Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Post demise of Girija Prasad Koirala

I woke up today to newspapers that were all filled with articles, news, analysis and condolences offered to late leader Girija Prasad Koirala. I among many others have been the one who frequently felt GPK was responsible in one or other ways in the turmoil that is prevalent in the country. Opinions were also building up that no change will take place until GPK relinquishes power and his position as a center of power was broken. GPK on the other hand was far from giving chance for other to rise may be out of fear that his position will be overshadowed or probably he thought no one was capable enough. Whenever anyone tried to raise hood, their political career suffered examples of Saileja Acharya, Krishna Pd. Bhattarai, Sher Bd. Deuba suggest the same thing. Many times he was cursed but he never deterred from whatever he decided. All of us have heard people becoming critical of him, sometimes even cursing him to death. But not many of them felt sad when he left. I wonder how many of us had thought so many people would participate in his last journey. It would be unwise to say all of them had participated because the loved the late leader.
Media now is putting in efforts in creating hopelessness and pessimism as if with the demise of GPK hopes have shattered and doomsday will be soon here. Unfortunately this is the same media that had become so critical of him in recent times. Nothing and no one can be so much of opportunist like media. It is leading bandwagon to portrait the leader as evangelical, someone who only had capacity to take the country out of turmoil, same things that they presented as his stubbornness now has become his confidence, and his nepotism has now become his ability to see right people. The country was in shock to learn that the elderly leader had passed away, catching on the sentiment media led the bandwagon of identifying him as messiah, an emancipator. Minutes later they came up with creative nicknames like “man of the soil”, “man of the nation”, “true leader”, “great leader”, “great human”. I am surprised how creative and enterprising media can be. I am also surprised at the reason they felt he should be portrayed thus. They didn’t look at what the Nepalese felt and had to say about the leader but they took a hint from who was coming to offer respect to him from India. If Indian ministers are coming no doubt he was a great leader. India was first to be grieved to have learnt the demise of the person who they believed was entire Nepal or who knows from whom they could do things they wanted to do here. One of the Indian leaders even went on to say GPK was Nepalese version of Mahatma Gandhi. Either he hated Gandhi or he didn’t know anything about GPK.
GPK did have the characteristics of great leader, he had strong confidence (I had never earlier said he was stubborn), infallible commitment to what he felt was right. Problem was probably in whether what he felt right was really right. He lent ears to few ones entirely dismissing others. Think about how he ruled his party, he was a complete authoritarian. He bypassed party’s mechanism to secure the position of a minister in the minister’s council. He later lifted the incompetent daughter to the position of deputy prime minister irking the dismayed party members. Now wasn’t he also a great bargainer? He played “this for that” and “that for this”, were all those bargains in favor of the country? Indeed he seemed to come out with solutions when there were deadlocks. Unfortunately what apparently looked as solution were only temporary-quick fix the latest being the formation of high level political mechanism. In one aspect he tried to be Gandhi, Gandhi went on to offering whatever Jinnah asked when Pakistan was formed while GPK was doing something similar with Prachanda the President of Maoists Party. His later days inclination to Maoists could have given Maoists confidence in demonstrating what I would like to call “out-of-law” activities and practices. His relationship with the current government was either of a support or threat is again doubtful.
Demise of GPK has certainly left uncertainties behind, but uncertainties have been something that we have learnt to live with the only fact is now even quick-temporary fixes have died out. Politics is an area where predictions enjoy faltering; still we cannot keep ourselves away from making speculations. Being captive of the same, few things look apparent to me as well. First the fate of Sujata Koirala looks bleak; she has lost the shoulders she had so far ridden. If she fails to find a high-profile fool her political career does not look promising, unless she manages to gather sympathy votes. Unfortunately polls are not anywhere near in the future and thanks to short term memory of people sympathy (if any) is likely to fade out.
GPK crushed the hoods of everyone that challenged his position and no succession plan was done. Piggybacking Sujata Koirala took place really late so Nepali Congress is sure to go through the most turbulent phase and extreme of power play. I won’t be surprised if it disintegrates and if it does even it would continue losing its supporters. The leaders in the forefront are not promising at all be that Sher Bd. Deuba, Ram Chandra Paudel, Sushil Koirala. The possibility of paths clearing for younger generation is very unlikely.
CPN UML is already a party with no strong adhesion between members and it will fail to establish itself as a strong party. It also has a bad reputation of a party with no firm stand on anything. People have shown their resentment against the party by defeating their top leaders in the constitution assembly elections. Whether GPK was alive or he passes away CPN UML is already in troubled water, it always has been.
For Maoists, they in real terms have lost their guardian. GPK could have helped them clean their international image, he was the one with whom they could whine time and again for smallest of the things. He was also someone who had lolly-pops for them regularly. He thus in some way controlled their behavior and placated them when they cried. They might be more undisciplined and we will have many more bandhs awaiting us.
Current government might stay for a while as it will take some time for differences in Nepali Congress to surface. When GPK was alive, the NC members seemed to have full support for government while GPK had hinted that an alternative was possible (may be he thought the path for his daughter would be clearer) and this was also viewed as their way of showing their displeasure to the ailing leader.
India might have already engaged itself in identifying the replacement of GPK or to influence the turn of events in its favor. We can only wait and watch who India picks as its man.