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By Yug Bahadur

The desire of most of our fellow citizens seems to be to acquire land. This author is specially talking about the politicians, bureaucrats and security officials. They probably feel secure if they have more land than others.
And why not? The price of land has escalated in such a manner that it fuddles one’s mind, specially an old timer like this author who sold his land at a pittance some decades ago. He also heard some people willing to sell their several ‘ropanis’ of land for mere thousands of rupees in those times.
But now it is totally different. Buying land in Kathmandu seems impossible, of course for the honest workers. It costs millions to get even a small plot of land. But our political leaders seem to be above this problem and they have not only acquired land but also built luxurious buildings and nobody questions them about their source of income.
This is Nepal, where ordinary people are forced to pay taxes even while buying or selling land and some people get away by forging documents or hiding behind some political power or the other.
Sometimes this author wonders whether a multiparty democracy was or is suitable for a tiny nation like Nepal. He then remembers the late King Mahendra and his decision to implement the partyless system. Probably he was right as he had seen the agonies the nation had to face because of the political parties which were not only different but also fragmented, exactly like what we are seeing now. Is this a good sign for an impoverished, underdeveloped and fragile country like Nepal which is sandwiched between two major powers of not only Asia but also the entire world?
Of course not, but we are seeing leaders who have no interest in protecting or developing the country, they are running behind only money, no matter how much it costs the nation and what consequences their actions will bring to the people in general.
To come back to the land scam business, it seems the so-called land mafias are very close to the authorities who work in government agencies which deal in land management. That is exactly why these authorities are living a lavish lifestyle and as mentioned by a popular TV anchor, they all work together for personal benefit only. He has mentioned the role of politicians and others in being involved in the big cases of land grabbing, be it in the formerly popular JP High School, the Bansbari Shoe Factory, Bal Mandir or many other places.
The present finance minister has specially been accused of buying and selling land in the much-criticized Lalita Niwas scandal and also of giving land to his son in the name of him being a landless person.
What this author feels is that the decision made during the Panchyat days to give land to the landless people was also wrong. No doubt some restrictions were put up to ensure that no concrete structure could be built or the land given to these people nor could the land be sold, but these regulations were thrown out of the window, specially after the establishment of multiparty democracy. Now we can see tall buildings and other structures being built in these areas and those so-called landless people are hiring their houses to others while they live comfortably elsewhere.
This is no diatribe against them, but giving land for free is not a good idea. The Leftist parties made the most out of this fact by making these so-called landless people their vote bank.
Meanwhile while talking about the cahoots between the so-called land mafia and the officials in different offices dealing in the affairs of land, this author himself has gone through difficult times when he was made to present witnesses to tell that the land where he had lived in for more than sixty years was actually his. Three officials from different divisions came to my home and I had to produce ten witnesses to claim what was actually mine. That was absurd, but it was a regulation common persons like me had to follow. But when one man stole some land belonging to my family, no such exercise was followed. This shows the nexus between the crooked officials and those who greedily look to any fallow land. It does not matter to them whether it is government land or some private land. That is exactly what our politicians are doing now at the behest of different land grabbers.
When even private land is at risk, one can imagine how government land has been taken over by politicians and others. Just as the allegation made by a TV channel of how the present finance minister had manipulated authorities to give land to his son by calling him ‘landless’, it is difficult to say how many such cases have occurred in the past by not only politicians but also by other government officials.
My family has also lost land in areas where such people have come to live. We do not want to disturb or disrupt them. But such gestures should not be taken for granted, exactly like what some so-called landless people are doing.
In my own case, I have lost land to these conniving people because of our naivety. I myself have not bought a single gram of gold or a single slice of land, though I have worked in this field for many decades. I am not proud to say this as my family may be disappointed, but I say this as I regularly write about the bad effects of corruption in society. Here I can say that I can always hold my head high and look at any other person in the eye without having to look down. This is something which I think even our thick-skinned politicians or crooked officials cannot say.
Again I would like to repeat that, stealing land, whether of the government or some innocent individual might bring prosperity for a while but it will prove to be a sin in the end. And sinners will always suffer.