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Editorial

Three decades of political excess and indulgence has this year reduced the festival system to mere form. Shrinking pockets have been disguised in Covid convenience where social distancing, self-isolation and rising death numbers close homes for domestic festivities and public revelries. This is perhaps the darkest period in Nepali history so let there be life. After all, the Tihar is a festival celebrating death and Yama Panchak is ingrained with the realization that after darkness there is light so let there be light. This Diwali, for one reason or the other there is hope and so there is light. The country cannot afford to sink further. Our politicians have exhausted their public goodwill and credibility. They have reduced our festivities to one deemed excessive and unaffordable. Their treatment of the pandemic has been one of sordid formality. The Kleptocracy has exhausted monopolized resources and exhausted it. The compulsion to run the state—that is what politicians want—has now been proven an un-escapable burden. They are stuck with a sick state that they helped degrade until the light enters as a political alternative. Attempts to show that there is an alternative in other leaders and governments within parliament and the system are popularly scoffed at as feeble attempts to retain the monopoly. It is the monopoly that does and will do more harm and the people are aware of it so let there be light.

At least, let there be light because its elusive warmth brings us hope. Let not the hopes be trashed as have been the case for the past so many years where foreign machinations and organizational strangleholds have reduced the country to mere a ragtag version of its history. The oomph is lacking for a religious season which had traditionally been lightened by revelry. A population enthused by a false sense of modernization has had to be dragged through the extremes of politics from partisan destabilization, foreign interventions both overt and covert, civil war and the wanton destruction of painfully built structures with scarce investments. Floundering as the country is with the dislocation of national leadership capabilities, the disorder threatens to spill across the border heightening the neighborhood’s concerns. It is this that scares the knowledgeable. The disorientation of a population of a destitute population must now necessarily turn to the streets. The fear that this will heighten the disorder notwithstanding, the growing understanding as in Tihar is that darkness must necessarily be followed by light. Let Tihar bring light. Let the darkness be chased away by light. Let the streets demand hope. Let the population ask for a light. Happy Diwali.

People’s Review Print Edition