Prem Khatry

This write-up is prepared to direct the attention of Nepali youths gathered in Kathmandu to convene a seminar. This is the largest such organisation – Nepal Youth Federation – a fraternal organisation of the recently formed NCP/N. Coming from two different streams of political parties, they have willingly-unwillingly come together as one united youth force. For the well-wishers of the party and the people in general this is a positive scenario.
A cursory note of two international events regarding youth preparation for change may seem relevant here. The first one comes from France. At a time when the 'iron man' de Gaulle was wielding his muscular power at the cost of development and social justice, French people could tolerate no longer. The demand for liberal democracy with a bit bend toward the Left emerged and grew like flame. Paris became once more a hub of dissatisfaction and it took more revolutionary shape. Weeks later de Gaulle had to go for the sake of change. Except few like Mitterrand, leadership pattern has changed and gone to younger generation one after another. It is also true that not all presidents have been controversy-free. There also has been a 'pleasure-seeking' president against the traditional French values and standard.
Another example comes from Assam, India. In the early 80's Assam politics was in a state of mess. Hard core old generation could control the situation no longer. In this state, one Prafulla Mohanta emerged from the student movement and rose to power. His immature stature and lack of experience could not bear fruit except that his gang was deadly against migrant population like the Nepali and often times also non-Assamese from other states of India and launched a 'sweeping' movement against the non-Assamese or migrant population. Besides that he didn’t do any noteworthy and significant action besides growing mature, and old following the natural course.
In Russia, China, other communist nations youths and students were organised and functioned according to the party line. Comsomol in Russia and PLA in China became recruiting platforms for bigger political positions later. In Japan Jingakuren once shone brightly but didn’t make any dent in the very orthodox Japanese political system. Today, Japanese youths do not figure out as strong political force, they are quiet like many nations in the world.
Our political parties have created a system where there are several fraternal organisations, student organisation being the largest one. Political penetration in other fields like civil service, financial sector, etc. have worked as trade organisations. In the education sector, the 'trade union' type intervention has almost paralysed the TU administration and enslaved it. There is no doubt about it.
There are reports that fraternal organisations have also been active and effective in construction, businesses and local development in general. Our hydro, water, roads, bridges and even school or housing projects have been delayed and poorly constructed due to the unwanted intervention of fraternal organisations or other forms of local groups.
One news coming from the youth sector of the ruling party says the party will require a valid proof that every youth federation member is engaged in creative and productive life through either self-employment scheme, or other economically productive occupation. If this becomes a 'hard and fast' rule in the party, this concept and conduct will gradually develop into a norm, a discipline and finally a code of conduct. What more can you expect of a youth maturing towards full manhood, toward a responsible citizen and a party stalwart with credibility. Therefore, one must say – ' A Big Hurrah' to the party and its youth sector planners. They have caught the youth at the right moment and goading towards visionary leadership in the future.
It is not just the case of the younger generation of the ruling party; this effort to bring the youth generation to the right, highly desirable track of productive creativity is urgent in all parties. What is happening today is – youths hang around the leader and the coterie of their choice, find a contractor or businessmen on the ground and squeeze them as hard and as frequently as possible for extracting the resources for their pocket expenses to more depending on what the person or company does. This bad habit has caused direct effect on the completion of our projects and ruined the youth as 'bichaulia' or middlemen and go-between.
It is shocking to see youths spending time uselessly hanging around their leaders, impacting regular academic calendar of the universities, and other activities. This scribe well remembers one effort planned to bring groups of students to give series of presentations regarding their role in the preservation of culture and heritage of their place of birth – tangible and intangible culture, that is. Not a single group came forward to listen to the talk. That effort was aborted before it was started. Another effort went that way when the parties and their fraternal organisations were asked to mention about the need to preserve culture in association with the culture ministry and UNESCO. This was a bitter experience about the nature of our youths.
Finally, youth with vision, creativity and energy is what Nepal needs now. Lethargic youth, a migrated youth or a go-between youth is not what our barren fields, the uncontrolled market, the closed industry and chaotic colleges and universities want at this time of our history. Youths must work to change the political, economic, cultural and other arena of our nation sooner than later. For this the parties must make agenda and rules to offer opportunities to their youths where creativity will transform the face of our nation.

(Former Dean of Humanities & Social Sciences, TU and Fulbright scholar from University of California, Khatry writes on cultural issues)