and parliament-elected Prime Minister Sushil Koirala? The difference was not much, only the time and amounts they had managed to serve the quake victims.
Not only the two prime ministers: one hereditary another parliament-elected did not behave much differently but also the parliament-elected president Vidhya Bhandari did not behave not much differently from the then monarch the Rana prime ministers had kept within the four walls of the so-called Narayanhity palace. The difference had been Mrs. Bhandari had been wearing the sleek blouse, sari and the shawl fitting to her office.
Prime Minister KP Oli shoved the constitution and appointed ministers more than the constitution had allowed him, and the president simply accepted it. The president had been entirely the puppet as the then monarch had been during the Rana period. The only significant difference had been that now the Nepalese had freedom to expression, and freedom to go to work in the foreign countries and die there in exhaustion but at the time of Shah-Rana rule the Nepalese had only to serve the Ranas and die from hunger and disease and destitute.
The Supreme Court of Nepal quashed the case filed by an advocate stating that the prime minister appointing more than 25 ministers had breached the constitution. The court had asked the prime minister why he had appointed more than 25 ministers. Prime Minister Oli’s reply was that the country was still in the transitional period and the appointment of the ministers was the business of the executive. The court accepted the explanations and in turn accepted the ministers appointed more than the constitution allowed. Where could Nepalese go to for the rule of law, and the law enforcement? It seemed nowhere but to the streets and fight for causing the tremendous troubles to the common folks.
Democracy if we defined as the rule of law and equal rights to all Nepalese then had not been in Nepal even after Nepal had been declared the Federal Democratic Republic. We had seen a bunch of the politicians including the political deadwoods such as Jhalanath Khanal and the intellectually bankrupt chief of Nepal Academy had demonstrated that they could run the country as Prithvi Narayan Shah did celebrating the 293rd birth anniversary on January 11, 2016.
Where had been those civil society leaders and human rights defenders such as Padma Ratna Tuladhar, Daman Nath Dhungana, Kanak Mani Dixit and others that had been so concerned with the death of one or two individuals and took the issue to the streets when the country had been at the risk of falling back to the Shah-Rana-styled rule again?
Prime Minister Oli had been using his office as a bully pulpit to mock the fuel-starved Nepalese stating he would connect every household kitchen with a gas pipe. Nepalese had been subject to mockery of the prime minister rather than the source of mandate for the prime minister to run the country.
Nepalese had been fighting for the equal rights and equal share in the administration, police and army. The ongoing protest movement in the Madhesh had been the example of how the Nepalese had been fighting for justice, and equal rights. However, the fight had been in the wrong place and the way of fighting, too had been wrong.
The fighting should be at the center in other words at Singhdurbar where the prime minister’s office and other ministries’ also located. The fighters needed to stop the proceedings of the parliament, too. However, those guys fighting for equal rights had been blocking the border entry points provoking the wrath of the entire population. The entire nation had been suffering from the short supply of petroleum products including the cooking gas because of the blockade on the border entry points. The entire nation had been choked on the short supply of fossil fuels.
Now, Nepal had the state-sponsored parallel market. KP Oli’s government and his party had been making a large amount of money from the obstruction of the border entry points. A cadre of KP Oli’s party had been running more than fifteen thousands petrol pumps in the parallel market selling the petroleum products at three or four times higher prices than the government-set prices of the petroleum products, the local media reported. Anybody could get any amount of petrol, diesel and cooking gas if s/he were ready to pay the prices. So, there was no short supply of petroleum products, and there was no closure of the border entry points, too.
KP Oli could open the Birgunj entry point any time he would like it but he was not doing so, as it was beneficial for him and his party, too. He could use his police and armed police if necessary to escort the regular petrol tankers to Nepal but he was not doing so for the obvious reasons. His tankers had been coming in and supplying the petroleum products in the parallel market at the highest possible prices.
The second disastrous mistake of the leaders of the ongoing protest movement in Madhesh had been the foreign support they had openly accepted. Surely, they needed money to keep a cadre of their parties to working but it should not be so openly from India, as it had aroused the intense patriotic feelings among the Nepalese in general and grudge against Indian Prime Minister Modi for supporting the obstruction at the border entry points in other words India imposing the sanctions on Nepal. That mistake was suicidal to the protest movement leaders but blessing in disguise to Prime Minister Oli. It had been too late to rectify the mistake. The leaders had been burning out their resources without many good results.
The entire Nepalese people became ready to sacrifice everything for saving the country from the foreign interferences. Nepalese had simply tolerated the tremendous hardship of short supply of everything in Nepal. It had diluted the protest movement. It also indicated the miscalculation of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi that had anticipated the Nepalese would rise up against the Oli government once they had the short supply of anything coming from outside. That did not happen rather it created the patriotic feelings among Nepalese unprecedented in the history. It also proved that India could not effectively dictate the Nepalese politicians if they had the support of the people in general.
Nepalese had no democracy and the rule of law. They had been living in the political system not much different from the Shah-Rana rule concerning the rule of law. Some politicians had demonstrated that they were for bringing back the Prithvi Narayn Shah styled rule in Nepal arrogantly celebrating his 293rd birth anniversary on January 11, 2016. Those deadwood politicians had been wrongly reading the people’s sentiments and aspirations for the rule of law and democracy. They had been glorifying the rule of injustice, and they had been for continuing it. They had been simply provoking another revolution.
Those political deadwoods had simply disregarded the sacrifices made by the Nepalese youths starting from the four brave Nepalese called Sukra Raj Shastri Dharma Bhakta Mathema, Dasratha Chand and Ganga Lal Shrestha that rose up against the despotic Rana rule for the fundamental rights of the people. Their blood had bred thousands of patriotic Nepalese that tore down the Rana rule that seemed to be perpetuated forever.
The next on line came the Shah dynastic rule to obstruct the people’s development. Many Nepalese youths sacrificed their lives for eliminating the Shah dynastic rule that again stood against democracy, the rule of law and the fundamental human rights. Nepalese had effectively done with the Shah dynastic rule.
Now, the parliament-elected prime minister and his president had been trying to emulate the Shah-Rana dynastic rule. They had been putting Nepal in the reverse gear and driving it hard antagonizing the people. The example had been the celebration of the birth anniversary of the notorious human-rights violator Prithvi Narayan Shah that had simply laid the foundation of the dynastic rule that had put on hold all-round development of Nepalese for 240 years. The birth anniversary celebration was the challenge for the people that had opposed the Shah-Rana rulers that had run the administration at the gunpoint.
January 18, 2016
