Let's put the country above all else

RANJIT ACHARYA

Edmund Burke once said, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Today, I relate myself with this quote. Who to blame for the situation we are in today? I would like to confess, “Me myself”. Yes, there are times when we were supposed to voice, we kept quiet. When we were supposed to give our opinion, we listened. When we were supposed to stop them, we let them. And here we are still hoping for the best to happen.

Are we doing justice to our next generation? Are we creating a better future for them? Are we proud of what we are going to hand over to the next generation? I have a simple answer “No”. And when I look around, I do not see anyone who can say “Yes”.

When the whole world is becoming one global village, we are trying to push ourselves back into ancient times. Fighting for our rights is good but the question is are we just fighting for our rights or we are fighting to curb others’ rights too. Once again, dreams are being sold and once again those at the receiving end will suffer. I am not against federal states, but I strongly oppose the idea of caste-based federal states.

Nonetheless, we must work to create the platform that gives equal opportunity to each citizen regardless of his or her caste or ethnicity.

Nowhere in the world will you see a country that shuts down for four months in a year. This disease of “bandh” has paralysed us. The biggest dilemma is whenever some group or organisation calls for bandh with specific demands, concerned authorities address their demands and fulfil them only after they finish their so-called protest by causing hardships to members of the general public. This has now created a thumb rule that when you call a bandh, your demands will be met. I don’t get surprised nowadays when a bandh is called for a stupid reason. And for this too, we should blame ourselves as we let this happen.

I strongly believe Nepal needs different states and they should be on the basis of economic resources and viability. The only way we can grow as a better and prosperous nation is through economic growth for which we must look at equal division of resources. So while declaring the constitution, every politician must keep the country first as his or her primary agenda. Why can’t our leaders dream big, why can’t they dream of printing their pictures in our currency notes rather than having a smaller dream of acquiring power? I hope at this last moment of consensus that someone will rise high from his or her personal agenda and will dream for the nation and our next generation. I am still hopeful.

(The author is CEO of

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