The communists in the government

On/Off the Record

The communists in the government

By P.R. Pradhan

Jyoti Basu was the longest serving chief minister in India. He assumed office as the chief minister of West Bengal from 1977 to 2000. He was one of the co-founders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist). Sure, he was the ideal leader for the communist youths in Nepal. Here in the country, some Jhapalis, being influenced from the Naxalites across the Mechi River in Naxalbari, West Bengal, India, had funded a group of youths launching bloody revolt known as Jhapali Revolt. The revolt was aimed at chopping heads of local feudal and landlords. The Jhapali group later joined the East Koshi Provincial Committee of the Nepal Communist Party, which later became the Nepal Communist Party ML and NCP UML. Although the Communist Party of Nepal was established in 1952, the Jhapali Group was later associated with the East Koshi Provincial Committee. The very group became the dominating force in the UML, now Nepal Communist Party.

As mentioned above, the Jhapali Group was inspired from Charu Majumdar led Naxalbari Revolt, under the inspiration of the very Naxalbari Revolt, the Jhapa Revolt was initiated to make poor people prosperous by killing feudal.

As cited above, there was the communist government in West Bengal bordered with Nepal’s eastern districts. That was one of the reasons for spreading communists in Nepal. Sure, Jyoti Basu started politics in the name of poor, yet, during his tenure, the people in West Bengal never became prosperous, obviously, the communist leaders became prosperous and wealthy. It was thus said that Basu didn’t want to destroy his political base or say his vote bank by transforming poor people to rich, this is the clue for him becoming chief minister for such a long period, that too, through the ballot. Understandably, if poor people will become rich, Basu would not get support from those rich people in the society. Therefore, Basu wished to keep people poor as much as he could.

Here, the Communist Party of Nepal is in power with nearly two-thirds majority. The slogan given by the party is very attractive: “Prosperous Nepal, Happy Nepali”, however, is the government doing any effort to make Nepalis rich and happy, it is a burning question!

Nepali people have already been fade-up from paying tax on each of the step they walk but what facilities the government has provided to the people? In general, tax is paid by individuals to get the government facilities and services. In Nepal, it is being paid to manage salaries, allowances and other facilities of the people’s representatives. The communist leaders believe, politics that they are doing is their profession and they should receive salary as per their service to the nation.

Nepal is seriously suffering from the coronavirus pandemic, youths are returning home after losing their job abroad. Airlines are operating rescue flights by taking three times more airfare from those people facing different crisis in foreign countries. Still, there are many Nepalis stuck in foreign countries as they have no money to eat food. They could not fly back to their motherland as they were unable to pay airfare. There is the Foreign Employees Welfare Fund established through compulsory contribution from each of the Nepali individuals going for foreign job. Already, there is six billion rupees in the Fund. The government is reluctant to use this fund to rescue Nepalis in trouble in foreign countries.

It seems, the nation has already surrendered against the spread of the coronavirus pandemic as it has asked the health organs for not conducting PCR test unless symptoms are seen in any person’s body. Experts are saying that maximum level of PCR tests have to be conducted to overcome the pandemic. Forget about treatment and other facilities as people are dying without getting treatment and they are identified with Covid-19 positive only after their death.

We have talked much about vulnerability of the quarantine and isolation centers managed by the local bodies. Each of the local bodies has already spent 20 million rupees for managing quarantine centers, that too, don’t meet the WHO standard. The federal government has already spent 10 billion rupees in the name of control and precaution of the pandemic. These are the old reports. How much amount has been spent till the date and how much fund that is going to be spent in the days to come, one can just imagine! We all know, how the government officials in the Health Ministry made controversial deal with the Omni International and how the medical supplies were procured by paying even five times more price! Nepal Communist Party co-chairman Pushpakamal Dahal believes, the Singhadurwar reached to the villages, which is true in other sense that the corruption and commission practices limited within Singhadurwar have now reached down to the ward committee level!

The three layer structures – central government, province government and local government – have become a white elephant for the nation. Unnecessarily introduced seven provinces in the country which is even smaller than Indian states West Bengal, Bihar and UP all bordered with Nepal, and 753 local governments have increased non-productive expenditure of the nation. Today, there is the situation that the government is needed to take foreign loan to meet the expenditure of these three governments. As the nation is heading towards adverse direction, there is no chance to make Nepal prosperous. Dahal, Baburam Bhattarai, Upendra Yadav are the architects of the present system, which has already been proved failed, even though, we are accepting them as our leaders! With the present system the people are going to be squeezed further so that they cannot think about big revolution or the regime change! It has now been confirmed that the communist rule is not for upliftment of the poor people but keeping them poor always!

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