INDEPENDENT NEWS

Siddhi B. Ranjitkar: Fight To Finish

Published: Fri 30 Dec 2005 01:12 PM
Fight To Finish
By Siddhi B. Ranjitkar
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
'Fight to finish' is the motto of the seven-party alliance this time but finishing the armed state power by your unarmed army of cadres and students is not a simple thing as some of your colleagues think. KP Oli, one of your colleagues said, "We can finish off the autocratic monarchy by shouting at the palace from the Ratna Park if the Maoists lay down their arms". The reality is that the persons such as Dr. Tulsi Giri with an unbalanced mind, Niranjan Thapa, and Kamal Thapa with the history of hooliganism are still in power and they are determined to implement the agenda of the king. The agenda is to bully the parliamentary parties and the international community, and to crush the Maoists, run the country autocratically.
All these things do not mean that you cannot finish them off but you have to build a moral foundation to stand firmly on it and then tear down the autocratic setup so far built by the regressive forces demolishing the democratic setups. You can build your moral strength by atoning your past two mistakes such as corruption and mismanagement. You can atone the dark blotches of corruption by removing the corrupt politicians from your central committees, ask the public forgiveness for what they had done in the past, and commit yourselves not to repeat such things in the future, and put the culprits behind bar when you come to power. Then, you publicly commit not to repeat the past mistakes of the unwise governance and would not fight for petty interest but for the universal interest.
You squandered many development projects for not having the share of commissions coming out of them. For example, once your minister denied the foreign investor the Kathmandu-Hetauda Tunnel Project only because the investor did not want to pay any commission to the concerned minister. Similarly, your one government after another did not properly and seriously implement the Melamchi Drinking Water Project rather squabbled over the commission coming out of it. You have to clearly say to the public that you are going to remedy all these evils in the coming years.
Universal interest means the interest of the people in general in other words you will be always fighting for the welfare of the people. However, the misery is that you even have failed to show your sympathy to the relatives of the victims of the army killer in Nagarkot. None of you has bothered to go to Nagarkot, express condolences, and give words of support for the victims of the army man's killings. How could you get the public support if you do not work for the public?
Your parliaments have failed to pass the Bill that gives equality to the women when you were in power even going against the Constitution that has the provision for the equality of all, and thus denying the women the basic human rights to equality, and continued to inflict injustice on the women that comprise the half of the Nepalese population. You did not annul the laws that go against the women's rights to equality. The irony is that recently the Supreme Court of Nepal by its ruling provided the Badi women with the rights to get citizenships for their children but did not extend this ruling to all women of Nepal.
Even now, to state one - the most visible inconvenience that has been causing to a common person is the obstacle to walk or drive on the road. Currently, the traffic police even do not let the common people to cross the road denying the basic human rights to go home when the police cordoned off the area for some persons' safe riding. Why do not you take up such things? You might think it is a trifle matter but for the common person it is not as s/he is losing the rights to walk or drive home for a few hours. We have numerous examples of such things that you could take up for the benefits of the common people.
If you are putting the people's interest above your own interest then you need to pursue everything for the sake of the public, and defend the people's rights. Then only, you might claim for the people support for what you are doing. Without the support of the people, no one can last for a long time. For example, Russians did not save the Soviet Union because it failed to work for the people. It was built on the wrong principles of injustices to the people who are not proletariats. It was for the so-called proletarian dictators only. It did not provide the Russians with even the basic human rights to freedom of speech, movement and so on. So, Russians did away with such a system. It must be a good lesson for the current dictators and would-be dictators. All sorts of power built on the principles that go against democracy are bound to crumble.
After having the people convinced of what you are doing is for the common man only, you formulate the strategy for fight to finish. In no way, your actions should suffer the public. Forget about the closure of the Kathmandu Valley and Nepal. No one will support it rather people might rise against such actions.
Your strategy should be to stop the unconstitutional government from working. First, on behalf of the people, you need to inform the Chairman of the Council of Ministers, through his Chief Secretary Lok Man Singh Karki what you want and what you will do if your demand is not met.
Your next strategy should be paralyzing the unconstitutional government. To this end, you should stop the first media evil. Your cadres should stop the Gorkhapatra publications from publishing lies after lies at the cost of the tax payers, and should stop the Nepal TV and other TV from airing lies after lies. For example, the state-run media talk about nothing but democracy only but the Chairman of the Council of Ministers and his henchmen have been systematically dismantling the democratic setups built in 1990s. Then, you should stop any government vehicles from plying on the road. Then, you stop ministers at the entrance from entering into the Singha Durbar Secretariat, as you don’t recognize them as the members of the constitutional government. Similarly, you stop them attending conferences, seminars and inaugural meetings and so on. All these things should not hamper the public businesses at all.
Disobey any law that goes against the Constitution; any law that goes against the Constitution is not a law; defy even the court order if it goes against the Constitution. None has rights to judge going against the Constitution. Defend the Constitution at any cost. The Nepal Bar Association has been doing a very commendable job of challenging any ruling of the Supreme Court of Nepal that goes against the Constitution.
Stopping the municipal elections does not make sense. The government will validate the elections even if only a few votes were cast or the government might do what it did during the referendum in 1981. Everyone must have a fresh memory of how the government validated the referendum. You cannot win the game by simply stopping the voters going to polls. It is a wrong strategy of fighting against the regression and autocratic regime. Autocrats would do anything to preserve their supremacy so you should fight against them and disabled them.
The Home Minister has already indicated that he is going to apply the same old trick of using the plain-clothed policemen for causing violence and then blaming you and your cadres for such violence during your campaign against the municipal polls. The Home Minister went even one step ahead saying that you will be responsible for any violence perpetuated by the Maoists, as you have reached a 12-point understanding with them.
Unity is strength. As long as you keep the seven-party alliance intact, you will be powerful to challenge any autocratic power. So, keep it in mind that you should not break up the unity until you achieve the goal of democracy. Do not continue the attitude of the business of the seven-party alliance is of nobody's business; such an attitude will help the autocrats and their henchmen only.
Your slogan 'fight to finish' must be for killing the autocracy and for completely eliminating economic, political and social injustices so far inflicted on the Nepalis by the autocrats. Everybody knows democracy and autocracy cannot co-exist. If democracy is to survive and flourish, autocracy must die. To kill autocracy you have to build a moral strength on which you can stand firmly and build democracy. Nepalis do not want to waste time and energy to finish off one kind of autocracy to be replaced by another kind of autocracy. Nepalis want democracy in its real sense. People must be above all of all in all actions not in words only.
ENDS

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