Letters»
Development
DEC 30 - While going through your recent editorial “Awakening” published on December 27 and the ADB representative’s Letter to the Editor on the need for accurate media representation on development (“Misrepresentation”, Dec 29), I felt that development still is understood differently by different people. In the Nepali sense, it is all too often assumed to be a desirable end in itself, though no one has yet worked out in NPC, whether development is, in fact, a good thing, and if so what form it should take.
Bhutan’s King talks of Gross National Happiness, a term that has made him famous among the anti-globalisation crusaders, for measuring his country’s progress. In fact, after sacrificing some time in the field, many foreign aid workers in Nepal have concluded that Nepalis – who, in the fifties, sixties and early seventies, led rich, elegant and simple lives - were nearly self-sufficient and unencumbered by many modern problems, before the advisers from the developed countries came.
Thus, Nepalis might have more to teach the “developed countries”. However, the ADB representative is right that Nepal might be heading for growth amidst conflict. Despite all, including democratic reform efforts in the past 12 years, Nepalis remain economically poor. This is why some of us are beginning to champion the merits of development driven politics, which also encompasses, gender, health, and rural education and not just poverty alleviation as a target.
Without doubt, many Nepali hands abroad will still say Nepal’s underlying problems are a result of stagnant foreign policy, inability to court further aid and inefficiency of foreign aid disbursement. But, the challenge, in reality, is: How to transform our tragic, fatalism bent national psyche to one that can claim back its lost development soul? I think the media here has a major role to play in arousing a national awakening on development. It should not just limit itself to covering democratic transformation and regression based politics that we are all fed up with.
Surya B Prasai,
KathmanduPosted on: 2003-12-30 02:55
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