________________________________________ MADHAV KUMAR NEPAL ASKS FORMER KING TO JOIN POLITICS BY OPENING POLITICAL PARTY Kathmandu, 12 July: UML leader and former Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal asked former King Gyanendra Thursday in Dang to open a political party and enter politics. “Open a political party and come into politics and become a prime minister,” Nepal told his far-West Nepal has been commenting every day on the desire of the former king to be a guardian during difficult times, if asked and pushed. Nepal reiterated Thursday there was no written agreement between the royal palace and seven parliamentary parties to retain monarchy after Janaandolan Two. The UML chief, who lost elections from two constituencies to Maoist candidates in the last popular vote, was nominated to parliament with Maoist help almost immediately after his defeat. During the vote, Maoists circulated nation-wide a photograph of Nepal throwing a coin a at the feet of newly installed King Gyanendra in respect ad obedience to the person and institution of monarchy. Maoists successfully got the message across to the people Nepal is an untrustworthy communist. The former king said seven political parties have signed documents that were exchanged during the Janaandolan to restore peace. Can UML leaders be trusted for their public statements? Indian and British diplomats have said the party is known to make statements for ‘public consumption’ in private talks when it officially opposed recruitment of Gurkhas in Indian and British armies publicly. Indian diplomats were told privately UML opposed the Mahakali treaty publicly but backed it in a parliamentary vote. When UML formed the world’s first elected communist government in the world [led by Manmohan Adhikari] the party was asked by London officials if UML believed in constitutional monarchy, party leaders replied in the affirmative. There’s been a wide difference in the private and public posture of UML and the statements of their party leaders can’t be taken at face value. Nnnn OPINION WHO’S AFRAID OF A REFERENDUM? Kathmandu, 12 July: Political leaders in this land of Pashupatinath, Sagarmatha and Lumbini, among many other landmarks and traits, are found long on promises and nowhere in delivery. This happens in many countries. Nepal’s case is worse because this has been going on for more than 60 years. They never tire of swearing by the best of democracy but without the least attempt at putting the same into practice when they have an opportunity to put their performance to test, Trikal Vastavik writes in People’s Review.. Right from B.P.Koirala,”Maha Manav” for the Nepali Congress, and Pushpa Lal Shrestha through their successors and followers and present lot who claim to be their adherents, all lamented that the Nepali people were deprived of their “own” constitution, formulated by a popularly elected Constituent Assembly. The 60-year song received a shocking tremor on June 27 when the Constituent Assembly was dissolved after it failed to prepare a constitution even after its members extended the deadline again and again. They might have extended the term even after four years, oblivious of the original deadline of two years, if the Supreme Court had not stepped in to check the charade that had disenchanted Nepalis from Mechi to Mahakali. Some activists grumbled against the court order but they stopped when there was massive support for the court’s decision across the country. The last six years have been witness to every norm in the rule-book being broken unceremoniously, thanks to the impunity the “major” parties impose upon the overwhelming majority. An extremely few but organized people create terror and monopolize power and the scarce resources of this impoverished country of nearly 30 million including the several million foreign nationals who the so-called “Big 3” parties granted Nepali certificate. In 1951, B.P.Koirala was the home minister of the first interim cabinet led by the last Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher. In 2007, Krishna Prasad Shitaula, an upstart, won the status of kick-starting the Girija Prasad Koirala coterie from dawn to dusk. The next two years of Girija Prasad rule will go down in Nepal’s history as the worst since 1769 when Prtihvi Narayan Shah united the country. It was also a period when nearly two scores of Madhesi people were martyred, twice the number that figured in the course of the Delhi-Christian world-inspired regime change in 2006. The Maoists at the cantonment created especially to house them were fed, clothed and sheltered at the expenses of the taxpayers. This might have been justified if the process for their dispersal had been concluded within a year or two. Moreover, lump sums were handed over to a few Maoist leaders on behalf of the rest of the cantonment inmates whose given number, it was later revealed, showed a deficit of 3,000 as against the inflated figure that UNMIN, Maoists and the Finance Ministry gave out. It all began with Sher Bahadur Deuba’s dastardly deed of recommending prematurely the dissolution of parliament, creating a crisis that led to events which veered badly when foreign interest groups and their fronts in Nepal combined to introduce changes whose extent most Nepalis did not call for and regret to this date as to what happened so horrendously. Hate was the motivation fostered by lobbies that wanted to export their religious faith to this country. The design was top dangle hard cash to enthuse those that fell for their allurements and served as front for them. “Pagans needed to be liberated.” A few hundred souls thus liberated meant a priceless success which would, according to the preaching of Inquisition. In 2011, most of the local fronts serving such purposes and paymasters made long reports boasting of a quadruple rise in the number of churches catering to liberated souls. Cold cash is the bait, dangled by wheelers and dealers in the nefarious world of power-mongering and religious conversion through inducements has been cold cash. Communist leaders Chitra Bahadur K.C., Narayan Man Bijukchhe and pro-monarchy and referendum-champion Kamal Thapa have raised their stock considerably for their rare trait of consistency. The leftist leaders are against federalism and the way the structure is being sought to impose on the Nepali people by the “Big 3.” Rastriya Prajatantra Party/Nepal’s Kamal Thapa is far-sighted and has the guts to point out that his counterparts in other parties are stark naked and moving about without shame and responsibility. He makes no secret that monarchy is the best institution to maintain equilibrium in a multiethnic society like ours. He wants a national referendum on the issues of monarchy, secularism and deferral structure of the state. The challenge to conduct such an exercise in direct democracy and the need for all to comply with the resultant popular verdict, however, makes the self-proclaimed democrats shy away. True democrats don’t avoid such prospects. The ones fearing the outcome of such a high class exercise in popular verdict are the ones who monopolize power so recklessly for more than six years now. Most of the “civil society” leaders projected by the media are silent when their parties they belong to are in a dilemma. The way they kept themselves silent over the recent developments since the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly is a clear pointer to their partisan and/or opportunistic uttering and non-uttering. Nepalis would be better off if they did not heed these charlatans, some of whom want foreign funds and/or political appointments. All said and done, the existing state of anarchy and exploitation of the people by those pledging to work the people cannot last long. An alternative has to be found, whatever the mode and means to attain the desired end. For six years, the vast majority of citizens have been reduced to silence. More than 80 per cent of the budget allocated for district development is reported to go to the pockets of the local mechanism composed of the nominees of the major three or four parties. Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s luck has drastically lost its steam, thus resulting in unmasking him and his comrades-in-arm for what they actually are. Six years constitute a relatively long enough period for the Nepalis to gauge who does what why and how. With politicians like the ones at the leadership in the various parties, it is easy for the people to evaluate them without the least difficulty. The need is therefore to take up the “reactionary” Kamal Thapa’s highly democratic call for the direct democracy in the form of a national referendum on the controversial issues that have polarized and rotted the atmosphere so badly. Only those with the spine and conviction can initiate action with commitment. Now who might they really be? nnnn