Krishna Prasad Sapkota
People’s trust towards political party leaders has dropped sharply. Public outrage is increasing. If this sequence continues for a few more years, experts have already started pointing out the danger of turning into an explosion.
The leaders who were cheered by the people yesterday are losing their shoes and boots today. The news that the leaders looted the state property is constantly coming. The news of the theft of billions of savings of co-operative victims is being made public. But even in such a big case, the government is sitting as if it is not listening with oil in its ears.
While the main opposition party Nepali Congress has maintained the demand for the formation of a parliamentary inquiry committee regarding the fraud of cooperative funds, the government has ended the current session of the parliament. Can the convicts be freed by ending the current session of the Parliament? The question is being raised at the public level.
However, Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda took the stand of not investigating the Rabi Lamichhane case in the Parliament meeting. The argument of the common people is that no one can be found guilty by Parliament and no one should be declared innocent. Not only is there no investigation, but the media has also been used to identify Lamichhane.
Some media have started singing Lamichhane’s praises. There is a way to sing praises, there is a limit, but it has also been seen that some media have started singing the praises of Lamichhana in such a way as to make the field of journalism corrupt and the public trust of journalism will decrease.
“The method and method of distinguishing who is guilty or who is innocent from Rostom or floor is not good. The Home Minister should be allowed to enjoy the right to be proved innocent by forming a parliamentary inquiry committee. No one is ready to believe that Home Minister Lamichhane is not involved in the cooperative fraud case. In this situation, resigning from the post is beneficial for Home Minister Rabi and for the country as well.
He was out of power after the co-operative fraud case was raised and the acquittal does not mean that democracy cannot be further disgraced. Also, Rabi and Ravi’s party will benefit, democracy would be stronger. But the movement of regressive share has started from another angle. Some leaders have also been seen in the campaign to keep Ravi in office and further weaken democracy and the independent party. Efforts are being made to make Rabi look good in the cooperative case. This effort is very harmful for democracy.
The alternative to democracy is democracy itself. As long as the alternative efforts continue, democracy will not be able to flourish. In democracy, it is not always the case that only good people reach the ruling power, sometimes bad people can reach the ruling power. When bad people come to power, the people suffer.
The decline of the country begins. Bad people can be overthrown through periodic elections, that is, alternatives to the rulers can be found. But there are many examples in the world where the country is destroyed even more when the alternative to democracy is sought because a bad person has come to power.
You don’t have to go far to look at the neighboring countries of India and Pakistan. These two countries became independent together. The democratic process also started at the same time. In the course of democratic practice, bad people also came to power in both countries at some point in time.
The difference was that the democratic method was used in India to change the bad ruler, that is, the people waited until the next election. But the army was called in Pakistan, that is, the army started the practice of changing the bad ruler. In this gap of 70 years, democracy is becoming institutionalized in India.
India is also getting bigger geographically. India is on its way to becoming the third largest economy in the world. On the other hand, Pakistan has shrunk by half geographically. There is extreme poverty. Some mothers are not in a position to feed their newborn babies full of milk, but most of the country’s budget is being spent on military and weapons.
Even if we look at it in the context of Nepal itself, the period since 2007 has been wasted in searching for an alternative to democracy. The people’s revolution of 2007 established democracy in the country. But after one year of the revolution, King Tribhuvan Shah implemented his active rule as an alternative to democracy. In 2014, people were forced to do another movement.
After the agitation, the then king Mahendra Shah was forced to call for parliamentary elections. But after 18 months, King Shah strangled democracy, and the active rule of the king lasted for 30 years. The multi-party parliamentary system was restored by the people’s movement of 2046, but it did not last even 10 years.
Both the king and the communist powers looked for an alternative to democracy. On the other hand, the leaders in power were losing the trust of the people. In 2062-2063, people were forced to do another movement. The current federal democratic system of government is the product of that movement. Now again, efforts to find an alternative to democracy have started from different angles. The movement of royalists has increased a lot.
If the leaders in power continue to lose the trust of the people in this way, then the current democracy is sure to be martyred like in the past. The alternative to democracy is more advanced democracy, not dictatorship. In a democracy, periodic elections are held, through which the ruler can be changed.
But if the Prachanda government’s attitude remains like this, people’s sympathy may increase towards those who are trying to replace democracy with monarchy or communist dictatorship.
