It’s about time our rant on our politicians gets louder. Yet another deadline for new constitution is about to pass and we are understandably furious. Chautari, chiya pasal, bhatti, expensive pubs or even abroad, we discuss the same thing. Our Facebook news feed and twitter time-line will be cluttered with outcries like how wretched our country has become and how there is no hope for Nepal. But wait, there is hope. People offer solutions too, like killing politicians or hoping for a miraculous mass demise of all of them, bringing back King, trying Army regime etc., etc. All these “wonderful” ideas (or lack of it) have one thing in common, they all are either ludicrous or mostly not in our control. But the interesting thing is, we never talk about the most feasible idea. How about voting them out of power or stop following them? Isn't that the most obvious thing to do? After all, we made them politicians and politicians can only go where we allow them to go.
It’s not that we don't have any decent politicians, we do, but most of them are impotent as they lack followers. In election we vote candidate based on their race, caste and most importantly who is likely to advance our personal agendas (getting promoted, landing jobs, settling a court issue or helping to get an important deal done) rather than national agendas. A corrupt society always promotes and supports corrupt politicians. It’s not that our society was perfectly fine to start with, and politicians later ruined it. We always have been corrupt and have never seriously tried to counter it. We are hypocritical about corruption. Corruption and favoritism is treason if we aren’t a part of it but if we are, it’s fine and even have a perfectly logical explanation for it. “Everybody is corrupt and what I do don’t make any difference”, “I can’t change anything alone”, “Its ok as long as nobody knows and a proper paper work is done” “Now our guy is PM, this is my only chance to land a job”.
Politicians don’t address most pressing national issues because they are too busy addressing personal issues. They are smart enough to understand what they need to do to remain influential. The other problem is we vote extreme end of spectrum. The two biggest parties in constitution assembly are Maoists and Nepali Congress. Ideologically, they are like night and day. First is obviously a communist party, whose ultimate aim is People’s Republic and the other believes in democratic socialism. No wonder, they don’t come to terms. We vote extremes because as a nation we aren’t sure what we want. We claim to know politics. We actually claim to be expert in politics but that doesn’t change fact and the fact is no we don’t. We don’t know because be just talk, we just repeat the politicians’ sound bites. We actually aren’t either capable of understanding or don’t want to spend time to understand it but too hesitant to admit it. If we can take some of our time from mindless political guff and spend it in understanding politics and fact-checking politicians we will do a lot better.
We all claim to care about the country, but if everybody does care why isn’t country moving forward? There must be few reasons, a few people to blame. We certainly can’t blame ourselves because that will mean we will have to change, we will have to make sacrifices. So, politicians are convenient targets and our favorite punch bags. “Blame it on politicians” is the mantra. I am not trying to defend politicians; they are indefensible. I am just not attacking them. I am attacking our mindset. I don’t believe politicians ruined us; they merely took advantage of ever-present ruins. They don’t deserve more criticism than us. Change does happen, provided we choose to become proactive rather than reactive. Next time when we are frustrated and want to blame, if we choose to look in the mirror before looking at Singhadarbar, we might have a chance.
It’s not that we don't have any decent politicians, we do, but most of them are impotent as they lack followers. In election we vote candidate based on their race, caste and most importantly who is likely to advance our personal agendas (getting promoted, landing jobs, settling a court issue or helping to get an important deal done) rather than national agendas. A corrupt society always promotes and supports corrupt politicians. It’s not that our society was perfectly fine to start with, and politicians later ruined it. We always have been corrupt and have never seriously tried to counter it. We are hypocritical about corruption. Corruption and favoritism is treason if we aren’t a part of it but if we are, it’s fine and even have a perfectly logical explanation for it. “Everybody is corrupt and what I do don’t make any difference”, “I can’t change anything alone”, “Its ok as long as nobody knows and a proper paper work is done” “Now our guy is PM, this is my only chance to land a job”.
Politicians don’t address most pressing national issues because they are too busy addressing personal issues. They are smart enough to understand what they need to do to remain influential. The other problem is we vote extreme end of spectrum. The two biggest parties in constitution assembly are Maoists and Nepali Congress. Ideologically, they are like night and day. First is obviously a communist party, whose ultimate aim is People’s Republic and the other believes in democratic socialism. No wonder, they don’t come to terms. We vote extremes because as a nation we aren’t sure what we want. We claim to know politics. We actually claim to be expert in politics but that doesn’t change fact and the fact is no we don’t. We don’t know because be just talk, we just repeat the politicians’ sound bites. We actually aren’t either capable of understanding or don’t want to spend time to understand it but too hesitant to admit it. If we can take some of our time from mindless political guff and spend it in understanding politics and fact-checking politicians we will do a lot better.
We all claim to care about the country, but if everybody does care why isn’t country moving forward? There must be few reasons, a few people to blame. We certainly can’t blame ourselves because that will mean we will have to change, we will have to make sacrifices. So, politicians are convenient targets and our favorite punch bags. “Blame it on politicians” is the mantra. I am not trying to defend politicians; they are indefensible. I am just not attacking them. I am attacking our mindset. I don’t believe politicians ruined us; they merely took advantage of ever-present ruins. They don’t deserve more criticism than us. Change does happen, provided we choose to become proactive rather than reactive. Next time when we are frustrated and want to blame, if we choose to look in the mirror before looking at Singhadarbar, we might have a chance.
