Asian Pacific Socialist Sydney - Speech - B.P. Koirala (February, 1981)
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Comrades,

I would like to give you a short report on the political situation in Nepal.

For the last 20 years we have been subjected under an authoritarian rule of the King. In 1960 the King staged a Coup, against a popularly elected government headed by me (as the Prime Minister). During these twenty years the people were subjected to a tyrannical rule. Many of our comrades lost their lives fighting against the imposition of King's dictatorship; thousands were imprisoned or driven out of the country into exile in India. On that single occasion I was kept in prison for 8 years; some of my colleagues for a still longer periods.

However, since last 18 months things have started easing slowly when the King permitted us limited freedom for political activities and held a referendum however manipulated it was. He ordered the release of all political prisoners (except a handful of those involved in extreme cases), allowed the people living in exile for political offences to return to Nepal, and withdrew cases against us. Two months ago he announced some changes in the constitution introducing some positive features. But there are other negative features invalidating the positive ones.

We are seeking clarification from the King on these points, and insisting on correcting some of the odious features in constitution before we agree to contest the election under the new constitution. In case we decide to contest we insist on a new interim government in which we too have an effective representation to supervise and ensures a free and fair elections. We expect to win the general elections in sufficient strength be able to form the government I like this opportunity to thank our socialist comrades all over the world for expressing their solidarity with our democratic cause and their concern for my personal political situation when I was facing seven charges of treason each carrying death penalty. We thank them for their support when things were really hard for us. We hope to continue to receive cooperation and help from com ads in future too.

From our experience of 20 years of hard struggle for democratic rights in Nepal we have learnt some valuable lessons which could be of interest to the socialists in general. I am enumerating them in a succinct manner.

  1. Without appropriate political institutions in which the people have a vested interests, even economic development is not possible. The rationale of the King in staging the Coup, in 1960 was the idea that the economic development could be divorced from politics, and the development could be accelerated under his authoritarian aegis. It has not happened. As a matter of fact the rule of the King has brought the economic situation to a point of collapse. We have become poorer since his takeover. In our experience, development in our economic context means motivating the people for the task of development involving them at every level of development from the level of decision making to the level of implementation of the decision so made. This is a political job. An authoritarian rule can only create bureaucratic edifice with which the people cannot identify themselves.
  2. Foreign aids in such a situation, instead of helping the process of development, only create a new class of people whose affluence is unrelated to the general economic condition of the nation as a whole. The new class is neither feudal nor capitalist, which has least roots in the economic soil of the country. This new class has no economic roots in the country. It exists solely on the basis of the manipulation of foreign aids and, through corruption, illegal trade etc.
  3. For a poor country like ours the model of development is not provided by the developed societies of the West. It is too late in the day for us to start on that model. Importation of high technology does not suit us. What we need is technology that is only slightly superior to what we currently employ, that is, only a slightly improved technology that can be handled by our own men. Where we have blindly imitated the model of development of the West we have brought about a situation in which the rich has become richer and the poor poorer, and which has created an affluent class without national roots, a class that has no genuine interest in the national economic regeneration.
  4. The socialist can do no worse than be apathetic to the democratic struggle of the people all over the world. It should be their first concern. When I say democracy I mean liberal democracy. I emphasize this point because sometimes there is a tendency among some socialists to give this question secondary importance to that of economic development.
  5. 5. Lastly, we feel that socialism is the wave of the future. Socialism is the natural ally of the Third World and the non-aligned. Without the anchorage of socialism the countries in the Third World drift either to fascist militarism, or to dictatorial communism or to obscurantist reactionary religious fundamentalism. We socialists, therefore, have a big challenge in the Third World. The centre of gravity for socialism has shifted from Europe, where the wildest dreams of Karl Marx and company have been achieved, to the Third World where socialism both as an inspirational ideal of life, and a model and a blue print for development has become relevant.

Thank you, Comrades.

B.P. Koirala

Citation: B. P. Koirala, "Asian Pacific Socialist Sydney", (Speech) in Sushil Koirala (ed.), Democracy Indispensable for Development 159-162, (Varanasi: Sandaju Publications, 1982)

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