Thu, 18 Apr, 2024

The Story of Nepal

By Ashmita Kunwar

Art By: Nikita Gautam

There was a time when I used to login to Facebook, Twitter and other social media, and see people posting hilarious statuses, photos and news that would provide me a sweet break from my hectic schedule. Now, a time has come where I see news that includes people dying here and there, strikes, people fighting for their religion and more.

In this article, I am covering the news related to Nepal at the present context. I opened my Facebook, went through some pages, and grabbed whatever I saw was disturbing. These days, these are the most common things I have been getting to see on my Facebook Newsfeed. All the photos of this article were extracted from Facebook.

Story started from Earthquake

[caption id="attachment_8391" align="aligncenter" width="348"]Dharahara after the quake Dharahara after the quake[/caption]

Story begins from 11:54 AM, Baishak 12, Saturday.  The shaking of the earth which lasted for around one minute took away the life of approx. 10,000 people in Nepal. The unexpected anger shown by nature in the form of vibration called “earthquake” is uncontrollable. The nature has not calmed down completely as we can still feel those vibrations from time to time.  People are still suffering because they have nowhere to go, no family to live with, and no place to protect themselves from rain in this rainy season.

 Other than earthquake what is destroying Nepal?

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Whatever nature does, we are okay with that because we don’t have control over nature. What about the violence that is going on in our country caused by the Nepalese themselves? Death of seventeen military men without any reason is certainly s BIG deal! The situation, especially in Terai region, is heartbreaking at the moment. Protests are going on every day; some urging for separate states, some for federal states, some asking for Hindu nation, some for women rights and many more – the list goes on and on.

The incident that occurred in Kailali is not normal. It is something beyond the human limit. People killed policemen in every possible way; by throwing weapons, by burning them alive. What did they achieve by killing the brave policemen who had protected country and people in the time of need?  I now understand the real meaning behind what my grandparents had once told me - “Time will come when one man will kill another to fulfill his need.”

Who are they?

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“Collection of news snippets from different news sites regarding the masterminds of the Kailali incident.”

When I went through different news sites in order to know who actually was behind all these, I saw different people in different news sources. There is no consistency in these news; one party blames the other for the crime that happened in Kailali.

Whatever others might say, my answer for the question “Who are they?” is different and is as follows:

“I know that normal people like me can never do such things. So, it must be someone who doesn’t know what love is, who has never known how it feels when we lose someone we love and who has never dropped a single drop of tear from their eyes in pain. They are wild animals in the form of human beings. They belong to every political parties of Nepal; they are the so-called Ministers and 601 members of Constitutional Assembly who had once promised to give good constitution. These are the people who are responsible for all the violence that is going on in our country at this moment. I think that it is shameful to have such people leading our country. Did they forget the history about how King Prithivi Narayan Shah had united Nepal? There is nothing wrong with federal system. However, something that is wrong and not working is the way our leaders are leading our country; the thing that’s wrong is their selfish nature to fulfill their dreams. What have you done to our country? We never asked for such a constitution which would lead our country to such violence.”

Why Hindu Nation?

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Understanding that our country is multi-religious, how can someone ask Nepal to be declared as a Hindu nation? Declaring Nepal as a Hindu nation means dis-respecting other religions of Nepal. There is no doubt, we have more people who follow Hinduism, but we can’t ignore the fact that there are people following Buddhism, Christianity, Sikh and many other religions. I myself being a Hindu, don’t want Nepal to be declared as a Hindu nation. Stating Nepal as a Hindu nation is directly an invitation to religious war; which is one of the dangerous forms of wars. We should get out of such religious issues; there are a lot of other improvements that can be done to help our country move forward.

Just compare these two pictures below.

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In the above picture, two scenarios are shown; first where one military man is rescuing a baby during the recent earthquake risking his life, and the second picture is the incident of Kailai, where a small child of a military man was murdered when he was sleeping inside the house. The baby was killed because he was the son of a policeman. This is such a heartbreaking incident and a cruel human deed that questions the saying: Nepalese are Bir Gorkhalis. The prestige that our ancestors had gained as Bir Gorkhalis all over the world is now losing its weight because of the people who commit such heinous crimes.

The only good achievement

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This is what our country is going through. I talked about everything that makes us sad. Let me end this article by sharing special achievement of Nepali team in the SAF game. Nepal won the U-19 Football Championship Tournament in SAF against India, after 23 years. It is the matter of joy and pride for all the Nepali people.