KATHMANDU, MAY 22

The fake Bhutanese refugee scam is still hitting the media headlines, although for dubious reasons.

The leaders of the political parties, who were held above head and shoulder by the people, have been implicated in such a corrupt deal that it has brought shame to the country and the countrymen as never before.

Former home minister Bal Krishna Khand had scaled dizzy heights in politics after his dedication and devotion to democracy as a student leader of the student wing of the Nepali Congress (NC), the Nepali Bidhyarthi Sang.

Top Bahadur Rayamajhi had staked his life during his active participation in the People's War waged mainly by the Maoist Centre (MC). He had the caliber of handling crises, such as patching up the differences between Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Babu Ram Bhattarai when they reached a point of no return. He later joined the Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML), where he held the coveted position of the party's secretary.

All the three major parties that commanded respect in the people's heart have fallen like the Ahilya,the spouse of the sage Gautama.

She was converted to stone after she was cursed by her husband for sexually hobnobbing with Lord Indra.

This is not the first time that such incidents have occurred in the country.

But those were of a moderate nature. Examples can be cited of Chiranjibi Wagley, Govinda Raj Joshi, Jaya Prakash Gupta and Khum Bahadur Khadka in the past. These politicians were alleged to have been implicated in corrupt practices and subsequently convicted.

But this scam is of a size and shape that can just not be imagined. It consists of illegal human trafficking by the state. It had given the impression that democrats are more corrupt given that no communist leader has been caught red handed in corruption charges. But now the arrest of Rayamajhi, who belonged to the MC and UML at different times, has defied this perception.

What are the reasons that drove the country into such a sorry state of affairs? Different hypotheses have been put forward, and one of them is the continuing slide of morality in the country. Morality is about the observation of age-oldways of doing things until they are changed and revised by the authority.

Persons are paid for doing a particular job. They should not make additional profit while performing that job. Ministers and the secretaries have been paid a particular salary. In this case, they siphoned huge amounts of money by giving Bhutani citizenship to Nepali nationals and sentthem to the United States as refugees in addition to enjoying the government perk. This is certainly the erosion of morality of the kind never seen before.

Morality and politics are seen as uneasy bed fellows.

They are on a kind of bad terms with each other.

Generally, morality is not counted among the political virtues.

Politics is also looked upon as a dirty business, which some or the other have to do it. Lies arelooked upon as the tools of politicians and statesmen.

It, however, does not mean that there are no truth-speaking politicians at all. But they are disguised and projected as exactly the opposite.

So, when Yudhisthir, an icon of truthful speaking of the Mahabharata fame, had told the truth by saying that either the elephant or the person Aswasthamahad been killed, Krishna, ever cunning as he was, blew the conch, and Aswasthama's father Dronacharya heard that the person Aswasthama, his son, was dead. Drona became slack upon hearing the death of the son, and Drupad killed him, thereby making it easy for the Pandavas to gain victory over the Kauravs.

Thus, there is no dearth of moral politicians in the past as well as in the present.

King Janak, the fatherof Sita born in Janakpur, was a king saint known as Rajarshi. Chanakya of the fourth century BC was a living example of morality. He had two lamps, the first of which was fueled by the government budget for use while discharging official duties. He would light the second powered by his own money during unofficial times, such as meeting friends and relatives.

Even in recent times in Nepal, former prime minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai was known as a saint politician. When he exited the Prime Minister's residence, he carried with him only a water pitcher and an umbrella which he had brought during his entry.

Sushil Koirala was yet another saint statesman who had only five mobile sets with him.

These politicians lived a life full of honesty, austerity, modesty and thus of morality of the highest order.

Even then corrupt persons encircled them, and they made them appear what is proverbially known as a lonely fake Jupiter.

All hell is said to have broken loose after the emergence of Sher Bahadur Deuba as the prime minister. Though he is credited for steering the country out of the political troubled waters when K P Oli dissolved the House of Representatives one after another, despite the first dissolution declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, the state-sponsored corruption raised its ugly head during his tenure as the prime minister.

The doling out of Prados and Pajeros to the parliamentarians in particular at a very low price is regarded as its beginning in Nepal.

Similarly, Oli is said to have been implicated in the Omni scam and Prachanda is alleged to have pocketed a big chunk of the fund allocated for the former Maoist rebels.

There are some examples of voluntary submission in the early as well as recent past. Sita faced a fire ordeal to prove her marital integrity. Hari Prasad Pandey, former minister of water resources, staged a sit-in inviting the government to look into his corrupt practices.

People would heave a heavy sigh of relief if the big three also came out clean through such self-submission because they have been held in high esteem in the past. They naturally want to see their idols in their original pristine form.

A version of this article appears in the print on May 23, 2023, of The Himalayan Times.