It was a surprising and shocking news article, I am sure, that must have drawn the attention of all the THT readers “Country on way to anarchy: Shekhar Koirala” (THT, October 4, Page 5).

Why are the so-called senior political leaders speaking at the public functions whatever they want to tell the people? They need to be cautious.

They are the ones who fought jointly with the people against the anarchism and were successful to restore democracy and republicanism in the country.

Shekhar Koirala was blaming the Supreme Court, Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority and the State Restructuring Commission for pushing the country into mess and disorder. Are these constitutional bodies supposed to do whatever the major political parties want them to do?

Are they supposed to be their “yes” constitutional bodies? All these bodies have to work within the constitutional boundaries that are governed by the constitution. He even seemed to get annoyed with some of the foreign powers who, he thinks, are trying to set in anarchy in the country.

Unless the senior leaders of the major political parties stick to their political principles and stand up for the sovereignty of the nation, the chances of external interference will continue.

The factionalism in his own party has been degrading the credibility of his party. It is not only his party that is infected with factional politics.

Most of the big parties are not safe from this unproductive political power game. Time is running fast for them to hold all the three tiers of election.

So far, they do not seem to have joined hands to enact the election laws in the parliament.

Rai Biren Bangdel, Maharajgunj

Khada

Recently, some Nepalese political leaders have given statements saying that traditional scarf (Khada) should be banned. I do not mind giving this statement in a democratic society.

Doing so will affect the Nepali culture. These statements are not rational at all and I would say even these people lack common sense. Nepal is a diverse country and so is its geography. Every community has its own language and culture.

So a culture practised by a particular community cannot be considered as being the national culture. Even our national anthem sums up the multi-culture and multi-lingual society. It is sad to say that those leaders who hold uniculture views have not understood the real meaning of the national anthem.

There is not a single culture in Nepal. Hence, one should not think of a single culture and should not be narrow-minded. Since, we do not produce anything else from a simple scarf or a big machine it is meaningless to call for a ban on imported Khada.

It can be banned once we start producing Khada for domestic consumption.

It hurts our cultural sentiment and traditional values when someone who does not belong to our culture says that Khada litters the city and environment.

Bhuchung Shastri, via e-mail