National interests should always come before politics

This writer very humbly says that neither is she a legal expert nor a wellknown advocate of the complicated political scenario in Nepal. But she is at least able to say in a layman’s view, that what the political parties were trying to do was wrong and a weak ceremonial president had to put her steps down and say "enough is enough". Yes, we are talking of the controversial citizenship bill which the present alliance government had tried to forcefully force down the throat of the president and also the people. As a completely neutralist who is also a nationalist, what the parties in power were and still are wanting to do was wrong and is still wrong, no matter what politicians say or experts are trying to explain.

One does not have to go back too far in history when a country was sold to another power because of the greed of some politicians. We are talking about Sikkim, which was annexed by India, through the traitorlike policy of a popularly elected person called Lendhup Dorje, who died in poverty in a small township of India and he was neglected not only by the nationalist people of Sikkim but also by the Indian government itself, which thought this man had already done enough for them and then after that, he was ‘useless’. Now we are seeing similar developments in our own country, where the ‘popular’ politicians are all like puppets of some foreign powers. The first decision of such leaders after the overthrow of the institution of monarchy in Nepal was to provide citizenship papers to more than four million people. This is a magnanimous gesture that even much more developed and bigger nations cannot afford to show. But all this happened in the name of establishing Nepal as a republic and through the backing of foreign powers, who actually have no concern about the wellbeing of Nepal and the Nepalis.

But sadly for Nepal, there is not one Lendhup Dorje, but dozens of them only too eager to please their foreign bosses. They will do anything to earn money and for the political leaders, to stay in power. They could be ostracised by the Nepali people if they commit a grave crime that would affect the sovereignty of the country and the pride of most nationalist Nepalis.

It is equally flabbergasting why such a person like Deuba is still the top leader of the Nepali Congress and now a prime minister of this country for a whopping five times when he has failed to do anything for the country and the impoverished people in the past. But those who stick to their guns and foreign powers will simply say, this is ‘loktantra and politics’, such ‘undemocratic’ acts are normal. The people want change and development, not only in the shrill voices of the politicians saying how well off the Nepali people are now that we have ‘loktantra’, though they are a suffering lot, in concrete things which will make living or surviving in this inflation hit the market and insecure society a reality they have to face every day.

But those who preach to us about democracy and freedom, just keep silent when not only the leaders themselves but their wives also are appointed to important posts and also become members of parliament. Presently there are also reports on how Deuba’s ambitious wife has been nominated as a proportional candidate from her husband’s party, but she also has the desire to succeed her husband and become the next prime minister of the country. This is totally absurd, but even the firebrand youths who are active in politics, keep their mouths shut over such unethical political moves. If leaders in the past had tried to do such a thing, these same fellows would have been up in arms. Specially the former king was a target of these so-called democrats.

To come back to where we started, the present citizenship bill is also not a good development. We are seeing protests and protection of the move of the president and anyone can say that this issue has been taken as a political ‘push and shove’ move. Despite the protests from the political parties in the present alliance and also so-called ‘experts’ especially those in the legal field, it was dismaying to hear even the former president of the country Dr Ram Baran Yadav, taking sides. Yes, we all know that Dr Yadav was an influential leader of the Nepali Congress and he became a minister several times when the late Girija Prasad Koirala was the prime minister. Now that he has stepped down from the prestigious position of being the first president of a republic Nepal, he should at least maintain the dignity of his former post and not come out again as a party supporter. Even the speaker of the House cannot do this according to international politics. Here we are seeing the present speaker of the House wanting to contest elections and a former speaker being nominated as a proportional candidate of the Maoist. In fact this same fellow was involved in a sordid scandal before he was arrested and the present speaker has already been indicted by a court, yet he is in such a prestigious post. Dignity and any sense of moral values seem to be not there at all in their thinking, similarly also among the top leaders of the present five-party alliance and also the media-loving young activists.

While individual mistakes can be taken lightly as the political parties have done now, issues of national interests should never be put aside for party or political gains. It is sad to say, we probably have more Lendhup Dorjes than Sikkim and because for just pleasing foreign powers, especially India or for political and financial gains, our leaders and also the civil society leaders and a very partisan media as well, they all are working not in the national interests of the nation.

No one should forget politics is politics, but national interest should come first if they don’t want to become another Lendhup Dorje. Forgetting how we have been alerted about not letting Nepal be another Sri Lanka, are the present political leaders pushing this independent nation to be another Sikkim?