India is a Bitch But Nepal's Individual and Institutional Habits Creating Crisis
Celebrating the new constitution almost feels like a backhand compliment |
It's hard to sit down and sip on a beer that you named after the very same constitution that has been a cause for major concern for Nepalese living in their own country. India's vocal rebutall over its stance on the newly released law book has elevated a nation which already had had insufficient fuel to a level where the crisis is unprecedented. Stories emerging of citizens in the capital buying and storing wood is a sign that the situation has really gone out of hand. China's promise of fuel is authentic yet challenges remain as to how fuel will be transported to population dense areas as roads leading up to the Nepal-Tibet boarder is no stroll in the park. Even if the tankers themselves reach the boarder, the slippery, winter-y roads mean that special care has to be taken into the amount that the tankers should be carrying and the speed at which they should be driving.
Which is a cause for concern because citizens need fuel and they need it now.
I didn't give much attention over the crisis until only yesterday when I was talking over the phone with my mom and she was telling me that the crisis had reached a tipping point. The thing is, when your mom who normally is positive and says everything is alright even when everything is not, tells you that the fuel shortage is real and it's here to stay, you kind of feel hamstrung about feeling rather guilty of not having given much attention to it in the first place.
In all honesty, I don't know what the f**k to do.
The beauty is that she doesn't blame India. I blame them, I am a very racist bitch when it comes to India but my mom doesn't. She blames herself and her fellow country people for not doing enough when they could. My mom, having learnt to become independent when she was still a toddler, knows what's she's talking about. If you can't take care of yourself, no one will.
If Nepal can't take care of itself, no one will.
The fact that individual Nepalese have an inherent habit of being overly reliant on one another, from growing up to getting a job to getting married to having your kids get looked after and then using further connections to get promotions and so forth, has spilled into a habit of an institution where one institution heavily relies on the other to do work which then has grown into a dire, desperate habit of the whole country to always look up to other countries for aid. The dependence is almost crippling.
The fact is that there's nothing we can really do about the habit we have grown to get accustomed to. Even if India opens the boarder and even if all the fuel trickles down into the tanks of Indian manufactured motorbikes and onto the Indian funded and constructed roads and the Indian Embassy funded ambulance takes that very same road to save a fellow Nepali equipped with an Indian medical life support equipment to a hospital that was funded by India, things are never going to change.
Look, for most of the part, for most of the blogs and media outlet out there telling people what to do, I don't. I don't have a solution for this. I do my graduate school work in silence, I give my best shot at it and expect the best in return and so forth, I don't have a clue what people in Nepal should be doing because that's not really my area of expertise.
I am not Jesus, joint smoking Shiva and his pal Brahma. i don't have f**king answers to all the problems, I have enough problems of my own to take care of.
But as much as I hate to say this, as much as India is a key a**hole in designing the current economic blockade on a country who was only starting to get back up from the terrible earthquake, I can see why my mom thinks India is not to be blamed.
It's easy for someone like me to sit here, thousands of kms away from all the trouble to say this, but please Nepal, grow the f**k up.
Yes, indeed, the economic and humanitarian situation of Nepal is crippling day-by-day. Though Nepalese are trying to cope with everything possible, it is really an eye opening happenings that should have been realized long-long back to stand on our own feet. It is not to blame India for what problems we are facing today, instead we need to thank India for showing us our status (Aukat), level (Dharatal) and ability (haisiat). We were not like that before. As you correctly pointed out that we were much dependent on our neighbors. Neighbors like their neighbors when they are strong. We Nepali people need to understand the very simple thing, wake up and do something to counter the problem we are facing today. And the problem itself is not that big: we are just pondering with the basic things and they are nothing but the energy for mobility and cooking. The only and powerful solution, I could see, is to generate as much as electricity from all possible things around your homestead, specially from micro/mini/small hydropower plants from rural areas and Photovoltaics on the roof tops of urban areas. It will provide energy for mobility as well as food security. There are many hydropower projects from micro to big (up to 500 MW) are at the stage of completion (with two-three years). Even the roof top PV can generate around 500 MW from Kathmandu Valley alone within a very short period of time. We should concentrate all the available fuel to accelerate the construction of these power plants, run other lifeline institutions such as hospitals, securities and schools on priority basis. Except for emergency need all private vehicles must be banned until we get back on track. Encourage more and more electrical vehicles to ply everyday. Concentrate on food production as much as possible from available lands. We should also reduce consumption of energetic materials, fuel (gas) and electrical energy as much as possible at home and institutions till we succeed to put our hydropower plants and pv systems operating. We should not be accepting anything like the "business as usual" mode in our activities. We need to turn this challenge in to opportunity at war footing. Otherwise we will end up only blaming others to cover up our own inability. Though tough and difficult, it is the right time show the real pride of Nepali people. Yes, we can stand on our own feet with our pride.
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