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 President Bidhya Devi Bhandari’s address to the joint session of the parliament has been criticized and even mocked. In particular, her use of the phrase ‘my government’ has come under scrutiny. By that logic, last Friday, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli went to the parliament as a citizen and came out as a subject, someone tweeted—clearly a reference to the royal era. Jest and hair-splitting over constitutional niceties aside, the content of the speech calls for careful examination.

Policy and programs are a vision document for the entire year or even for multiple years. It not only outlines ambitions but also provides a clear basis for achieving them. The half-heartedness in preparing this document is visible from the get-go. One would assume that a serious government document would make efforts to avoid tenuous claims: ‘transitions of all kinds have ended,’ (point number 4) or ‘mobilization of human resources [to implement the federal set-up] has been completed’ (point number 7).

For all intents and purposes, the federal transition has just begun. Equally misleading is the claim about completing the mobilization of human resources for the federal set-up. Many provinces are still reporting up to 70 percent unfilled vacancies. There also are inherent contradictions in many parts. The document argues that there has been a 27 percent increase in capital formation in the country and subsequently highlights the government’s austerity measures and savings—which it intends to mobilize for building infrastructure. Yet it also commits to increasing social security allowances and pay and perks for civil servants. The benefits given to civil servants should be increased, no doubt—but it should be accompanied by a downsizing of the bureaucracy and the outsourcing of several services to the private sector—which will help balance the book while paying competitive salaries to the public sector workforce.

Transformative changes

The address by the President highlighted several projects as if they were symbols of substantive changes—such as the steamers operating in Nepali rivers, the airlifting of a pregnant woman from Mugu, the response to the tornado in Bara-Parsa, and the completion rates of several airports and national pride projects. But in the same speech, Bhandari also admitted that the goals of ‘bringing transformative changes to the public service and increasing capital expenditure’ were not achieved due to ‘a traditional work culture, legal complications and weak mechanisms of accountability’.

Yet the address failed to offer examples of how the government was addressing these issues. While the President’s speech did touch on the problems—the issues around structure and the culture of civil service and the associated mechanisms of good governance—it only made passing references to addressing it in Year Two of the government. She repeated a cliché by way of a solution: performance-based contracts (PbC). Administrative reform is much wider and more complex. But let’s say for argument’s sake that PbC was a panacea. Who would spearhead its implementation? And will political appointees come under its purview? Even if someone in the PMO completely understood the concept of PbC in its entirety as well as the procedures for operationalizing it (which I doubt), they don’t have the will to carry it out.

Bizarre plans

Two bizarre plans stood out: eradicating the ‘psyche of poverty’ and converting suitable sections of national highways into emergency runways. (Even aviation officials are baffled by this one or how it made it into this serious document; perhaps this is what qualifies as thinking outside the box these days.)

The US Federal Aviation Authority database suggests that on average a dozen small single-engine planes land on highways every year, but for bigger passenger planes the instances are fewer—with disastrous consequences even for developed countries with flat terrains and roads worthy of being called a highway. In 1971, a Pan International Airline flight’s (BAC-111) emergency landing in German Autobahn killed 22 passengers; and in 1977, a DC-9-31’s forced landing in the highways of southern Georgia in the US killed 72 people, including nine on the ground.

Quirks aside, Nepal’s ambitions for a double-digit growth, middle-income status and prosperity are within reach—provided that our officials spend a little more time overhauling the delivery and deliberation mechanism and the work culture in line with the federal principle.

Once again, we have invited the Chinese president Xi Jinping to Nepal and once again we got the same reply: That the visit will take place at a suitable time. And once again, we are all pumped up about the proposed Kathmandu-Keyrung train, as if the project is almost complete. But as things stand, both Xi’s visit and Kathmandu-Keyrung train are wishful thinking or, as the Chinese say, bai ri meng. China is reluctant to help Nepal or have its president visit Nepal because our uber-nationalists and more-Chinese-than-the-Chinese-themselves intellectuals and leaders have been promoting a narrative that is disastrous to our ties with both India and China.

The major flaw in the popular narrative is that it views Sino-Nepal ties as strengthening Nepal’s position vis-à-vis India and unnecessarily drags China into our bilateral relations with India. We are made to believe China is more than happy to help Nepal stand up to India. We should be all excited about the proposed train because it will end our dependency on India and that will drastically weaken India’s stranglehold on Nepal. As such, we have linked the Chinese president’s visit to Nepal and the train with weakening Indian influence, to feed anti-Indian nationalism and to bolster the nationalist credentials of the political leaders—and some intellectuals.

This makes it difficult for China to either move forward with the train project or have its president visit Nepal because it fears Delhi will interpret those as China’s endorsement of anti-Indianism in Nepal—something Beijing wants to avoid at all cost, especially when it is hoping for the Indian support, if not outright membership, of the BRI.  

Thus the Chinese have been dropping hints that they are not comfortable with our approach to viewing China as a solution to all our issues with India. They have been openly—symbolically and verbally—advising our leaders to maintain good relations with India, and making it clear they don’t want to have anything to do with our problems with India. That’s why they didn’t give us any real help during the Indian embargo in 2015-16.

The first major non-verbal signal was having then Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal “accidentally” bump into President Xi back in 2016. Not just that. Indian Prime Minister Modi accidentally walks into the hotel suite where the two leaders are talking, and a photo is allowed to be taken and posted on Dahal’s son’s Facebook page. The Chinese are known to use photos to signal change in attitudes or drop indirect hints about what they think.

For example, when China wanted to improve ties with the US, it invited to Beijing Edger Snow—an American journalist who presented the communists in a good light to American readers through his articles and, most famously, through his book, the Red Star Over China. The occasion was the National Day celebrations in 1970, where a photo of Snow standing next to Chairman Mao was published in the People’s Daily to signal that China was ready to normalize relations with the US.

Just like us, the Americans were also slow to understand the symbolism behind the photograph. Domestically too, the Chinese regularly use photos to tell the people which leader has fallen out of favor with the supreme leader or has risen in the party hierarchy.

There’s a memorable photograph of the late King Birendra’s meeting with Mao in 1973, in which all but premier Zhou are seated in comfortable sofas. Zhou is made to sit in a strangely placed wooden chair to signal to the Chinese people that the chairman has serious issues with the premier. “In February 1972 Chou had a comfortable armchair when US president Nixon came calling. By December 1973, Mao had banished Chou to a humiliating hard chair when meeting the Nepalese king,” (Jung Chang and John Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story).

Then came a clear verbal signal with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi going into the 2+1 (China + India) model on Nepal during our foreign minister Pradeep Gyawali’s visit to Beijing last year.

We need to understand that no real Chinese help will come unless India feels comfortable. In a popular Chinese question-answer website, zhi hu—which serves as a platform for Chinese public intellectuals to discuss and debate issues and answer interesting questions—Mr Long, who wants us to call him “Xiao Xuosheng,” posted a lengthy and possibly the most well-informed reply in China to the question: ‘How to view the Keyrung-Kathmandu train plan?’ As we are not getting the perspective of ordinary Chinese people or public intellectuals on the issue, allow me to translate the conclusion from his well-informed post from July 2018.

“One major problem facing the Keyrung-Kathmandu train is Indian obstruction… Railway line to Kerung is 100 percent certain… Let’s not doubt it. It’s in China and no other country should care what China does in its territory. 

“But in the Kathmandu-Keyrung stretch there exists international political risks. [Only] Nepal’s effective handling [of pressure] and China’s determination will make the extension possible. If Nepal backs down or chickens out [note that he uses the phrase song le, which can mean many things but in online Chinese lingo, it mostly means back down due to fear], then it can’t be constructed. The probability of no extension to Kathmandu is around 40 percent.

Not optimistic, not pessimistic, just an objective analysis.”

And 60 percent likelihood is not a very optimistic scenario, just as Mr Long is cleverly implying. But the more we keep viewing it as a must to upset India’s role in Nepal, the greater the chances that China will back out of the project although it is on the BRI agenda. Antagonizing India over Nepal will not be a smart move for China. Also there’s no guarantee that Nepali politicians will be able to withstand the Indian pressure. We need to accept that much can change in Kathmandu in the days ahead and between India and China in the months ahead. The train is still a decade away. 

In the meantime, if we want the Chinese president to come calling, our politicians and scholars must delink India from Sino-Nepal ties. Let’s ask ourselves: Why does President Xi feel comfortable visiting the countries that China has territorial issues with, namely, India, Vietnam and the Philippines, but is reluctant to come to Nepal, a country that never tires of reiterating its historical ties with China?

The world’s waterways—oceans, rivers, Antarctic ice sheets, Arc­tic polar bear habitats, Alpine mountain lakes, Himalayan gla­ciers—are inundated with plastic. At first, it was just a garbage problem, something we as humans thought we would be able to deal with as we advanced technologically. We could always rely on recycling.This thought comforted us with its reassurance. The familiar man­tra: ‘Reduce, reuse, recycle’ was chanted at institutional settings and activist ones. The power of this rep­etition was enough to shield us from our own arrogant, self-destructive scientific certainty.

In the past few years, the scale of the plastic threat has become clear. We are now inundated, according to scientific estimates, with 8.3 billion tons of this non-biodegradable mate­rial since 1950. That’s one ton for every living person on earth. Only 6 percent of US plastics was “recy­cled” (more accurately, shipped to China to be incinerated). This will plummet to 2 percent with China’s import recyclables ban.

The US produces 19.5 percent of the world’s plastics—55 Mtons in 2012, according to Polymerda­tabase.com. Europe produces 20 percent, China 25 percent (same source). PlasticsEurope’s “Plastics: The Facts” says 51.2Mtons were pro­duced in 2016 in Europe. This indus­try newsletter also states very high recycling rates which don’t match with facts on the ground.

Recycling has been shown to be a myth: much of the recyclable waste ends up being shipped from rich countries to poor communities in middle income countries like Malay­sia and Thailand where it is inciner­ated due to lack of recycling capa­bilities. Protests of local inhabitants go unheard. How can a city like New York City, mighty beyond belief in the global financial landscape, not be able to dump its trash wherever it wants?

The only problem with this model of the rich trashing the poor is the interconnected nature of the planet. Inevitably, emissions from burning plastic returns to people in the US in the form of global warming, causing massive storms, cyclones and hurri­canes in coastal areas. The ocean, rapidly warming through these man­made atrocities, is forecasted to inundate the same New York City which now dumps massive amounts of plastic trash in South-East Asia.

We may not realize it, but our food items are significantly more expensive because we are paying for their plastic packaging

The scale of this problem is clear to everyone. But no government, municipality or mayor has lifted a finger to halt the tide of plastic, despite overwhelming evidence that the status quo is suicidal, not just for humans but for all forms of life on earth. Why is that?

Plastic is a product of the petro­leum industry, which has reigned with its petrodollar power for the past century. Petroleum and plastic companies are registered on the stock market, their value counted in trillions. The biggest corpora­tions selling petroleum also sell plastic. Plastic industries employ 1.45 million in Europe and 1 million in the US. In 2012, the US plastic industries made over $380 billion annual turnover, with $13 billion trade surplus (Polymerdatabase.com). These MNCs have lobbyists in Washington. They are an “American success story”.

Also deceiving is the activist response. “Circular economy” is the catchphrase being pushed by bil­lionaire philanthropists in response to plastic pollution. Institutions which promote this are under the illusion that 1,000 billion tons of plastic generated since mankind started to make this destructive sub­stance can not only be vacuumed up and repurposed (a Sisyphean task), but also that plastic can continue to pour out of the pipeline because we now have this reliable Circular Economy in motion.

This is as dangerous a myth as recycling. Any modern object, for example a laptop, is created through multiple supply chains which provide materials and parts from countries scattered globally. A circular economy would need a massive apparatus to reclaim, reship and repurpose each tiny part, the costs of which MNCs do not want to bear. Perhaps policy may make them change their mind. Left to their own purposes, MNCs would rather pump and dump in a disposable economy.

Loop, a much-hyped new com­pany, the founder of which social­ized with billionaires in Davos and got new customers, ostensibly recy­cles containers for big MNCs. The only problem: it again asks its com­panies to create plastic containers—only this time they’re used 100 times instead of once. The hype of the new Silicon Valley entrepreneurs doesn’t match the reality of the plastic men­ace on the ground.

I asked Nestle on Twitter how they would clean up the mess they had caused so far. They sent me their new guidelines on sustain­able packaging. It included a pol­icy to still use plastic bottles, but with 35 percent recycled content by 2025. To imagine Nestle plan­ning to manufacture this object for the next six years when sustainable options are available is deranged, in my opinion. But can any force stop them? What law or ethical guide­line is in operation to modulate, regulate or punish global crimes of large corporations?

Ocean warming and microplas­tic pollution have led to danger­ous die-offs of plant, animal and insect species—coral, frogs, insects, birds, penguins, polar bears, among others.

It is clear our gleeful arson of the planet has catastrophic ecological and economic costs. The pyramid of life is at risk. We can alter our course by globally banning all forms of plastic now. Or we can continue to delude ourselves with bedtime sto­ries of the circular economy, which will cost us another few decades, in much the same way as the myth of recycling lost us valuable time since the 1980s.

Nepalis pay a massive “plastic tax”—we may not realize it, but our food items are significantly more expensive because we are paying for their plastic packaging. The gov­ernment should invest in sustain­able packaging that can be made from our own natural resources, which would save us billions of rupees a year.

This much is clear: Nepal’s Hima­layan glaciers, which provide spring water for a billion-plus inhabitants, are melting from global warming. Our drinking water supply is at risk. If we continue to manufacture and burn plastic, we have no future in the subcontinent.

A few days ago, I came across a video in which Abdus Miya, a leadership coach and young leader, beautifully expressed how the dominant “Politics is a dirty game” narrative was established across educational institutions. He highlighted the need to challenge this narrative and encouraged young people to engage politically. Trying to live up to the constructs of a ‘good student’—read: A student who never questions the teacher or the teaching and unquestionably adheres to the structures and pro­cesses created by the administra­tion—most of my student life, I had accepted “Politics is not my cup of tea” as my mantra. In this brief write-up, I reflect on my experiences and urge the readers to be politically aware and engaged.

Let me begin by reflecting on my personal experience to understand why individuals do not question dominant narratives. Years after I completed school, a close friend told me how most of the class dis­liked me because I was the teachers’ pet and always got preference over the rest in most activities, including leading school clubs and represent­ing the school in inter-school com­petitions. Looking back, I see some truth in what my friend shared.

I personally did not want all the opportunities for myself and was happy when my colleagues shared them. I took pride in sharing the credit with my colleagues and cherished collective growth. But although I didn’t stand for ‘good students’ getting all the exposure and opportunities at school, I didn’t stand against it either (I was living up to the expectations of a good student, right?). Perhaps it was sim­ilar to “I’m not racist, but... I do live in a system of institutionalized racism that I absorb & actively ben­efit from,” as Aparna Nancherla tweeted on 16 April 2019. So I was either enjoying the privileges of a ‘good student’ subconsciously or didn’t have the courage to ques­tion the institutional structures and processes as I was striving to prove myself as a ‘good student’. And ‘good students’ focused on good grades and had nothing to do with politics. This changed in my later life.

After living in a few countries in Europe and the US for my studies, I experienced firsthand the impact of politics in the everyday lives of people. I began to understand how politics was instrumental in all spheres of life—from determining the cost of food, shelter and cloth­ing; to establishing basic wages and salaries, educational structures and processes; to taxation, development priorities, social welfare and provi­sions for social security and foreign relations. In essence, I did not find anything that politics does not gov­ern, thus fostering my interest in it.

Many people strongly link politics to governments. As a social work educator, I often hear students say “I’m going to work for a non-govern­ment organization and I will remain apolitical”. But even the NGOs are political, in the sense that they address the needs and represent the voices of a certain population. In doing so, they align to the vision and acts of the government at times and against it at other times, hence reflecting their political nature. For example, NGOs working for people with disabilities cannot remain silent on the political action of people in wheelchairs breaking the pavements in Kathmandu because they are not wheelchair-friendly.

Environmental NGOs spoke against the government’s decision to cut trees around the Ring Road in Kathmandu for its expansion. We have been hearing outcries from many NGOs over the government’s plan to clear large forest areas to build an airport in Nijgadh. It is particularly difficult for NGOs to be apolitical when they stand for the marginalized populations; their understanding of and actions to address structural marginalization are political in nature. Further, polit­ical leadership affects NGOs’ regu­lation on registration and working modality, scope of work, adminis­tration and funding.

The understanding of politics among the youth has to expand beyond political parties, says my colleague Ujjwal Prasai. He adds that politics is a broader phenom­enon that prevails when there is hierarchy, when power is in play, when interactions between people are based on power structure. This makes politics everyone’s cup of tea at all times, places and interac­tions. But the question will most likely arise: What will the youth get through political involvement? www.lincoln-strategy.com flags that youth engaged in politics are more inclined to serve their communities and their involvement will refine their understanding of how civil engagement in the country works. This suggests that youths who want to be change-makers will reap the benefits of political engagement.

Also, people who opt out of pol­itics will not have opportunities to change the system and the pro­cesses. As Plato puts it: “The heavi­est penalty for declining to rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to yourself”. The next prominent ques­tion could be, how can youth engage in facilitating change? Freechild Institute, which works on advanc­ing youth engagement worldwide, suggests that youth can change the world by mainstreaming (creating awareness, opportunities, policies, systems and cultures fostering youth engagement), running for office, and voting (or casting null votes to express dissatisfaction but exer­cising adult suffrage). It also adds that in order to change the world through politics youth need edu­cation (on political issues, systems, actions); training (on communica­tion, problem solving, change man­agement and conflict resolution) and the confidence that their voices matter in politics.

I want to reiterate the importance of politics in shaping our lives, both in the present and in the future. We have seen significant political changes in our country, from the days of active monarchy to insur­gency to mainstreaming of an armed political party to a unique and seemingly unlikely coalition of the political left and right, all within a short period. Reflecting on these experiences can highlight the importance of political awareness and engagement. Someone rightly said: “When politics decides every­thing in your life, decide what your politics should be”.

The author is a PhD student at Boston College School of Social Work [email protected]