Santosh Gautam
Setting the Scene
Prime Minister’s dream has initiated a hot debate in Nepal. With his dream as the motion of the house people from different walks of life have been putting their views for and against the motion. The academia, the business sector, the NRNs, the politics all seem to be divided into two poles. Laxmi Prasad Devkota’s couplet on aiming to touch the moon has been referred frequently by a side of the debate and the present pathetic plight of different aspects of the nation including the miserable situation of the quake victims has been referred by the other side.
Dreams for Better Future
Dreams guide our thought, thoughts guide our actions and our actions determine our future. The dreams lurking at the eyes of a juvenile, the dreams of a promising youth, the dreams of the parents all have beautiful future worlds of their own kind. However not everyone gets his/her dream fulfilled owing to the lack of proper strategies, willingness and willpower to act. Many dreams are aborted, many face the plight of spontaneous or induced abortion, many of them are deferred for ever, many of them are not born well and only a few of them are born well. Everyone dreams high or low, everyone aspires big or small, everyone envisions beautiful or ugly future world according to the lived experience, analytical caliber and imaginative range of his/her inner being. However visionary people envision the picture of the future world not in void but based on the present realities, future possibilities and the pace and direction of development. They envisage the future and show the path and at times they change the course and trend of development.
Protagonist’s Perspective of the Discourse
Extremism and vested political interest can be clearly sensed in the currently existing dream discourse in Nepal. What’s wrong when a prime minister envisages a beautiful picture of his country and inspires the citizens to work in that direction? What’s wrong when the head of the government dreams of liberating the nation from narrow diplomatic limitations? Shouldn’t he be publicly encouraged to mobilize the state mechanism towards this direction? Won’t the pace of development be slow at the lack of ambitious and daring plans? It is said that everything seems impossible until it is achieved. Moreover the prime minister has talked about those things that have been already achieved by many developed countries of the world. There is a need to boost his morale with at least a public moral support.
Antagonist’s Perspective of the Discourse
The next side of the story is equally touching and it has led to bitter criticism of his dream. Considering the sorrow and plea of the nation to dress the wounds of the quack victims it is difficult to justify his dream at the present context. The pathetic plight of the sufferers even after a year of the devastating tremor reveals the failure or at least the incapability of the state mechanism. It also vividly exposes the lack of expertise, willpower and readiness of the state to leap into action at the hour of urgency. Needless to say there has been an overwhelming support or at least assurances to support from different countries and from the Nepalese living at different nooks and corners of the globe. However every conscious Nepali citizen clearly feels the inefficiency and lack of strategies to lead the nation amidst the existing adversities. The innumerable problems that the general public are facing and the urgency and severity of those problems have made the prime minister’s dreams look ridiculous. Also the way the head of the government shared his vision or dream with the public blurred the demarcation between vision and joke. A sharing with a timeline of developmental objectives after an extensive homework at the National Planning Commission would save his dream from being severely ridiculed. It can nevertheless be said that his dreams are certainly not the buildings erected at the void and there is every possibility to convert them into reality.
Synthesizing
Leaders need to be visionary. Then only they can unite the nation for some purpose and lead the people towards that direction. On the other hand different international development goals have been set at different times to give right direction and speed to our developmental endeavors, the recent and important ones being Agenda 21, Millennium Development Goals, Education for All Goals, Sustainable Development Goals etc. Similarly National Planning Commission chalks out plans and formulates policies for periodic and planned development of our nation. Talking about these goals and plans every goal or plan is a dream with viable strategies and credible roadmap but always with a certain degree of uncertainty regarding the conversion of that dream into reality. We have failed to achieve many of the international and national goals of development. Progress in any field doesn’t happen out of the blues. It usually starts with a dream and the dream is materialized through a meticulous chalking out of plans and cautious leaping into action. Prime minister’s dream can be justified at this ground. However it is equally important that the people of every walk of life feel the strong presence of the government at present so as to ensure the credibility of his dream. Our primeminister, nevertheless, deserves praise for his long term plan, dream and vision to liberate Nepal from its entire dependence on single country for everything. Huge amount of budget allocated for the roads connecting to China can be taken as its initiation. Also the transit agreement with China has ended an era of dependence for the link to ocean and the nation can be immensely benefitted from it. Because of the dreams shared through the budget and also because of the firm nationalistic stand of the Oli led government it can be clearly felt that any attempts to overthrow this government can be counterproductive to any political forces. Hence the need of the hour is the formation of national consensus government in Oli’s leadership with an agreement to form a Congress led consensus government after certain time. Then only laws for the implementing the constitution can be made and implemented and we can walk hand in hand to materialize our dream of prosperous new Nepal.
