| suva chintak |
Posted
on 09-Jan-03 03:53 PM
Sajhabasis,
Those of you who follow the Nepali newspapers will find the attached letter to the editor in the recent issue of The People's Review from Kathmandu interesting. Here is one critical response to Mr. CK Lal's prolific columns in The Nepali Times and the Himal magazine in Nepal.
Sir,
The following is my reaction to CK Lal's opinion published in The Nepali Times No. 124 "Musharrafship".
Name-calling as elite intellect
Lal's towering reputation built on alternatively bashing Nepal's monarchy and Pakistani polity is only matched by his cavalier disregard for basic facts. Without regard to historical and constitutional differences, he makes a blanket comparison between Gen. Musharraf and the Nepali King. Should we be surprised if Lal declares in his next installment that the October 4 decision was after all an ISI grand design?
Who can match the redoubtable Lal in name-calling? Anyone who holds a different view point or interest position is quickly dismissed as 'donor collaborator', King's 'collaborator', 'high-priest', 'reactionary' or such other derogatory slurs. Just because some of his views are congruent with the Maoists and the Indian state, how would he feel if others similarly labeled him as the 'Indian collaborator'?
Rather than reason and facts, Lal will posture from the high horse of cliched generalities like 'democracy' and 'human rights.' For example, he claims rather pompously that 'democratic rights and human rights are intrinsically intertwined. It is impossible to have one without the other.' This is fine ideological rhetoric, but how does this statement fare empirically? England is said to have had the Magna Carta from the 13th century, but that did not stop her from abusing the human rights of Africans, Asians, natives, women and the Irish for the next seven centuries. The French revolutionaries proclaimed 'fraternity, equality, liberty' from the ramparts of Bastille in 1789, but they continued to treat the Haitians, Africans, Vietnamese, and the Algerians as anything but humans till recently.
Nearer home India is supposed to have 'democratic rights.' But that does not seem to ensure any 'human rights' for millions of people in Kashmir, Gugarat, or Bihar for that matter where the state, fascist thugs or land lord armies, independently or in collusion, regularly commit most brutal inhumanities. Few 'authoritarian' states can match this record of human rights abuses. If anything, the Indian 'democratic' regime appears to reward the perpetrators of ethnic cleansing with handsome electoral rewards, as was recently witnessed in Gujarat. Recall how Hitler won a landslide victory after his storm troopers began taunting the Gypsies and the Jews. But writing from the belly of mother India, Lal does not see these contradictions in his own neighborhood, he has to go all the way to Pakistan to find fodder for his biased intellect.
Lal goes on to label Nepal's monarchy as an 'ossified institution' without a shred of proof. If anything, the vociferous campaign by the Maoists, UML, and Nepali Congress to disrupt and discredit the King's visit to Biratnagar to attend a civic reception exposes the lie cultivated by 'elite intellectuals' like Lal who say Monarchy has no base or relevance in Nepal. Why are 'democrats' and 'communists' scared of the people meeting their King? Further, how does Lal see the so-called 'mass-based political leaders' getting us out of the insurgency quagmire if they themselves have been sleeping with the Maoists all along?
Finally, Lal accuses the government of being a dictatorship. Over the years Lal has been throwing every kind of invective against the Monarchy and the Army except for the four letter word and he seems to be doing just as he continues to be the standard bearer for the most prominent newspapers in Nepal. I can't imagine The New York Times, London Times, or The Times of India carrying such virulent attacks against their head of state and the armed forces, week after week. I have seen no greater tolerance of expression.
The public expects more accountability from its intellectuals, not just empty slogans and accusations. Or does Lal feel, as Mother India's prodigal son in self-exile, he is somehow above such trifles as facts and evidence?
Kshitz Basnet
(The above comments responding to CK Lal, columnist, The Nepali Times, by her reader, Kshitz Basnet, originally sent to its editor was refused to print. We, thus, chose to print the same-Ed.)
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