Simara has remained tense for a couple of days, giving an indication of turmoil in Madhesh province as Nepal takes not-so-certain steps toward national elections slated for March 5 next year. The CPN-UML had plans to organize an ‘awakening campaign’ in the city located in Bara district but it did not go well with GenZers. On Wednesday, those wanting to organize the campaign clashed with those opposed to it, leaving a couple of GenZers injured.
On Thursday, as a group identifying themselves as GenZers hit the streets of Simara against the police’s ‘failure’ to arrest UML cadres involved in Wednesday’s clash on the basis of their complaint, police used force to disperse them and imposed a curfew. There’s no denying that everyone has the right to protest—and to counter-protest—but the ‘show of strength’ has to be peaceful. What’s more, a protest should not cause inconveniences to others in a democracy worth its name. As the good ole GB Shaw says: Your freedom ends where my nose begins.
But protesters in our country take these things f0r granted and choose to bring life to a halt, which goes against the letter and spirit of our Constitution and makes a mockery of the rule of law. According to Article 17(2)(b) of the 2015 Constitution of Nepal, every citizen has the freedom to assemble peaceably and without arms.
While every outfit has the right to organize its programs peacefully, the host community also has the right to express its disinterest toward such programs and even bar them. In this day and age of information technology, knowledge and information are just a click away and people are generally ‘awake’. This means politicians do not need to take long flights or rough and tumble rides across Nepal all too often to sermon them on several things under the sun and beyond in a typical Panchayati fashion.
What’s more, a significant chunk of the national population appears tired of the old political parties and even their new leaders, thanks to thriving corruption, bad governance, nepotism, the lack of rule of law and chronic political instability over the decades. The loss of mass appeal for the big parties is no good tiding in a democracy, especially in view of the fact that new political forces have not become strong enough to replace the old ones.
Against this backdrop, time has perhaps come for Nepal’s political parties, especially those with the prefix ‘major’ attached to them, to come up with new ways of communicating with the masses that are in sync with changing times and a fast-changing technological landscape.
Having said this, forces across the political spectrum should develop a habit of hearing each other out and desist from suppressing dissent with a brute force to avert the kind of colossal losses that we as a nation suffered on Sept 8 and 9. Moreover, barring parties from organizing their programs will not create a conducive environment for the national elections. The sooner the political forces—and the government—realise this, the better.
