"I Am Aligned To The National Interest" - B. P. Koirala (Interview) (Fortnightly National Star, July 1979)
Mr. B. P. Koirala's struggle for a party-system in Nepal has had mach publicity as mush, perhaps, abroad, if not more, as at home. Statements after the referendum announcement have not lessened controversies on his democratic leanings. National Star approached his for an interview he obliged with written answers.
Q: You claim that you represent democracy in Nepal has come under controversy in private political circles. Could you explain how the others who are likely to contribute, and have, to the democratic movement here are less representative?
B.P.: I think I would do well, as a rule, not to answer questions raised in private circles, political or otherwise. Issues become politically worthy of serious notice only when they are raised as public issues: otherwise they are mere gossips whose purpose is to enliven a sagging evening party or to pat one's own back for holding political opinions, albeit privately.
In the total absence of democratic rights, in a condition of denial to the people of the constitutional and inherent right of free expression, all those who try to raise their voice of protest against such insufferable state of affairs at a grave risk to themselves and to their families are representative of the people and as such represent the democratic cause. For the last nineteen years I have the honors to belong to a handful of such brave men, young and not go young, students and non-students who have given me their love, affection and confidence. I speak for them some of whose cries were stifled with gunmen's bullets or strangled under the jackboot. I consider myself to belong to that company of courageous people my party men or otherwise who did not knuckle under or did not go down on their knees before display of illegal force which is tyranny. All of them represent democracy. I am one of them.
Q: You are on record of having propounded an "exemplary" and "model" democracy in Nepal which, at the same time, is no new innovation. Could you shed light on what such a democracy is?
B.P.: I hope you have heard of books that all books are books, but only some of them are worth reading and reading over again. In the same way all the remarkable women who run households are housewives, but it is only some among them who can be cited as model housewives. Some are sloppy, and some are worthy of being imitated. Likewise, there are democracies and democracies some are sloppy, some are "exemplary" or commendable. I have no new model for democracy in my mind. No new model, but a model for others to watch and to imitate. I have dreams for my country one of them is to present to the world hoe a democracy is to run. The basic elements of democracy are 1.The principle of election. 2. Which, to be meaningful, will have to accept the principle of multi-part. 3. Which again means the principal of all the democratic and civil rights to be made available to the people? 4. The principal of the primacy of a popularly elected body to which the government is responsible. 5. The principal of equality before law. 6. The principal of independent judiciary etc. etc. Any system, by whatever name you call it, is democratic if it incorporates these elements in its basic structure. I am opposed to the present Panchayat system because it is devoid of these elements.
Q: How do you view the trends at splinter groups within [banned] Nepali Congress, the Krishna Prasad group, the Bankhan Singh group, for example, in the background of pre 1960 splits that your [banned] party witnessed and the concurrent weakening of the democratic system there from?
B.P.: In a democracy groups will remain some as pressure groups. Such groups don't weaken democracy; it may sometimes harm the cause of a party splintered with factional and group fights. Even in monolithic parties there are groups only the fate of such groups is extreme. A democratic party with a vitality and potentiality for growth has to contend with groups inside it. If they are hostile to their organ's vital groups, they will automatically drop down as deadwoods. In this connection I may add by way of parenthesis that 1960 was not brought about by the weakening of the democratic system which was alive, buoyant and growing. The King used the army to destroy this healthy, growing child.
Q: In the light of the past months since the referendum proclamation, your camp has indicated fears of an upsurge from the Left. Is your party in a position to withstand this upsurge until the referendum and even after?
B.P.: No, we have not indicated any fear from any political quarters. When the people are on the move democrats have nothing to fear.
Q: What is your position on the often heard statements that the Panchayat organs and machinery should be put in limbo and an "independent" interim government is formed coming from the multi-party camp?
B.P.: In the choice that has been offered to the nation in the referendum between party less Panchayat system and multi-party system, I don't think there in anybody-including the so-called a technocrat a bureaucrat-who is independent emptied of all political predilections one way or the other. Then there is a constitutional problem. If the King suspends the present constitution according to which the Surya Bahadur Thapa government is installed he will have to have another constitution to go by. Either we will have to say that he does not need to have any constitution and rule without one or ask him to give an interim constitution or revive the 1958 constitution. People who clamor for the suspension of the basic part of the constitution don't seem to have applied their mind to this constitutional tangle.
Q: What was the purpose of your Delhi visit and was it successful politically?
B.P.: May visit to Delhi was incidental. My main purpose was to go to a hospital in Bombay for a thorough medical checkup which I have to undergo periodically under medical advice. On my way to and from Bombay. I halted at Delhi for a day each way where I met a large number of my Indian friends who way happen to be leaders of India. I am always happy to meet them.
Q: How non-aligned can the (banned) Nepali Congress be in the background of your statement of fraternity with India and neighborliness with China? Or, is it that the (banned) Nepali Congress has foregone the need for non alignment in Nepal?
B.P.: Who is that patriot in the present world who is nonaligned, pray? I am aligned to the national interest of Nepal and not to a shibboleth. If opportunity came my way, I will certainly go to Havana, knowing full well that like others in the non-aligned conference, I will, try to serve the cause of my country interpreting on my term what I mean by non-aligned.
Citation: B. P. Koirala, "I Am Aligned To The National Interest", (Interview) in Sushil Koirala (ed.), Democracy Indispensable for Development 56-59, (Varanasi: Sandaju Publications, 1982)
Back