(Courtesy: Comrade Libre)
The general state of disarray within the NC (Nepali Congress) is for lack of a better term, "pathetic." The group touted by its leadership as the only party "capable of drafting a democratic constitution" appears incapable of even acknowledging the most basic of democratic tenets - that, of "majority rule." Why else would the NC dream of continuing its leadership role in a Maoist dominated government?
"Pride comes before the fall," so the saying goes and the exponential growth in the NC's hubris after the April 2006 movement was prophetic of what was eventually to come. Observers close to the NC had noted sharp increases in often condescending and pedantic diatribes that resulted whenever party members were challenged on issues of dysfunctional intra-party dynamics. So blinded was the Nepali Congress by the shadow of its own inflated image that its demise became evident to all but the NC itself.
The NC - Democrats or Sycophants?
To the outside observer, the sycophantic worship that Girija Prasad Koirala and his family elicited within the NC rank and file was no different from the regal divinity that King Gyanendra enjoyed amongst his inner-most circle. For a monarch to enjoy unquestioned subservience from willing subjects is one thing - the idea of the Koirala clan enjoying similar status in Nepal's (allegedly) most democratic party, is something quite different.
So the folly continued, unchallenged. The idea that questioning the NC's credentials was somehow democratic sacrilege, was aggressively forwarded. Allusions to Girija Prasad Koirala as the power-hungry, one-man sideshow he has always been, became blasphemy. The icing on this cake of charades came with Koirala's inner coterie recommending his candidacy for the Nobel Prize. "A Nepali Nobel candidate will be a symbol of national pride," so the laughable logic went.
Thankfully, the anathema that "Girija Prasad Koirala" and the "Nobel Prize" in a single sentence represents, nipped this ridiculous proposal in its bud. After all, how ludicrous is the suggestion that a man responsible for inciting an armed revolution (a man who resigned his Prime Ministership on the grounds that the Army refused to fight the Maoists), should today, be credited with the Nobel Prize for ending an insurrection that he was directly involved in instigating?
For those who remain unconvinced, consider the following: If Girija deserves the Nobel Prize for democratizing the Maoists, Gyanendra deserves the Nobel Prize (even more) for engineering the conditions that enabled Girija to reinvent himself and subsequently, "mainstream" the Maoists. Girija may be in the process of "unselfishly" sacrificing the Nepali Congress to build his own legacy but King Gyanendra already has sacrificed all his followers, his personal legacy, and a 240 year old dynasty to prove a point - what this point is, only history will tell. So who deserves the Nobel Prize more?
Is the NC's History so Easily Rewritten?
Girija Koirala may be Jimmy Carter's "hero" but for people acquainted with Nepal's recent past, Koirala is also the architect of operations "Romeo" and "Sierra Kilo-II." He is a man who is credited with breaking up the Nepali Congress. A sell-out and a model of institutionalized corruption, Girija is a man whose unrelenting greed and lust for power, the Maoists understood, and masterfully leveraged as part of their bid for political supremacy.
If it is one thing that Nepal's Maoists deserve unconditional credit for, it's the tact with which they have continually exposed charlatans for what they are - unprincipled, convictionless frauds, ready to sink down to any level to disguise their personal prejudices behind democratic facades. To the Maoists, men like Gyanendra and Giriaja (and a whole list of others that fit similar characteristics) have never been anything more than "useful idiots"; expendable assets that will eventually outlive their usefulness to the Maoists'.
Many credible arguments had been posited that the true obstacle to a logical right-wing reaction to balance Maoist aggression, was none other than King Gyanendra himself. The basic theme of these arguments maintained that had King Gyanendra left Nepal prior to the CA elections, the Nepali Congress would have gained the unquestioned loyalty of the Nepali Army's rank and file; the kind of support that would have gone a long way to ensuring "free and fair" elections.
But Gyanendra didn't leave and Girija was too busy fondling his legacy to consider the long-term risks to multiparty democracy, should the Maoists' attain power through elections. As a consequence, with every passing day, the likelihood of Nepal Army Generals making peace with the Maoists is growing and every royalist who joins the Maoists, is bolstering the sea of nationalist sentiment that the Maoist party represents. And as long as Gyanendra refuses to leave Nepal and continues hammering on the point that he does not wish to be "used by the Indian government against his own country," he will remain in relatively good shape.
There's a New Game in Town and the NC is in Last Place
For the benefit of the bewildered and disoriented NC sycophants, there's a new game in town - it's called "who has the most nationalist credentials?" Unfortunately, in this game, the NC is starting with a major handicap - perhaps even several. The most recent handicap comes from Indian National Security Advisor, MK Narayanan's disclosure on national Indian television that the Indian government's favorite in Nepal, is none other than the Nepali Congress!
In this game of nationalist fervor, the Royalists will soon be one with the Maoists; Gyanendra will remain "King" Gyanendra to any Nepali who wishes to exercise his right to carry on the Royal tradition; and the Maoists will continue singing sermons to India with lyrics that extol the virtues of moderate Maoists (who are working overtime to keep the radical nationalists at bay). Hydropower deals will be cut without opposition and the peace dividend will keep the hungry fed and the homeless sheltered.
Fringe parties and the UML are irrelevant at this point. The MJF counts the most after the Maoists. But where does this leave the Nepali Congress? Well, it depends on how quickly the NC's sycophants come to terms with the realization that the dawn of the 21st century was the verdict on any attempted form of absolute monarchy and that Nepal's CA elections, more than anything else, was a verdict on the NC's incompetence, over-rated pride, and baseless sense of self-righteousness.
Conclusion
The sooner the emerging ranks of the NC overthrow Girija Prasad Koirala and his entourage of self-serving kleptocrats, the better the party's chance of survival are. The sooner the NC decides to abandon its current policies (all of which are designed to buttress one man's legacy), the better the chances that this party will one day re-emerge as a credible contender in Nepali politics.
But until the NC is able to rationalize the implication of the people's verdict without mentioning the monarchy in the same sentence, this party will forever remain, lost in democratic translation.
Related Posts:
The Fallacies of Two Men - Girija & Gyanendra
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/10/fallacies-of-two-men-girija-gyanendra.html
Nepali Congress under Koirala: The Great Betrayal
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/10/nepali-congress-under-koirala-great.html
The Problem with Nepali Political Civil Society - The Leftist, the Cowards, and the Compromised
http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/10/problem-with-nepali-political-civil.html
9 comments:
Hats off to Comrade Libre, but let’s not mince words here: the sooner the YCL starts dishing out what it knows and does best to Girija and Gyanendra the better. For bumper “upahar”, they should put these two in a cage at Tundikhel – sort of a reverse of comrade Guzmán’s predicament.
"Maoist majority government"?? They have only 38% of the CA seats - far from a majority.
What a whack job! It is one thing to question and critique NC but altogether different to link a hyperbole - Royalists as nationalists finding space among Maoists as both their 'nationalist interests' converge to the point of decimating NC.
What specific nationalist sentiments are you talking about that we don't already know? Isn't the only nationalist sentiment driving all three - democrats, Royalists, Maoists - is lust for POWER itself? The only difference being how each intends to excercise that power dfferently from the other (although the end result will still be self serving). Or would you actually care to provide alternative explanation?
Where do you get the idea that Royalists ever had national concern above their own? If by 'national' you mean ROYAL, then yes, Royalists did look to worship the very hand that fed them. Just as the Royalists post 1990 became 'democrats' overnight, why am I not surprised that the same residual slimebags will reinvent themselves as the supposed forebearers of Nepali nationalism and join the Maoists in their hollow nationalist drumbeat. Changing colors come easily to chameleons as part of their survival instinct.
And how cute, we already have a foot soldier in the form of Com. Libre, who already seems to have bought into the alchemy of their transformation. Still, I do commend your devotion towards Nepal to the extent that you are willing to buy into the delusion of Maoists-Royalist synthesis.
Then again, how freaking sophomoric though to underplay Royalists as simply nationalists and not everything else! You know m sayin?!
Yes it is a game, and it is much bigger than Royalists, nationalists or Maoists themselves. So hold your horses before you make any pronounced conclusion. Else you may just get swept away by one 'surprise' after another.
-Kalki Yadav
Horatio, the writer sent us an edit and the edit has been made. Thank you for pointing out the mistake.
Comrade! I was skeptical about your writing when I first read it. But judging by Kalki Yadav's comment, I am now convinced that you are on to something!
Yadav has played the role of the perfect test case in your theory - when will these Kangresi bajes learn to have an identity that is different from the monarchy? When will they grow up and understand that just because the royalists were bad, that doesn't make them better?
"Pathetic", as you correctly described.
The presentation of this logic is going to make a lot of Kangresi supporters upset. But that is alright. Girija Koirala isn't the Nepali Congress and the Nepali Congress isn't democracy for Nepal.
Views like what is expressed in this article should be played on repeat mode again and again if the NC is to remain a party worth mentioning in Nepali politics.
Kalki ji, you may be a harvard or princeton or yale graduate, but please see the pre-election statistis on how many RJP and RPP candidates migrated to the Maoists. Also, try and understand why people like Kamal Thapa and Ramesh Nath Pande, Mohan Man Sainju, are rubbing shoulders with the Maoist leadership.
Libre didn't make up the nationalist agenda (I don't think). This was the Maoist proposal to draw former royalists to their side.
Keep hammering away! The more the NC idiots howl today, the better for the Nepali nation.
Kissing India's ass at every level - that is the NC's version of Nationalism.
This is the funniest thing... it's great when people can read but can't understand what they've just read.
I came across this article which quoted on another blog... but on that blog, this article is presented as a writing that is trying to gain Gyanendra the Nobel Prize. Check this idiot out - www.nayanepal.blogspot.com
hahaha! The writer doesn't seem to understand how silly the idea of either Koirala or Gyanendra getting the Nobel prize sounds. So, what does that idiot do? Immediately, he/she writes about Libre's article as though Libre was trying to get Gyane a Nobel prize.
I read that idiot's one paragraph blog and fell off my chair laughing. With idiots like that all over, no wonder Maoists have a clean chit after 14,000 dead.
This nation has to many know-it-all but a very few roll-up sleeves kind- bunch of hair brained with sickle and hammer just washed away the Pundits who were busy analyzing finer points rather than tackling with rocks and stones.
Vultures have descended and will finally tear this nation to pieces in order to act pundit, know-it-all, and mother of all democrats.
Welcome to one party rule and give a rest to your two cents worth of analysis and angst- carpet has been pulled from underneath, its just a momentary dellusion of standing upright.
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