The Way Ahead...

I don’t want to act like a Yankee scholar, who goes around the world telling people what to do and what not to. I am someone who believes that such acts are based on false ideas about the superiority of one civilization over another and thus goes against the basic principles of humanism. However as a great admirer of the Nepalese revolution and as a seventy six years who has seen the defeat of Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the fall of Soviet Union and the ideological dilution of the African National Congress, I present before you what I consider should be the list of priorities of the Maoist government in Nepal:

• Nepalese Society is highly stratified. Not only is the distribution of wealth highly skewed, the influence of Brahminical Hinduism has led to the stratification of Nepalese Society on the basis of Caste. Dalits (Backward Castes) have for long suffered at the hands of Upper Caste Hindus. Upper Caste Hindus control an overwhelming majority of agrarian land. The dominance in salaried employment is easily visible.

  The revolutionary government should take radical steps to redress such inequities. Land is the main source of economic power in any agrarian society. Excess land should be confiscated from large landowners (with or without compensation) and distributed to tiller. Nepal will do well to emulate the steps taken by the Indian state of West Bengal and Kerala in this regard.

  Economic Empowerment does not lead to automatic decimation of social discrimination. The government should adopt a policy of affirmative action in favour of dalits and Muslims to neutralize effects of current and past discrimination.

• The government should dogmatic while framing it’s economic policies. State owned enterprises have proved to a failure around the world. There are serious incentive/information problems which cannot be tackled in a “state controls all” environment. Private enterprises should be allowed to flourish under the watchful eye of the state. The government should step in to tackle problems of market failures. Even in the agrarian sector failed experiments of agrarian cooperatives should not be repeated just for ideological reasons. The unique features of the Nepalese society and economy should be studies in detail before deciding on policies. Policy prescriptions exported by Indians, Yankees and multilateral agencies like IMF should always be studied in detail before any thought of applying them are entertained.

• Nepal should not follow the path of Stalinist USSR in dealing with individual rights. While needs of the society are supreme, individual rights shouldn’t be trampled upon in the name of social justice. Dissidence should be respected and debates encouraged.

• While needs of the society are supreme, individual rights shouldn’t be trampled upon in the name of social justice. Dissidence should be respected and debates encouraged.

• While Nepal’s march towards secularism is indeed laudable, Nepal should not follow Kemal Attaturk’s policies towards religion. Religion is something very private, and the state should not interfere as long as an individual tries to flaunt it in public. At the same time, it should keep a watch on the activities of the Hindu right and crush all communal elements with an iron hand.

• Nepal should write a new chapter with regard to it’s relation with it’s neighbor. It should cease to be a vassal state of India and demand an immediate scrapping of the Indo-Nepal friendship treaty, which goes against the interests of the Nepalese people. At the same time it should try to maintain friendly relation with its neighbors.

I hope the Nepalese revolution will emerge victorious. I wish them all the best in their onward march towards prosperity..