Bihari Krishna Shrestha biharishrestha@gmail.com
It was a nice opportunity for me to give vent to my anger as well as
to tell whoever in the government cared to listen that the disaster
after all is also an opportunity for Nepal to earn some dignity too
around the world by accomplishing accelerated reconstruction and
rehabilitation of the earthquake victims. Basically, in the 25 minute
interview programme in the Sagarmatha TV at 5:30 PM (and 9:30 PM--this
turned out to be a little abridged version) I told the following:
• The fact that most people who were killed and maimed came from rural
hinterlands. After 26 years of representative democracy, they should
not have been there in the first place. It basically meant failure of
Nepalese democracy that keeps the country one of the poorest and least
developed in the world.
• While one of the major factors in China's dramatic development has
been her youthful population , the "demographic dividend" in social
science parlance, India is even poised to overtake China for the same
reason. While Nepal's too is a youthful population, her demographic
dividend is being appropriated by the Gulf countries and others like
Malaysia, S Korea and so on. Nepal is destined to bear with ageing
population without ever benefiting from her demographic dividend. The
country has been reduced to being a "residential area" with people
living on remittances.
• The failure of democracy in Nepal results from the incompatibilities
that inhere in the fact that the Westminster style democratic polity
was taken from a very rational context of the west and transplanted in
the stubbornly persistent feudal context of Nepal. While just about
every single leader in Nepal at all levels is a feudal elite, and
extraction of resources without accountability is the mode of their
sustenance, a successful politician in Nepal is necessarily a corrupt
man.
• Given such a situation patronizing the voters is the mode of vote
getting and bhagbanda approach to resource allocation is the logical
outcome. What has been reported by Kantipur daily recently about the
inter-party squabbles due to their failure to sort out the new rules
of bhagbanda is only the tip of the iceberg of the potential for gross
misappropriation of EQ rehabilitation resources nationwide. Therefore,
the earthquake relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation must steer
clear of the politicians at all levels.
• Despite her overall failures, Nepal has distinguished in two areas
in which she remains highly respected around the world. The first is
the restoration of our forest wealth. While the unbridled run on our
forest after its nationalization in 1957 brought Nepal to the brink of
desertification by mid-80s, the introduction of Forest User Groups in
1988 changed the scenario entirely. As things stood, it took Nepal
three decades to wreck its forest and only one to rebuild it. Same
thing with the health sector. With the introduction of Mothers' groups
in 1988, Nepal came up from the bottom of the pile to take its seat
at the top of the table in world ranking in meeting the MDGs in child
survival and maternal mortality reduction. While China is the country
that developed fastest in the world, in these two areas, Nepal even
surpassed China. That is the power of participation of the users
themselves at the grassroots.
• While the long-term solution to Nepal's problem lies in redefining
its democracy that assures transparency and accountability at all
levels of governance, it would be inappropriate to try to make it the
central at the time of this national crisis. However, given the
impending monsoon after about a month and the need for quick
reconstruction and rehabilitation, there is no alternative to
involving the victims themselves in that task.
• My end suggestions were: De-politicise the whole process of relief,
reconstruction and rehabilitation. In order to do that, the President
of the Republic should step in, like he has done in the case of Churia
Forests, and take over the task in the affected district. The
President should set up an independent expert committee to guide him.
Secondly, use the Nepal Army that has been doing a fantastic job so
far to carry on the relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation
programme in the communities. Thirdly, and most importantly, form user
groups of the victims themselves in the communities to carry out their
own relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation. There are sufficient
number of engineers in the country and with the goodwill of the
international community, arranging and transporting the materials
should not pose a problem. This would be surest and quickest way to
help EQ victims recover from the disaster. At the very end, I further
added that there has been some important foreign nudging for some
important decisions by the President. In order to ensure effectiveness
and pace to the EQ recovery programme, external powers should make it
be known that the Presidential takeover may be a good idea too.
to tell whoever in the government cared to listen that the disaster
after all is also an opportunity for Nepal to earn some dignity too
around the world by accomplishing accelerated reconstruction and
rehabilitation of the earthquake victims. Basically, in the 25 minute
interview programme in the Sagarmatha TV at 5:30 PM (and 9:30 PM--this
turned out to be a little abridged version) I told the following:
• The fact that most people who were killed and maimed came from rural
hinterlands. After 26 years of representative democracy, they should
not have been there in the first place. It basically meant failure of
Nepalese democracy that keeps the country one of the poorest and least
developed in the world.
• While one of the major factors in China's dramatic development has
been her youthful population , the "demographic dividend" in social
science parlance, India is even poised to overtake China for the same
reason. While Nepal's too is a youthful population, her demographic
dividend is being appropriated by the Gulf countries and others like
Malaysia, S Korea and so on. Nepal is destined to bear with ageing
population without ever benefiting from her demographic dividend. The
country has been reduced to being a "residential area" with people
living on remittances.
• The failure of democracy in Nepal results from the incompatibilities
that inhere in the fact that the Westminster style democratic polity
was taken from a very rational context of the west and transplanted in
the stubbornly persistent feudal context of Nepal. While just about
every single leader in Nepal at all levels is a feudal elite, and
extraction of resources without accountability is the mode of their
sustenance, a successful politician in Nepal is necessarily a corrupt
man.
• Given such a situation patronizing the voters is the mode of vote
getting and bhagbanda approach to resource allocation is the logical
outcome. What has been reported by Kantipur daily recently about the
inter-party squabbles due to their failure to sort out the new rules
of bhagbanda is only the tip of the iceberg of the potential for gross
misappropriation of EQ rehabilitation resources nationwide. Therefore,
the earthquake relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation must steer
clear of the politicians at all levels.
• Despite her overall failures, Nepal has distinguished in two areas
in which she remains highly respected around the world. The first is
the restoration of our forest wealth. While the unbridled run on our
forest after its nationalization in 1957 brought Nepal to the brink of
desertification by mid-80s, the introduction of Forest User Groups in
1988 changed the scenario entirely. As things stood, it took Nepal
three decades to wreck its forest and only one to rebuild it. Same
thing with the health sector. With the introduction of Mothers' groups
in 1988, Nepal came up from the bottom of the pile to take its seat
at the top of the table in world ranking in meeting the MDGs in child
survival and maternal mortality reduction. While China is the country
that developed fastest in the world, in these two areas, Nepal even
surpassed China. That is the power of participation of the users
themselves at the grassroots.
• While the long-term solution to Nepal's problem lies in redefining
its democracy that assures transparency and accountability at all
levels of governance, it would be inappropriate to try to make it the
central at the time of this national crisis. However, given the
impending monsoon after about a month and the need for quick
reconstruction and rehabilitation, there is no alternative to
involving the victims themselves in that task.
• My end suggestions were: De-politicise the whole process of relief,
reconstruction and rehabilitation. In order to do that, the President
of the Republic should step in, like he has done in the case of Churia
Forests, and take over the task in the affected district. The
President should set up an independent expert committee to guide him.
Secondly, use the Nepal Army that has been doing a fantastic job so
far to carry on the relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation
programme in the communities. Thirdly, and most importantly, form user
groups of the victims themselves in the communities to carry out their
own relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation. There are sufficient
number of engineers in the country and with the goodwill of the
international community, arranging and transporting the materials
should not pose a problem. This would be surest and quickest way to
help EQ victims recover from the disaster. At the very end, I further
added that there has been some important foreign nudging for some
important decisions by the President. In order to ensure effectiveness
and pace to the EQ recovery programme, external powers should make it
be known that the Presidential takeover may be a good idea too.
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