Dictatorship

Currently, Ravi Lamichhane is the head of the Ministry of Home Affairs and Police Administration. Lamichhane himself renounced his Nepali citizenship for the convenience of his career. He is accused of holding a dual passport and because he is the Home Minister, the process of investigation has not been able to proceed. Since he was the Home Minister, there have been news about this matter not only in Kantipur but also in various media.

Let's see what is happening in the parliament recently. Ignoring the obstruction of the opposition in the parliament, the government has taken important decisions in a chaotic and chaotic environment. Ravi Lamichhane has opposed the inquiry into the allegations of misappropriation of co-operative funds and apparently KP Oli and Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal have given patronage to it. In other words, this government wants to use the muscle of power in the face of parliamentary procedure and tradition.

Speaker is also supporting this matter. The speaker seems to be a follower of the ruling coalition. There is an experience of this happening in the past as well. Such a move by the Speaker is protecting those accused of irregularities and corruption on the one hand, while those same people are targeting other people in a completely unaccountable manner. The incident of Kailash Sirohia is a proof of that. No person is acquitted of any crime just because they lead the

media. But every citizen should have the opportunity to acquit himself according to the rights prescribed by the law, the rights prescribed by the constitution and according to the procedure. The government has failed here at the beginning.

This incident reminded me of the incident 22 years ago. 5 days after the Rajdarbar massacre, Kantipur publishers Kailash Sirohia and Vinod Gyawali and me as the editor were arrested for publishing an article by the then Girija Prasad Koirala-led government. At that time, Maoist was a 'terrorist force' in the eyes of Nepal government, Indian government and US government.

Despite being a 'terrorist force' and still running an armed rebellion in Nepal, Baburam Bhattarai, one of the top leaders of this force, gave an official opinion about the most tragic events in the history of Nepal, so we printed the article even though we did not agree with it. Because as an editor, we also printed 'History' in terms of 'archiving' it as a country's leading newspaper. Next, until it was made public, there was no situation to comment on it and make the Maoist leadership responsible.

That religion is what we have done. We did not do that out of agreement with any idea or recognition of their support for the murder of Baburam Bhattarai or Pushpa Kamal Dahal and freedom of the press. After 22 years of that incident, when this incident happened today, Prachanda is in the leadership. What this confirms is that Prachanda is still a totalitarian. Even now, they believe that the government can be run by restricting the freedom of the press. And, Oli is the leader of the largest party in this coalition. His opinion is no different.

At present, corruption is very transparent in Nepal. By using Ravi Lamichhane or stopping the investigation in the case against him, Oli and Prachanda have kept themselves from being investigated. Which is not valid. If leaders are patronizing both totalitarianism and corruption, they must go down the road.

At that time, when I was in court, I said many times, I have full faith in our judiciary. We fully respect the decision taken by the judiciary. But whether it can be said now, the future will show. Because when there is a totalitarian character, the judiciary also becomes a 'target'. In such a situation, there may be an inability to work independently.

22 years later, the government seems to have become more dictatorial, authoritarian and vindictive. At that time, there was opposition inside and outside the country, maybe because of that or maybe because of the government's realization, a month later Girija Prasad Koirala's government left and Sher Bahadur Deuba's government came, and the case of treason was withdrawn. But it remains to be seen how the current government will rein in its home minister, how he will make him work in accordance with the law, or whether he will be brought to justice on the grounds that he has taken revenge against a citizen as a home minister for violating the constitution, that remains to be seen. It will also be seen from the democratic character of this government.

Not giving Kailash Sirohia a chance to explain or question, insisting on the investigation, KP Oli and Prachanda being silent in this entire case. From all this it is seen that we are all involved in corruption, they are afraid that if Ravi is investigated, we will also fall in that line.