My Vision for my Motherland

[npnews]

My Vision for my Motherland

According to the 2001 census of Nepal, there are 103 different ethnic groups in Nepal. They speak at least 90 different languages. Some of the ethnic groups are as small as 164 people. Nepal is a country of minorities. The largest minority group is that of Chhetris at 15.80% followed by the Brahmins at 12.74%. Magars constitute the third largest minority group at 7.14%. Realizing the complexities of the make up of the population, Pirthvi Narayan Shah, the founding father of Nepal declared in 1767 AD that Nepal is a garden for people of all races and ethnic groups. In fact, Nepal was well known as a peaceful nation with complete harmony among people of diverse ethnic groups who practiced different culture and spoke different languages.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/others/guestcolumn/oct/guest_columns_09.php

[Shanti Nepali]

Mr. Thapa,
Good to read such a wonderful article.
Thanks

[Tanka Hook Chungbang]

I do hope more intelectuals, vetrans and learned Nepalis comeforward with their beautiful visions such as Prof. Thapa.

I do hope, government listens and take action accordingly.

We can build our tiny and beautiful nation in a matter of time with the principle of economic with education.

[WhatYouSay]

Someone tried to configure a vision for making Nepal a developed nation. But many will disagree. It may make our neighbor country jealous. Mostly political pundits will ignore. Some of them will label it a monologue. Their (hidden) agenda have so far dominated all political fronts. They are running without a tangible aim except grabbing power. They do not know when to accelerate or decelerate or stop.

I would say we should welcome such an effort by scholars. This is a start but certainly needs a great deal of resourcefulness, brainstorming and thoughts. Some of his thoughts are strange like not giving cars even to ministers. But anyway the conclusion should be a logical mixture of many thoughts.

The principal cause of political uncertainty and thus economic misery stem from corruption, alignment to power centers, lawlessness, impunity and high-handedness of kingpins. The major players to affect our political and economic future are richest persons with strong political lineage, central political leaders, royal family members, army generals, India, China, USA, Britain, Japan, EU, RIM and religious missionaries. Leaders close to central power and those wishing the same have collaborated with major power centers to satisfy political (and economic) ambitions.

State has never took criminal actions against the those(royal family members, prime ministers, minister, secretaries, institution heads, smugglers) involved in high-level corruption. Judiciary system is itself infected with slow action, bribery and nonchalance towards the poor seeking justice. The same applies to police force. They need drastic reform, training and modernization. Without social and economic justice there cannot be reconciliation, peace and prosperity. The huge gap between the rich and poor, between aristocrats and underprivileged should be narrowed. The trend of amassing huge wealth through illegal means should be first stopped.

Definitely education is the basis for all development. Without knowledge development whether physical or spiritual is meaningless. People should have access to basic health facilities. One should not die without education, treatment and food or water. 

The major sources of income are sources of corruption resulting poor revenue. The actual revenue should have been several times of the present value. This is the principal reason behind governments inability to expend in education, health, employment and infrastructure development. Actually it is a cycle. More judicial expenditure means more economic activities, more employment, more revenue and faster development pace. So revenue department needs overhaul and punishment to the defaulters and officials.

We should embark on the meaningful investment on infrastructure development. Our investment should not be wasted. Most of the investment on rural drinking water and irrigation projects are examples of wasteful investment because of lack of quality of work. Maybe they lack good engineering judgment and design and implementation. People were unable to get benefited from most of the water supply and irrigation schemes because they did not work at all.

Economic opportunities must be created through infrastructure development activities, cottage industries, resource based industry, internal and external tourism, industrial agriculture especially high value corps, commercial herbal planting, processing and exploitation of hydropower for electricity, irrigation and domestic or industrial use. The export of labor at such a pathetic low wage should change. We should provide genuine training to edge over competing labors from other countries to win higher wage and any exploitation or cheating of innocent poor should be immediately stopped. There should be a separate judiciary to deal with any complaint against ill practices. This is a business of several billion rupees (difficult to figure out if we account for the all amount taken by the middlemen alluring desperate job seekers faking good jobs) where big shots are behind giving troubles to hundreds, if not thousands of labors seeking job in foreign countries.

Whatever the political system Nepal is going to embrace, the foremost important thing is the election should be cost effective, free and fair. All election campaign should be simple and low cost. There should be severe restrictions on over publicity and buying of votes. All posters on wall, billboards, and pamphlets should be banned. Information to the voters should be provided though radio, television, notice board and door-to-door campaign. The political parties should be held accountable to their election manifesto, which should be passed by a judicial council. Because in a system any thing should not go against the constitution. Any monetary investment in election should be curtailed to the extent possible.

Fundamental human rights and freedom of expression and freedom of movement should be strictly honored by the government, parties and persons. Should not give privileges of deciding on Nepal and Nepalese to other nations. The basis of leading a country should be the Nepalese people not the other country. Without vision and unrelenting commitment for betterment of Nepal and Nepalese one leader cannot garner the support of the millions. Most of the leaders in Nepal lack peoples' mandate or support. PM Girija has evidently lacked popular support. But he has been a political heavyweight for decades. Why?

National unity among the diversity, respect to each other and ending all forms of discrimination, economic agenda and just distribution of economic opportunities, judicial and election reform, cessation of impunity are pillars of Nepal's success in days to come.

[Alam]

Very nice article, but problem is our corrupt, visionless and selfish politicians will never buy these ideas. Most of them cannot speak or write english. They come in politics by chaeting people, buying votes, making false promises, if they make common people educated their door will be closed. This is just like cat taking care of rat.
What I can say is GOD bless NEPAL and Nepali PEOPLE.

Alam/Kuala Lumpur

[swapnil]

I am just curious that the followers of maoism are not commenting! They probably would label the writer a monarchist as the writer refers to muluki ain, prithivi narayan shah, and of course talks against the federal system.
The first and foremost thing is to make the country better place to live and that can not be achieved by just changing the system. Be it panchayat, bahudal, ekdal, loktantra, federal system, seperation of country, and whatever, the country will suffer until we do not work for the country. So as long as we give a space for a change, we will have different opportunitists coming up with their own interests to lure us into their nets. We bring about changes by destroying everything we have and we start over again. So how many times we start over? When the other nations have already completed their many laps, we are still at the start line. What a shame........

[topi3]

Thank you professor Thapa.
The idea of the business and financial centre is completely brilliant. The low salaries are bad but could be used to make us a better made in korea or made in nepal.
In my other country France we only spead of the GREEN REVOLUTION, that means all heads towards survival of the Planet Earth, in Europe we have terrible climate problems.
Nepal is a challenge and we must be confident, I am and many of us are. Politicians are good but must be guided by people like you. Innovation is not always for the best. The opposition has been heard now the oppposition must do it, better but without changing so much. Switzerland has been conservative to the point of never allowing new nations to become swiss we are all undergoing changes. The main thing seems to be jobs must be created extremely urgently.
Slowly slowly this dependance has to be kicked, that much India understood. And the monster of Pakistan is a monster with nuclear power and jihad. Not such a ramro idea at that time, or Israel wrong place for good idea. They happened to forget same british, that the land belonged to people.

My Vision for my Motherland

According to the 2001 census of Nepal, there are 103 different ethnic groups in Nepal. They speak at least 90 different languages. Some of the ethnic groups are as small as 164 people. Nepal is a country of minorities. The largest minority group is that of Chhetris at 15.80% followed by the Brahmins at 12.74%. Magars constitute the third largest minority group at 7.14%. Realizing the complexities of the make up of the population, Pirthvi Narayan Shah, the founding father of Nepal declared in 1767 AD that Nepal is a garden for people of all races and ethnic groups. In fact, Nepal was well known as a peaceful nation with complete harmony among people of diverse ethnic groups who practiced different culture and spoke different languages.

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/archive/2007/others/guestcolumn/oct/guest_columns_09.php