How to thrive?
ADITYA MAN SHRESTHA
After delving into an uncomplimentary question as to whether Nepal will survive, it is my bounden duty to explore how Nepalis, as suggested by one reader, should thrive in the 21st century. This question has been a kind of obsession of mine for the last 37 years that foreign employment has been a part of Nepali destiny. It was in the midst of a public debate in those days on the so-called brain drain that many people spoke with great hullaballoo. I, for one, even back in 1977, stood in support of those who sought and opted to work abroad, for better financial deals and other facilities. Incidentally, in 1983 I too crashed into a job in Saudi Arabia where I worked for two years, which indeed helped me improve my family’s economic wellbeing. More than financial incentive, it made me firmly believe that Nepalis can take to, as I did, the uncustomary climate, society and working environment in good humor and thrive with basically two qualities—hard work and honesty. Will the five million Nepalis (out of a population of 27 million) estimated to be currently working abroad agree with me? It is not just this generation that can vouch for this claim, but also the previous generations that migrated to distant places in India, Myanmar and as far as Fiji. They are the proof of the pudding, as it were. People don’t move without a reason. Nepalis move out because their DNA, besides economic compulsions, pushes them around. Nepal, as Dr. Tirth Bahadur Shrestha, a well-known botanist said, is the last outpost for many plants migrating from distant regions. So is it for the people, as historians agree, who came to Nepal for shelter, solitude or sojourn. If their descendants move out, voluntarily or involuntarily, for any reason, there should be no remorse about their instinctive drive. I accepted it as a natural process in my own case. My great grandfather travelled from Bhaktapur to Baglung and, then, to Doti to trade. My grandfather moved out and settled down in Ridi in Gulmi for the same reason. I left it for good for Kathmandu and my children flew overseas for some of the same reasons. Ask any Nepali how they landed in an alien country, and he or she will have a similar story.  Whether in isolation, the fate Ranas consigned the country to for over 100 years, or with open doors since 1950, the Nepali DNA for leaving nativity has not changed. However, for over 40 years (1950-1990), Nepalis were subjected to travel restrictions with strict control over passport issuance. That is one reason why Nepalis travelled beyond the Indian border with Indian passports and, thus, described themselves as Indians, as in Fiji. The international travel with wrongful identification is still in vogue to circumvent the illogical ban on Nepalis travelling to some conflict-ridden countries like Iraq. Nonetheless, Nepalis, with their own or borrowed identification, are still travelling to that country. By last count, there are as many as 30,000 Nepalis in Iraq. The fault does not lie in the natural voyageur proclivity. It lies with the official folly of dictating individual behavior. It was in 1992, when the ‘nation-building’ call was being made, that I was pleading to let the Nepalis go out in large numbers and also to let the outsiders come in equally big volumes; the first, for employment and the second, for tourism. Although the government did not pay any heed to this simple logic, both the phenomena (the in and out migration) picked up, just as I had called for. In two decades, the number of outbound Nepalis grew from 500 to five million and annual remittance shot up to US $5 billion, equal to or often even more than the annual national budget. The number of inbound tourists went up from few thousands to half a million in a year. The principle underlying this approach is still valid. What needs to be corrected is the management of the external and internal movement of people. What Nepalis need to do for their bright future is to know themselves. To know oneself means to recognize on what foothold one is standing. I must thank Neer Shah, a versatile personae of Nepal, for coining a succinct term “dharatal” to express the wherewithal of Nepali nation. It was to give a concrete form to his idea that my book Wrong We Do, Right We Don’t enumerated a set qualities to consummate it. They are familiar features like potential for development of tourism, hydropower, pharmaceutical industry and beauty pageantry. The human virtues relate to honesty and hard work (as already explained) in addition to different language-learning skill, professional talents and athletics. However, to see these achievements materialize, what are needed are not big and unaffordable things but simple, basic facilities of primary education, primary health, corruption-free administration and political stability. People of Nepal have already demonstrated their competence in managing local resources, as Bihari Krishna Shrestha, a critical sociologist often points out in respect to community forestry and mothers’ clubs. In this context, it sounds phony to make a big structural issue of federalism in Nepal, instead of stressing the basic and workable mechanism of devolution of power at the grassroots level. Nepal is wrongly seated on hyperbolic and explosive slogans of republicanism, federalism and secularism, which do not resonate with the interests and susceptibility of the common man. Nepal is good and amenable to community-oriented system rather than orthodox communism. Similarly, our external policy should be reoriented towards equi-closeness instead of the hackneyed heritage of equi-distance. We should be with everybody but not in anybody. Simple things suit simple Nepalis. The day we understand it, we will be much better off. The author is a senior journalist based in Kathmandu | ||
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