Oli’s Speech Did Not Hit Bull’s Eye
NARAYAN MANANDHAR
There is now more than enough analysis of 45-minute long PM K P Oli’s address to the nation made on 15 November 2015. The address is significant in a sense that it is the first official address made by the newly elected prime minister. The address also came at a time when the country is facing a dire situation. The political protests in the Southern plains and the so called “undeclared blockade” by India have put the country in a double bind situation. Therefore, people were eagerly waiting to listen how a new PM is going to address these issues. In fact, it was also opportune moment for Oli to gain political mileage as the interval between two festivals – Tihar and Chhath –provided a kind of truce situation. The Morcha was planning to intensify agitation after chhath festival, that is, from 17 November.
The address was originally scheduled to be delivered before the onset of Tihar festival, however, for no reason; it was withdrawn true to the style of Olitics-politics, it was delivered after Tihar festival.
To the disappointment of many, the PM’s address contained nothing other than hollow promises and shallow nationalism. In his nearly, six pages long address, divided into 36 paragraphs, half of the time he spent his time coaxing India for its unofficial blockade and the hardship faced by the Nepali people already crippled by the April earthquake. Probably, this is the first time, the government dared to spell the word “unofficial blockade” in its official document. Otherwise, the government so far has been mumbling jumbling with the words like bottlenecks, disturbances or hindrances.
Rather than hitting the bull’s eye, the 45 minute long address contained much of the fake promises like ending load-shedding problem within a year, starting immediate works to establish electric metro rail road in the Kathmandu Valley, attaining self-sufficiency in basic agricultural products within two years, etc., etc. The address gave an impression that one is listening to an annual program of the government delivering a regular speech inside the parliament rather than one at a time of crisis faced by the country with a lack of determination to resolve it. Deviating from his written text, Honourable PM went on to expand the proposed four-lane East-West Highway into six-lane, with undermining the technicalities of such a highway. In Nepali this is called man ko addu gheu sanga khanu or simply put, riding wishful horses.
The pahilopost.com blog reported that out of 36 paragraphs, nine have been simply lifted or copied and pasted from the speech delivered earlier by Dr Ram Baran Yadav. Were the PM writing a paper or an essay for a university assignment, he would have been charged of plagiarism.
The address was not only long and boring; even PM’s party supporters observed him feeling uncomfortable whilst reading the text material. There is a mistaken belief amongst Nepali political leaders: the longer they speak, the greater is the importance of their speech. This is similar to misconception among Nepali students sitting for a written exam – more pages they fill in, higher grades they expect to secure! No wonder to have this psychology carried by the politicians whose average education is no more than secondary school level.
Another blog mysansar.com (http://www.mysansar.com/2015/11/20946/) has done a small but an interesting content analysis of PM’s address. They reported four key words frequently appearing in PM’s address. These include: constitution (27), blockade (14), India (12) and andolan (9). (The figures in parentheses denote number of times the words appearing in the text material). As these four words are highly (co)related, one can figure out the contextual factor underpinning PM’s address to the nation. But there is nothing concrete on how he is going to deal with these issues.
Ignoring both the length and the contents of the address what has drawn the attention of this scribe is the use of jordar aagraha or “a forceful/strong request” in para 33 of the text. Here is my translation of text from Nepali into English:
“Therefore, on behalf the Government of Nepal and all of the Nepali people, I strongly request the Government of India and concerned officials to end unofficial blockade to ease the supply of essential goods and not to generate further adversity in the age-old relationship that existed between the two countries.”
A request or aagraha goes well with the prefixes like humble, kind or cordial. Similarly, prefix jordar (forceful or strong) goes well with words like demand, assertion, etc. But the use of jordar aagraha or a strong/forceful request is sheer unconventional.
One of the distinct features of CPN-UML Party is that it is infested with shrewd characters that are adept in playing with words.
People can recall how they played with the words alochanatmak samarthan (critical approval) during 1990 constitution drafting process and aadha sachiyo (half corrected) when they approved King Gyanendra’s regression in October 2004 and prepared to join the royal government. This time by making a strong request, probably, CPN-UML is sending “blow hot –blow cold” or “good cop – bad cop” message to India.
