Editorial

Democracy is expected to do this. Since it seeks participation from all, political awareness is said to prompt participation. One presumes thus that democracy is a more aware society. Since there is none with any opinion on anything from the mundane to the most complicated of situations, the politically aware are profuse. Let us suppose that, in the Nepali case, some had political opinions in even the bad old days of non-democracy. Since we have had systems with the democratic appendage for over seven decades now, the terminology applied here is for the bad old Rana days where shall we say the politically aware Krishna Prasad Koirala sent Shri Tin Maharaja Chandra rags worn by laymen messaging a lot of the impoverished. Latter-day politics will not pursue any other political motive to Koirala’s action. Suffice it to say that he was politically aware. After all, we have this rustic telling the king that either his neck itched or he was stark blind but a crooked tree was crooked. This is cited as an example of Nepali adherence to truths. And so there was this feudal who predicted that the Rana system’s collapse began with Judha Shumsher boldly placing his prime ministerial headgear on Padma Shumsher prior to his departure to Ridhi as a mendicant. So important and portentous are headgears in political analysis and opinions that one demonstrated his/her punditry recently by noting that red caps dominated a Kathmandu crowd demanding the reinstatement of the king last week. Of course in ‘no neutral’ Nepali politics the colour red in headgear had to have significance. Since the referendum days, the colour yellow denotes orthodoxy of all types (the colour was given to the panchayat choice in the ballot papers used in the referendum while blue was for the multi-party choice). Indeed, while yellow banners were virtually taboo in the first decade and held since 1990, there is a clear revival particularly among religious gatherings of late —clearly a message for the political savvy. What organizers forgot in their haste to spend the budget allotted for the mass gathering was that red caps have been used by K.P. Oli’s UML party supporters. This particular analyst and activist saw this as either penetration in the monarchist camp or outright conspiracy. Many on the other hand saw a mishap initiated by the unaware who claimed to be very much in tune with politics when they energized the rally. Political analysts had a field day again in dissecting the throngs that presented themselves to welcome the king at the Kumari temple last week. One disgruntled bystander, though, stole the ‘apolitical’ mind by simply wishing that the non-spontaneous presence of the crowd is an example of how the purpose is defeated by politicization. Genuine bystanders were welcoming the revival and the political-religious-cultural significance of the occasion denied the previous spontaneity of popular touch with the monarch. The fact is that the whole of last week and this week the people have ensured that the monarchy steals the show and political pundits cannot shy away from this —except of course in the political mainstream media, party et al.  Government, establishment parties, media, and the mainstream pundits would scoff at these as mere sponsored shows. But, then even pundits are not neutrals here as is known. We have high standards of awareness, one presumes.