It is really vexing that most of our so called nationalism surfaces only at times when a particular neighboring country attempts aggression upon our national pride. The otherwise silent Rastriyata bursts with its full exuberance only when someone else tries to show us our weak position by means of their unwanted patronage or deliberate insults (everyone remembers the Hrithik Roshan, Madhuri Dixit, Chandani Chowk to China, BJP, Shiv Sena, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and blah blah blah kanda).The irony is, by some arrangement of the geopolitical situation or whatever for that matter, we are weak. Those who beg are always weak. Those who cannot construct a 10 kilometers motorable road without the "help and cooperation" of the donor nations are always weak. Look at our roads, our flyovers, our hospitals, our universities, our hydropower projects, our glorious NGO sanskriti, even our toilets, I have started wondering do we have anything substantial to boast about that is really ours, that have been made from purely Nepali money and effort? Forget these, our national budget, to be precise, is largely a contriution of our too nose poking neighbors and friends. Why care about Rastriyata then if it is limited to chanting slogans and vandalising what is left of our national property?
I don't believe that we don't have the money or the expertise to do something on our own. We simply don't have the will. We have become so much entrenched by our Magne sanskriti that we have started believing aids and donations are somehow our natural and inalienable rights and we don't hesitate to demand for it. Little do we realise how helpless we have become in the hands of these foreign players. It is said that a leaf cannot rustle in Nepal without the knowledge of our Southern neighbor. With what seems like more than a growing friendly interest from our Chinese brothers , I suspect the leaves will now have to ask for their permissions too if they intend to rustle henceforth. The Nepalis do not seem to have enough hawa, I guess.
