Nepal Chintan: All We Need is a Good Leadership

Nepal Chintan: Who should lead our country?

By Suvecha

The country is in a very sensitive situation. The once peaceful Nepal is one of the most conflict driven countries in the South Asian region. Democracy has been chucked out the door. And – right now there is no one the people can look to for leadership.

The King is leading the country in a regime that does not allow for any protest. Student organisations are being shut down. Media freedom is still under restriction despite the State of Emergency. People are still being barred from travelling overseas. The present situation is not a long term solution and several would argue that it is not even a short-term solution.

A constitutional democracy is needed. I will not go against that. We cannot just disregard the Royal family. They are a part of our proud history. But, we need a mechanism to monitor them and be a representative of the people. We need someone to voice the concerns of the people. This needs to be a group of people (the government) that will work for the country and solve the problems it is going through (without putting loads of cash in their pockets).

The political leaders are no good. Look where they have led us to? Corruption, bickering and power play have made us one of the least developed countries in the world. Even with their joint seven party agenda right now no one will believe that they have reformed. It is just a slight hope of the people but that too will be short-lived once they have the opportunity to grab power.

The Maoists will not be accepted as leaders. The terror they have bought will not be easily forgotten. They have escalated the situation in Nepal. Right now in the villages people live in absolute fear.

So, who shall lead this nation? Who will solve the problems? Who can the people depend on?

If anyone can think of someone please let me know. Our country needs someone to lead – for the people. I will promise you I will support them 110 percent.

24 Comments »

this looks like a grade 6 essay

Comment by b — 5/11/2005 @ 4:26 pm

if it is a grade six essay then please tell me the ‘easy’ answer to this question

Comment by suvecha — 5/11/2005 @ 4:40 pm

Roryal family may be the part of your proud history, sorry, not mine.

Comment by XYZ — 5/11/2005 @ 6:40 pm

Suvechhaji,
Any person reading your write-ups already knows that you are just posing a rhetoric question, Kikaso ta? You are bitten by new generation bug. The answer will be ” New Generation Hold Power”, Haina ra Suvechhaji? Politcal naiviety not withstanding in the article, I support you, let the old generation leadership be supplanted by the new one.

Comment by Vishu — 5/11/2005 @ 6:59 pm

Yes, it is a good article. But to do all that we need to have an early election of the lower house.

Comment by Sujan Rajbhandary — 5/11/2005 @ 7:14 pm

I appreciate Suvechha Ji’s article. She has tried to express her feeling may not be professionaly written but she has a given a thought…

Comment by Nepali Akash — 5/11/2005 @ 10:46 pm

The easy answer is you and I , the Nepali people. We need to create a new party with new faces ( not from any other corrputed parties)with new vision with solid foudations on People’s voices. The party that fills the inspirations of the Nepali people.

What I am trying to say here is we need a 21th century party who can think about the future of Nepal. The past failed parties were created in the Ranas era, I give credit them for throwinf the Ranas system, but they lacked the vision. In 2007, the old parties put the Rana (PM) after throwing the Ranas system. So you can guess, these parties never had faith on true People’ power.

The new party has to understand the role of India not only in Nepal but also all the SA region. We Nepalis must be in position to deal with India rather than blaming India for our failed old leaderships from the Old parties (NC or UML). I think most Leaders of India are willing to open discuss with Nepal in any case. We must build a good relationship with India which can be done without loosing the National Interest of Nepal.

Comment by ashupati — 5/12/2005 @ 2:04 am

i am really pissed off by such rhetorics. leaders are bad. parties are not good. monarchy is needed. is there anything new you guys could say?

from where does leader emanate? does s/he come from other planets or is the product of our own society?

why is monarchy needed? what is there to be proud of? why hasn’t nepal progressed despite the monarchy ruling since last 300 years? have you read history of nepal apart from school history-text books?

Comment by jhyau — 5/12/2005 @ 2:13 am

The shah has made a great contribution, in Nepal history with the help of the Nepali people, uniting the Nepal. We cannot ignore the facts. Yes, There are ill practices in the Monarchy system in Nepal. We need to correct them with voices of Nepali people. The monarch should come under- laws just like any orther Nepali people. No one can be above the laws. I personally think that the house of Gorkha will last for a fews more decade in Nepal.

Comment by Reality — 5/12/2005 @ 3:37 am

Looking for answers is a verticla thinking….and sometimes there are no answers…

When you are taking about a leader, i think King G is a very good leader..as he is successfully doing what he wanted to do..

..I dont know if he has made the right decesion or not.. but looking at the leaders we have.. he is the best of the lot…

few of us love to live in a hypothetical world.. if we had this.. if we had that…
Well if aunti had balls… she would be uncle..

…. you have to ask yourself what is the “ROOT cause”

Comment by b — 5/12/2005 @ 4:59 am

Boys and girls of Nepal, is it this hard to find someone?

we should think more and come up with solution instead of saying this column is naive. Even in naivety it brings up question that is on the minds of all Nepali people.

Who will lead from young generation, will you? Too much talk no action

Comment by shiv — 5/12/2005 @ 6:29 am

It is not a good leader that we need. What we need is a good political system. We need a system with well functioning democratic institutions and implementation of laws. We need a system where corrupts would be made accountable for their actions and punished by law. In such as system with strong institutions even a mediocre person (be it Girija or Madhav Nepal) would perfom well. He will perform well, because the system will make him peform well. US president Bush, is a butt of joke, but still their system is so good that he is doing quite good and is very popular (at least in his country US).

Comment by mangal — 5/12/2005 @ 6:36 am

mate,

all systems are good.. its the people that abuse the system

Comment by b — 5/12/2005 @ 10:05 am

I have been reading this site [for] a month. I was controlling myself from not writing my views in your blog. But, I could not resist the temptation.

I am surprized to find many KG supporters. You kathmandu elites, you were the one who were on the streets demanding hanging to your current beloved hero- right after the Royal Massacre. I am fully aware that the Nepali Congress made a mockerey of the Multi-party democracy. But, I am surprized to see in [this] blog that everyone is blaming all the political parties who represented in the house of parliament. Why not point the finger to the guilty only.

Further, I am surprized, to see nobody blaming the RPP. Remember?? What S. B. Thapa had said soon after the election? ” Satta ko sancho aba Ra. Pra. Pa. Ko Hat ma Chha.” They were the one who were termed as “Musa” by the then Prime Minister L. B. Chand. Each and every wrongdoings during the multiparty days emanated from these Pancheys of the Panchayat era. All the horsetrading were done to keep these greedy guys intact.

Everyone who writes in your blog expects the leaders to be honest, staying in a rented house, registering their children in the village schools, simple looking, wearing a Slippers and moving on the streets hastily to catch a Public transport. And, finally these so called elites wish the politicians, as lawmakers, made rules and regulations to suite them and their God fathers. They can digest a smugler hiding behind the black glasses of Mercedes, Prado and Pajero but their stomach gets upset in no time when the lamakers of the country are waived of the import duty in one piece of vehicle.

These Slaves can digest a towering building of some Made and Manange and always aspire for a peg of whisky from them. But, alas! irony on the contrary- they can not digest a lawmaker buying 4 annas of land and having erected a single storeyed building in Ktm. They think that all the people of the country, except the politicians of Bahudal era, have a birth right of taking bribe, smugling, Looting, encroaching govt. properties etc. If every one in the country is of such nature then how can you find a good leader?

They are members of our society and we are the ones who voted for them. So, guys try to have glance on your tainted face before pointing a finger towards the political figures. See the beauty of democracy- we can throw a veteran leader in the next election, if we thought they did not live up to our expectation. But, you foolish elite of Ktm. Do you think you can through the authoritarian rules of your two Godfathers (KG and Prachanda).

Why I mentioned these two in the same category? Do you know why Yadu Gautam (an UML candidate for the 2056polls) of Rukum was killed by the Maoist? You guys try to find some truth by youself too. Don’t just get carried away by NTV and RN and the poor Rising Nepal (Most trustworthy media for you). Late Yadu had seen Prachanda coming out of Nirmal Niwas one early morning of 2055 winter.

They do not make a hue and cry when Some very rich relative of KG gets 12 Million for treatment abroad. And the other day the very suspicious mass screams at the leaders and cadres who received a sum of 50,000 to 250000 for Dashain Celebration. Now think seriously- Were these people not asked by the Maoist to flee their houses? Did they have houses in Ktm like you elites do? Were they not threatened of their life? Were they been able to harvest their crops? Were they able to carry their properties and the livestocks along with them?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!! they were the internal refugees.

But, still you elites try to bully those ill-fated bretheren of yours. Congrats!!! you hypocrites, carry on this way and you will see a day is meant for you too.

Then We will laugh at you.

So, Suvechha! do not worry-leaders (of your likes) will definitely come in to the fore at the crunch hours. This is what the history of the world tells. Don’t play a dangerous game to find someone like the KG. He would have better ruled just after Prithvinarayan Sah not in the 21st century.

OK thanks for giving me this opportunity.

A unbiased middle class

Comment by R. Pande — 5/12/2005 @ 5:24 pm

It is saddening to see that the younger generation of Nepal is such a confused lot.

Nepal has a leader, a wise and intelligent leader, who is committed to multiparty democracy and good governance. Unfortunately we are so bogged up with the lies and corruption of the last fifteen years that we begin to feel that even someone who might be genuinely concerned about Nepal cannot be trusted.

We have given the political parties 15 years to establish good goverance and 9 years to stop the Maoists. Can Nepal or I rather say the younger generation give more corruption time to these hoodlums to tear our beloved country to bits and then hand it over to India on a Golden platter, like Sikkim. The younger generation should realize that it is they who has to bear the burden of national debt and pay for the billions that was robbed.

Ask yourself can you afford this. At this time we need PEACE and stability. His Majesty has said “Give me 3 years to bring about peace and a functional multiparty democracy”, is that bad. We gave them 15 years why not 3 years to His Majesty.

I regret I am disillusioned by the political forces that cannot think for themselves and need other countries to tell them how they should behave.

Comment by Sunil — 5/12/2005 @ 5:50 pm

Sunil,
“His Majesty” may have said give him three years to bring about peace —but look at the tactics he has been using. Taking immesne measures to silence the youth, imprison nay and everyone who dares question him or has the ability to possible question him does not make for a peaceful soecity.
If “Peace” is synonomous with repression; torture; corruption then yes, by all means support the monarcy–but if you choose to do so, you do it at your peril!

We do not need other countries to tell us how to behave- Suvecha has a point, there needs to be a younger generation of leaders who understand that the People of Nepal need and deserve a change of guard – the Kathmandu Elite need to get off their high horse and relaise that just becuase they have the ability to continue to live their lives the way they have always done does not mean that the state of the country is good – the real struggles of the Nepali people are lived and toiled in the villages outside of Kathmandu.

Many in Kathmandu do not understand the plight of the people in the villages who are caught between the cross hairs of the Maoists, Royal Nepal Army and the new mobs of Vigilantes that have sprung up—what has “His Majesty” done for them in securing the peace so far that we should give him the benefit of the doubt?

Comment by Kripa — 5/12/2005 @ 9:32 pm

R. Pande,
Be practical and have your priorities.

Priority Number 1: Save our Nepal from the Terrorists. If these terrorists have their way, there will be no Nepal. Don’t take it for granted that ‘Nothing will happen to Nepal’. The threat is real, realise it. 12000 plus deaths should be enough for anyone to feel the ‘gravity of the situation’.

Priority Number 2: Have a Real Democracy. Democracy cannot be built on the foundation of Corruption, Bribery, Nepotism ( Like a friendship cannot be built on the foundation of lies & dishonesty ). If we let Corruption pervade, the real and wise leaders will not rise within the ranks in a political parties. Corruption will not allow the elected representatives to work for their constituency. Corruption allows people like Sujata Koiralla to rise in the ranks of a party. Nepal will not have wise and courageous leaders and will be a big loss to the Nation.

Priority Number 3: Economy. We need food & shelter, so we need jobs and business. We need to find ways to increase Nepal’s GDP. We have to facilitate trade with all neighbours.

You need to understand the full consequences of corruption. It is an unforgivable sin.

Comment by Bir Ghale — 5/12/2005 @ 10:51 pm

R. Pande,

Cool down. You must understand the role of the Shah in Nepal. You cannot ingore the fact the A Great leader of Nepal Uniter became from the Shah Monarchy.

What we need to learn is to make wise decission when we have an opportunity. Look at what your People’s parties what they have brought in Nepal, they brought Pajero Culture, dividing culture among the Nepalis people, no respect for law i.e. GPK even show the respect for constitutional body( corruption Control) which is created with his system. Now you tell us they did have an opportunity to water the democracy in Nepal.

What your elected leader did when the whole BK family were killed? Your MKN ran away from commission to investigate, your GPK PM did not raise any issues to investigate Royal killing in a Scientific way. Now , He barks like a Grand Design. You middle class are fooled wherever you from either KTm or POK or any villages of Nepal.

The parties must take a full responsibility of their miscalulations, and poor decisions that they have made so far in Nepal. I will give crdit of MOHan MOhan Adikari era, that was the only time Nepal had peace and hope for the lower class people of Nepal. Look at his economic policy the Most popular ” Build our villages ousselves”. Other than that you tell me what NC did in Nepal. What UML did In Nepal? A simple answer is corrption, corruption corrution, confused Nepalis, created Conflict in the Nepali society and so on.

These two main parties are not democratics themselves, look your GPk how long he has been Chairman of NC. Look at you MKN, how long he has been in Secreatary even he cannot lead the party the way he supposed to. Your UML went in government, under KG’ terms that was right when the UML is in Power. How come it not right now? It is the same way..

Please stop calling fools to other I hope you are a smart person from a middle class (NC) or UML.That’s where dual charactersic comes. You are bringing the ideas of hate, with the Middle class or lower class or rulling class notion.

I believe we all Nepalis should to treated In First-Class standards. Not with your middle -class views.

A Nepali standard view point.

Comment by Pashupati — 5/13/2005 @ 12:28 am

R. Pande,

Kudos. Your analysis is enligtening. In fact you are one of the very few who are worth reading in this blog. Otherwise, rest are either without any perspective or are spam created by G shah and company to fizzle out the issues.
i am interested in your further analyses/perspectives. as i don’t have your mail add could you write to me at rajniti@gmail.com
thanks.

Comment by jhyau — 5/13/2005 @ 1:43 am

MAY I MAKE IT PERFECTLY CLEAR THAT I AM NOT A SUPPORTER OF KG AND WHAT HE IS DOING TO THE COUNTRY AT THE MOMENT.

I am perfectly aware of his history and the amount of curroption he has been involved in during the past. His goal is not for the ‘best of the country’ and those that blindly believe it are ignorant.

Royals and their supporters (yes the panches) have been rampant in stealing from the country for centuries. The leaders did it for a decade. If we can let the Royals do it for centuries why not support leaders that will be true to the Nepali people? Do you think you might be able to give the politicians another chance at improving the country?

Comment by suvecha — 5/13/2005 @ 9:19 am

In democracies we do not elect leaders, we do elect our representatives.

In fact we, the democratic people are the leaders. Our representatives get their mandate to advocate our case just for a period of time. If they fail to work for us properly, we will not reelect them.

As long as the young generation of Nepal is looking for new leaders, they disqualify themselves as not being mature for democracy. The wish to be guided and lead in fact means to look for a chance to avoid responsibility.

Only if the people of Nepal understand, that they, by being uncritically obedient, in fact have been allowing their leaders to mistreat the country for centuries, only then slowly there will be a chance to change the situation.

It is quite obvious, that in Nepal, the absence of democratic examples has lead to a failure of the last democratic experiment. In the last fifteen years we could just see the expansion of monarchies.

Suddenly there was a Congress Monarchy, a UML Monarchy and so on. Nepal became a kingdom of 100000 kings during democracy. But it wasn’t all in vain, as just by this example of failure, slowly the common man could understand, that it needs more than just greed for political power to be a good ruler.

In the global community of nations, one thing can be clearly seen, the countries, who got rid of their monarchies early or were able to restrict their influence on mere representative aereas of the state are in fact the countries, which are best developed, guarantee their citizens the biggest amount of freedom and are prospering economically .

In history monarchy is typical for countries, where the citizens are either not aware of their rights or too uneducated to demand them effectively. I think both is true for Nepal.

My personal hope is, that some women, who seem to be the last group of the society not completely drowned in dirty powergames are raising to political responsibility and offer the chance to the people of Nepal to be guided in a human and respectful way.

May courage return to the people of Nepal, King Kong

Comment by King Kong — 5/13/2005 @ 7:09 pm

Very well said:
“In democracies we do not elect leaders, we do elect our representatives.”
“Suddenly there was a Congress Monarchy, a UML Monarchy and so on. Nepal became a kingdom of 100000 kings during democracy.”

Suvecha, your comment that ” Royals and their supporters (yes the panches) have been rampant in stealing from the country for centuries. The leaders did it for a decade. If we can let the Royals do it for centuries why not support leaders that will be true to the Nepali people? …” is ridiculous at best.

Royals in every country had a rich lifestyle and in Nepal (as per Nepali standard) it was not an exception. As per recent forbes list of rich royals (King Fahd Saudi $ 22 Billion, Sultan Haji Hassanal Bolkiah $20 Billion, Queen Elizabeth II $720 million etc) should not make us believe that “Royals are Corrupt”. Would you conclude that these ultra rich royal stole money from their country? — I don’t think so.

We cannot condone corruption by these political parties. An educated person like you Suvecha seems to support Corruption is extremely sad thing.

Comment by Bir Ghale — 5/13/2005 @ 8:02 pm

Well said Bir ghale: “Royals in every country had a rich lifestyle and in Nepal…$ 22 Billion, Sultan Haji Hassanal… $20 Billion, Queen Elizabeth II $720 million etc…”

I support you we should add a few more luxury cars to KG. We should give some 24 billion dollars to KG so that our KG will be the richest. We should offer phd to his son, so that our future king will be the “wisest.” Thanks for your forbes report; how can a god bishnu’s avatar be poorer than a muslim or christian king/queeens? thank you Ghaleji

Comment by ramita — 5/14/2005 @ 11:35 am

well said ramita.

ghale:
kings of sultans surely made money exploiting the natural resources the country possese. those resources are public resources but what they are doing is using it for private benefit. and what they are doing to their people? are these democratic countries? women in saudi arabia donot even have voting right. you want nepal to be in the same standar!! wealth to G and co, and for people neither wealth nor right (even to say that i’m hungry)!!!

the monarchy in englnad sucked wealth from all over the world, if not from their own country in the past. thats their accumulated wealth. and more imporatanly comparing england and nepal is comparing marble and a basket ball. come up with a figure what percentage of national income does england pays to its royalty and compare that with the same percentage what G and co snatches away from us.

the monarchy is now not talked about just because they dont interfere in the people’s domain. do you know what the parliament of england did to their king when he tried to interfere in politics? they just got rid of him. our parliamentarians should also have the gut to ditch this G.

people of nepal have happily paid for the luxury of birendra and his family. why?? because he didn’t try to steal and kill, which your favourite G is doing, do you understand mr. ghale.

Comment by g.c.m. — 5/14/2005 @ 1:40 pm