Yadav Khanal

The present government, with former Panchayati zealots like Dr Tulsi Giri and Kirtinidhi Bista as well as Tanka Dhakal serving in it, is slowly pushing the country towards an authoritarian regime. While Dr Giri, the first vice chairman in the Cabinet and a loan defaulter, has threatened political parties with action for carrying out their determined agitation for the restoration of democracy while the second vice-chairman Bista seeks to flaunt before the people the implausible proposition that Nepal can do well even without any foreign aid. And minister Tanka Dhakal has started threatening to ban the political parties if they join hands with the Maoist insurgents. As if mediamen were his paid servitors, he has even ordered them not to criticise the loan-defaulting Dr Giri, who, as he says, is an “honourable and respected” personality. This has caused much of nausea among the enlightened citizenry.

On top of this, the government has threatened to stop its advertisements to the news media if they do not toe its line, thus depriving them of a main source of their revenue. This policy of open and blatant discrimination against the privately-owned news media has been made public close on the heels of the government’s proposed move to curtail press freedom. The reasons are not far to seek. With King Gyanendra starting the process of regression in October 2002, it was widely feared that the people were going to lose the gains of the 1990 pro-democracy movement. Again, the February 1 move seems to have proved it. With the seven political parties renewing their street agitation to get these acts of regression rolled back, the government has been seeking some excuse to put down their joint movement and control both print and electronic media.

With all this, the independent media have not boycotted news concerning the royalty, the activities of the ministers and the functioning of all sectors of the government, despite the fact that much of it does not strictly come under the definition of news. However, in general, the media, too, for reasons best known to themselves, have used such non-news. On the other hand, men in the government like Tanka Dhakal keep issuing orders to the press not to publish any item concerning the events and incidents of the Maoist insurgency. This is done with the government’s highly mendacious intention of hiding its own abject failure to control the Maoists as well as to keep the rest of the world uninformed about their sanguinary warfare. All this is being done by the government though King Gyanendra has been reiterating

his firm commitment to abide by the ideals and objectives of democracy. Now an unfettered press is an integral part of democracy. This public platform is also an inalienable component of a developed, civilised society. If the government’s policy of curbing the democratic press by its twin measures of adopting a draconian Press Act and depriving it of official advertisements is implemented at all, it will be a virtual good-bye to a free press.