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Current Situation of Nepalese Political Parties
Current Situation of Nepalese Political Parties
Siddhi B Ranjitkar
At least five political parties are currently in the parliament if we were to broadly categorize them. They are NC, CPN-UML, UCPN-Maoist, Madheshi parties, and RPPs dumping other small left parties either in CPN-UML or in UCPN-Maoist. Let us see how these parties have intra-parties and inter-parties relationships. They have all committed to the new constitution but Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi has been campaigning against it in the international arena. What for? Modi should know it better.
NC has the majority in the current parliament. So, it deserves the first attention. It has led the first government as it received the more seats than any other political parties in the constituent assembly after the second elections to the constituent assembly held in 2014. Rightly, it claimed the credit for successfully crafting a new constitution. After the promulgation of the new constitution it lost the power to the coalition of all political parties except for NC and some Madheshi political parties.
CPN-UML leaders have charged the NC not honoring the gentlemanly agreement reached between NC and CPN-UML on transferring power to the CPN-UML but it has attempted to remain in power under the influence of the Indian establishment particularly the Prime Minister Modi that had made every possible effort on stopping other parties other than NC coming to power in Nepal.
NC is a historical party. It led the first people’s movement to end the autocratic Rana family rule in 1950 and then the second people’s movement against the panchayat in 1990, and finally the last people’s movement certainly in conjunction with the Maoists to finish off the monarchy that has stood as a strong concrete wall against any sorts of development Nepalese people wanted. Now, NC needs to lead the country to the prosperity as the hurdle to development has been eradicated. Only the political parties could stand in the way to development but these parties would extinct as any wrong doer.
NC had been historically a monarchical party. It had always honored the monarchy. Its constitution had the constitutional monarchy but the monarchs had seen it as the main foe for them to hold absolute power. Those monarchs had seen NC not better than the Rana prime ministers as both of them wanted power from the monarch. NC leaders and a cadre of NC youth leaders had suffered a lot from the monarchs. Ultimately, NC adopted a new constitution for a republic, and then joined hands with other republicans and declared Nepal a republic.
BP Koirala had been the monarchist forever. He had been for saving the monarchy since 1951 after the termination of the despotic Rana family rule. However, he became the victim of the political ambition of King Mahendra. He had to serve seven-year jail term in 1960s and then he went to exile in India for another seven years in 1970s. Even then he once said that king Mahendra and he conjoined in the neck. The political interpretation of this statement might be BP was for running the administration together with Mahendra but Mahendra became an absolute monarch in 1960. Mahendra did not share power with anybody sowing the seed of the extinction of the monarchy in 2008.
NC has democrats and republicans, too. The most prominent of them had been Ganeshman Singh that had sacrificed the most luxurious life for fighting against the despotic Rana rule. He opposed the agreement between the Rana prime minister and king Tribhuvan done in New Delhi in 1951. Then, in 1960 King Mahendra killed the democracy Nepalese had set up under the leadership of NC sacrificing the beautiful lives of hundreds of youths and significantly the first four martyrs such as Sukraraj Shastri (Joshi), Dharma Bhakta Mathema, Gangalal Shrestha, and Dashrath Chand that had happily gave their lives for people’s rights to live humanly. Ganeshman vowed that he would not die without reinstating democracy in Nepal. He reinstated democracy in 1990 sending the king Birendra to live within the four walls of the so-called palace.
The NC had to fight for democracy for the third time. This time, Girija Prasad Koirala: younger brother of BP Koirala had to work with the Maoists to put an end to the monarch in 2008. The then so-called king Gyanendra once again choked democracy in 2005 dissolving the elected parliament and firing the democratically elected prime minister perfectly emulating his father Mahendra. Girija Koirala must have thought enough is enough it was time to chase away the monarch from the country. So, he joined the Maoists that had captured 72 of the 75 districts to fight against the monarchical rule. A breakaway faction of NC called NC-D led by Sher Bahadur Deuba (Current president of NC) sat on the fence. The seven-party alliance led by Girija Koirala along with the Maoists uprooted the monarchy effectively throwing it away in 2008.
Even today NC has some monarchists even though it has been a republican party. For example, sons of BP Koirala particularly the Shashank Koirala and then the Shekher Koirala are still for taking the country back to the previous regime. Shashank had told the BBC interviewer that the monarchy could come back. It provoked the strong reactions from the republicans within his NC party and outside, too. However, after his election to the general secretary of NC, Shashank has remained silent on the monarchy obviously agreeing on the republican setup. So, NC has been never again for the monarchy at all.
NC had been a historical party and a strong party, too favored by all democratic minded people but its leaders had worked either under the influence of the Indian establishment or favoring the monarchy clearly indicating that they had no guts to run the Nepalese administration independently. However, current NC leaders have shown the political maturity going on the correct path of enforcing the new constitution (currently at least in words) rather than indulging in political showdown, and craving for power.
For example, as recently as in October 2015, violating the gentlemanly agreement reached with the CPN-UML, and under the influence of Indian Prime Minister Modi, the then Prime Minister Sushil Koirala ran for the prime minister second time provoking strong anger from the people with the nationalistic feelings, and pushing every political parties except for the dissident Madheshi parties to unite against the pro-Indian Sushil Koirala that faced the humiliating defeat. Poor Sushil could not understand the tactics of Modi to split the Nepalese political parties and then bring political instability to suit his interest.
After winning the elections to the president of NC in April 2016, Sher Bahadur Deuba said that he would claim the power as the leader of the major party in the parliament overlooking the constitutional provision for not bringing a no-confidence vote against the prime minister within two years of taking office. Then, his assistants particularly Balkrishna Khand repeatedly said in the public that the NC needed to lead a new government toppling the current Oli government.
Currently, Deuba has been correctly saying that his party and he will sit in the opposition bench in the parliament, and play a great positive role in enforcing the new constitution. However, if he had said so because he had no parliamentary option to topple the current government, and he had no political means to do so as his party being a major party but not having a majority in the parliament to form a government. Even then he would prove to be a great leader if he were to keep his commitments (that had been rare in the Nepalese politics) to engage in implementing the new constitution, and if he were not to work under the influence of Indian Prime Minster Modi or under any other strong political influences.
In the recent NC convention, the party had said that enforcing the new constitution would face challenges. What does it mean? What are the challenges NC has to face when the majority of Nepalese have owned this constitution? No matter what kind of constitution the constitution assembly crafted certain people would be always there to rebel against it. That had been elsewhere in the world. Nepal could not be exception. Even if all demands of the Madheshi leaders were to meet then another group or groups would come up with new demands. Politicians should be made clear that only voters could meet their demands for an amendment to the constitution.
The State audio media: Radio Nepal aired the morning news on May 1, 2016 stating Sher Bahadur Deuba was complaining about the Oli government not consulting his party (practically him) has appointed ambassadors, and justices. If his statement was for having a share in appointing ambassadors and justices then he had contradicted to his previous statement. Deuba had said that he was not for ‘bhag banda’ (sharing in) after he won the elections to the NC president. Certainly, an appointment of ambassadors probably of justices too brings an enormous wealth to the party and the prime minister if the history of such appointment making the highest bidders is a guide. If no such interest was involved in the political appointments, then Deuba needs to accept that it is the prerogative of the prime minister, and Deuba needs to wait to do the similar things until he becomes a next prime minister.
The second largest party in the current parliament is the CPN-UML. The then Prime minister Sushil Koirala seeking the second term of office under the influence of Indian Prime Minister Modi had been the blessing in disguise for the chairman of CPN-UML KP Oli. Thanks to the power of chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda bringing all political parties together to face the challenges posed by Indian Prime Minister Modi, chairman of CPN-UML won the parliamentary election to the office of prime minister. He formed a current cabinet of 41 members to meet the ambition of all political parties joining hands to fight against the naked Indian interferences in the internal affairs of the country of so proud people. Prime Minister Oli has six deputies that made the reality of the Nepalese proverb: “kahi Navako jatra hadi-gaon-ma” which means anything could happen like the jatra means festival in hadi-gaon which also is not a regular festival in Nepal.
Prime Minister Oli has to manage his two rivals such as Madhav Nepal and Jhalanath Khanal. Both of them had been the prime ministers in the past but their ambition to grab the party position and then certainly the State position has not died out, yet. In fact, Oli won the office of the CPN-UML defeating his rival Madhav Nepal. The recent picture of Oil standing in between Jhalanath Khanal and Madhav Nepal published in ‘gorkhapatra’ showed that Oli was smiling while Khanal and Madhav had the sour faces in other words they were not as happy as Oli had been. Oli needs to keep them happy.
The most dashing thing Prime Minister Oli did was he stood up to the immense pressure Indian Prime Minster Modi put on him to meet the demands of the Madheshi leaders. Modi went on even imposing the blockade on the border entry points totally stopping any flow of goods including petroleum products, and medicines causing tremendous troubles to 30 million Nepalese. I don’t know whether Modi will be able to atone for such a heinous sin in his current lifetime.
Prime Minister Oli sent his deputy Kamal Thapa holding the portfolio of the foreign ministry to New Delhi, India for talks with the Indian foreign minister and the prime minister for lifting the blockade. That did not work. Deputy Prime Minster Thapa came back with am empty hand.
Oli had no choice but wait and see while millions of Nepalese suffered from the shortage of petroleum products that brought the public and private transport to a halt until certain fossil fuels were available on the parallel market. Prices of daily consumer goods including vegetables, food grains and other staples went sky high causing the poor to suffer beyond tolerance. However, Nepalese continued to tolerate the hardship to demonstrate that Nepalese were not for bending to the foreign influence.
Later on, India sent the proposal for amending the new constitution to suit the demands of the Madheshi leaders (practically of Modi, Madheshi leaders had been the proxy for Modi) and their cadres working on the border areas with the lunch and dinner provided by Indian Prime Minster Modi. Surely, India did deny sending any such proposal to Nepal but the Indian newspapers reported it and they firmly stood by their reporting.
The second time, Prime Minister Oli sent his deputy Kamal Thapa was with the proposal of amending the new constitution. One of the dissident Madheshi leaders holding the protest rallies at the border and blocking the border entry points at the behest of Indian Prime Minister Modi said publicly that Thapa should talk with them not with New Delhi. Who cares such a statement of the mercenary leader like him? The amendment to the constitution was not for satisfying the Madheshi leaders but Modi.
Obviously, Indian Prime Minster Modi was happy with the amendment proposal. He opened the door to the official visit of Prime Minister Oli to India at the invitation of Indian Prime Minister Modi easing the blockade and slowly letting flow the goods from India to Nepal and vice versa. Oli had said that he would not visit India as long as the blockade remained in place. Oli received a magnificent welcome but not the hearty one, as Modi did not want to welcome the constitution of Nepal publicly. Consequently, the joint statement of Oli and Modi was not made. So, an amendment to the Nepalese constitution was sufficient only to lift the blockade not for fully satisfying Modi. Do Nepalese need to satisfy any foreign leader or leaders with the constitution passed by more than 90 per cent of the constituent assembly members? Certainly not, Nepalese need to walk on their own path not the path shown by any foreign dignitary.
Then, Prime Minister Oli visited China in March 2016. Nepal and China signed off a transit treaty giving Nepalese rights to travel the third countries through China. Chinese leaders said that it was the rights of Nepalese to have the transit route thorough China. At least, Nepal has the legal base to travel to third countries via China even though the geographical constraints and the distant of the nearest port will be formidable for some time to come until China makes a high-speed train to the Nepal-China border areas. Thanks to Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi, Nepalese managed to have another exit point other than Indian ones. Prime Minister Oli and his Chinese counterpart released a joint statement welcoming the Nepalese constitution.
While Modi blocked Nepal, all political parties and the common folks rallied behind Prime Minister Oli, and underwent immense hardship caused by the embargo but they did not gave in to the demands of Modi.
Now turning to the UCPN-Maoist that was a largest party in the first constituent assembly-cum-parliament elected in 2008. Chairman of the party Prachanda adopted unrealistic strategy. Consequently, his party lost the strategic offices such as the president, vice-president, and the Speaker of the parliament despite being a largest party in the parliament. (Currently, NC had repeated the same mistake).
Chairman Prachanda became the first elected prime minister of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. His first mandate was to assist the members of the parliament to craft a new constitution not to fire the poor Chief of Army Staff Rugmangad Katuwal that was to retire following the age limit in a few months anyway.
Following his anger at the president stopping him from ejecting the CoAS, and appointing a new one in his place, Prachanda simply quit the office giving a great chance to NC and CPN-UML to play a great role in the dirty politics. The man called Madhav Nepal that lost the elections in two constituencies became the prime minister making the mockery of the newly acquired democracy thanks to the undemocratic moves of the Democratic Party NC.
Another worst thing, his colleagues and Prachanda did was imposing the six-day total shutdown of Nepal causing unimaginable agony to the common folks. That was the show of the strength for the Maoists but it had made them immensely unpopular. That was one of the great political blunders Prachanda had committed in a short period of his open political life after not accepting the offer of the leader of United Democratic Madheshi Front Upendra Yadav to vote for his candidate for vice-president in turn for voting the candidate of Prachanda for the president, and then he quitting the office of prime minister. Accepting the offer of Yadav, Prachanda would have his candidate for the president elected, and the Speaker, too.
Then, after the second election to the constituent assembly, UCPN-Maoist became the third largest party thanks to the rebellion by the Vaidhya Maoists. Mohan Vaidhya took away with him some influential leaders from the parent party and set up a new CPN-Maoist-Vaidhya that did not participate in the second election to a constituent assembly but worked very hard to put the UCPN-Maoist in the third place. Every politician and common folk opposed to the Maoists thanked Vaidhya very much for what he did to Prachanda and his party during the election. Vaidhya did so believing that once Prachanda was defeated in the polls, Prachanda would return to Vaidhya to go along with him for a new political movement as Vaidhya thought would be the right one but that did not happen. Vaidhya lost every political game.
Influential leaders such as CP Gajurel, Ram Bahadur Thapa ‘Badal’, Dev Gurung and Pampha Bhusal could have easily win the elections had they participated in the elections. Today, they had nothing but only regrets. They want to go back to the parent party but Vaidhya has been holding them tightly.
Vaidhya has shown that he is the leader trying to swim against the political current. He has already found that it has been hard if not impossible to do so but he does not like to accept this reality. He wants to turn the political current back not knowing it has gone so far during the last 10 years it will not turn to any direction except for moving ahead no matter what Vaidhya might try. So, Vaidhya has been the politician that does not know how to swim in the political current.
Some of his current colleagues said that Vaidhya would be just like Mohan Bikram: another comrade that did not accept the flow of the political current and broke away from the then communist establishment in 1960s and since then he has been running his one-man communist party.
Vaidhya has even lost a powerful and ambitious young leader called ‘Biplav’ that has set up another CPN-Maoist-Biplav and he has been trying to emulate the activities of the first CPN-Maoist in 1990s and 2000s. Nobody is taking ‘Biplav’ seriously, as today the political situation is not so conducive to any revolutionary activity as in 1990s. Biplav’s party might have the same destiny as that of the Vaidhya’s that has been facing a strong rebellion by his powerful party colleagues.
Now, one-time-strong leader of UCPN-Maoist Dr Baburam Bhattarai that has been the second to none but only to Chairman of UCPN-Maoist Prachanda has left the party to form a new party tentatively calling it a “Naya Shakti” means a new force or power. It is good Dr Bhattarai set up a new party that Nepal needs some politicians work sincerely and hard that could be expected from Dr Bhattarai only.
However, the question is whether Dr Bhattarai has been the victim of Indian Prime Minster Modi that has been working very hard to split as many Nepalese political parties as possible to bring a political instability if not chaos to cash in on such a situation in Nepal. Dr Bhattarai has set up a good rapport with the Indian diplomat Ranjit Rae that had been one of the influential guests to the wedding of his daughter recently. If the media report were true Dr Bhattarai’s spouse also a strong Maoist leader Hisila Yemi had had an hours of meeting with Ranjit Rae at the backyard garden of the Hotel Sangrila in Kathmandu before setting up a new party of Dr Bhattarai.
Unlike Vaidhya Dr Bhattarai could read correctly the flow of the political current but he suddenly left his parent party and went to form a coalition with the actors and actresses and former bureaucrats and so on for setting up a new party, and he claimed that his party would win the next elections to be held in three years. Nobody liked to refute his claim but serious political analysts questioned whether it was possible.
The new party of Dr Bhattarai might not have the shortage of cash as he managed to forge a friendship with Indian ambassador Ranjit Rae that would make possible to flow cash from the south to north. Dr Bhattarai could have a cadre of youths in a large number mainly paid by foreign money but whether Nepalese voters would trust him. Dr Bhattarai needs to answer it seriously.
Dr Bhattarai had been prime minister almost for two years. During the period of his administration, he did a remarkable job of widening the streets in Kathmandu and in other urban areas tearing down the illegally built houses and structures. He had demonstrated that if political leaders have a will they could do amazing tasks. Obviously, his successors did not like to take a tip from him.
Now, setting aside the group of Madheshi parties, the fourth major party in the parliament is the RPP-N that has broken away from its parent RPP. It has 24 members in the parliament of 601 members. Despite its tiny number of members it has been the fourth largest party in the parliament as other political parties have split into so large number nobody could have surpassed RPP-N in a number of members of parliament.
Its chairman Kamal Thapa has shown extraordinary political maturity and skill after the promulgation of the new constitution joining the coalition government that has been set up for enforcing the constitution despite his colleagues and he voting against the new constitution in the constituent assembly, and firing his colleague Keshar Bahadur Bista from his party and his son Biraj Bahadur Bista from the cabinet charging them with going against the party agenda. Both the father and the son had been saying that they were for the return of the monarchy and the Hindu State. Kamal Thapa said that it was his political agenda, too but he did not work for it anymore.
Keshar Bahadur Bista had once attempted to set up his own political party holding a mass rally at Jawalakhel in Lalitpur but he did not have sufficient material and political resources. He also did not show skills in mobilizing human and other resources required for a political party. So, he joined the RPP-N of Kamal Thapa but he showed his guts to go against the party boss only to get ejected from the party immediately.
Why the father chose to get fired from the party and his son from the cabinet is not answerable question outright without those guys telling publicly. The only guess could be made is they must have received certain remuneration from the monarchists for taking the issue of the monarchy and the Hindu religion to the streets but Kamal Thapa obviously was bypassed. These father and son guys probably could work on the relatively small remuneration while Thapa needed a large amount.
Former monarch Gyanendra had said that he would be active in the Nepalese politics in the New Year 2073 (2016 mid April to 2017 mid April). Before getting fired from the current cabinet, Biraj along with his few supporters in support of the monarchy went to sweep the streets in front of the Naryanhity Palace that has been converted to a national museum. It indicated the poor chap has received only a small amount. So, since then they have no public activities. That must be the Gyanenda’s political activity in the New Year, as he stated in his address on the occasion of the New Year if he were not to have clandestine activities to suit his character.
Kamal Thapa has been a very smart guy correctly understanding the monarchy could not return at any cost why he needs to hold on to such a dead monarchy rather take the opportunity of being in the government and work for the republican Nepal as a sincere nationalist when the country has been facing the foreign interferences particularly of the Indian Prime Minster Modi.
As a foreign minister of Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal, Kamal Thapa has been doing an extraordinary work on countering the Indian campaign against Nepal in the international arena. He has been in a number of international meetings in which he has correctly presented the picture of the Nepalese constitution that the Indian Prime Minster Modi has been trying to smear it with his grossly wrong propaganda.
The State-run newspaper “gorkhapatra” ran a news item on April 30, 2016 that Nepalese Deputy Prime Minster Kamal Thapa holding the portfolio of the foreign ministry upon arrival at the Kathmandu international airport after visiting America and Britain said that he found the international community had been wrongly informed about the constitution and political events in the way he had never thought of. He also said that both Americans and British spoke in the same language and the style. He had successfully cleared off the wrong impression they had and they had really appreciated the Nepalese constitution and political situation, said Thapa.
The Madheshi political parties except for the one led by Bijya Gacchedar have been on the streets protesting against the new constitution even before the constitution was promulgated. They had been proxy for the Indian Prime Minster Modi. They claimed that they had blocked (Indian border police stopped all Nepal-bound petroleum tankers and other trucks carrying goods for Nepal stating it was the order from above) the border entry and exit points stopping the flow of the supplies to Nepal and of the Nepalese goods to India causing unimaginable troubles to about 30 million Nepalese and dwindling the Nepalese economy pushing it back for five years. They did not have any remorse for such grossly wrong deeds.
These dissident Madheshi leaders did not show even a trace of Nepalese nationalistic feelings going to the neighboring Indian States asking for assistance for putting pressure on the Nepalese government to amend the constitution to suit them the most after Indian Prime Minister Modi stop helping them. Do they have rights to call themselves as Nepalese? Nepalese have no tradition of harming fellow Nepalese what these Madheshi leaders had claimed to have done to starving millions of Nepalese was the untold misery stopping the flow of fuels, foods, medicines and what not. Would Nepalese forgive them for such inhumanly deeds?
These Madheshi leaders needed to stand trial for the harm they had done to Nepalese in the divine court for the believers or in the nature’s court for the non-believers. The government of Oli has not taken any actions against those Madheshi leaders even though it has been due long ago to save the Nepalese people from the dastardly deeds of those Madheshi leaders. They had been doing so because of their ignorance of what they should do and what they should not do. Hopefully, they would soon be enlightened and stop doing those nonsense things.
Follow Gacchedar, and enjoy the ministerial offices rather than taking the non-issues as issues to the streets. Next time, probably, they would not win any elections. Even today only one of them was elected others were defeated in the elections. They had no mandate from the people doing anything.
If they have guts they need to wait for elections to win the majority in the parliament and then amend the constitution following the constitution. Currently, they have been violating the constitution: the law of the republic the sovereign people’s representatives had crafted and adopted. Who has given them the authority to go against such a law of the land?
The United Democratic Front (UDMF) had 84 seats in the 601-member previous constitution but the number was reduced to 54 in the next elections to a new constituent assembly because of the unrealistic political activities of the Madheshi leaders.
Upendra Yadav was a hero and a kingmaker immediately after the elections to the previous constituent assembly as none of the three large political parties such as UCPN-Maoist, NC, and CPN-UML had majority to form a new government or have absolute words for crafting a new constitution. UCPN-Maoist needed UDMF to have the required majority in the parliament to form a new government or getting its candidates for president, vice-president and speaker elected. Similarly, NC and CPN-UML needed UDMF to do the same. UDMF had a good opportunity of playing a role of the kingmaker, as UCPN-Maoist was not going along with NC and CPN-UML and vice versa.
Upendra Yadav wrongly chose the alliance of NC and CPN-UML only to get his candidate for vice-president elected. Yadav knew that NC and CPN-UML had never been so favorable to the Madheshi issues as the UCPN-Maoist had been. Later on, he chose to go along with the UCPN-Maoist when it had been too late. Yadav made one mistake after another downgrading himself from the leader of UDMF to his own tiny party.
For all the wrong deeds they had done during the tenure of the previous constituent assembly, Madheshi voters had voted them out of the offices except for one in the second elections to a new constituent assembly.
Obviously, these Madheshi leaders had not learned the lessons from the defeat in the elections, and they had been taking the issues to the streets they needed to take to the people. They might go down to the history of Nepal as the defeated politicians that could not honor the people’s verdict given in the elections.
So, what the politicians needed was to learn from their mistakes and not to repeat the mistakes second time not to mention repeatedly. However, some of the political leaders did not want to learn the lessons taught by the voters and the situation created by their mistakes and they were well ready to commit the same mistakes repeatedly. For example, not going along with CPN-UML and UCPN-Maoist under the foreign influences, NC did not take the most prestigious offices such as president, and vice-president, and another crucial office such as Speaker of parliament giving only the office of prime minister to CPN-UML. Clearly, NC leaders did not take the tips from the mistakes of UCPN-Maoist that lost those offices in the previous constituent assembly-cum-parliament despite having the largest number of slots among the political parties in the parliament. UCPN-Maoist cashed in on the mistake of NC, as did NC in the mistake of UCPN-Maoist in the past.
May 2, 2016
Annex:
How To Save From Extinction
For the world to become peaceful, each country or society has to become peaceful. Here, I (S.N. Goenka: Vipassana guru) would again like to quote a very important exhortation from the Buddha to the Vajjian republic of Licchavis. The Buddha gave the following practical instructions, which would make the Licchavis unassailable:
• As long as they maintain their unity and meet regularly, they will remain invincible.
• As long as they meet together in unity, rise in unity and perform their duties in unity, they will remain invincible.
• As long as they do not transgress their ancient principles of good governance and their system of justice, they will remain invincible.
• As long as they revere, respect, venerate, and honor their elders and pay regard to their words, they will remain invincible.
• As long as they protect their women and children, they will remain invincible.
• As long as they venerate the objects of worship inside and outside their republic, and maintain monetary support for them, they will remain invincible.
There were many sects in those days, too with their own temples and places of worship. Wisdom lies in keeping all people happy and satisfied. They should not be subjected to harassment, which compels them to become enemies of the state. Their places of worship should receive adequate protection. As long as the rulers provide protection and support to saintly people, they will remain invincible.
This wise counsel of the Buddha is also applicable today to maintain peace and harmony in the world. We cannot ignore issues related to religion if we are to be successful in bringing peace to the world.
