Bigyan Prasai, FCCA
First of all I would like to pray for all those departed soul of the 25th April, 2015, earthquake . My thoughts and empathy are with the victims and survivors of the disaster. My solidarity to all the helping hands and benevolent people within and outside the countries who are selflessly, tirelessly helping , supporting the victims and their families . This tremendous loss of life and property has cause huge soreness and mourning to us and our people. But I was overwhelmed by the spontaneous support of the Nepalese diasporas throughout the globe and all the people in and out of country. This unison of us gave me enormous hope and trust that together we can do more and in that spirit we can built our nations . The helping hands and souls of our people at the time of need showed the world ,how much we care for each other. We should keep this WE feeling within us alive as we go along now and create a better place to live in harmony and in happiness. The decree of racial hatred, discrimination and division is enough and enough now. Now is the time to build our fragmented , hatred and disharmonise society . We the ordinary people were irritated and out of tolerance level because of the growing hatred created by the social, political , racial and economical elites of the society in both the national and local level. I guess the nature also was out of tolerance and shook her body to awaken us in dismay . A moment has come and rarely in history that we should now stay together and move ahead with a very united spirit, structured planning and with cautious approach. We cannot afford to make mistake after mistake, year after year, decades after decades and history after history. It’s time to stand up and show the world what we are made off. We cannot afford to make failure after failure.
The International communities, different INGOS and rich peoples and organisations within and out of countries have made huge financial pledge to support at this difficult time. I strongly feel that , now is the time for all of the Nepalese to pledge to build the nation and convert this pain into gain on momentum of national unity. Our work has just started and should not be over until and unless we wipe out each and every tears of poor and the oppressed, we should not stop to toil on our soil as long as we come out of the poverty and show the world with our head held high with respect and dignity. To start with we should first start loving each other , remove our prejudice and start building trust within and among us. We are the people, we are the government , we are the giver , we are the taker, we are the victims, we are the saviours. It is all we and us that bind us to-gather. It is all we that we need to do. Lets pledge to stop distrust ourselves. We have to do this , we have no option. Self help is the best help. If we do not want to make Nepal another Haiti, we have to pledge to stand together no matter what the difference we have. If we do not want to fall foul of the international politics and remain NEPAL , dignified Nepal, we have no option to pledge for harmony.
Aftermath of 25th April ,2015, I can see in the recent scenario in Nepal that actors are trying to create a parallel scenario of Haiti disaster in 12th January 2010. Haiti experience suggests that money alone is not the solution to the disasterof this scale. Our people may hear in news that millions of dollars and pounds has been pledged by international community and assume the foreigner will build our country and make us prosperous and happy. Had this been the case than Haiti after 5 years of the earthquake would have been a prosperous country as the huge foreign money pledged in. But to dismay is still in chaos. Today 85,000 peoples are in streets under the tent in dire situation. Immediately after the 3 week of the disaster the head of the governments of development countries held a meeting in New York and pledged billions of dollars. Even today there is a debatable question of where the 6 billion dollars pledge gone in Haiti. The mistake in Haiti was made by international community which ended up in rebuilding the nation in more chaotic. The international donor agencies and communities were everywhere in the media depicting as if they are the saviour of the people and portraying themselves as superior and demoralising the Haiti Government and the people. They portrayed the Haiti as fragile country and channelled all the funds bypassing the Haitian people and the government. Only 6% of the total pledge money was given to the government . Haitian people were excluded to make key decision on the use of the money. Out of 1493 rebuilding and reconstruction only 23 were in the hands of Haitian people. We should not let happen this in Nepal. But sadly we are showing the same symptom as happened in Haiti. The mistrust of the Political parties and Governments , slogans against the government and too much trust of foreigner is the first Haitian Symptom. I have also seen people appealing not to channelized funds to the government but instead trust the foreign agencies . I was very shocked and saddened by the increasing attitude to mistrust the government and channel support themselves and through the INGOs. I was also saddened by the so called diasporas NRNs leader in UK boasting by signing a MOU with Oxfam channelling our funds to foreign agency instead of Nepalese authorities. While mistrusting our own government and relying on foreign help will lead us nowhere other than to the situation of Haiti where 1% of the relief fund went through government. The people there thought that the foreigners and INGOs are better than the Government of Haiti and all the relief fund and the rebuilding funds were channelled out of Government but still the situation remains dire . What we should understand is by demoralising our Government, our institution we are diluting our sovereignty, we are daunting upon our dignity.
We should understand that the Government is the people’s government , they are the people among us, they are from the political parties we choose and vote to govern us, to manage us. They reflects the capacity, attitudes and behaviours as the society inherits. They are not super human being from another planet with full of miracles and super power. We cannot expect our leaders and government to that of Britain or America. I have seen and heard people comparing our leaders to that of Barak Obama or David Cameron. Before we compare them , we should also compare ourselves and our society with the people and society of UK and America. Do we and our society is developed as them? if not how can we compare our leaders to them. We cannot expect to get orange in the apple tree . Oranges comes from orange tree and apple comes from apple tree. So our leaders comes from our society inheriting the social, ethical ,and cultural values we borne. If we need to change and produce good leaders and capable governments , we should upgrade our social and moral values , we should be more capable and enlighten, we should be more responsible and dutiful. What we should understand is unless we do not change ourselves , we cannot change the leaders, the governments and the system. No matter whatever system we adopt in paper be it federal republic, democracy or any ‘ISM’ we cannot translate the paper into practice. So let us stop trying to change other and start to change ourselves and become an agent of the change.
The other important aspects is that the leaders should also stop pretend as ruler . A leader should understand that you have been chosen to the government to serve the people not to rule them. Your are just no more elite and super in terms of the people. Leaders should portray them as a social servant and should try to acquire desired skill to fulfil the basics of the peoples mandates. Finally , lets stand together to pledge for nation building.
