Thursday, February 25, 2010

Time to fight back: enough is enough!

February 25, 2010

Joint Press Release in Support of a Referendum on the Monarchy and Hinduism/Restoration of the Constitution of 1990

Organizations Represented: 13

The Global Hindus and Nepali nationalists endorse the demand of referendum raised by RPP-N to decide on Federalism and Secularism. Acting in concert with other patriotic and nationalistic institutions, we are committed to the causes of Dharma, Nationalism and service to the Nepali people. In that context, we are closely monitoring the rapidly unfolding events in Nepal along with the changing political awareness of the Nepali people themselves. Presently, the conduct of national affairs has been hijacked by a cabal of corrupt political leaders and parties who purport to act in the name of the people's freedom, democracy, republicanism, and secularism.

The Nepali people and global Hindus living both within and outside Nepal, have rejected the divisive politics and agendas carried out by the Seven Party Alliance under the 12-Point Peace Agreement, which was itself brokered and signed in a foreign capital. The immoral, decadent and divisive actions of a few people are destroying the Nepali people's sense of unity and national harmony.

Millions of Nepalese have suffered silently under the breakdown of social harmony, under the lack of security, under the failure of basic government services, and through the gratuitous destruction of national unity, all of which have been permitted to take place in the name of creating a "New Nepal."

The present crop of failed political parties and leaders have calibrated their agendas along secular, republican and/or revolutionary communist lines, and the divisive forces set loose by such myopic policies have spread like a disease which corrupts and enervates the very soul of the nation. Nepal’s destiny has been put up for auction by international and external forces that have conspired to destroy the Nepali people's unity, identity, harmony, goodwill and dharma.

We stand up today to defend our ancient civilization, heritage, culture and way of life. Nepal is truly a Holy Land and a uniquely irreplaceable paradise that is being slowly killed by corrupt, incompetent and vicious men who love neither the nation, Hindutva nor the Nepali people. Their actions over the past few years have conclusively demonstrated that their selfish and degenerate policies have been a costly failure for the nation and Sanatan Dharma.

Nepal must promulgate a system of governance that incorporates accountability, transparency, social justice, rule of law, equal opportunity, national unity and, last but not the least, "Dharma" as the guiding lights for our nation and people.

In order to achieve this, the struggle must begin from each and every Nepali home: from the villages to the towns and cities, from the hills to the plains, for the establishment of a just and fair country. There can be no room for hatred, corruption, criminality and disharmony.

The political leaders and parties who have brought about this present state of anarchy, chaos, hatred and disunity must be publicly brought to account for their destructive actions against the nation and the people of Nepal.

We reiterate our call for free and fair public referendums on the monarchy, Hinduism, and the Constitution of 1990, demands which have been brought to public notice by this week’s protest program. In tandem with our stance that all matters of long-term public importance must be delegated into the hands of the sovereign Nepali people themselves, we would like to clarify once more that there is no reasonable alternative to a referendum on the monarchy and on Nepal’s status as a Hindu nation.

We fully support the challenge posed by the RPP-N President, Mr. Kamal Thapa, that the present government of Nepal should launch an investigation as to the cause of the Late King Birendra’s assassination. Instead of explicitly or implicitly blaming the “The Emperor of Hindus”, King Gyanendra, the government and the opposition must form an independent team of inquiry to discern the objective truth. Otherwise, in default of any rational evidence to the contrary, the parties and persons responsible for propagating such vicious slanders and accusations against the King and his family owe His Majesty and the people of Nepal a sincere apology for the gratuitous pain and anguish which their lies have brought to Nepal.

The Nepali Nationalists and Global Hindus living within and outside Nepal once again wish to congratulate the Nepali people for their courage to withstand the injustices of both the government and the opposition. We urge the Nepalese government to refrain from using excessive force against the peaceful protestors. Only a prompt call for a referendum on the Constitution of 1990 can defer the civil unrest which is likely to erupt in Nepal when the 601-person Constituent Assembly fails to produce a new and improved constitution by the stipulated deadline. The constitution of 1990 will reactivate itself if the CA fails to promulgate a new constitution. The people of Nepal must once again be made the sovereign masters of Nepal through the referendum.

Jai Dharma!


Issued Jointly By:

United Nationalist Nepalese (USA)
Narain Kataria, Indian American Intellectuals Forum (USA)
The Hindu (India)
The Hindu Sangarsh (UK)
Gorkha Dal (USA)
Foundation of Nepalese in America (USA)
Coalition of Nepali Nationalist Organizations (USA)
Omkar Dhyan Ashram (India)
Hindu Vidya Peeth-Nepal (HVP)
Shanti Sewa Ashram-Nepal (SSA)
Youth Society for Peace-Nepal (YSP)
Society for Value Education-Nepal (SVE)
Yogi Aadeshnaath (Canada)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Alexander led his army from the front, so did Napoleon initially. I was in Nuwakot recently and marvelled at the strategy of Prithivi Narayan Shah occupying this vantage point as he pondered his drive eastward. There are lots of fronts based overseas who need to come home. Perhaps we will find our next Alexander amongst them.

Anonymous said...

" Perhaps we will find our next Alexander amongst them." Wtf! Alexander was a war general. Nepal does not need a general to lead it at this moment.

Politics is the realm of the possible. As the polity stands now, a return to the Hindu state with the definition of national identity as it was in the good old days of the Panchayat is, well, impossible.

John M. Kelleher said...

@ Anonymous #2: Politics is, indeed, the realm of the possible. That being the case, let us examine briefly the immediate goals that the "Naya Nepal" has chosen to predicate its existence upon.

1.) The "peace process." This has never been more than a farce to begin with, an abject act of surrender in the face of terrorist coercion which was given enthusiastic ex post facto endorsement by a clique of boutique-left Western fools.

Both the moderate parties and the Army itself have stated that they would not object to individual ex-PLA cadres applying for admission to the Army. The problem is that the UCPN-M itself has absolutely no intention of allowing their private army to be picked apart piecemeal - and why should they? Force has always been their trump-card, and they have, thus far, been handed virtually everything they have demanded simply by dint of their ability to resort to arms.

The Army itself will never tolerate the mass induction of thousands of brainwashed Maobadi zombies into their ranks, as the UCPN-M continually demands. The Maoists will not compromise or back down from that demand, which means that confrontation over this unresolvable issue will only escalate.

2.) Drafting a new constitution. This, again, is a chimera. The problem is that neither of the main power-blocs represented in the current CA [Maoists and their sympathizers, versus moderate anti-Maoists] actually want this body to produce Nepal's next constitution.... and, regardless, seem to lack the competence to make that happen even should they so desire.

The moderate SPA'ers are working within the context of a constituent assembly with an overwhelming pro-Maoist contingent. It's impossible for these groupings to draft the constitution without the cooperation of the Maoists and their allies, yet they clearly do not want to kowtow to the Maoists' own proposals as to how Nepal's next organic law should look.

As for the Maoists, they frankly do not want to continue functioning within as multiparty competitive liberal democracy. That was never the "finished product" of their revolution - the present republican order, as the Maoists themselves love to remind us, is nothing more than an "interim" phase on the path to the Peoples Republic which they have never ceased to promote. It is no coincidence that the Maoists have chosen this critical time to start threatening to enforce their own "Peoples Constitution" should the CA miss its deadline. The Maoists are not trying to encourage the CA to do its job - they *want* it to fail so that they have the excuse they need to take unilateral action.

Both sides are merely going through the motions at this point. None of these people are even trying to produce Nepal's next constitution at this point, but since so much of the public discourse on Nepal's future hinges around the constitution-making process, the parties still have to maintain the polite fiction that they are doing their utmost to make this happen. They all know that this exercise is on the rocks, but each side wants to blame the other for the failure of this process. Hence, the rather unedifying spectacle we're witnessing now.

Nepal's ganatantric interlude has been, from the outset, the realm of impossibility. That being the case, it is certainly not at all inappropriate to call for a return to sanity and order, on the bases which have always nourished Nepali unity.

It is odd that you choose to identify Hindu Rastra with the Panchayat period. Why do you ignore the commendably democratic Constitution of 1990, which identified Nepal as a Hindu state even whilst guaranteeing tolerance and protection of all religions?