Helpless

I had to reach home early to attend a party. My schedule was perfectly alright until I drove a kilometer away from the office to find a blockade on the road. One of the political groups had called banda out of nowhere distorting the traffic of the valley. I could not buy it. Do we even know what citizen’s right is? I immediately demanded for the reason. “It is a protest against the government’s incompliance with the law” someone blurted. Isn’t it ironic that a protest against somebody’s incompliance with the law itself is violating the law? In Nepal, it is crime to call banda that disrupts the free movement of traffic. I immediately turned to one of the armed police who was there to provide security to people and asked “Don’t you know these people are criminals and they deserve to be behind the bars by now?” “We have no orders as such” was the answer and I had nothing to speak. I doubt if the police himself recognized them as criminals.

By then I found that I was the only one in the middle of the road as all other vehicles had made their way back. I was amused how easily we Nepalese people can accept anything. One of the protestors came to me and urged me to leave threatening that the consequence wouldn’t be their fault. The armed police was listening to what he said as I gave him a look. I had nothing to do but shake my head in disapproval and make my way back.

Banda has not been as frequent in Kathmandu valley recently as it used to be in the past. Life expected to be normal in the absence of banda in the valley is even more turbulent. The government is trying its best to make things as normal as possible inside the valley however worse the situation is outside (because all the embassies, diplomats, and the eyes of international bodies are focused in Kathmandu valley). But we are finding it more and more difficult to live whatsoever. Regardless of the frequency of banda inside the valley, the chaos in the valley is the result of banda itself. Terai remains banda throughout the year as the demand of one group when fulfilled, demands of thousands other appear. Halt in transportation in Terai, the gateway of supplies in the valley necessarily means that the valley is no better than a banda throughout the year.

Now who is to blame? We are not living in the governmentlessness for the first time. We have experienced everything in the past and for the matter of fact, we have fought against it. We have lost thousands of lives while fighting against the failed system. But what have we achieved? We threw away one failure to accept the other. The fault is ours. We learn whatever is taught to us. We were taught by our great leaders to call banda to have a say. We were taught to vandalize properties, kill people, pick guns, and many more in order to get into power. And when in power, we were taught corruption, irresponsibility, bribery and so on.

In order to change the system, we should change ourselves. We should learn that however difficult the path is, we should take the right one. We should learn that banda and vandalism is not the last resort. We should learn that we should first stop ourselves from breaking the law before expecting others not to.