Finally, the Maoists have joined the government. If their nomination in the interim parliament didn’t suggest the end of the 12-year-long war, then their entrance into the interim government should.
For a Maoist cadre I met at the teashop gossip, it wasn’t a big achievement for them. For him, it was just the shift of power – or he put it, the Maoists joined the legitimate power. They had always enjoyed ruling.
This I found as disturbing as anything else. I thought, what if the Maoists cadres all over the country continue what they used to do during their jungle-rule shouldering on the legitimacy.
I believe this will gradually change, and hope it will soon change.
I am living in the great era of transition. I experienced party-less Panchyat, then the popular movement of 1990, the democracy, the Royal Massacre, King Gyanendra’s rule, in-between the Maoists’ people’s war, the unique peace process and there are still more to see.
Would I die with the happiness that despite all that my mother nation experienced my nation is now going good? Having seen so much in the past two decades, I can’t say anything.
The problem probably lies in our perceptions. We expect too much, and then get frustrated. We tend to change the words for creating new hopes after being dissatisfied from the old word.
Wasn’t the word Prajatantra (or democracy) good enough? We changed it into Loktantra because we get frustrated with democracy era. Properly managed decentralization could have done wonders, but now we are talking about federalism.
We hoped too much from the democracy after 1990. Then there were corrupt leaders adding to the woes. The King tried to cash the frustration of the people, he could have succeeded (weren’t general people taking ‘let’s see’ approach for almost a year) hadn’t he gotten his aides wrong.
Now with all that gone, we are hoping revolutionary changes from the Maoists, and that’s not going to happen. What they have done so far after coming to mainstream politics. The same old cliché: fighting for the positions and driving Pajeros.
Possibly we are all unlucky that we lacked the exceptional leader during all these time.
