Media reports Sunday said that the dreaded swine flu symptoms were being noticed across the country, but the authorities have advised the people not to panic. What else could they have done, the country itself being in the traumatic state it presently is in? There are also reports that road accidents in the country take a large number of lives everyday. With daredevil drivers on the road and the traffic situation being what it is in the city and elsewhere in the country, road fatalities are only to be expected. Who, after all, cares for traffic rules and speed limits or cares for the safety of others as long as one can get to the destination fast. 

With the legislative business of the Constituent Assembly at a stand-still for months, the government is finding it more and more difficult to dole out money for the salaries of its employees — who incidentally now also include Maoist combatants — and for development including health and education activities. The stock market in the country is on a downward trend, and the millions who line up to invest in new stock issues will be left high and dry if the present situation were to continue. And at home, the housewife (or husband) is finding it more and more difficult to run the household due to soaring prices — and sometimes unavailability — of essential daily goods.

Just the other day, there were reports that Matrika Yadav-led Maoists had seized land in eastern Nepal’s Tarai. And on Sunday, this newspaper reported that the mainstream Maoists, who have promised to return the land seized during their 10-year killing spree, seized over 100 hectares of land in Kapilvastu district. Who can do anything about this? The authorities, even if they cared, can do nothing because of their pre-occupation with the Maoist agitation-cum-carnival. What could be more peaceful than protests in the form of singing and dancing on the streets and blocking any official work from being conducted?  But who cares? Almost taking the cake in the myriad of problems is the just-concluded Maoist agitation.

The Maoist street agitation to establish civilian supremacy — no, not to come to power as many falsely think — has been on the cards for a long time. In fact, since the Maoist-led government decided to take the plunge and resigned following the COAS affair. (The affair negated, as an afterthought, the Maoist concept of civilian supremacy because an elected government can do what it deems right at the slightest of pretexts.) At the end of the series of protests last week, the Maoist chief warned of much stronger protests should their call go unheeded. What “stronger” protests means might have to be worked out by the Maoist leaders themselves. It may mean occupying government offices and shutting down all official work for the common people as the streets were closed in the course of their latest protests. But even the Maoist protests do not take the cake. But then who does?

It is the country’s and the parties’ most visionary and able leaders who should take the cake. They and they alone are the winners. The Maoists have been raising funds through what can only be termed dubious means. And yet their leaders have the funds to go north seeking new alliances with a country, despite being a communist state, that was once a staunch supporter of the monarchy in this country. Their alliance with the extreme left in the south has been well chronicled in the past. The leaders of another left party, the UML, have been routinely going to the south to garner support and, allegedly, to take directions.

The Nepali Congress leaders, with their long and well established links, were not to be outdone; and they have been making periodic journeys to the south. Their top leader, G.P. Koirala, is presently in Singapore undergoing treatment after being whisked off in an ambulance jet aircraft. Who meets the costs for the transport and treatment? Who else but the taxpayers? After all, this is the least the Nepali people can do for a person who brought the Maoists to the present state and the country to the present situation. The political leaders who have returned after their visits down south have gone on record as saying that the leaders in the south are not very pleased with the Maoists, indicating just how much they care for their principles and how much for what the down south desires.

The political leaders of this country, therefore, should take the cake for forgetting the very people they have pledged to serve and support at all times. The Constituent Assembly formed primarily to frame a new constitution for the country but also to serve as a legislative assembly has remained deadlocked for months for no sane reason. But our visionary leaders are more adept in pushing forward their own agendas and ideologies than trying to break the present impasse. This applies to the ruling parties as well as to the Maoists and their allies. All of them are equally responsible for bringing the nation to the present pass. The leaders may think that they have all the attention they need by doing what they do, but the fact is that history will remember them not as heroes who gave all for the sake of the people but as villains who helped dismember a perfectly healthy body. 

It is still not too late to mend ways and not to think of entering the record books for dubious and controversial activities. The leaders who say that the people are supreme must act the talk; and despite the present time being a critical one, the needs of the people, who have to struggle for their very survival, must come first. There can and should be no excuse such as the oft-repeated one of the present time being an “interim period” and that everything will be on course after the new constitution is written and promulgated. The new constitution, as everyone knows, will just be the beginning of a long, hard struggle. It will not be a magic wand that will change everything. But even for this to happen, the leaders should learn to stop taking a narcissistic look at themselves and their parties, and think and care more about the people and the country. But can we except anything better from our leaders who take the cake for all the wrong reasons?

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