Kathmandu: The only reason the tourism industry is surviving here at 12-year-old rates is the sudden escalation of the price of the convertible currency over the decade. Tourism admittedly is the only earning industry in the country at the moment. Its backers say that it is just surviving. Most other industries in the country have already closed down, are on the verge of closing or are surviving artificially.
Nepali imports to Nepal that largely back consumption here have a curious mix of illegal. It is this illegality that cushions the pricing system given the state of our borders. The movement of the Army in the key customs areas appears to have already helped closed loopholes in this illegality. The result, higher prices in the border areas.
The state of the economy is precarious no doubt. What is worrisome is that this is further aggravated by the politics of the country, which has the sole responsibility of providing the solutions. Example is found this week in the near total closure of national production. Sunday and Monday were traditional holidays. Tuesday, yesterday, was the lone working week. Wednesday and Thursday have been declared by the ML as “traffic free days” nationwide. Friday is a national bundh called by the “‘all-powerful” Maoists. Saturday and Sunday again, of course, are weekends. Sunday, moreover, is the congress declared anti-corruption day coinciding with the UML declared agitation against the Lauda deal.
This obsession with politics has advantage for the political parties no doubt. The cadres are given programs to show themselves on the streets. Money is spent and no body knows from where it comes. And strength is tested. Outside of this national production and other economic activities remains at a virtual standstill.
No systemic response to revert the situation appears round the corner. Government has cut the additional Sunday weekend for essential services. It has cut the number of long standing religious holidays. It has even managed to identify essential services that now include tourism where now strikes been banned. These measures are, however, utterly inadequate to boost the national performance. The key is in the political sector. And the political sector has been agitating since 1990. It is this agitation that is being commemorated this week. For the lay public the agitation continues and it is telling on the people.
A rapidly shrinking job market and a deteriorating production sector have mixed negatively still with a precarious law and order situation contributing further to the destabilization of the total Nepali State. A declared Maoist target, the former IGP, Achyut Krishna Kharel, has his home wrecked in Kathmandu itself Monday early morning. This shows both Maoists clout in Kathmandu and the glaring loopholes in our security system in the capital city itself. The state of affairs outside the capital is such that the Maoists movement virtually dictates the law and order situation and the presence of the government authority in name only is limited to district head quarters.
The decade old multi-party democracy the restoration of which is being celebrated this week by the political parties that led the people’s movement a decade ago has no unanimous participation from the lay public and the sole celebrants are those of these political parties who the public realize are the sole beneficiaries of this “democracy” and are themselves responsible for the perversions that have put the lay people in this dismal state.
The lack of spontaneity or even the appearance of such in the current celebrations is further made notorious by the glaring divisions among the very people who are celebrating the occasion.
Parliament this winter session has been the very victim of this division. Even the constitution has been allowed a paralysis that defies constitutional solutions. It is the very divisions on these key issues that ridicule the system today. A decade after the restoration of multi-party democracy the State stands still.