When Comrade Parsuram, accompanied by his sidekick Comrade Hanuman, accepted garlands and blessings from a republican Godman at the Marwari Brahman Society last month we thought that the baddies were well on their way to becoming goodies.
And sure enough, last week they attended a meeting of Christian evangelicals during which they said atheism didn't mean intolerance of minority religions. Then on Buddha Jayanti, the comrades all trooped off to Lumbini and, in the presence of a Maoist monk on the podium, Awesome once more underlined the many similarities he shared with Siddhartha Gautam Buddha.
There is a certain logic to all this: being an atheist means not believing in God, but there is nothing stopping an atheist from trying to be God himself. Lotus Flower really thinks he is the reincarnation of the Buddha. Wonder what the widow and children of Ram Hari Shrestha think of that.
The reason PKD needs divine attributes is probably because he intends to perform a "miracle" in this country in the coming months. He hasn't really specified whether the chamatkar is going to be economic, political or spiritual but he sort of hinted that the nation was going to be brought back, Lazarus like, from the dead. For that he definitely needs a miracle, how on earth are we going to be Switzerland in the next 25 years at the rate we are going? And for this country of 28 million growing at 2.5 percent we need to attain an economic growth rate of 25 percent a year if we are to attain a per capita income of $3,000 in ten year's time. Given the difficulties, YCLs armed with iron rods are having to discipline traffic at Kalanki, we may need more than a miracle. We may need a Second Coming.
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Girjau also went to Lumbini for Buddha's birthday and it was confession time. "I'm not personally greedy anymore," the prime minister said. Glad he admitted that he has been greedy in the past.
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Meanwhile, back at the ranch the feud between the Baburam loyalists and Badal loyalists seems to be reaching a crescendo. BRB has been writing passionate columns in the newspapers defending himself from allegations of being an Indian stooge, a front for the BJP by advocating cultural rights for the king and suggesting that Nepal may as well be merged with India if the open border remains open. After having been banished from the Pistachio Palace to Ekanta Kuna to live in with Comrade Infinity, Laldhoj is reportedly shifting residence again. The tension with Comrade Cloud goes back a long way to the beginning of the revolution, and the current slanging match is reminiscent of BRB and PKD airing their dirty linen in public two years ago before they were made to patch up.
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From the 12-point agreement to the 7-point preconditions that GPK has put to PKD to join a Maoist-led government, now we have come to the 5-point prerequisite that Kingji has set out before he vacates Naryanhiti. KG wants security, protection of his assets, a royal allowance befitting an ex-king and cultural and religious rights. The plan seems to be to buy time for the monarchy at least till such time as the new republican constitution is not promulgated in two years time. The trouble is, because of his past bad behaviour, no one trusts His ex-Majesty anymore, not the parties, not the international community and the not the people.
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This country is an example of samanupatik gone bonkers. The PR lists brought in the janajatis and dalits and women in overwhelming numbers, but now the remaining 103 ethnic groups want to be included in the 26 seats remaining for the assembly. It's high time we journalists also demanded a seat in the assembly: there isn't a single hack representing our profession.
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