In the last decade of the Panchayat, in the current system, a subject called ‘Introduction to Nepal’ was required to be studied in the twelfth grade, which was worth fifty whole numbers. That was when the poet was first formally introduced to Nepal. The Panchayat collapsed while operating from that introduction.

In the process of collapse, the monarchy also collapsed. Along with the collapse, it also burned. In the Maoist armed war, both the state and the rebels' ammunition burned, and after the second people's movement, the interim constitution burned. When it came to the recent Gen-G rebellion, the entire country burned from Singha Durbar. So, what now? 

I have not been able to pay attention to what, where, and how 'Nepal Prachicha' is taught now. The social explosion through Gen-G has shaken the minds of many Nepalis in many ways, but what really intrigues me is what image of their country Nepal comes to the minds of eighteen-, twenty-, and twenty-two-year-old youth? If an introduction to Nepal is written now, what should be written there? What should be erased from what has been written before? Amidst these questions, in today's column, I will give a preface to three topics that should be erased from the established 'discourse' of Nepal. 

After the Gen-G rebellion, what is the way forward? The demand for good governance that needs to be addressed immediately has become clear. The aspiration to see the political era of a capable and clean generation and the modernization of the bureaucracy, which the country has been facing for the past thirty years, has also become understandable.

Whether the shock of the Gen-G explosion will ‘change an era’ or not, is not known at this time. But my expectation is that the new generation will not believe the myths of some of the ‘dominant narratives’ traditionally established in the identity of Nepal. It is not possible to write the entire identity of Nepal in one article, but in the same ‘spirit’, I will discuss three myths that need to be debunked with my perspective.

The first myth related to the identity of Nepal is that Nepal is in a geopolitically sensitive position. Perhaps because I have always heard it since I was young, I used to think – yes, our geopolitics is very sensitive. But after spending five to seven years in Southeast Asia, I saw the ‘geopolitics’ and the deep burden of history that weighed down their countries. And, seeing how easily those countries were taking it all in and carving out their own path, I began to realize with firmness and clarity that saying that Nepal’s geopolitics is sensitive is a collective lie that incompetent and corrupt rulers have been imposing on us for years to hide their weaknesses.

Influenced by this narrative, some people who have a good understanding of other issues and influence our public discourse are also repeating the same lie in writing and speaking. Let’s take a moment to understand why this narrative is intellectually frightening and fatal to the country’s identity.

First of all, which country in the world is not sensitive to geopolitics? Just look at India, on one side there is a ‘fragile’ state like Afghanistan, on the other side there is its declared enemy Pakistan. On one side there is Bangladesh, on the other side there is Myanmar.

How many external elements are there trying to destabilize and weaken our country? But have we ever heard India raving that we are geopolitically sensitive? Look at Bangladesh, Maldives or Pakistan. Not much attention is paid to Nepal, but the geopolitical scene of the countries of Southeast Asia should not be too far from Nepal. Let's look at the situation of the countries of the Middle East, how deep their geopolitical complexities are. If we argue with the understanding people of those countries that Nepal is geopolitically sensitive, they laugh, showing sympathy for our 'national opinion'.

Wherever a country is, it will have neighbors. Some of those neighbors will be stronger or weaker. And, since this thing called a state has become, it will do everything it can for its own interests and benefit from other countries. So, is there any point in Nepal repeating the raving that it is only Nepal that is geopolitically sensitive, not once, every time and not for a year, but for many generations? Isn't it like trying to understand what is the reality of most countries in the world only as your own unique situation, saying that you are poor because your neighbors are rich? 

The main point is that geopolitics should not be sensitive, but saying that it has become sensitive because its nature is more or less the same is an intellectually embarrassing matter.

What will the rest of the world think when they hear it, when they see you making yourself big every time and preaching that your own geopolitics are sensitive? On top of that, there are many who think that India is responsible for Nepal's lack of development and the constant instability here. Well, that's how India is. What can we do now? Will India get up from there and go somewhere because we don't like it?  Maybe, we would have done more

s? The conclusion of the first point is that, whether as an individual or a country, the way others treat us is according to our own abilities and conduct. It is the same all over the world. Nepal's geopolitics is not unique. To call it sensitive is to be geopolitically insensitive, seeing only ourselves as different, without looking at the world outside. Or, it is to express frustration that we could not reach power and to cry out that someone else is the reason why we are lagging behind because we are unable to self-assess our collective inadequacy as a country.

Now let's move on to the second myth - Nepali socialism. There is a long history in how the understanding of socialism came to be like this in Nepal, from Indian socialists to BP Koirala to communist socialism. Without going into history, let's talk about the present. It is not surprising in itself that socialist politics is sold in a country with a lot of poverty and unemployment. And, here, we are not trying to get into whether socialism is right or wrong. The main point is that socialism in Nepal is a ‘fraud’. I am not saying this lightly, there are reasons behind it.

The main slogan of Nepali politics that has been heard for three and a half decades is socialism. Since the columnist was a child, the words ‘So-and-so expansionism is a dead end, so-and-so imperialism is a dead end’ could be seen on the walls of the city. At that time, it really seemed that the reason why my country was weak was that all the big powers of the world were conspiring collectively to squeeze Nepal. The fault lies not so much with the rulers and people here that the country is poor. The fault lies with global capitalism and neo-imperialism. That is why they are being opposed here. Now, with the impact of this opposition, they will improve and Nepal will also develop like many other countries.

After a while, it became clear that they were saying that after learning from the pamphlets sent free of charge by some countries. And, it turns out that their opposition to capitalism and imperialism has never been considered worthy of attention by anyone outside Nepal except their own activists. This much was right, but where did the problem start? Nepali society considered parasitic activists who shouted slogans like ‘capitalism is dead’ more important than people who started a small business or enterprise or increased their income through private investment.

What Nepali society at large did not understand was that many people in the world had understood from the beginning that capitalism has many inconsistencies. Many in capitalist countries had always understood that it deepens the gap between the rich and the poor. But the inevitable process of creating capital has been a capitalist practice for thousands of years of history. After that, every state has been facilitating what it can do for social justice and equality. But instead of saying all this ‘capitalism is dead’, they are instead worshipping capitalism and increasing their entrepreneurship, thinking day and night about how, where, and what benefits they can get from it.

China is doing the same, other communist countries like Vietnam are also quietly doing the same. And, although not very successful, they are trying to find out how the distribution of the capital created can be fair. That is what the socialist governments of Europe are doing, that is what the young mayor of New York, Zohrab Mamdani, says he will do. It is a poverty of intellectual understanding for Nepalese socialists to be arrogant that they are socialists in the West too. 

In the light of the world, Nepalese traditional politics is promoting theoretical debates that have become 'primitive' as a fiercely new and modern idea. Should politicians who are not heard outside of Nepal say how harsh capitalism is? That is a topic that is always being debated even in the country that has practiced capitalism to the extreme.

What Nepalese socialists do not understand is that capitalism is a process of civilization. Whether someone likes capitalism or not is completely irrelevant. Because they do not understand that much, Nepalese socialists think of capitalism as a single person or country. They still think that capitalism listens, so they raise slogans against it. If a country with such intelligent politicians as its leaders had taken a good path, it would have been a matter of wonder. I expect the Gen-G generation to recognize this 'fraud' in time. 

Now let's look at another myth that must be destroyed, which is connected to the hollowness of Nepal's intellectual history. Every country would have made a story about itself being great. Moreover, such countries, which are currently disadvantaged, tend to say that their history was very glorious. But the reality is that - let's not go too far back, in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, when the world made intellectual leaps, the present-day Nepali border was in a way dry.

The history of our ancient writers, poets, etc. that we read now is only about that one hundred years. Since the border with India is open, Nepal's modernization has begun since the time of BP Koirala, with political and intellectual practices gradually moving here. Therefore, just as one takes ownership of one's family, one takes ownership of the country regardless of its origin. But what should not be forgotten in doing so is that, apart from being a part of ancient India, the foundation of Nepal's intellectual history of the past three to four hundred years is not strong in terms of civilization. Therefore, we had to accept our history with 'humility'. We had to say only what we were. The path forward cannot be determined by saying that what was not there was.