The Perils Of Riding The Lion

“One who rides a lion doesn’t dare dismount it.” Even a freelancer like this lesser mortal knows that panthera leo cannot survive on grass and other flora, so there’s no need to cross-check this fact with renowned subject experts.  Riding lions is no mean feat, not even for the redoubtable Gorkhali soldiers whose battle cry, ‘Ayo Gorkhali’, has sent a chill down many a formidable spine and continues to do so even in this day and age of massive technological strides in the art and science of war. This scribe has not come across a sapien, not even in the annals of history, who has ridden astride the king of the jungles. However, our scriptures depict the all-powerful Goddess Durga doing the impossible: riding the lion bareback, without a hint of fear. A kinda cakewalk for her! You may even call it a powerful symbol of women’s empowerment. 

By the way, other members of the Shiva-Durga family carry themselves on the backs of different creatures equally affably and gracefully. A barely clad Shiva not only survives the Himalayan cold by smearing ash on his body and wrapping a piece of deer hide around his lower region, but also uses Nandi the bull as his all-terrain vehicle, carrying himself from the Himalayas to the southern plains through the midhills and other parts of the world and back. More surprisingly, an obese Ganesh, perhaps a tonner in his own right, rides astride a teeny-weeny mouse while a tall, handsome and definitely featherweight Kumar (Kartikeya) flies around the world on the back of his peacock, without any travel document. 

Association with powers

How fascinating! For divinities, impossible is nothing; quite the contrary for humanity. Here we are, needing all sorts of travel documents even to make it to our next-door neighbours, let alone a vast world beyond. If such were not the case, who knows what corners of this globe many of our beleaguered political leaders would have sought refuge in, post the Gen Z movement that has thrown them off Singhadurbar (the Lion Palace), putting, at the least, a halt to their decades-long association with state powers in a republic where these leaders established themselves as the new royals after the abolition of the Shah monarchy.

Even a pedestrian’s estimate suggests that each member of this clique can afford at least one Pushpak aircraft, thanks to their headline-grabbing and neck-deep roles in corruption scandals that range from turning Nepali nationals into ‘Bhutanese refugees’ to illegal ownership transfer of government-owned land in the name of individuals and what not, all through ‘policy decisions’ that offer them the ultimate immunity from all sorts of investigations and persecutions. 

Even after their dishonourable exit from power through an uprising that witnessed a sad death of commoners as well as cops on duty and destruction of state organs from federal to local levels along with sections of the fourth estate, key political figures, who brought the ruins by and large by not stepping down even at the height of their unpopularity, appear pretty unrepentant.

A cursory reading of speeches and remarks from the top leaders of the three main political parties post their knocking off the high pedestal does not indicate that they have managed to read the writing on the wall correctly. While the chiefs of the two major parties appear bent on defending their legacies (chequered at best), the erstwhile supremo of the third largest party, around whom national politics has revolved for two decades or so, appears bent on cashing in on a popular wave against the establishment. 

These leaders often cite their long and hard struggles for higher ideals like democracy, human rights, equality, justice and social inclusion. But after waging a fight against the traditional monarchy and establishing a republican order at the end of a decade-long war, they ‘transformed’ themselves into new royals by curtailing dissent within party rank and file, fiercely protecting the interests of their near and dear ones and showing a clear desire to remain in leadership positions of their respective parties for life, come hell or high water.

Malgovernance

People repeatedly elevated these leaders to power for positive transformation, but the latter made a hash of every mandate, institutionalising corruption, malgovernance, political instability, nepotism and anarchy. Though the stated purpose of the penultimate move of the erstwhile government, the social media ban, was to bring social media channels operating illegally within Nepal within the framework of domestic laws, the people took it as a government move to curb dissent and that move blew the lid off the anger, frustration and despair that had been penting up all along, on September 8 and 9. 

Historically, all sorts of elements, by cashing in on popular sentiments, have managed to foment and hijack movements in Nepal to fulfill their agendas and this movement, in all likelihood, may not be an exception. Still, every dark cloud has a silver lining and this one is no different. Despite a violent uprising of September 8-9, people have been quite forgiving of the leaders even after unseating them from positions of power. At this critical juncture, this mortal requests leaders old and new to take a leaf from the recent movement, if not from the annals of history, from France to Romania and beyond, and desist from similar follies in the days to come, as the fire continues to burn within and without. 

Let Marcus Aurelius inspire our leaders in their dotage with this immortal line: It is shame and dishonour that, in any man’s life, the soul should faint from its duty while the body still holds out.

(Gautam is a freelancer.)