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By Yug Bahadur

It is not only the political leaders of a small and impoverished nation like Nepal, the newly elected president of the sole superpower of the world also seems to be engaged in bringing more populist decisions rather than pragmatic ones.

His decision to withdraw from the World Health Organisation, deport hundreds of thousands of immigrants and also stop funding aid for the USAID, have baffled many people all across the world. Thousands of Nepalis will also be affected, and it is being said that many have already started to come back to Nepal.

We can already imagine the plight of many workers in US Aid who will lose their jobs, and that includes those working here in Nepal as well.

I myself know many fellow citizens who have left their motherland to settle in America for whatever reasons. But in the end, they always wanted to come back. I knew a man who incidentally worked in the US Aid office in Nepal back in the Sixties who went to settle down in America. Perhaps he was one of the few persons who settled down there at that time. I consider him a pioneer of Nepalese immigrants in that country. But as time passed and he became older, he expressed his desire to come back to Nepal and settle here. His family are all Americans, and they don’t care to call themselves Nepalese, and this way, this man’s identity has also perhaps been lost forever.

I fail to understand why so many Nepali people are so much interested to go abroad and if possible to settle down there.

These days, we are seeing even very qualified and educated persons wanting to leave Nepal and work in some foreign land. Of course, I understand the compulsion of thousands of people who get better salaries in these foreign lands, even if they have to work in harsh conditions, but why are even professionals leaving the country?

I remember one comedian saying Nepalese have contributed a lot in building Malaysia and other nations, and now they are contributing to developing even Japan and America. But what about their own country, Nepal? “We will think about it later”, he sarcastically commented.

Who will build Nepal? The thugs that we see everywhere specially in political outfits. Or the greedy politicians who only seem to be interested in making money and helping their kith and kin?

So the blame does not go to only those who have left Nepal, it goes equally, if not more, to those who have created this environment where people feel more comfortable to live in a foreign country  as ‘third class’ citizens, rather than stay back home.

This author doesn’t want to spread more dismay in this constantly depressing situation. But we must accept the fact that the nation is not heading towards better times.

Be it the interference of outside powers or the servile attitude of our political leaders and also their greed to make more money, we have little to look forward to seeing a ‘prosperous Nepal’, as claimed by our present Prime Minister KP Oli.

For example, the winter session of the parliament has already begun. But it is virtually frustrating to hear our parliamentarians speak only on petty matters while totally ignoring the real hardships of the majority of the citizens. We understand when they bring up issues of their own constituencies or districts, but what we want to hear is their concern about national problems. They simply cannot have a narrow vision, as not only the nation but also the people have to suffer in these desperate times.

Forget the antics of the more established parties, the so-called youth leaders of the recently formed Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) also seem to be concentrating on only the ‘freedom’ of their own party leader and not worried about the problems of the people in general.

The urgent need of the people is to see a decrease in the artificial inflation of their daily needs, like edible items like rice, lentils and vegetables for instance. They also want better health facilities and access to good education and social security. Even in the most developed countries education is free of cost for a certain period. But why don’t our politicians concentrate on such matters?

Is only saving one person or getting into power another person on their priority list? Aren’t the problems of the people not in their minds at all? This question would be futile to ask the leaders of the more established parties, but what is the younger generation of leaders in the newer parties also doing? Only defending their own party leader in shrill voices is not enough. Also, talk of the problems of the people as well to draw the attention of the government.

Meanwhile, PM KP Oli seems only involved in boasting about his accomplishments during his tenure, while former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal seems too keen on only blaming Oli and seeking to get to power again by forging a coalition of the splintered  Left forces and other smaller parties. Sher Bahadur Deuba has remained comparatively silent, but he and his wife Arzu Rana Deuba have also received a lot of flak from the media. And like Oli and Dahal, they deserve this sort of treatment. Surely, many other leaders also need similar types of criticism from the media, but sadly, the media people are definitely divided on political lines. Maybe one can count on fingers some media persons who are really independent. Being a part of the media sector for a long time, I feel sad to say this fact, yet it is true. But it is a positive factor that some young journalists are being seen, specially in the visual media, who have blasted all political parties and politicians for their wrongs. This is the right thing to do.

But to come back to our main theme of the political bickering among the political parties, their leaders and also the alarming manner we are seeing in the formation of groups and sub groups within the major parties themselves, it is worrying for observers like this author for instance, where will these people take this nation in the future and not far the future.

The world is in a serious crisis, again by the formation of different allies, but more worrying part is that our tiny nation is also subject to division not only among parties but also within the parties. I have nothing against multi-party democracy, but I still feel that it has not brought either democracy or development to the nation. We must either be able to be united or be dictated by foreign powers like all other less-developed countries are being dictated. This should be realized by our present leaders, exactly like some of our former leaders did. Rhetoric is not enough to develop the nation or provide relief to the people no matter where they live.