The doctor lays hands on one patient but other pulls him from behind “I am as much ill as he, me first” he moans. The doctor cannot decide what to begin with and where to start from. He is at odds with setting priorities. Yet he does not lose composure. Keep patience, wait, things will be alright, he says. The sickly bunch of people keep hope, the days of pains will be over now, they frolic in anticipation.
What may echo the first scene of Greek tragedian Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex, in fact, resembles explosion of painful euphoria at the time of Dr Babauram Bhattarai’s rise to premiership in Nepal about a fortnight ago. The only difference is that the doctor in the anecdote is a physician and the prime minister is a Phd supposedly with no knowledge of medicine but with a vast degree of know-how as to how to cure the ailing nation.
With Bhattarai’s arrival in the scene, everyone has started regarding him as a magician capable of righting all wrongs. From vegetable vendors to wage laborers to drivers and professionals, they have hailed him as an avatar of cure-all prime minister. Middle and lower middle class housewives want him to lower the price of essential commodities. Youths want him to bring jobs and businessmen want him to bring an investment-friendly environment. And, most of all, everyone wants him to catch up on the elusive peace and let it reign the nation permanently. Even his predecessors, now in opposition, demand that he should clean up the litters they made during their times. How interesting!
It is too early to be cynical about PM’s moves for he has been in office only about a fortnight. Yet it is not too early to feel assured that he will not loot this nation like many of his predecessors did. And for the same reason, he has started to receive flaks. But what can be said with certitude is that outbursts of euphoria now face the risk of being threatened by the attempts to render him alone. Consider this. He has to confront multiple oppositions: Opposition in the cabinet, opposition in the parliament and opposition in his own party. His indisputable and reliable ally is best wishes from the people. But people’s wishes in this country rarely amount to anything.
Another reliable ally has come in forms of good wishes from neighboring countries and foreign delegates. For example, the Indian establishment wants him to succeed. In the first week of his premiership, most of the Indian newspapers expressed their wishes and confidence in him. Times of India editorial called him “a moderate and an able administrator,” a person “Nepal desperately needs at this juncture” (Aug 30) and Chandigarh-based The Tribune described him as “the moderate face of the party” whose “elevation has been welcomed by the common people because of his academic excellence, clean image and efficiency.” But such wishes, it seems, are going to be thwarted for he is becoming alone every day.
Health of nation cannot be ensured in PM´s becoming neither Bhimsen Thapa nor Eklabya but, as Kishor Nepal said of him in Nagarik (Sept 12), Nitish Kumar. But considering the kind of people he is with in the cabinet and in the political fronts, he has miles to travel in the struggle to become even Dr Baburam Bhattarai, the new metaphor of honesty, integrity, good governance and hope in Republic Nepal.
First of all, he is under the sword of Damocles in the cabinet that he heads. His subordinates especially from Madhes parties and also from UCPN (M) are way below him in terms of academic stature, honesty and commitment. The way he conducts himself and wants his ministers to conduct seems to have sickened his Madhesi colleagues greatly. When he adopts frugality and zero tolerance to corruption and impunity, Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister Bijay Kumar Gachchedhar has projected himself as an epitome of evils in these two weeks.
Gachchedhar’s love for don-culture, predilection for impunity and sandalwood smuggling finally goaded him to transfer home secretary Leela Mani Paudyal Saturday. His aversion for Mr Paudyal reportedly arose from the latter’s uncompromising stands in curbing sandalwood smuggling, bringing Kaushar Ali Musalman of Kapilvastu, the man behind extortion racket, to custody and his intolerance to any sort of corruption among others.
So far, Gachchedhar has exposed only this ugly side of his real self. What he will do further, anyone could guess. With such a man as a home minister, Bhattarai’s anti-corruption and law and order policy will only be a grave joke.
Minister for Information and Communications, Jay Prakash Gupta, has been consistently insisting that this government will fail. The smell of noncooperation from Madhes leaders got manifested in their refusal to accept the PM’s plan of provisioning an anticorruption unit in each ministry. These are ominous signs that the cabinet, in most likelihood, could be held hostage by these leaders, whom we know as corrupt, unaccountable and untrustworthy. Yet this lone doctor has not buzzed from his commitment. Thanks to his equanimity.
His other malign opposition comes from luxury-mongers of CPN-UML. When the whole nation is still in a mood not to hear anything evil about the PM for his good start, a section of UML has been deeply grief-stricken by PM’s conducts. They are feeling that Baburam is a dagger in their heart. Interestingly, those of them that oppose PM’s frugality are also those who have not returned the cars they still owe to the state. I was not very surprised, therefore, when rabble-rouser KP Oli mocked Dr Bhattarai for his choice to use Mustang Max. “PM is advertising. He fits in advertisement of Mustang Jeep as a nice model” he trilled on a television interview.
Bhim Rawal’s fury knew no bounds. The ex-home minister that siphoned off with an expensive vehicle raved “I challenge him. Can he force his party members to return the vehicles they use? He is enacting a farce with Mustang-jeep.” And in a shameless display of indecency, UML secretary Shanker Pokhrel booed the PM and suggested that he may as well “ride a horse-drawn tanga.”
The erstwhile PM Jhalanath Khanal is routinely announcing that Baburam’s government will fail. Now that UML and NC are coalescing together, PM’s days ahead are going to be tough. With Mohan Baidya barrier heaping high each passing day, the road ahead for him seems not only rough and bumpy but almost blocked.
Despite this, many believe that he will do something for the ailing nation and its people. This belief is a proof that people were critically ill and were awaiting a doctor. The euphoria is an indication of pains, not happiness. It shows that Nepal has remained bereft of an honest PM for a long time. The expectations from him speak of how the nation is thirsty for rain. Nepali people have become like travelers in the desert that are about to die of thirst. And so when Nepali people see the faintest signs of an overcast condition, they jump with joy.
The PM has been able to cause a small overcast in the sky but the public is in a jubilant mood. But considering how alone he has begun to be, it is time people have to reconsider their expectations. That a single honest man with promises brings smiles in people’s faces is an indicator of how unfortunate and unhappy this land and its people have been for long.
This fortnight, Dr Bhattarai was ascribed metaphors of historical and mythical heroes. While he himself expressed his readiness for sacrifice like that of mythical Ekalabya, perhaps recognizing his penchant for Bhimsen Thapa, his fans wished him to be new Bhimsen Thapa of Nepal. Bhimsen Thapa toward the latter period of his life had been so betrayed by the courtiers of the Nepal Durbar that he had to die of self-laceration in jail alone.
Health of nation cannot be ensured in his becoming neither Bhimsen Thapa nor Eklabya but, as Kishor Nepal said of him in Nagarik (Sept 12), Nitish Kumar. But considering the kind of people he is with in the cabinet and in the political fronts, he has miles to travel in the struggle to become even Dr Baburam Bhattarai, the new metaphor of honesty, integrity, good governance and hope in Republic Nepal.
mbpoudyal@yahoo.com
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