Zero Tolerance For Land Encroachers

A news report published on the Gorkhapatra daily, a sister publication of this English daily, last Sunday, stunned me and perhaps many more. Headlined ‘The Land of Singha Durbar Itself Encroached,’ the news has not only exposed the encroachers, but also the smouldering corruption in high places and the patronage of traditional political parties.

The encroachment of the land of the government secretariat has revealed the depth and width of the enculturation of social degeneration, impunity, inaction, gross violation of court rulings, the dark side of the unscrupulous bureaucracy, the crime of concealing the truth, political inertia, and the near-demise of the major political forces.

The government of the Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) has made history by initiating the process of evicting the illegal settlers from across the country. The only shortcoming of the government is that it acted in haste sans proper homework of identifying the real landless squatters and arranging their settlement prior to displacement. This gave way to the worthless leaders of defunct parties to attack on the commendable act. 

Spurious squatters  

The leitmotifs of the encroachers have been public. Those who own land in the Kathmandu Valley and elsewhere in the country made the encroached land the source of extra income by either selling, though encroached land cannot be registered in an individual’s name, or renting out huts and houses in many places. It has been evident that only a fraction of real landless people were among the encroachers.

After realizing the hardships the evicted people underwent, the government has stalled demolishing the unauthorized houses and structures across the country as it is in the process of identifying the genuine landless people and managing settlements for them. 

Had there been real landless people among the encroachers who appropriated the public land just for their settlement, they would be ready to move to the places that the government has provided and will provide. If the encroachers are spurious, they will not move to the place the government allocates. This clearly tells the authentic ones from the fake ones. 

All occupants of public land but the real landless should be chased away. We need to view this problem from a sociological perspective that we often miss, which paints a skewed picture of the issue. Some of the corrupt and shameless leaders of traditional political parties and their subservients, in the name of safeguarding the human rights of the evicted people, have accused the government of displacing the poor, citing the constitutional provision that states every citizen shall have the right to settlement.  

Yes, the state is the ultimate custodian of its citizens and an elected government in a democracy is accountable to its electorate. But this does not mean that the government should allow its people to rob the state or to condone any criminal activities like usurping public assets. And the government has been reiterating that it will settle the genuinely landless evicted people.

The RSP and the government, as the latter acquires strength and legitimacy from the party, should muster courage and conviction to bulldoze all the unauthorized houses and structures across the country to set an example that public offence is punishable by law and when visionary and morally strong people rule the country, there will be no place for the crooks. The state should be zero-tolerant towards illegal occupants.

Some of the dishonest leaders of the traditional political parties have been delivering immoral speeches and inciting their cadres affiliated with their political wings against the initiative of the Balendra Shah-led government and belching venom, aimed at discrediting the government and stirring up the evicted people, saying that turkeys voted for Christmas.

The leaders and cadres of the RSP should understand on time that the present move of the government to reform governance will not lead to a reduced number of elected representatives at the provincial and local levels of elections next year and the federal election after five years. The common people, knackered by rampant corruption, naked nepotism and favouritism, depletion of national coffers for personal gains, and decades of mismanagement, will vote the RSP to power with higher seats in all three levels. 

This has been established by the overwhelming victory of Balendra Shah, who defeated four-time prime minister KP Sharma Oli in the federal election held on March 5, 2026. Therefore, stand strong in the face of illegitimate criticisms and keep moving on fearlessly to reform governance and set a trend in dismantling the shield of corruption, nepotism, political and social degeneration to improve the lot of future generations. 

Punish the guilty 

Now, the government should stand firm on its decision to reclaim the land of the Singha Durbar appropriated by the unscrupulous bureaucrats immediately, and all those who are civil servants encroaching government property, that too, of the government secretariat itself, must be jailed on double counts. Punishing them would not only set a precedent that corruption is punishable, but also establish that all governments don’t condone it.

Penalizing the guilty not only paves the way for good governance, but also instills morality and fear in the common people, who in turn would deride the corrupt, regard the righteous people, encourage their children to follow the right path, make attempts to hold the government accountable to the people and hugely contribute to making Nepal a better place.

Behind the corrupt politicians and unscrupulous bureaucrats lies social (ir)recognition, which always fostered impunity, corruption, illegitimacy, mismanagement, accumulation of wealth stolen from the poorest of the poor, and rendered corruption a de facto legitimate action, which spread like a cancer across the society. Therefore, ordinary people should wholeheartedly support the government to stand firm on its decision to uproot corruption for good.  

(Sedhai is a freelance writer.)