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Oli-led Government-18
Teaching Lessons Backfired
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
1. A statement issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kathmandu on February 2, 2016 stated that the attention of the government of Nepal has been drawn to the statement of the Indian regional leader of the Bihar State widely published in the Indian newspapers, and it had been interfering in the internal affairs of Nepal.
The statement also said that Federal Socialist Forum-Nepal, Terai Madhesh Democratic Party, and Nepal Sadbhavana Party leaders such as Upendra Yadav, and Rajendra Mahato had met with Lalu Prasad Yadav of the Bihar State leader on Monday, February 1, 2016, and they urged him to assist the Nepalese leaders in their protest movement, according to the news in the State-run newspaper ‘gorkhapatra’ of February 3, 2016.
2. Indian ambassador Ranjit Rae met with the chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda at the latter’s resident in Lajimpat on Tuesday, February 2, 2016. They talked about the blockade on the border entry points, the Madhesh movement, and the multi-party discussions the Nepalese political leaders had held among themselves. Chairman Prachanda urged the ambassador Rae to end the blockade as soon as possible. Ambassador Rae in turn said that the blockade would end once the political leaders reached an agreement with the Madheshi leaders, the news in ‘gorkhapatra’ of February 3, 2016 quoted the private secretariat of Prachanda.
Recently in dismay, Prachanda had publicly expressed his strong opinion against the Indian blockade on the Nepal-India border points causing tremendous hardship to the Nepalese in general. The blockade had encouraged the parallel market in Nepal. It had caused the short supply of gasoline, cooking gas, diesel, aviation fuel, and other daily supplies.
3. Speaking at the rally of a cadre of his party held in Biratnagar on Tuesday, February 2, 2016, chairman of Madheshi People’s Rights Forum-democratic Bijaya Gacchadar said that it was wrong to take the innocent people to the streets and to make troubles to the common folks in the name of the Madhesh movement. He also said that after the amendment to the constitution, the provincial boundary issue had even resolved; the leaders of Madheshi front visiting Delhi and Bihar had been the sad events, according to the news in ‘gorkhapatra’ of February 3, 2016.
The above news clippings pretty much portrayed how the establishment leaders and the opposition leaders viewed the current political situation. For the establishment leaders, the promulgation of the new constitution and then the amendment to it had definitely met the aspirations of all Nepalese but the people denied of their legitimate demand for getting an equal share in the national cake had no option but to fight for it no matter how long they had to.
Demands of the ethnic people and Madheshi people were legitimate but their way of fighting for meeting their demands had been wrong. They could have achieved the tremendous progress in their fight for the legitimate demands had they used only their resources for that purposes but they went to begging the Indian leaders for the support. That had been the suicidal for the Madhesh movement.
So, Madheshi leaders could not achieve their goal even though they had emptied their pockets once the prop of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled out. Then, they went to the infamous Bihari leader Lalu Prasad Yadav seeking another prop for holding the border entry points to stop anything coming to Nepal from India. How much money Lalu Yadav had could be guessed from the past irregularities in purchasing fertilizers for the Bihar State when he was the chief minister of the State, and for which he went to jail. Lalu was a smart guy; then he went on to be a minister for railways of the central government of India. His management of the railways had been so much appreciated even the Harvard students came to India to study how Lalu was doing his railways business.
Even though Lalu might have a huge sum of money stashed away somewhere and was enough for supporting the Nepalese Madhesh movement for a few more months he did not commit to support the Madhesh movement rather Lalu gave a cheap public statement provoking the government of Nepal. That is it.
Then, Leader of Sadbhavana Party Rajendra Mahato clearly indicated that they had been perfectly bankrupt after four months of the Madhesh movement saying no use of holding the Birgunj entry point once all other entry points had been opened. After Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pulled out the support for the Madheshi leaders stating the amendment to the constitution had met the demands of the Madheshi people, Madheshi leaders had no money at all to keep a cadre of their parties working on blocking the Nepal-India border entry points to harass the government of Nepal, and to force the government to meet their demand.
So, they focused on blocking the Birgunj entry point using the remaining resources, as it was the main entry point from India to Nepal. They did not have sufficient resources even to block the Birgunj entry point. So, they went to Lalu for support. As Lalu did not want to spend his obviously irregularly hard earned money for the Nepalese Madhesh movement, now, the Madheshi leaders had apparently drained even that little bit of resources they had blocking the Birgunj entry point, and Rajendra Mahato had to say that there was no sense of blocking the Birgunj entry point, too.
That was what the KP Oli government had been waiting for. Probably, Oli knew that the Madheshi leaders were resource poor, and Oli also knew how much resources were required for the movement. So, Oli was not in a mood to give anything more than what the amendment to the constitution had given. He knew the Madheshi leaders had been bankrupt and tired of dong anything more. To prove the expectation of Oli, the Madheshi leaders were coming back to Kathmandu to launch another less expensive movement. That might be holding rallies at the Thapathali in Kathmandu. The cheapest movement would be actually to mobilize the members of the parliament to disrupt the parliamentary proceedings.
Oli had started off his political life being a member of the Jhapa movement when they went after the large landowners and terrorized them and looted the resources from the landowners. They had even killed Dharma Prasad Dhakal: the member of the then Rastriya Panchayat saying he was the landlord that had exploited the tenants. They had posted the notice of killing one pradhan pancha (elected village chief) or another in Jhapa. Those pradhan panchas had to run for their lives and take shelter in the nearby hill areas such as Ilam. He knew how difficult and costly was to run the movement. So, Oli had been a perfectly seasoned politician and he could read the plight of the Madheshi leaders. He was not concerned very much with whether the Madheshi leaders were blocking the entry points or coming to Kathmandu for blocking the parliamentary proceedings, as he knew that it was almost a defeated movement.
If we were to believe the Oli’s assistant, Oli had spent Rs100 millions to win his party chairmanship. Thus, he knew how costly the political affairs had been. Oli must have been sure that the Madheshi leaders would not be able to hold on the blockade once Narendra Modi pulled out the support for the movement. Modi had been feeding a cadre of the Madheshi front for blocking the Nepal-India border points trying to choke the Nepalese provoking them to rise up against Oli. That did not happen because of Nepalese having the intense feeling for patriotism and for protecting Nepal from the Indian interference at any cost. The loyalty of Nepalese to the motherland had saved Oli from falling even though he had been still standing at the cliff and he might fall at any time if he were not to resolve the short supply of the fossil fuels and other daily needs.
Oli had been doing well for himself at the cost of the common folks that had been suffering from the short supply of and the high cost of almost all supplies brought by the shortage of fossil fuels, and from the disruption of regular lives. Nepalese had been taking the hardship easily believing that the blockade of the Nepal-India border points were the doings of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and it was the blatant attack on the sovereignty of Nepal. So, the hardship Nepalese had tolerated was the demonstration of patriotism. Once it would be clear that it was the Oli doing nothing to relieve the people from the hardship they would certainly rise up against Oli. That was the moment the Madheshi and ethnic leaders needed to wait for and when it came they needed to grab it rather than going to Delhi and Bihar selling the prestige of the Nepalese in general.
Madheshi leaders and the ethnic leaders needed to understand that the half-done and less progressive constitution than the interim constitution had been the results of the elections to the CA that had been heavily represented by the NC and the CPN-UML.
Madheshi and ethnic leaders needed to go back to the voters and educate them what they had got today had been the results of their voting for those two NC and CPN-UML practically regressive parties that had gone back to the administration of the Shah-Rana administration that had worked for none but for the rulers disregarding everything. Madheshi and ethnic leaders needed to go back to the Madheshi and ethnic people and tell them that they had lost whatever rights they had been given by the interim constitution because of they voting for the those two regressive political parties.
Instead Madheshi and ethnic leaders chose the hard path to punish the voters including innocent non-voters blocking the Nepal-India border entry points causing incredible sufferings. They had sufficiently done wrong to the Nepalese people in general. They also had been doing everything as if they were doing for themselves rather than for the people that had been victims of injustice for 240 years of the Shah-Rana rule, and of the NC and CPN-UML rule even today. They needed to widely demonstrate that they had been fighting against the injustice done to the people in the style of the Shah-Rana rule did even after Nepal became the republic. That did not happen rather the fight seemed to be between the two nations giving the impression that Indian leaders behaving as the big brothers wanted to teach some lessons to the Nepalese leaders.
Nobody could say that the demands of the ethnic and Madheshi people for the equal share in the national cake was illegitimate but everybody could doubt whether the way of their fighting for getting their demands met was right. Everybody knew that voters wanted to teach one or two lessons to the ethnic and Madheshi people and the Maoists, too so they overwhelmingly voted for the NC and CPN-UML without considering that these two political parties had been regressive and they would not take the people forward.
Why the voters wanted to dislodge the Maoist and ethnic and Madheshi leaders was the right question to ask now. When the Maoists and the Madheshis were in the overwhelming majority in the first CA-cum-parliament, they wasted the opportunity of sincerely working on the welfare of the common folks. Rather they had engaged in the power play. Madheshi leaders went for power, and for the things less important (for getting Hindi as one of the national language, and squabbling over the national dress) than getting the agreement reached with the government enforced. The Maoists in turn thought that their revolution had been successfully done and they could do whatever they thought were the right. They unsuccessfully made an attempt on firing the Chief of Army Staff (CoAS), and wasted the opportunity of doing the constitution. Not only that but also they pushed the country to the next elections to a constitution assembly (CA). That was a disaster for the Maoists and the Madheshis. Certainly, the Vaidhya Maoists played a villainous role in the elections to the CA causing the unbelievable defeat to the Maoists and the Madheshis. The Vaidhya Maoists had been feeling the heat of their misdeeds in the elections, and they had been led almost to the insignificant status. They could see that they could not do anything except for merging with the Prachanda Maoists.
Voters dispelled the evil deeds of the Maoists and the Madheshis without realizing that the NC and CPN-UML would not share the national cake equally with all the people. NC and CPN-UML leaders in turn thought that the voters had given them the mandate to monopolize the State power. So, they wanted to eat the whole cake for themselves not giving away even the crust to the people of the ethnic and Madheshi origin downtrodden for 240 years of the Shah-Rana rule.
The results the voters had, were the half-done constitution, and the rise of the awful leaders such as Sushil Koirala and KP Oli to the of office of prime minister. Sushil Koirala distributed millions if not billions of rupees to a cadre of his party and his colleagues before leaving the office keeping the quake victims high and dry. KP Oli had been running the administration for enriching his party people. His administration had been closing in to the Rana style administration that had done nothing for the common folks but took everything from them directly and nurtured the family of the Ranas. KP Oli had been indirectly drawing the money from the pockets of the common folks causing short supply of everything at the regular market and then running the parallel market where anybody could buy anything at high prices. That would certainly provoke stronger movement of the people that Madheshi and ethnic leaders could not make out the situation.
So, the Madheshi leaders needed to do was to go back to the voters and tell them the consequences they had been facing now had been of their voting for the wrong political parties. They had to make the voters aware of the rights they had received from the interim constitution had been lost in the new constitution adopted by the two-thirds majority political parties of the NC and the CPN-UML. Madheshi and ethnic leaders should realize that their strength was the Nepalese people not the Bihari or Indian leaders that would not do anything except for a lousy statement if they were not to benefit from doing anything. Why should they do anything for the Nepalese leaders, and what do they gain from doing so? These were the questions those foreign guys would ask before doing anything to the Madheshi and ethnic guys. Keep secret doing anything with the foreign guys for the benefits of themselves and of the common folks.
If we were to believe the news published in the Indian newspaper “The Hindu” of January 18, 2016, and Rajendra Mahato of the Nepal Sadbhavana party were to be considered as one of the Madheshi leaders then we could conclude that those Madheshi leaders had no self-confident.
The news clipping from the online “The Hindi” was as follow. “Mr. Mahato sought India’s involvement at the end of his fortnight-long stay in Delhi where he underwent treatment to recover from grievous injuries sustained in a police attack in Nepal. Mr. Mahato told The Hindu, before leaving for Kathmandu on Sunday, that the amendments that were aimed at neutralizing the months old political agitation by the Madhesi people in the plains of Nepal, should involve India as a guaranteeing party so that Nepal government could not backtrack on the political agreement underlying the amendment process. “The government of Nepal agreed on two of our demands for the amendment process. But for the main demand of re-drawing of State boundaries, they have asked for three months period. There is no certainty that the Nepal government will stick to the third promise. That is why we are demanding India’s inclusion into the process as a guarantor,” Mr. Mahato said.”
Would any Nepalese believe in such a leader as Rajendra Mahato was? He wanted Narendra Modi to enforce the agreement reached with the government of Nepal. How on earth such a man could be a leader of a party? Why they could not force the government to enforce the previous agreement they needed to understand. They could not do so because they were not for doing so rather they went after the power losing the opportunity of enforcing the agreement reached with the Girija government. Madheshi leaders would be well off being on their own rather than asking any help from the neighbors. Don’t shame the Nepalese going around the foreign countries for a prop.
February 6, 2016
