By Devendra Gautam

As night descends, our laidback neighbourhood on the lap of Shivpuri-Nagarjun woods quakes amid flashes of bright light. 

No, the new government formed in the immediate aftermath of the September 8-9 Gen-Z protest has not conducted a powerful nuclear test in our very own Los Alamos to shore up national deterrence in a nuclear neighbourhood.

There’s no denying that a reputed scientist of the Magsaysay fame happens to be a part of this government, but conducting such a test, if at all, will require quite a long time and enduring efforts, even for a youthful government under a septuagenarian matriarch—who, by the way, has replaced a septuagenarian patriarch—that enjoys a solid backing of the powerful Gen-Zers, a force that shook this fragile nation quite vigorously while launching a movement against chronic corruption, nepotism, malgovernance and political instability. This, after the erstwhile government launched a crackdown on social media channels, showing extreme intolerance against public dissent while trying to bring them under the purview of domestic laws.
So, Gen-Zers and members of other ‘not-so-relevant generations’ can be pretty sure that no eccentric scientist will come out of his office cum resident quarter cum lab onto the streets one fine midnight within the next five months, announcing to a nation in deep sleep the acquisition of nuclear capabilities against the backdrop of a huge mushroom cloud featuring a ‘thousand splendid suns’, chanting a few lines from the Bhagavad-Gita to the effect: Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds! 

Of course, occasional news reports regarding the occurrence of uranium here and there (in whatever quality and quantity) can give the people of a subdued, subjugated and dismembered country, cheated at the hands of regime-changers of every imaginable hue and shade, a flash-in-the-pan effect but do we, at this point in time, have the institutional capacity to handle such a fissile material and profit out of it? Politicians of questionable credentials can, of course, sell such dreams to a hungry people during electioneering but handling such fissile materials—and profiting from them—is easier said than done. 

Even in a fool’s paradise, one just does not shovel such fissile materials, pack them in bags, sell them in kilos and make billions! There are rules regarding the use of and trade in fissile materials. Who knows this better than the International Atomic Energy Agency, if not our shallow politicos? 

Developing nuclear capabilities is no cakewalk, either.   

After India became a nuclear state in 1974 by conducting a test called Operation Smiling Buddha in the desert of Pokharan (Rajasthan) and sending shockwaves throughout South Asia and beyond, particularly in the United States, Pakistan’s Prime Minister at the time, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, saw this as a serious threat. The PM laid the foundation for Pakistan’s nuclear bomb and decided to develop the country’s own nuclear program, declaring: We will eat grass, but we will build our atomic bomb. Bhutto gathered a team of Pakistani scientists, and under the leadership of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the team conducted successful nuclear tests in Ras Koh Hills in Chagai, Balochistan, on May 28, 1998.

The nuclear dream is but an allegory. Frankly, no one is expecting this government, like any other, to set our Bagmati on fire and no one is calling it to eat grass for bolstering domestic defence and security capabilities. 

One needs no scientist to say that the incidents of arson during the Gen-Z movement have worsened air pollution in the Kathmandu valley and beyond. As if such incidents were not enough, loud and smoky firecrackers are worsening air and sound pollution. 

A general observation is that the use of firecrackers has gone up quite significantly this festive season compared to preceding seasons. This is perhaps because of a thinner-than-usual security presence along our open border and beyond, thanks to the destruction of police posts and beats in the name of a movement. 

Exploding crackers and leaving neighbourhood after neighbourhood after neighbourhood sleepless points out at the import of an alien culture in a country where oil-fed diyas made of clay and Sal leaves used to mark a peaceful arrival of Deepawali (the festival of lights), of Bhaitika. Loud celebrations just days after the death of around 80 people and injuries to nearly a thousand people show how insensitive we have become. 

No sane mind expects this government formed on the basis of a dictate from the apex predator of a food chain on the brink to set the Bagmati on fire. No sane mind expects any of our green-eyed sapiens to develop, at least in the near future, capabilities that will ensure this nation located in a nuclear neighbourhood a fail-proof defence-security cover. 

But is asking the government to rein in the festive blasts, which have worsened air quality further in the immediate aftermath of a violent movement marked by several incidents of arson, asking for too much? Is asking such a capable administration to let the citizenry, awed and shocked after the recent spate of death and destruction, to have a good night’s sleep till another violent wakeup, of course, akin to asking for the moon?