Oped»
Once upon a time
AUG 26 -
It was the second week of June in 1962. It was one-and-a-half years since King Mahendra had nipped the democratically elected government in the bud and was consolidating his power. He had declared that the parliamentary system was not suited to the genius and culture of the country and was preparing the framework of an indigenous political system called the Panchayat. Nepali Congress renegades Tulsi Giri and Bishwa Bandhu Thapa were his main advisers on a party-less model. Parties were banned altogether. The people were mostly mute and silence was inferred as consent. But the intellectuals were not forthcoming with spontaneous support as well.
Giri and Thapa had been obedient and loyal servants of Mahendra and were rewarded with a close access to the throne as the chairman and the minister of the Cabinet respectively. Obliged, they had declared that the king was the unchallengeable leader in the country. They decided to celebrate the king’s birthday as a mark of their fealty. To celebrate the occasion, they organised a high-level intellectual gathering called the National Intellectual Conference with a view to getting a tacit or overt endorsement for the king’s undemocratic step. The conference was participated by two to three delegates from each district plus some selected ‘intellectuals’. The latter group consisted of political renegades like Shailendra Kumar Upadhyaya, Kedarman Byathit and the likes who had changed their loyalty to the king, but also personalities
like Surya Prasad Upadhyaya who had not outright welcomed the king’s step. I participated as one of the delegates from Ilam.
I wish to refer to two aspects of the conference that I believe is especially relevant at the current juncture. The first was that the delegates were selected by the Bada Hakim of the respective districts. Apart from selecting me, the Ilam Bada Hakim had not tried to influence me in any manner, but it turned out that a lot of Bada Hakims had given open orientation to many delegates, particularly in the West, so as to make them endorse the new system.
The other aspect was that the conference was inaugurated by Mahendra himself who made it clear at the outset that there was full freedom of expression in the conference. As a young man (I was 28 then), I took the king’s order literally and during my turn to speak, I took a very critical view. During the first ever general election held in Nepal I was studying political science in an Indian university where I had boasted that Nepal would soon catch up to India in terms of the democratic process. Thus, when Mahendra dismissed the parliament, I was saddened to the core of my heart as I feared we would lose our face in the civilised world.
In the conference, each speaker was allotted 15 minutes, but I had raised some sensitive issues and was allowed some extra time. I want to recall three important points I made back then.
First, I made a critical appraisal of the institution of the monarchy. I said all monarchs were not benevolent and cited the example of Nero the Roman emperor who was fiddling while Rome burned. My conclusion was that rule by many was better than rule by one person who may turn eccentric like Nero.
Secondly, I assailed the tendency to criticise Nepali Congress. I called this tendency an action of kicking a dead tiger. I was not even an active member of the NC, but as someone who had evaluated NC programmes and policies I was of the opinion that the country was headed in the right direction before the march was halted.
The third point I made was with regard to the coinage of the term ‘anti-national elements.’
The local administration was the arbitrary judge of who was anti-national. Several intellectuals and political workers were dubbed antinational elements and were put behind bars. I said that this was a dangerous weapon being wielded by officers with questionable moral characters. I pointed that there were many instances of anti-national elements inside the administration including at the central level and it would be worthwhile to identify them and take necessary action rather than running after innocent political workers and intellectuals. I had made full use of the king’s permission and I was not brought before any administrative inquiry.
As I said, I admired NC at the time: its adherence to a political ideology and a concomitant programme of enhancing the lot of the common people, specially the poor. I had admired its adoption of democratic socialism. That was my political tiger. That tiger was put to comma by a stronger lion, king Mahendra. Now I lament the death of that beloved tiger. There was no one who could revive the tiger after the death of BP Koirala. His younger brother tried to make it a dynastic institution which stopped him from being the rare statesman. The present NC leadership is a hoard of hungry jackals interested in grabbing power. While the UML and the Maoists got the reign of the country for nine months each, the NC had it for nine years. NC ministers got pot
bellied over time; the poor people got nothing. The NC is suffering from a stock of rotten leaders. However, I see a silver-lining amidst the thick cloud. The recent election has fielded about 50 percent young blood in the NC organisations at the lower levels. This trend may also be reflected at the central level. In that young blood lies some hope. Could the tiger be revived once again?
knsad66@yahoo.com
Posted on: 2010-08-27 08:50
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