Perspective On Nepal's Poverty

Of late, there is a noticeable surge in the publications of various books by retired Nepali bureaucrats to particularly relate their own experience, perception, prognosis, and diagnosis of the situation in the country. Some of these publications are fictions and others literary pursuits. Many of such works are in the form of memoirs and autobiographies.

Some others pertain to various specific areas like economic situation, legal atmosphere, corruption, water resources, and the overall political landscape of the country at large. Readers also find considerable differences in the styles and approaches of some administrators in presenting their supposed contributions to the country in the context of their active service and post-retirement publications.

Vidya Nath Nepal is a man with a profound belief in simple living and high thinking, and during his service days, he normally preferred to pursue a low profile even in the context of some important jobs he was asked to handle. But there is a welcome difference in the book in the sense that he is quite frank in his exposition and seems to cross over such amiable barriers calling a spade a spade.

I have personal acquaintances with Nepal for over four decades as we interacted several times, both in the Foreign Ministry and other places that he served with distinction, including the Embassy of Nepal in New Delhi. He used to relate his grievances against some of the embassy officials for not giving due recognition to his seniority in civil service.

The work is dedicated to his grandfather, Pandit Trilochan Upadhyaya, and parents, Kishori Prasad Upadhyaya and Bishnu Kumari Upadhyaya, for their contributions in the field of school education in remote parts of Nepal suffering from what he calls the plight of hunger, malnutrition, illiteracy, and other ailments.

Another attribute of Nepal's quite elaborate book entitled NEPALKO GARIBI: NIDAAN RA UPACHAAR, which can roughly be translated as Nepal's Poverty: Diagnosis and Remedy, is that at least four people of eminence have given their critical assessments of the treatise. They include Dr. Swarnim Wagle, who caught national and international attention by being elected to the parliament with impressive votes from the Tanahun district after serving the country in different capacities as a renowned economist.

Three others in the list to extoll the book's attributes and features are Professor Dr. Umakanta Silwal, former Head of the Rural Development Department of Tribhuvan University; senior diplomat Gyan Chandra Acharya; and Professor Dr. Sanchaya Acharya. In his long preface, which is also divided into two parts, Nepal underlines the background that triggered him to write the book with emphasis on at least a million poor people who suffered more due to the mega earthquake of 2015. The other factor contributing to this situation, in his view, was India's unofficial economic blockade affecting the most vulnerable section of the society.

As the second book to his credit after Challenges and Opportunities of Nepal's Foreign Trade Sector, which was published three and a half decades ago, Nepal has rendered a yeoman's service in the sense that his work, though largely based on the experience he gained during government service, refrains from being either eulogical or unnecessarily critical but tends to offer a rational view of Nepal's economic landscape, focusing on various aspects of poverty.

This is natural in the sense that he spent a major chunk of his long administrative life, spanning 35 years, either in the Finance Ministry or organisations related to economic affairs like the Ministry of Commerce, the National Planning Commission, a diplomatic stint as Minister (Economic) in New Delhi, and the Water and Energy Commission, besides a posting at the District Administration Office.

Divided into six chapters, the book is basically composed of four broad sections apart from the introductory portion (chapter one) and concluding observations (chapter six). The first chapter briefly deals with the current state of poverty and criteria for ascertaining the state of poverty along with the nature of poverty in our specific case. Coming from a former bureaucrat, it is notable that Nepal does not have any qualm in making a rather sweeping statement that our bureaucracy has remained normally corrupt under the patronage of corrupt politicians.

Chapter two deals with major causes of poverty, encompassing a wide spectrum of the landscape of poverty caused by conventional and non-conventional factors, including the impact of natural disasters that have caused havoc among the people. Some of the reasons listed by the author for our rampant poverty are failure to effectively galvanise the agricultural sector and agro-based industries, natural disasters, soil erosion and desertification, a paucity of skilled and quality education, lack of minimum hygiene and basic health services, a chronic state of unemployment, lack of basic infrastructure, dearth of good governance, distortions in public service delivery, and recurring status of political adversity and instability.  

Chapter three relates to secondary causative factors for poverty. The fourth chapter is the most comprehensive and the longest, constituting almost half of the whole book and what can decidedly be called the pith and marrow of the voluminous work. It deals with ways and means of eradicating poverty. It makes prescriptive suggestions on policy, service, resource, and execution fronts, calling for a sustained approach in the task of undertaking one of the most challenging aspects of socio-economic upliftment in the poorest of the poor countries.

Chapter five is more specific in the sense that it deals with poverty alleviation and eradication endeavours being made in South Asia and Nepal in the context of its landlocked status and one of the least developed countries of the region. The chapter examines the pros and cons of measures being followed to upgrade Nepal's status from the least developed to that of a middle-income country.

The sixth and last chapter with concluding observations has further spelt out specific cases, problems, and difficulties faced by Nepal in the context of poverty eradication. The book ends with what it calls the unexpectedly negative impact of COVID-19 on Nepal's socio-economic life with long-term repercussions.

In a nutshell, Nepal's attempt to present a compact and comprehensive picture of almost every conceivable angle of the complicated nature of poverty is quite commendable despite many theoretical aspects that have found space in the book that could have probably been avoided. I congratulate the author on his noble and quite innovative endeavour.

(Dr. Bhattarai is a former foreign secretary, ambassador, and author.)