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Wait till the cows come home
DEC 14 - For now, forget that there will be any agi-
tation or anything like that. I mean no one can be expected to rise up against the totally unwarranted and full-scale continued royal intervention. What the press has been flaying as regression today will not be deemed so tomorrow.
Just in case it has gone missing on anyone, here is an encore: The agitation is least likely to take off in any appreciable style till the cows come home. The fact that the political parties have come up with a staggered movement at long last suggests a defeated mentality already.
Announcing a staggered agitation is an exercise which could at best be compared to an equally futile exercise of someone trying to sing a song rather than crying the loss of something which is both valued and cherished. Someone who is more cut and dry could compare this with the entreaties of a beggar on the road. How many pedestrians are moved anyway?
What is also true is since the people, too, are aware of the fact that the political parties cannot mean what they are saying in public, they are not taking anything seriously at all. Now consider for a moment what could come out of the tenth round of the agitation, which was launched on Friday?
Going by the most conservative estimate, the impression is the tenth round of agitation, too, will peter off in the December and early January cold, while they huddle inside the room and come out and announce many more editions in countless repetitions. Yet there will be no one who will take them seriously at all given the commitment.
So much so that detached newspaper reporters will one fine day report that the agitation has entered hundredth phase and that what pass as political parties are planning to launch yet another phase. The harried reporters will still not find anything to write home about except, of course, the fact that they will be quoting a new generation of leaders comprising only of punks.
Quoting the punks will be the only interesting aspect of journalism in the years to come. But the initial impression is that it will still be an entertaining job since one can expect a punk to be forthright enough in his views than the current generation of leaders known to retract their statement at regular intervals.
The act of staging demonstration must be a spontaneous effort. This has not been so. In fact, there were many who tuned in to their radio sets to check whether there was any reaction from political leaders circa October 4, 2002, the day when King Gyanendra dismissed Sher Bahadur Deuba in a highly unwarranted manner. People know what they were waiting for on the lurch all this while.
Nostalgically the demonstrations were highly spontaneous in 1989. That was because there were not many people who had seen the political leaders in true colors. Those who had seen had forgotten much of what they had seen before. The fact that the agitation is refusing to impress is reminding one of an aphorism that reads if wishes had wings camels would certainly fly.
One thing is for sure. The contemporary youth has seen all of them in true colors. I for one saw many of them beginning under the multiparty sky as a beggar, working hard enough and finishing up as a millionaire. Some of those I know have acquired aristocratic taste in wine, women and song in the last twelve years or so.
Their acquired habits demands more than a passing reference, though. It was said about a certain leader of a once very popular party that no one used to prefer to walk along with him since he was bound to stop every now and then.
The reason being his footwear used to give in and that he had to mend it right in the middle of the road himself before he could lead the pack on trusting two legs. This was enough to embarrass others who could afford quality footwear in consequence of their economic status.
Well the point is the same guy joined the millionaires’ club, touched the very moon or so to say as Laxmi Prasad Devkota would say and came back to earth like a shooting star in a spectacular collapse. Now he is praying not only to be out of jail, but to be left alone since he has apparently not only acquired enlightenment in Nepalese politics but has has surfeit of all that is beautiful.
There are many who could be secretly praying to be not only out of jail but also making entreaties to the powers that be to have mercy on them at a time when only the lucky can be expected to survive. One can literally hear people making entreaties to the powers that be these days. You have to have instinct. C’mon who would want to go back to jail after making million for doing nothing in a matter of no time at all?
One feels pity for people like Girija Prasad Koirala and Madhav Kumar Nepal. Both of them are desperately expecting someone to call them up on their mobile sets offering something swashbuckling. The call has never come through, neither have the demonstrators hit the streets in thousands. What do you do under these circumstances? Put on philosopher’s cap, what else?
It appears that none of them are cognizant of the fact that King Gyanendra or whoever else has prevailed to push the nation on the brink of precipice were ever trying to solve the problem. In fact, I would go to the year 1990 itself to trace the origin of the crisis now dogging the political system.
In fact, the system appears to have been heavily poisoned much before someone got down to doctor the constitution before it was promulgated in 1990. That was a prelude and those who kept their mouth shut could be billed as conspirators since they ruled out progressive ways early on. Said conversely, someone was working really hard to ensure the doom and date of democracy while you and me were snoring away or hatching up pegs after pegs.
However, it is still wrong to say that restoring what is democracy is an impossible task. It is not. What is impossible is to raise the awareness level of the mass, which as the BBC once famously said, is happy to rummage in a pile of shit rather than rise up defiance and lay claim on sovereign rights which belongs to it for the asking. Hence all those who want to ride the crest again will have to wait till the cows come home.Posted on: 2003-12-15 05:06
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