Most Nepalis would not accuse us of being alarmists if we took a deep breath today and said that the country is staggering towards a dangerous abyss. Ten years after democracy, ten prime ministers and three elections later, rulers whom the people trusted seem to have run out of gas. Increasingly, it feels like we are flogging a dead horse. Legally the ruling elite may still have the mandate to rule, but morally they have abdicated that right. Rulers who fiddle around while the country burns, can't take tough and timely decisions, put the welfare of their neediest citizens on the back burner, and rulers who are only interested in amassing money and power as if there were no tomorrow cannot be entrusted with the destiny of this nation.
The matrix of change comes in two basic types: it can be for the better or for the worse. Change can bring development, or it can bring degradation. Development, or progress, is said to occur when change is understood and controlled, when rulers and ruled work towards a goal-oriented process of change that is for the better. But the other kind of change is when things spiral out of control. The rulers have neither the inclination nor power to steer, and the chronic failure of governance makes the ruled fatalistic, leading to apathy and despair. This is when we can say there is regression and degradation. It does not take a rocket scientist to look around Kathmandu today and conclude that what is happening to the country is degradation and regression. The more serious aspect of it is that a people who have waited ten years to see even a glimmer of change don't see any. They are no longer just blaming our feckless leaders, but also the system. The threat of democratic reversal (both from the left and the right) is more real today than at any time in the past ten years.
The irony of it all is that this is one of the few times there is a majority government in power that has the numbers in the legislature to see change through. And yet, nine months after the present rulers took office, more than at any time in the past five years, there is a feeling of no one being in control. Five million school children could not go to school last week because a student union threatened their teachers, a tourism industry crippled by the lack of timely intervention is bringing the economy to its knees, farmers in the tarai don't want to grow rice anymore because they lose money on every sack they sell, donors are seriously contemplating winding down development projects. It has now reached the point where the government should evaluate its own non-performance and tell us why it has failed. Even at the best of times, Nepal's development challenges are so serious and solutions are required so urgently that any government that takes it upon itself to try to rule has an unenviable task. Without iron resolve, strong vision and commitment, a super-efficient and honest bureaucracy, we cannot begin to make a dent on this country's crisis of poverty, inequality and social justice. But this is not the best of times. Democracy is being squeezed from the left and the right by people who want to see it fail.
This is a wakeup call.
Full of surprises
What do you say when you look around inside the cabin of a plane flying to Kathmandu these days and see that half the seats are empty? Well, you turn to the bright side, and say the seats are half full. At least there are some daredevil tourists still coming to Kathmandu. They must be into extreme adventure. First there is the adventure of the trek, the rafting or safari then there is the adventure of facing the gauntlet of touts, taxi drivers and beggars clutching at your bags as you emerge from immigration. Now, in addition to all this, there is the adventure of trying not to get kicked out of a hotel. At the check-in at the other end, most tourist passengers were worried: will we find a hotel, do we have to walk from the airport, are we going to be kicked out at midnight? It is becoming apparent that Nepal is not for the faint-hearted. The image we are trying to cultivate for our tourism industry is: "Visit Nepal: It is Full of Surprises."
