The Federal Constitution of Nepal has pledged to bring development in the country through socialism. Socialism has been perceived differently by different political parties. The Nepali Congress (NC) has followed the doctrine of its charismatic, first elected Prime Minister B P Koirala with regards to socialism. Koirala had given an equation of democracy, socialism and communism saying that the addition of democracy in communism will transform itself into socialism. If we take out the democracy from socialism, communism emerges.

There are a few others like C K Prasai, Pradip Giri and particularly Professor Yagya Prasad Adhikari who have carried this mantle of commentary of democratic socialism forward. Adhikari was very near to B P, the fountain head of democratic socialism in Nepal. When he was the president of Nepali Bidhyarthi Sangh in 1979, a student's political outfit of the NC, he was successful in staging a programme with BP as the chief guest in the legendary hall of Tribhuvan University, which was simply unimaginable during that time marked by harsh dictatorial oppression.

Professor Yagya has written several books, some 10 of them, in Nepali as well as in English. The most striking is the book in Nepali, which means 'The Democratic Socialism of Nepal: Theory and Practice'. Despite such contribution made by Professor Yagya, the NC appears like a crow straying amidst the mist. The NC leaders are often heard saying that the vision of B P Koirala of having a milch cow and a pair of oxen in the front yard has become irrelevant now, little realising that his idea is still applicable even if this has transformed into a community dairy and a manually operated tractor like a typewriter displaced by a computer.

Such redefinitions have not been forthcoming because commentators like Professor Yagya have been forgotten by the NC. He has been something like the mythic Urmila of the Ramayan fame, whose contribution is no less than that of Sita, according to Rabindra Nath Tagore, the noble laurate of India. As Laxman did not take even a wink of sleep during his 14 years in exile, Urmila in turn napped for all the 14 years as someone had to doze on his behalf.

Bidur was yet another person who is an unsung hero of the Mahabharat. He was well known for his wisdom as well as moral integrity. He provided sage advice to the Kauravs during times of emergency, but he always remained on the sidelines.

It is not only in the mythic world that such a phenomenon has been glaring. Even in the West, Antiono Labriola is labelled as a neglected Marxist thinker. Born in 1843, a contemporary of Jung Bahadur in Nepal, Antonio was hailed as 'the great theorist of Italian Marxism and among the greatest teachers of European Marxism. He has, however, suffered an unusual fate, so to speak, since his death three-quarters of a century ago: he has been simultaneously praised and ignored.

There was yet another unfortunate public figure in post war Germany, Karl Jaspers, who championed the idea of liberty dealing with a unique blend of paternalist and populist politics. In addition to developing such multi-layered conception of freedom, Jasper set out a number of ways that the culture of freedom could be strengthened on both a national and international level. He has, however, been largely overlooked today.

As if the disregard by the state was not enough, Professor Yagya was further hit by an unfortunate brain stroke that he suffered in 2018, which was aggravated by yet another brain hemorrhage. After undergoing treatment in India, he is undergoing physical therapy treatment in his own house in Chitwan.

The state may have dropped Professor Yagya, but his friends and relatives have held him in high respect due to his towering contribution in the arena of democratic socialism. This is evident in a voluminous book running to more than 500 pages with articles of 68 luminaries of different disciplines, including one by this columnist. Though already released in Chitwan, a further deliberation on this book was organised by the Centre of Consolidation of Democracy amid a jam-packed hall in the Department of Conflict, Peace and Development Studies in Kirtipur last Saturday.

At the programme chaired by the former vice chairman of the National Planning Commission Dr. Jagadish Pokharel and graced by Professor Krishna Khanal as the chief guest, three towering intellectuals, Krishna Govinda Tumbhahamphey, Krishna Singh Sharma and Govinda Bhattarai discussed the articles in general and Professor Yagya in particular. The general agreement was that the dedication of so many articles to one academician by experts of various walks of life had neither happened in the past nor is likely to be so in the near future.

The general notion among the participants was that Professor Yagya has been discounted by the nation. To this Professor Khanal, who liked to be called a simple participant instead of as the chief guest, disclosed that it is the state which has forgotten him and not the nation. He said that the nation is the sum total of the people like us here gathered to felicitate him as defined by B P Koirala as against King Mahendra's statement that it is the soil which makes the nation.

Though Professor Yagya was in the spotlight, his wife Bhuvan Thapaliya, nevertheless, stole the show with her dedication and devotion in the tireless nursing of her husband. Former Ambassador Kanta Rijal during her thanks giving speech aptly decorated Bhuvan with the epitome, Savitri, who had saved her husband from the jaws of death in the golden age that too of Kaliyug due to her identical feat in the present age. The program came to a grand close after wishing health and happiness to Professor Yagya.