Praveen Dixit, who is married to BP Koirala´s only daughter, Chetana, is the highest ranking Nepal-born in US government service. [break]
Given his lively debates with BP Koirala during his student days in Delhi and later as a son-in-law, his personal and professional evolution, and his sharp observations about the Nepalese economy, the 55-year-old has a remarkable story to tell.
From anonymous critic to son-in-law
While studying at Delhi University in the early 1970s, Dixit wrote an anonymous letter to BP, who was then in exile in Delhi. In the letter entitled “A letter to the prime minister” he wrote that he didn´t think BP´s economic policies were right for a revolution.
Later, when the two actually met for the first time and sat down for a talk, BP interrupted the conversation in the middle and asked, “Are you the one who sent that letter?”
“I said yes. He said the letter was very well written, and he was having a hard time figuring out who had sent it-- could it be Indians; could it be Americans,” said Dixit, reveling at the memory.
That visit kick-started regular exchanges between the two.
“It´s really important for my generation that as children of privilege, we have an added responsibility to contribute to his (BP´s) legacy. Contributing to his legacy means contributing to the country.”
The two used to have massive arguments. “He used to tell me you are the only one in Nepal who does not respect me and I used to say I am just a 17-year-old,” said Dixit, who is in Kathmandu on a private visit.
In one of their numerous meetings, Dixit beat BP in a Reader´s Digest word power game. It was BP who always won till then, and he dismissed this defeat saying, "You cheated on me."
Once Dixit asked BP whether he had anything to do with the 1973 airplane hijack and the fire outbreak that destroyed much of Singha Durbar the same year. BP was evasive over the hijack question.
About the fire outbreak, he replied, “I wish we had!”
“To him, Singha Durbar represented autocracy. It represented all that was evil and that had blocked democracy,” Dixit explained.
Dixit lost touch with BP after joining the Delhi School of Economics.
Later, he came back to Nepal, worked here briefly and migrated to the United States with his parents, giving up a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship on moral grounds as the scholarship was meant for a Nepali scholar who intended to return to Nepal.
In the US, he worked as a store clerk, got robbed a few times at a 7/11 store, earned his way to college and finished his PhD from Purdue University before starting to work for the US government.
In early 1980s, while he was establishing a foothold in US government service, he received a marriage proposal from the Koirala family.
“What I didn´t realize when I came back for the marriage was what hoopla it was. Political parties were banned in Nepal. BP Koirala invited Nepali Congress workers from all over the nation to the wedding. The king was in a little bid of an awkward position,” he reminisced in memories of the 1982 wedding.
Unfortunately, BP himself could not attend the wedding as he had to leave for Delhi for treatment a day before the wedding. Girija Prasad Koirala stood in for him at the wedding. Three months after that, BP passed away.
Among many things Dixit learnt from BP, he has put one into practice.
“He told me that when people came to visit him in Singha Durbar, they were always awed by the surroundings. After all, they were coming to visit the prime minister. He said the first thing he always did was make them comfortable. He felt that if people are not comfortable, they would not give their best. That is so different from Asian culture in general, where the thing to do is intimidate people,” Dixit said.
Dixit has emulated BP´s approach in his management practice.
Nepal´s lost decade
In 1991, then US ambassador Julia Chang Bloch asked Dixit to come over to Nepal as part of the economic liberalization project of USAid.
Though it was hard for him to give up the position he had earned in the US, Dixit eventually came over with his family, looking forward to the project and spending some time with mother-in-law Sushila Koirala, whom he remembers as a woman who never had a bad bone in her body.
Sushila, along with Chetana, always stayed away from politics.
While in Nepal between September 1992 and August 1995, Dixit worked part time on the USAid front, and part time as senior advisor at the Ministry of Finance.
He and his team worked on a lot of things such as privatization, airline deregulation, trade liberalization, preparation for the Value Added Tax, and Company Law, apart from starting a new stock exchange.
"People used to tell me that the only son-in-law of a former socialist prime minister was working to promote liberalization and capitalism in Nepal."
Does Dixit think that BP would have continued socialistic policies had he been alive till now? "To assume that he would stick to such arcane policies in the light of globalization is to underestimate his intellect," he said.
Political stability a must for economic growth
“From 1992 to 1995, while we were doing a lot of things, it was like every time we went to talk to Girija Prasad Koirala, he was tense. And the tensions were always within the political parties - somebody trying to overthrow somebody. I come back 15 years later, and it is the same,” Dixit said with a bewildered grin on his face.
Dixit looked at the numbers of the Nepalese economy last week and initially got the impression that Nepal had done reasonably well despite going through a tumultuous decade. But a deeper look left him concerned.
“The most concerning thing is when we are between two giants who are growing at eight percent and ten percent and we are growing at three percent, there is going to be even more and more regional inequality. In the long run, as I am an economist, I can surmise that regional income inequality could potentially create other social, political and
economic issues,” he said.
Dixit pointed out that in nations that don´t have political stability, it is very difficult to get economic growth as businesses and foreigners are very hesitant to invest.
“And especially when foreigners don´t invest, it is not necessarily the money that we are talking about. It is the transfer of technology that becomes extremely important. If you don´t get transfer of technology into a country because foreigners are not investing, that is going to hurt you in the long run,” he warned.
He also noted that much of the growth in Nepal in the last 10 years has been because of the agricultural and services sectors. “But there has been very little progress in the industrial sector. At the end of the day, industry creates jobs. If you expand industrial production, it increases industrial jobs for sure, but also expands services jobs,” he said.
Given the nation´s obsession with politics, Dixit says there is a giant sucking sound to be heard in Nepal.
“Both the government and the people and the whole community are so engrossed in politics that it saps all your energy… Instead of helping with economic prosperity, we are so sapped looking at day-to-day politics,” he said.
The one thing that encouraged him during his visit to Nepal is the respect people still show to his father-in-law.
“There seems to be quite a bit of respect for him even today. It is very nice, but otherwise it saps,” he said.
A legacy to build on
While visiting the BP Museum in Sundarijal with his daughter Brinda earlier this week, Dixit was moved on finding people curious to see them.
“While we were in the museum, twenty to twenty-five people came after learning that B.P.´s granddaughter and son-in-law where there. People still respect that (name recognition),” he said.
For his daughter Brinda, who had read books to understand what her grandfather meant to Nepal, it was a moment of awakening.
“It is one thing to read a book and get an assessment of what BP was all about, and it´s another thing when she goes there and looks at all those pictures, at the kitchen, the dining table, his clothes…I could see that in her face,” he said.
Dixit nurses a personal guilt
“In many respects, my wife and I have been most guilty for not doing anything to add to that (BP´s) legacy,” he said.
But he hopes he can have a clear conscience after 10 years when he sees himself retiring.
“It´s really important for my generation that as children of privilege, we have an added responsibility to contribute to his legacy. Contributing to his legacy means contributing to the country,” he said.
“And that should be the standard for the children of other leaders who have gained prominence. Let´s use that name recognition to contribute to the country, and let´s not do something that subtracts from that legacy,” he said.
(Dixit´s opinions expressed in this feature do not represent the United States government.)
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