Jail Journal

Jail Diary of BP Koirala

• February 4, 1967:

  Jean Juarez speaks of creative hatred - "la hairs creative."

  Creative hatred is of different quality than a general hatred. Hatred as such is blind and has no larger aim than revenge. Creative hatred is a kind of bitterness that drives you, not to mere revenge which is contented once you have taken it, to a purposeful ideal the achievement of which will be a kind of revenge but of an entirely different order, i.e. creation of a situation in which hatred is not likely to be created at all. Hatred is personal; when it transcends and hitches itself to an ideal, it becomes bitterness.

  Bitterness vs. hatred: Madalsa (a family friend) used to tell me that a man in politics should not forget his injury. Now I understand what she meant.



• February 6, 1967:

  What is the basic problem of the world today? In my opinion, the basic problem is failure on the part of international leadership to get out of the rut of national thinking. The greatest stumbling block is the inertia of nationalism that hinders the emergence of genuine international outlook even among intellectuals who are supposed to be free from national obscurantism. If you take the world as a whole and the entire population as one single community, most of the problems will cease to be so dreadfully insurmountable. Poverty is not an international problem, because the international resources are so developed that if they are properly planned and utilized as one economic unit, there will be no poverty. Poverty is a specific problem, of undeveloped countries. It is not a global problem. The help rendered by developed nations to the underdeveloped ones is so minimal at present and so fragmented and unplanned that it has not been of much consequence towards the removal of poverty from the world. Poverty cannot be wiped out unless the entire resources of the world are pooled together.



• February 8, 1967:

  Most important political problem is the problem of democracy. The socalled conflicts between the capitalistic and the communistic states are only the present day expression of conflict of national interests. USA and USSR are gradually coming closer not in transcending their so-called national interests but in the outlook of their communal life and culture. What still differentiates between them is more or less of democracy - in USA it is more, in USSR it is less.



• February 11, 1967:

  KP revealed the total disintegration of his personality - psycho pathetic symptom, when he started abusing the Major (commandant) of the camp in the vilest of terms. The provocation was, according to KP, that the major had not conveyed his message to Gopalji (Gopal Prasad Bhattarai, brother of KP Bhattarai) for money. KP is in debt to the supply man, and the latter has stopped the supply of such items as cigarettes, soaps, nuts etc. to him. My offer to him that 'let me give you some money' has persistently been refused. Knowing his difficulties I feel that he should be helped, so I have kept my offer open to him. I do not want however to appear unwontedly generous. I want him to ask for money - at least accept my offer of help - in a spirit of friendliness to him. Since he is with me as co-prisoner suffering the same fate, I feel that simply out of common humanity he should be helped. I know that Gopalji and his people do not very much care for him, although he keeps the illusion that they are full of affection for him. Anyway the language that he used against the major was so vulgar and in such bad taste that I felt ashamed to hear it. Since he is in prison with me for the same cause, I felt ashamed at the crudity and utter lack of taste in the man supposed to be my comrade. Later on I felt unhappy because I did not intervene to stop KP from disgracing him like that. Even if he had not listened to me - which he would not have - I would have mitigated the humiliation to the Major by intervening. I predict that KP will go mad in the course of this year if he is not released.



• February 12, 1967:

  What is dignity? The word dignity is very commonly used to give a name to all kinds of qualities - so commonly that it seems to have lost its specific attribution and is used to convey one approbation of somebody's conduct and behaviour. There is however an element of reservedness in one's behavior that easily lends itself the status of dignity. It is commonly supposed that a reserved man is a dignified man. I totally lack reservedness; and when I am reserved I mostly seem so; essentially my reservedness is due to my diffidence. Normally I am not reserved except when I am shy and diffident.

  GM says by way of criticism that I am really mercurial. He has chosen the word "mercurial" (because I am generally supposed to have mercurial temperament) because he did not want to give me offence by saying that I have no dignity. What he is dissatisfied with is my attitude to the army personnel, men of our guard company. I talk to them. He wants me to be reserved with them. That was the attitude of Thuldaju also, who once said that my action in accosting General Vijay (Vijay Shamsher, Foreign Minister and son of the Prime Minister Mohan Shamsher) who happened to come up before us was "infra dig." My attitude of dignity is entirely opposed to theirs. I consider a studied attitude of indifference and hostility even towards your enemy is undignified. Moreover, pose as a behaviour is a most undignified behaviour. I have always held that GM is one of the greatest posers an actor in the political scene of Nepal.