Quit Mr. Prime Minister On Ethical Ground

Quit Mr. Prime Minister On Ethical Ground

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

It has been proved that Prime Minister Oli had been hopelessly ineffectual in running the administration because of so many ministers had been quite incompetent and had insulted the entire nation for which the prime minister had been held accountable; a few lawmakers had openly insulted the peaceful protesters, and had been eyeing the cash and land assets of Pashupati Temple in Kathmandu and Svargadvari in the western Nepal; consequently, they had been anti-nationals but the prime minister had not fired them from the job yet probably because they had been meeting his personal interest rather than that of the nation. However, Prime Minister Oli had been smart to immediately fire former Minister for Law Sher Bahadur Tamang for a single word that had apparently caused an offense to the Nepalese students studying the medical sciences in Bangladesh. Lawmaker Janardan Sharma complained that he had been penalized for ending the power outage when he was a minister for energy. It was clear that sincere folks had to suffer; was it not Mr. Prime Minister?

For submitting the most impracticable Guthi bill, which was anti-religion and anti-culture, Minister for Land Management needed to be fired a long time ago but she had been coming out even more strongly stating that the bill on ending the Guthi had not been dead and it would be put forward again. Is it what Mr. Prime Minister wanted or the minister alone wanted? Such a minister that had caused so much troubles to the protagonists of the Guthi system for preserving the aged-old religion and culture of ancient Nepal had no place in the cabinet of the democratically elected government. If the prime minister were to get his party and himself elected in the next elections he needed to get rid of such a person from the cabinet and other lawmakers who had supported the Guthi Bill from the parliament immediately.

For example, Former Minister Hisila Yemi became the victim of her husband Dr Baburam Bhattarai’s wrong decision on not supporting the ancient culture while he was a finance minister, consequently, she could not get elected in the next general elections and she had been almost politically dead since then. Similar fate might be waiting for the prime minister and his fellow communists and Maoists in the party and in the cabinet if the prime minister were not to take any actions against the ministers and lawmakers that had been offending the sovereign people.

The next offender had been Minister for Communications Gokul Prasad Baskota, who said that the Guthi system was the relics of the feudalism. What the minister would say if somebody said that the communist legislators and ministers were the murders and looters and they had been looting the nation even now causing the poor even poorer? Would the communist minister tolerate such charges? Probably not, so the concerned folks would also not tolerate such baseless charges he had made, and the minister for communications needed to apologize to the members of the Guthi system for what he had said and he needed to quit such a responsible position as the minister for communications for speaking publicly irresponsibly if not then the prime minister needed to fire him immediately.

After firing the water cannon on and charging batons at the peaceful protestors against the bill on ending the Guthi system on Sunday, June 16, 2019, Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa went to tell the lawmakers that the protestors had stoned the security police and broken the heads of the police while actually the police with batons charged at the protesters. Is it not misinforming the sovereign parliament? How dared a so-called honorable member of the democratically elected council of ministers provide the lawmakers with not a real story but with a made-up one? Everybody could and probably had already watched the real story on the so many videos posted on the social media.

Any minister with a little sense of having political ethics and responsibility would have immediately quit the position for giving the misinformation to the lawmakers, and for charging the peaceful protesters with causing physical damages to the security police. However, the home minister did not see the need for quitting the job and leave the job for the person who could perform the duty better. So, the prime minister needed to fire such a minister immediately from the job and appoint a better one who would perform ethically and responsibly.

A few lawmakers had been coming out strongly against the Guthi system and had been eyeing the huge cash, and the land the Pashupati temple possessed in Kathmandu, and the Svargadvari in the western Nepal.

Lawmaker Matmani Chaudhari in particular had said that these temples had so much of wealth and the people had been enjoying very good lives on such assets whereas the farmers had nothing. He was one hundred percent correct but one thing he deliberately missed was how the contractors and corrupt politicians probably including Mr. Chaudhari himself had been misusing the entire national wealth for their own interest keeping the entire populace of the country poor not to mention the poor farmers even poorer. They had been poor because of the politicians such as Chaudhari had not been engaging in curbing the widespread deadly corruption but rather trying to indulge in another noxious corruption killing the national wealth such as the Guthi system.

One of the woman lawmakers named Shanta Chaudhari said that those protestors gathering at the Mandala in Kathmandu against the bill on ending the Guthi system were hired. How come she knew that they were hired? If she really did know the protestors were missionaries then why she did not say who had paid them for showing up at the protest ground. Only the political leaders probably including Shanta Chaudhari could pay the large sum of money required for such a mass of the people because they had looted the country to death and they could pay any number of people required for taking them to the protest demonstration. However, those protestors who had showed up at Mandala were not paid by anybody for the information of the ignorant lawmaker and it had been spontaneous protest demonstration against the bill that had been submitted to kill the ancient culture and religion of the Nepalis who were determined to save the religion and culture no matter what prices they might need to pay for doing so.

On June 19, 2019, the State-run newspaper “gorkhapatra” ran the news columns of what Prime Minister Oli said in the press conference held at Singhadurbar on Tuesday, June 18, 2019 after the opposition lawmakers did not permit him to speak at the House of Representatives. The news quoted the prime minister as saying, “The undemocratic forces had been clearly engaged in against the democracy, republic, and federalism; his government is committed to fundamental rights, press freedom, honorable and responsible press, human rights, and efforts on development.”

If the prime minister had been referring to the protestors as the undemocratic forces that had been resolved to save the cultural heritage from the massacres of the con communists and Maoist lawmakers then he was totally wrong because they had followed principles and values of democracy, and they had exercised the rights given in the democratic system nothing more rather the prime minister’s home minister had charged the peaceful demonstrators with the water cannons, and misinformed the parliament saying the protestors had stoned the security police; however, the prime minister had failed in his duty on firing such a con minister immediately.

The protestors were not against federalism; however, the Prime Minister himself had been denying provinces and local governments the rights the constitution had provided them with surely going against the spirit of federalism. How long the provinces and the local governments had to wait for the rights they were supposed to get following the provision made in the Constitution? Is it against federalism or not, Mr. Prime Minister?

Now, let us talk about the prime minister’s commitments to fundamental rights, press freedom, honorable and responsible press, human rights, and efforts on development.

Yes, Mr. Prime Minister was committed to fundamental rights; preserving the religion and cultural heritage was the fundamental rights but his minister for land management had attempted on destroying the cultural heritage and the ancient religion prevailing in Nepal surely denying the local people the fundamental rights to their cultural and religious heritages while encouraging the imported religion. Probably, nobody needed to give lessons on fundamental rights to the prime minister, who served 14 years of jail term.

If the prime minister were really committed to the press freedom his minister for communications would never have presented a media council bill for replacing the existing Press Council Act that had ensured free, impartial and independent press so far. However, the prime minister must be really committed to honorable and responsible press; so, his minister for communications crafted a media council bill mainly focusing on shutting up the mouths of the critiques, and on breaking up the pens of the sincere and independent reporters, and the houses of publishers in the name of honorable and responsible press.

Yeah, the prime minister was actually committed to human rights otherwise he would not let craft a new human rights bill that would simply end the independence of the National Human Rights Commission and keep it at one corner of the office of the Attorney General.

Surely, the prime minister was not only committed to efforts on development but also to “Prosperous Nepal and Happy Nepalis.” However, the prime minister had so far ignored to kill the deadly corruption that had almost killed every development efforts so far. If the prime minister were really sincere to his commitment to the zero tolerance of corruption, Nepal would have been half way to ending the corruption. Unfortunately, the corruption had not only not dead but also had been flourishing with a new vigor. How could the prime minister keep his commitment to the efforts on development in this circumstance?

If the prime minister were sincere to his commitments to all sorts of fundamental rights and efforts on development then he would immediately scrap the three controversial bills such as the Guthi Bill, Media Council Bill, and Human Rights Bill, and punish the minister for land management, the minister for communications and the home minister for their con activities, and then he would order to end the corruption so endemic in the high political circle and the bureaucracy otherwise the commitments of the prime minister to anything as every commitment made in the past would be blown in the air without any trace and folks would need to fight the street battles if the home minister and other two concerned ministers were to continue on their jobs.

If the communist legislators and ministers were to win the battle with the locals then the locals would leave this place for the communists to rule over otherwise the locals would fight to the finish until a last person remained alive to preserve the cultural heritages, and the religion their ancestors had set on this holy land of temples and deities, who were the enemies of the communists. So, either all the divinities would remain in this holy land or the communists would turn it into the red valley with the blood of the local people; there might not be a middle path if the communists were to determine to bring back the Guthi Bill as Minister Padma Aryal said with emphasis on it and challenging the local people to fight against it.

June 20, 2019