No More Cliches, Please! (Dummy)

No More Clichés, Please!

A nation embattled with insurgency and constitutional deadlock requires a fresh input of problem-solving thought than reiteration of old dogmas.

By John Narayan Parajuli

In the marketplace of ideas, surprisingly we Nepalese seem to be finding none--vis-à-vis the resolution of our internal conflict. As the three-pronged conflict in Nepal exacerbates at our own peril, all the three actors involved in this national predicament seem to have either lost their ability to be futuristic rising above their petty interest, or have been blissfully ignoring the other alternative solution that have the potential to resolve our conflict for once and all. Even the civil society has been rather shy to trigger debates on the alternatives. What has been debated so far is the same solution that the leaders of 1990s movement offered. A lot of water has flowed under the Bagmati bridge since then. But with fleeting time, our modus operandi and thought patterns haven’t changed. It’s all about compatibility. Thoughts that do not represent the changing time are bound to become invalid and obsolete. Outdated solution in a different date is only like to protract the crisis. The more we drag our feet on the discussion of more democratically radical ideas, the worse-off we are likely to be. As a nation embattled with insurgency and a constitutional deadlock, Nepal requires a fresh input of problem-solving thought rather than reiteration of the old dogmas. The hue and cry raised by the mainstream forces is understandable in the wake of the royal putsch, what is not understandable is that solution these mainstream forces are offering still resonates of the bygone era. A new era certainly demands new solution. The crisis we are facing now is basically and accumulation of the problems we choose to ignore. It was in the making since the day democracy was restored. The president of Nepali Congress, Girija Prasad Koirala made a monumental blunder when he tongue in cheek told his supposedly family clique in Biratnagar that the threat of adopting a republican agenda was only a bargaining tactic. Making public your strategy is not a wise way get concession from your opponent. Beside the way he labeled two of his party-men as royalist is a telling evidence of his unending lust for power. And this accusation reportedly came after his hush-hush meeting with the monarch in the Charalee Barrack. Compromising with the monarch for a larger national cause may be understandable but if it is for personal favor or personal lust for power, then it obviously raises doubts about the democratic credentials of “father-like figure” of Nepal’s democratic movement. With the emergence of the two extreme forces on both sides of the political spectrum (left and right), the middle ground has been marginalized with little or no say in the decision making now. More than anyone else the mainstream forces need to come up with the fresh thought. The Palace and the Maoists have tried to tailor their “declared agenda” to represent the changed time. Though it is no less an irony that they both in principle are trying to sell an anachronistic idea. The King calls himself a modern monarch to fulfill his medieval feudalistic ambition. The Maoists who represent a failed system have often flip-flopped on their stand on democracy to misled people about their lack of democratic credentials. So the only force that has been very shy of thinking, evolving and propounding a new solution is the mainstream force that by and large represents the aspiration of the common populace.