 ANURAG ACHARYA |
The windshields of 10 ambulances were broken throughout the country on Monday's bund. Nepali Congress leaders Jhusil Korala, Shere Bahadur and Gham Chandra pronounced the strike "a grand success and a victory for peaceful, non-violent democratic protest". A taxi was set on fire non-violently in Bansbari for daring to defy the threat to stay off the streets. Two patients who couldn't make it to Bir Hospital for medical emergencies died peacefully on the way. And in Baglung, the District Education Office was democratically vandalised because staff did not heed the call to take a day off. Why couldn't the cabinet spare the population the suffering and just declare both Shiva Poudel and Kim Jong Il "martyrs"?
We all know that Nepal's political parties split like amoebas in heat. The NC split, united and is on the verge of a split again. Communistic parties are especially prone to multiplying by binary fission, and at one time there were 22 of them in this country. Communist parties also come together again, as their names show: "Unified" Marxist Leninist (UML), or the "Unity" Centre, or the "United" Communist Party of Nepal, Maoist. After hemming and hawing and not being able to decide to split or not to split, the hard-on faction is planning a super-duper convention in Kathmandu soon which will decide whether to split. But what are we going to name them? The CPN-M label has already been taken up by Comrade Matrika so the donkey's humble suggestion is to call the establishment faction Ex-United Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (EU-CPNM) and the breakaway faction, the Un-United Communist Party of Nepal (UU-CPNM).
The other entity that seems to be on the verge of a split is the Blue Diamond Society. I know, it's not a political party, but it has a member who is a Constituent Assembly member and hence has all the rights and privileges of a party. And in the grand tradition of political parties in Nepal, the un-governmental organisation is likely to be split into two with one faction called The Blue Diamond Society (Lesbian) and the other the Blue Diamond Society (Revolutionary).
After years of deadlock, it is amazing to see how quickly the nearly 300 points of contention in the draft of the new constitution are being resolved. The number of disputed clauses has now been brought down to just 11. Suddenly, the compromises are coming through thick and fast. The Maoists even agreed on Wednesday to abandon the term 'people's war' from the new constitution. What gives? Chairman Awesome, it seems, is willing to give away everything except the provision for an executive president, since he knows at present he is the only one who can win a national presidential election. So, Fearsome's game plan is to get the constitution quickly over and done with, hold elections within a year, and be the first non-ceremonious president of New Nepal. Moral of the story: execute a lot of people and you, too, can be an executive prez.
Only in Nepal: The country is so bankrupt it doesn't have moolah to import diesel from India. Yet, the government has decided to install two 100 megawatt diesel power plants. And NEA is planning to increase power cuts to 16 hours a day by mid-January, but simultaneously jack up electricity tariffs by 30%. Consumers are going to be delighted.
