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We know it is coming. Yet we seem to have given up even before the dreaded second Covid-19 wave arrives. There is zero trust between the government and the citizens it supposedly represents. The presence of enormous, unmasked crowds at various party venues to bring in 2078 BS, all over the country, suggests people either don’t believe the new Covid-19 contagion is serious enough or they don’t give a damn. Rather than trust an incompetent, lying government, they would take their chances. Rather than stay cooped up in their homes like caged animals—and for what, they might ask after their previous lockdown experiences?—they would live freely to their last breath. 

The government response has been blasé. It has shown no commitment to screen the thousands of people who have been streaming into Nepal from India on a daily basis. Since India placed restrictions on its nationals from traveling abroad from Indian territories following the new Covid-19 wave, many of them are making a beeline to Kathmandu in order to fly to third-country destinations. Most of them admit to evading border surveillance mechanisms that would have meant lining up for Covid-19 screening for hours. Similar apathy has characterized government efforts to import vaccines. Not even a tenth of the population has been jabbed till date. 

Private school owners meanwhile are reluctant to shut down their institutions, willfully ignoring a clear evidence of spread of a dangerous variant of Covid-19 among young students. Unlike the previous variant that afflicted mostly the elderly, this one hits the youth the hardest. Hospital beds are quickly filling up. A more credible government should have had no problem making the school owners see sense. But as the Oli government battles for its very survival, it has been badly distracted from the growing virus menace, and its credibility is crumbling fast.  

There is confusion all around. Even amid a severe shortage of vaccines, those who remain to be vaccinated are already having second thoughts after hearing of severe side-effects of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines. The government has done a very poor job of communicating why getting the vaccine is worth the risk, or if people should really hold back. As it vacillates, people are coming to their own conclusions. The previous year in Bikram Sambat was a forgettable one for Nepal. The omens are ominous for 2078 BS as well.    

Whether or not the government labels it as such, the double whammy of Covid-19 and air pollution, both worsening by the day, has already created a national health emergency. Covid-19 infections are spiking in India, and we are importing them via the porous border. The number of those rendered gravely ill by the virus has shot up, as Nepali hospitals again run out of beds for new corona patients. Worryingly, health experts say the number of serious Covid-19 cases is higher this time compared to during the previous peaks. 

Compounding the crisis, the quality of air has plummeted, with Kathmandu now consistently ranking as the city with the foulest air in the world. Every resident of Kathmandu is, in effect, smoking nearly 70 cigarettes sticks every single day. Nearly everyone has itchy eyes. Head and body aches have become as common. Even some of the fittest folks are having difficulty breathing. It’s worse for the elderly and infirm. Meanwhile, air pollution has worsened the health effects of Covid-19, increasing mortality rates among the elderly. And everyone’s lives are being cut short.

The biggest problem right now is that people have zero faith in their government. Last year, the lockdowns were arbitrarily imposed and as arbitrarily lifted. Corruption and delays have marred the import of Covid-19 gears and vaccines. Ill-prepared governments, at all three tiers, appear helpless in dousing the forest fires that have sprung up right around the country. At this time of a health crisis, the country does not even have a stable government. 

Hopelessness is a dangerous thing and can easily morph into anger. The public, repeatedly lied to, is in a mood to defy the government should it declare another lockdown, or even impose much-less restrictive measures to limit the damages of the twin health crisis. The already troubling situation could get much worse. This is why it is important for the government to commit to measures to mitigate the Covid-19 pandemic and clean the foul air, lay out a workable plan, and to keep the public informed every step of the way. This isn’t something the government can solve on its own. It will have to be a collective effort. But for that the government must first be perceived as working in public interest. Failure to do so will cost lives.  

People of Kathmandu khaldo are often accused of thinking about the rest of the country only when events outside the valley inconvenience them individually. During last year’s Covid lockdown, we were livid with the hordes of people crossing over into Nepal from India without screening for the dreaded virus. At election-time, we worry about the prospect of the ‘lesser educated’ folks from the outskirts electing the wrong people to govern us. Now, we are blaming all the ‘bumpkins’ who left their fires unattended and had the valley-denizens choking for air. 

But accusing the folks of Gorkha or Gaur of carelessness is a touch rich. Of all the big and small places in the country, the valley emits by far most carbon-di-oxide and other noxious gases that contribute to air pollution and are thus responsible for the current haze over Kathmandu. That the country has received a quarter of the volume of rain it normally does this time of the year is also not their fault. Nor is lack of preparation at any level of government to handle these perennial forest fires. 

More likely, saving the country’s forests and mitigating climate change has not been high on the priority of the administrators in Kathmandu, as they don’t suffer its worst effects (until they do). This is perhaps why there is no mechanism to tackle these summer- and winter-time fires that destroy hundreds of thousands of Nepal’s green cover every year. Nor do those running the national capital seem keen on limiting the emission of harmful gases from vehicles. Despite strict regulations against it, there is no shortage of vehicles here belching thick plumes of smoke.

We also hear of plans to make the valley cleaner and greener, say, in a decade. But how do we believe these planners when not even the bare minimum is being done to cut greenhouse-gas emissions? Whatever little good we see—cycle lanes in Lalitpur, for instance—has come at the initiative of common folks determined to improve the health of the community they call home. We can now complain about stingy eyes and heavy heads all we like, but things will not change without sustained pressure from below. Otherwise, why doesn’t this potentially life-and-death issue ever become an electoral agenda? Only when the citizens push will their representatives make and implement the right agenda. 

On the cusp of a possible second wave, the country is reeling under a shortage of Covid-19 vaccines. The vaccination program for those under 60 has been suspended. Following the legal split in the ruling Nepal Communist Party, Prime Minister KP Oli is completely focused on knitting together a majority in the 275-member federal lower house. The opposition parties—Nepali Congress, JSPN and breakaway CPN (Maoist Center)—too have tried to form an anti-Oli coalition. Both the efforts have failed, and it could be some time before a majority government is formed.

Big differences separate negotiating parties. Oli’s CPN-UML wants JSPN to unconditionally join the government, perhaps in return of a handful of lucrative ministries. The nationalist prime minister won’t amend the national charter as per JSPN demands; nor will he be keen on releasing Resham Chaudhary, the alleged mastermind of the 2015 Tikapur killings, again for the fear of a nationalist backlash. As negotiations drag on, JSPN could split, if enough of its leaders get the ministries of their choice. This could be a risky course for breakaway Madhesi leaders ahead of the federal elections. 

Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba either gets to be prime minister again, or all government-formation negotiations are off the table. Biding time, he seems to have calculated, is the best course of action now. If he is offered the PM’s chair, all and good; if not, he could still emerge as the leader of the largest parliamentary party after federal elections. JSPN knows Congress too is in no position to address its constitution-amendment demands. In that case, the party should get to lead the tripartite Congress-Maoist-JSPN government, its leaders argue. Meanwhile, Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s revived Maoist party wants Oli out at any cost. 

Oli, who has not stepped down even after the court’s restoration of the house he dissolved, is no statesman. Perhaps he even feels vindicated following yet another Supreme Court verdict, this time dissolving the ruling NCP. The truth is that he has failed to govern the country in the past three years, including during the dark days of the pandemic. That there is no good option to replace him works to his favor, but to great disfavor of the nascent federal democratic republic he leads.