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Dear Madam President:
How do you sleep at night?

How do you rest your head back on the pillow, turn off the bedside lamp, close your eyes and drift off to sleep when there is so much grief and despair around? Your palace is no more than a few hundred meters from Kathmandu’s main hospital. Don’t the cries of patients, relatives wailing and people pleading drift in to wake you from your slumber?

Please pardon my impertinence, Madam President. Of late, you remind me of the French Queen, Marie Antoinette, who upon being told that starving French peasants had no bread, famously remarked, “let them eat cake.”

This is not the image I wish to hold. We discarded our kings and queens a long time ago. We are now a young democratic republic, having emerged from a long and brutal civil conflict. Help me shake off this image of you as Queen Antionette. Instead, please help me build a positive image of you, and your political peers, that radiates a feeling of hope, reassurance, humanity, and empathy.

I know that many are questioning the constitutional legality of your recent moves. Over a dozen cases have now been filed in the Supreme Court challenging your latest decision to dissolve Parliament and call elections ‘unconstitutional’. I don’t worry about these decisions or their constitutional implications. Even in the most mature democracies, political leaders are always up to some tricks to extend their influence. Constitutions are always being tested. Nepal is a far younger democracy—the rules haven’t yet been fully established. It should be no surprise that this kind of political instability should plague us more often.

What horrifies me is the blatant disregard for the public pain from across all the political parties. We have been in a lockdown and highly restricted environment for over a year. Many lives have been lost. Livelihoods have perished. We are more vulnerable than before. Yet, the political fighting has intensified in this crisis. Why is it that political parties are not able to set aside their differences, if only for a short time, to focus on the pandemic and the immediate crisis?         

What motivates you, Madam President? You have had an illustrious political career with a long history of struggle from the time you were a teenager. You were part of Nepal’s communist movement. You and your party colleagues spent their whole life fighting for freedom from oppression. Your Prime Minister, for instance, spent 14 years in prison. Your sacrifices, and those of your colleagues, are not to be taken lightly, and reflect a lifetime of commitment. So why is it that now that lifetime of commitment appears as no more than a ruse for a getting to power? Why is it that you and other political leaders once in power all become Queen Marie Antoinette?

What is your message of hope, Madam President? You are more than a President. You are also a mother, a daughter, a sister, an aunt, a friend. You are an inspiration to many young people, particularly the girls and women of Nepal. What will you tell us about how you can sleep, Madam President? What will you tell us about why you’ve become Queen Marie Antionette?

The funny thing about Queen Marie Antionette is that there is no convincing evidence she ever said, “let them eat cake.” But that line became a rallying cry of the French revolution. Queen Antionette had many vices—she spent lavishly to the point of causing a financial crisis and opposed any sort of social reforms. But for all her greater vices, it was the disregard for the pain and suffering of her citizens, so aptly captured in the phrase “let them eat cake,” that stirred and sparked the French revolution.

Madam President, what is your responsibility to the pain and suffering that Nepalis feel? Maybe there is nothing you can do. The constitution limits you to a symbolic head of state, bound to the advice of the council of ministers. You could impose a medical emergency, as many believe you will do next. But I’m not thinking about all that. I am not interested in the implications of what you will decide—the political winners and losers you will create.

I write to ask you a simpler question: What good is our constitution if it cannot get the government to focus on the greatest crisis of our times?

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The barking deers bark all night from the jungle nearby, and some dogs from a far away village mimic them. I am not describing a scene from a travel journal. It is a normal night at the village where we live now after shifting from a nearby town, Waling.

Waling is where I grew up. I have strong memories of a childhood in a small town in Nepal. I was seven when the Panchayat fell and we moved to a democracy under a constitutional monarchy. I don’t remember much of the Panchayat era except that the board at the 'Gau Panchayat' office adjacent to our house was repainted a 'Gau Vikas Samiti'. Before that repainting, the walls of the administrative building were plastered with slogans like 'Bire Chor, Desh Chod', a coarse way of demanding the king’s ouster. 

Although the Siddharth Highway was built much before I was born, electricity came to Waling much later. I remember parts of the town had electricity before we got it at our house, and the televisions at those houses were of great interest to us. Many adventures can be recounted only about the endeavors made to watch some television program or movies at one of those 'lucky' houses with both electricity and TV. I also remember the trucks parked on the highway in the town were our perfect hideaways for playing hide-and- seek. 

In the next 30 years, the small highway market has grown into a bustling town. Waling turned into a municipality in 1997, and today gets into national news quite often, mostly for the right reasons. 

This personal journey, and the transition of a small town, is representative of most towns and villages outside Kathmandu. In the past 30 years, I moved out to study and work. I went abroad to study and also worked in a foreign army, came back, worked in Kathmandu and have now decided to finally settle down in my hometown itself. For many here, and for many of my friends and acquaintances in Kathmandu too, this decision to settle in a small town is a courageous one; to some it is blatantly foolish. The social dynamics integrated in our psyche about how we look at places has Kathmandu at its center. Personally it baffles me.

Irritated by the concept of progress and development that our society has ingrained, we tried to rebel. The idea of settling in a village, into farming, is a romantic one for many city-dwellers. Many people busy in the daily grind of city life would probably say they wish to settle into a nice farm-house in the future. Fantasizing is one thing, but actually jumping into the well of death is another. Apart from the social ridicule, we face real challenges too. Although most villages are now well connected with jeep tracks, there is no regular public transport system. And in cases of health emergencies, things can get dangerous.

Poor health and education system makes the biggest contribution to en masse abandonment of our villages. But there is more to it than meets the eye. Over the years, with many half-educated 'awareness campaigns' and misguided modernization attempts aided by foreign agencies, our traditional lifestyles have been ridiculed as symbolising failure. For many youths of our generation, success has come to mean leaving the traditional lifestyle behind, moving into the capital city if possible, or to the nearby town, and building a concrete house for oneself. 

This ill-informed way of looking at success, our traditional way of life, and our culture has disoriented a full generation and left us derooted. Therefore, the way we educate our young minds today is a sad mimicry of many foreign concepts. It’s an irony that in a beautiful village surrounded by nature, we put children in a concrete room tightly packed like a cell and teach them about plants. This extreme picturization aside, without the experiential learning element in our education system, and with little regard for our traditional way of earning a living, we are preparing our future generations to be slaves of some other worlds. 

Our moving into a village from the town coincided with the pandemic’s outbreak. Many of those who were smirking at the idea initially, including my father, now appreciate the freshness of nature and the freedom of getting to produce what one wants to eat. But to depend on a mass tragedy like the pandemic to reorient people's priorities about development is tragic in itself.

Analysts are looking at the events of the past two weeks from all sorts of geopolitical and other angles. But they are missing a crucial point, i.e., what led to the political crisis and to the truce between prime minister KP Oli and his arch-nemesis in the party, Madhav Kumar Nepal. No, it has nothing to do with democracy, India or making the government more responsible in dealing with the rising number of covid cases.

The difference between Nepal and Oli didn't arise from the latter’s dictatorial tendencies and total disregard for party directives or mishandling of the corona pandemic. Nepal would have been no different if he were the PM. If one is to look closely, the present event is nothing but a repetition of what transpired in the past between KP Bhattarai and GP Koirala, and later between Koirala and Sher Bahadur Deuba. The real reason for their split (and all other splits of the past 30 years) has to do with our leaders’ Afno manche syndrome—the sense of power one derives from having their people, no matter how tarnished or corrupt or unqualified, appointed at almost all important government positions. This ‘my man syndrome’ is the reason Nepal is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and as a result, one of the most underdeveloped as well.

We are a nation of wrong hero worshippers. The politically biased mainstream media creates heroes for us and we idiots believe in the invented heroes’ sacrifices and greatness. The person who heavily politicized the bureaucracy immediately after the restoration of the multiparty democratic circus in the country 32 years ago, KP Bhattarai, is hailed as a Santa (Saint) leader. Conveniently ignored are Bhattarai’s filling of the bureaucracy and academia with Nepali Congress loyalists, and those buying their loyalty (to him) by bribing his secretaries.

His successor Koirala went a step further. Now one had to pledge his loyalty to him to get a good position. They got lucrative positions by rallying behind other leaders. The clique-ization of Nepali bureaucracy was complete. Even the academia and the security sector couldn't remain unaffected by the new “political” criteria on promotions. One’s loyalty to the prime minister, whether via family ties or proved through bribes and sycophancy, was what it took to make it big in Nepali bureaucracy, academia, media, security and even private businesses.

The ones who succeeded them, whether from the Congress or the UML, were no different. But by then clique-ization of the parties was complete too. Prime ministers lost their prerogative to choose the ministers themselves. They had to accommodate the demands of the cliques. This portfolio to this clique, that portfolio to that clique became the norm, and the most powerful position in the country became the weakest.

PM Oli didn't accommodate all the demands of the Prachanda clique and the Madhav Nepal clique, and appointed his people to important positions. That made other leaders fearful of losing their grip on the state and the party, thereby losing the source of their income—money, not morality, is what ensures success in politics everywhere but it's dirty money in Nepal that makes or breaks a leader.

In a way, PM Oli was exercising his right by appointing the people loyal to him to the positions he deemed fit, but leaders of other cliques saw that as a threat to their control of the state and the party. They were losing control and something had to be done. More than democracy or morality, they were driven by their own petty calculations to oust him so that they could fill the government apparatuses with their own people, and derive a sense of power from it. (Bikash Sangraula has done a better job than me in explaining the leaders’ perverse sense of power and the media’s misreading of the whole episode in his Republica columns.)

That led to the most bizarre act of the democracy circus: The Nepal clique and Jhalanath clique first flouted the party whip in failing to vote in favor of PM Oli in the parliament, and then threatened to resign en masse to support the other parties’ bid to form government. If you happen to be a foreigner reading this and are not clear what happened: it's like Bernie Sanders demanding Joe Biden that his loyalists and friends be given government portfolios, appointed the joint chief of staff and ambassadors and the head of various institutions, including the NIH and even Supreme Court judges. And Sanders threatening Biden he would bring the government down if he refused to meet his demands. That's exactly what happened in Nepal. And being a dysfunctional democracy, our prime minister had no option but to agree to meet various cliques’ demands to have their people appointed in all positions—from ministers to professors to inspectors in the Nepal Police. (In America, Biden would have sent Sanders to a psychiatrist.)

Panchayat was better than the present circus. At least you didn’t have to pay your way to a job. Apolitical ones too were appointed to positions that matched their qualifications—as long as they refrained from criticizing the state. But it's a different world now. A qualified professor with a degree from an Ivy League school and with an extensive teaching and research experience abroad was disqualified in favor of someone with no such experience and who just happened to be close to one of the cliques of one of the parties, not that long ago. (The same is true of the ambassadors. You have to be someone's daughter, mother-in-law, nephew, have a lot of money, or be loyal to your leader to represent the country abroad. )

If the cliques fight to have their man appointed to a teaching job, imagine what they do to have their people in key positions. Unless our leaders cure themselves of the 30-year-old Afno manche disease, the country will continue to be a mess and petty infighting like the one we just witnessed will continue to dominate headlines for a long time to come.

I don't know what others conclude from all this. For me personally, I get a good I-told-you-so moment. It just proves that Nepal was not and still is not ready for the western style multi-party democracy and Mahendra wasn't wrong to do away with it.

Meanwhile, if any of you wants a government/bureaucratic job in the next two years, profess your loyalty to the UML, then join a clique, then prove your loyalty to your leader by either doing their dirty jobs, flattery or the easiest route, by making a donation. There’s probably a rate card for all positions, so pay the amount to your clique and get a job.

Welcome to the bizarre democratic tyranny of the few—Republic of Nepal.

The influenza pandemic of 1918, also known as ‘Spanish Flu’, was an unusually deadly pandemic that lasted from February 1918 to April 1920. Spanish flu infected 500 million people—about a third of the world’s population at that time. The estimated number of deaths ranging from 20 million to a possible high of 100 million makes it one of the deadliest pandemics in human history.

There are stories documented in the pages of history from the Spanish flu era (1918-20) from which we can learn a lesson or two. On 28 September 1918, the Liberty Loan Parade was organized in Philadelphia, US, to economically support the soldiers who fought in World War I. Intellectuals opposed the event. They were of the opinion that as the Spanish flu was still going strong, a crowded event may result in a new disaster. Ignoring such objections, local administration allowed the event. It was a matter of patriotism, so more than 200,000 people gathered. What followed was along the expected lines. Within the next few days, 47,000 fresh cases were reported and 12,000 people lost their lives. In October 1918, over 195,000 people had lost lives in the US alone.

The tragic Indian chapter

Spanish flu struck India at the same time and 10-20 million people, then three-six percent of the population, had died. The major damage was caused in a short period from June 1918 to early 1919. The second wave lasted for less than three months—but was most devastating.

A worker at the cremation ground in Delhi said that they were doing 25-plus cremations a day at the time.

One of the famous Hindi poet and writer of that era, Suryakant Tripathi Nirala, wrote a book based on his personal experience of the 1918 pandemic. The writer famously known as ‘Nirala’ received a telegram message that read “Come back urgently, your wife is seriously ill”. The writer was in Bengal (province in East India) and he took the next train to his hometown in Uttar Pradesh. When Nirala reached his hometown on the banks of river Ganga, he observed that ‘the River Ganga was swollen with bodies’. By the time he reached home, his teenage wife was already dead. In the days to follow, all other family members got the infection and died. Reports from government documents had made similar observation that “all rivers across India were clogged with bodies because of shortage of firewood for cremation.”

History is repeating itself

Looking at images and reports in Indian media this week, it seems nothing has changed even after a century. Locals in Buxar district of Bihar province reported about floating dead bodies in River Ganga on May 9. Similar was the sight in Ghazipur district in Uttar Pradesh province the very next day. Local administrations performed the last rights and are investigating the cases.

The bodies are suspected to be those of Covid-19 patients who were dumped in the river, revealing the scale of Covid emergency in India. Locals said, following the Hindu cremation rituals, people either burn their dead or immerse the bodies in the river. Due to the lack of firewood at the crematoriums owing to the rise in Covid-related deaths, the poor immersed them in the river.

These may be stray cases, but even isolated cases put a big question-mark on the progress of medical science and human development. Such incidents depict a real picture of the catastrophe this planet is going through at present.

Social media feeds are filled with videos of Covid funerals at crowded cemeteries, wailing relatives of the dead outside hospitals, long queues of ambulances carrying gasping patients, mortuaries overflowing with the dead, and patients, sometimes two to a bed, in corridors and lobbies of hospitals.

What went wrong?

In early March, politicians and parts of the media believed that India was truly out of the woods. While customary guidance on Covid-appropriate behavior was issued, it was policymakers and elected leaders who tacitly encouraged crowding in festivals, election rallies and religious congregations.

The second wave of Covid-19 had come a few months after the second wave in other countries; there was no reason to believe it would be any different in India or in any other country.

Close to 100 million died in 1918 Influenza Pandemic. Photo: The Gurdian

More than ventilators and ICU beds, what was essential was an adequate supply of oxygen in hospitals to treat critically-ill patients. Nonetheless, when the second wave arrived, India’s medical oxygen supply network collapsed.

Availability of hospital beds was nowhere close to meeting the sudden demand. WHO standard is 30 hospital beds per 10,000 people; India has only 5.3, much less compared to even smaller countries like New Zealand (25.7) and South Korea (124). Nepal has three hospital beds available per 10,000 people, which is way below WHO standards. India and Nepal, both South Asian countries, need to increase the numbers.

India recorded a worrying test positivity ratio (TPR) of 22.36 percent in the end of second week of May, way above the 5 percent TPR needed to control the pandemic. But India’s testing numbers seem to be dipping instead of keeping pace with the rate of transmission.

Battle is far from over

Experts are raising concerns that inoculation is not helping turn the tide in some places. Of the Seychelles, Israel, the UAE, Chile and Bahrain—the world’s five most vaccinated countries, in that order—only Israel is not fighting to contain a dangerous surge in Covid-19 infections.

Seychelles, which has vaccinated more of its population against Covid-19 than any other country, saw active cases more than double in the end of first week of May.

Cremation grounds in Delhi saw over 700 ‘Covid cremations’ in a day.

In the Maldives, where over 35 percent of the population had received two shots, is also struggling with rising number of new cases, which jumped to 12,000 plus on May 12.

The world is at war with Covid; more than 3 million people have lost their lives so far. But while some countries move forward with vaccination campaigns and business reopening, a resurgence in India and South America is a stark reminder of the pandemic’s severe and ongoing toll. Society’s staggered return towards “normal” also begs the question of what we will learn when this once-in-a-century pandemic is finally over and how the three million lives lost (and counting) will be remembered.

The author is former senior editor of The Times of India group and writes for Annapurna Express. He is based in New Delhi