Sushil-led Government-58

Compliment To Surya Thapa

Siddhi B Ranjitkar

One of the personalities of the regressive force Surya Bahadur Thapa ultimately died at 87 on Wednesday, April 15, 2015. He was cremated on April 17, 2015 with the full state honor. The government even shut down its business for the state employees to mourn the demise of one of the corrupt politicians. I want him to have a better and progressive life in another world, and be an honorable and respectable human soul there unlike what he had been in this mundane world. He had been a tool of the regressive force. He contributed to shove democracy in a trashcan and put the country in the reverse gear in 1960. He helped to reverse the political development in 1981 again lengthening the life of the corrupt panchayat system. He had earned the reputation of being one of the most corrupt politicians during the 55 years of his political life. 

Shame on the government and the politicians that gave so much of honor to and respect for the man that had become part of the force that put the majority of the Nepalese in misery, poverty and destitute, and put Nepal into the shameful status of one of the impoverished countries in the world map. If the corrupt politicians were to get so much of honor and respect even after death why the politicians would need to be sincere and honest to the people. Shame on the Nepalese politicians, such a corrupt politician was lionized.

On Friday, April 17, 2015, the government of the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal honored one of the most dishonest politicians of the Nepalese history on his untimely death. The government shut down its entire business to mourn the untimely death of Surya Thapa on his cremation day: Friday, April 17, 2015. Prime Minster Sushil Koirala honored him draping Thapa’s spiritless body with the national flag causing the gross misuse of the national flag that represents the whole nation.

Political leaders including Mr. Koirala forgot the sufferings Nepalese had endured after Thapa betrayed their parties and contributed to kill democracy in 1960, and pushed the country backward. Mr. Koirala had been part of the symbol of the corrupt politicians. So, Mr. Koirala must have forgotten the misdeeds of Thapa. Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda became the tail of the line of the corrupt politicians that had lined up to pay tribute to Thapa. His party UCPN-Maoist had even released a statement to tell the Nepalese that his party had lost a political patron. Thus, the UCPN-Maoist joined the corrupt political spectrum.

Surya Thapa along with his political colleagues such as Tulsi Giri and Biswobandhu Thapa became the political tool of the then king Mahendra to shove democracy in a trashcan, and put the country in the reverse political gear. Surya Thapa became a minister in the cabinet of Mahendra in 1960, and helped the king to ransack the State treasury to repress the poor Nepalese. After that disgraceful event, Nepalese could speak in praise of the king nothing more. All the development projects launched to benefit the people were shut down. Mahendra scraped the education system Nepalese had developed to serve the common folks, and he then introduced another education system to serve only him pushing the country several decades backward.

Mr. Thapa and other political villains such as Tulsi Giri and Biswobandhu Thapa became the wheels of the political vehicle Mahendra rode to crush any remnants of democracy and any political leaders or cadres that dared to speak against the king. Nepalese got the Panchayat system to revere the king as the incarnation of Lord Vishnu: the Hindu-world administrator. They developed contempt for the common folks, and despised the poor. Everything was done for the king and for the palace. Thus, the country moved backward while other countries were moving forward very fast.

Surya Thapa became a rising political star in the cabinet of Mahendra. Surya Thapa managed to be the prime minister in the late 1960s. He thought that the panchayat system had taken the deep root in the country; and he and his accomplices had uprooted the multi-party system, and put the democracy in sleep forever. Actually, they had killed many political opponents and opposing political activists to erase the democratic political map of Nepal and to put the kingdom of Mahendra in place. Some of the Panchas demanded the death sentence to BP Koirala and Ganeshman Singh. Many political opportunists joined the panchayat.

Under the heavy pressure of the international community, and believing the democratic leaders could not harm the king, Surya Thapa released former Prime Minister BP Koirala and former Minister Ganeshman Singh from the Sundarijal Army camp jail and chased them to India. The then Prime Minster of India Indira Gandhi gave them shelter with honor and respected them as the former head of government and the minister.

The second time, Surya Thapa betrayed the Nepalese was in 1981 shamelessly making the panchayat win the votes in the referendum held on the choice between the multi-party democracy and the improved panchayat system. Prime Minister Surya Thapa delayed the counting of votes for months. He ordered to print millions of ballot papers in the State-owned press in Bhaktapur. He sent those ballot papers to the different districts and told the pancha cadres to stuff those newly printed ballot papers in the ballot boxes. He was successful.

He presented the results of the referendum. The improved panchayat ostensibly won the election with a little margin that was the worst political crime Surya Thapa committed in the history of Nepal. It was worse than Prithvi Narayan Shah cutting noses and ears of his opponents in the mid-eighteenth century, and worse than Jung Bahadur massacring hundreds of courtiers in the Kot and Bhandarkhal massacres in the mid-nineteenth century, and even worse than the coup Mahendra staged in 1960, as Surya Thapa reversed the political change Nepalese voted for, and put another brake on the people’s development causing misery to millions of Nepalese.

Former Prime Minister also the democrat BP Koirala wisely accepted the results of the referendum Surya Thapa as the prime minister of king Birendra declared. His statement alone clamped down on the possible political confrontation, and put an end to the political uprising. The opposition political activities went to hibernation for some years. Nepalese in general accepted the result of the referendum even though they knew that Surya Thapa faked it.

Surya Thapa held a great-dinner party at the official home of Prime Minister at Baluwatar to celebrate the victory of panchayat over the multi-party democracy. A folk musical band played music so loudly on and on throughout the midnight, we neighbors had to spend the sleepless night. Why Prime Minister Surya Thapa needed to care about us. He had already saved the panchayat and made the king happy and safe forever. All panchas and Surya Thapa ate, drank and danced to death on that night. Nepalese paid a heavy price for their enjoyment in term of cash and in term of political loss. Nepal was pushed back again for several years. Nepalese continued to live in poverty and destitute while some corrupt and dishonest politicians like Surya Thapa in the corrupt panchayat system headed by King Birendra enjoyed lavish drink-and-dance parties. They had money, power, status and glory what they needed more probably nothing except for immortal lives that they would not have no matter what they would do.

The next heinous crime Surya Thapa as a prime minister committed was cutting down green trees for selling timbers. He did so to have massive funding for winning the votes in the referendum. Millions of green trees perished under the cruel axes of the panchas Surya Thapa recruited for. Some pancha cadres made millions of rupees for them cutting down trees indiscriminately and selling timbers made of them. They created billons of rupees for funding the elections for winning the panchayat. The result was massive deforestation Nepalese had endured. King Birendra was very happy.

The third crime Surya Thapa committed was to loot the national treasury and let the pancha cadres loot it. King Birendra and his Prime Minister Surya Thapa thought that they had put the multi-party democracy to death. They had won everything. So, they could do anything. Panchas went on a rampage and looted the people. They sold even the public property in 1980s.

King Birendra and his family also took the benefits as much as possible from the positive results of the referendum. He presided over the corrupt administration. His sisters and brothers went down so low that they took the first opportunity to choose the clothing the international Red Cross had provided for the poor Nepalese. What do I need to write anything about the corruption the Panchas headed by Surya Thapa and his patron king Birendra committed?

The corruption reached such a pinnacle that the panchayat became synonymous with corruption. The heavy burden of corruption the king had brought on the people in the name of panchayat had become so intolerable that the common folks had been restless. Nepalese voters thought that they had voted out the panchayat but it came out victorious and became even stronger after the referendum in 1981. Surya Thapa under the leadership of King Birendra started repressing the people more heavily than before denying them even the fundamental rights to live as humans honorably and comfortably. Common folks lacked everything whereas the top pancha such as Surya Thapa and his patron King Birendra enjoyed everything. Nepalese had nothing but misery, hunger, and disease. They were destitute.

Nepalese rose against the panchayat joining the movement called by the political parties such as NC and CPN-UML in March-April 1990. Nepalese toppled the panchayat and tossed it away, and forced King Birendra to reinstate the multi-party political system his father Mahendra had shoved in a trashcan in 1960. The democratic political leaders won the game this time with the full support of the Nepalese. They needed to punish the pancha leaders such as Surya Thapa and his colleagues for their felonies. The pancha criminals including Surya Thapa and his colleagues got the general amnesty from Girija Prasad Koirala even at the first rally of the victorious democratic leaders and cadres.

Girija Prasad Koirala called the people’s victory over the panchayat as the victory of the panchas, too at the first rally held at Tundikhel in Kathmandu causing uproar in the audience, and he called on the panchas to set up a political party. Thus, Girija Prasad Koirala revealed his mind that he would be the worst corrupt politician than any pancha politician in the future. He actually did become the worst corrupt politician later on.

Following the call of Girija Prasad Koirala on setting up a political party, Surya Thapa came out with the pancha party called Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP). All panchas became cleaned from their sin. They have a new political party. It made them easy to keep the roots of panchayat intact at the grassroots level. But people had not pardoned them. In the first general elections held to a new parliament in 1991, only four RPP candidates managed to get elected to the 205-member parliament. Obviously, voters rejected the RPP in totality but Girija did not.

Actually, Girija became worse than any corrupt panchas, and made his party not less corrupt. Most of the former pancha cadres en masse joined NC or CPN-UML. The line between the former pancha cadres and the NC and CPN-UML cadres became fuzzy and blurred. Ultimately, NC and CPN-UML leaders became the party of the enlarged circle of the corrupt politicians.

Surya Thapa became the strong democrat among the former panchas. The morale of former pancha leaders and cadres had been increasing every year. He nourished and groomed them to have a major party. Probably, he knew that he would emerge a strong leader from among the previous panchas. RPP came out as the third party winning 20 slots in the 205-parliament in the next general elections held in 1994. The tarnished politician Surya Thapa had another chance to lead the country to the political ruin again thanks to equally disreputable and corrupt politician Girija Prasad Koirala.

RPP leaders including Surya Thapa had a chance to play a significant role in the political game again. Neither CPN-UML nor NC had the majority to form a government independently after the second general elections. One of these two political parties needed to rely on the RPP for forming a new government. Later years, buying and selling of parliamentarians had been the regular political business. RPP could bargain with NC or CPN-UML to form a new government. Formerly corrupt panchas were back again to take the ministerial positions. NC and CPN-UML leaders demonstrated that they could be worse politicians and even more corrupt than former panchas.

Currently, the country has reached the political deadlock. NC, CPN-UML and Surya Thapa’s party have been attempting to put the country in the reverse gear and turned the country back to the plutocracy and autocracy again. Surya Thapa’s soul might be watching how his fellow politicians would act in his absence. The lineup of the political leaders to offer bouquets to the lifeless Surya Thapa, and the statements of almost all political-party leaders to pay tribute to Thapa, indicated that the living political leaders were following the critical-corrupt path laid by deceased Surya Thapa.

Before his journey to another world, Surya Thapa managed to pass on his baton of corrupt practices installing his beloved son Sunil Bahadur Thapa in a ministerial position. Now, junior Thapa is the Minister for Supplies in the cabinet of Prime Minster Sushil Koirala. Junior Thapa and his colleague Giri Bahadur KC as his assistant have been making billons of rupees selling some of the Nepal-bound cooking gas in the Indian market causing tremendous shortage in Nepal, and selling the rest of the gas at the high prices to the gas-starved Nepalese in the black market. Thus, they took the benefits of the State monopoly on buying and selling cooking gas exploiting the common folks. Thus, Surya Thapa had successfully transferred one of his many legacies of vices to his son Sunil Thapa.

I don’t know how Chitragupta: the assistant to Yamaraj: the lord of the Hindu spiritual world would present the vices and virtues of Surya Thapa to the lord. Soul of Surya Thapa must have crossed the spiritual river called Baitarni that tests the vices and virtues of any Hindu soul traveling to the world of Yamaraj. I wish his soul rest in peace there.

April 18, 2015

A corrupt political bandwagon: http://www.ratopati.com/2015/04/17/227136.html

Surya Thapa in the eyes of political leaders: http://setopati.net/politics/6246/Thapa-in-the-eyes-of-political-leaders/