Nepal: Crisis Unlimited-reflec...

Description

Barbara Adams has lived in Nepal for 45 years. She is a staunch nationalist, and as a result, a severe and passionate critic. This book contains her observations on the failings of what came to be called “democracy” in Nepal, and her suggestions of what should be done to satisfy and engage the ever more discouraged youth. She observed the disintegration of the golden grail of multiparty democracy, and the increasing corruption of its proponents. She criticized without fear, and sometimes too passionately for the comfort of those she attacked, and was thrown out of Nepal for six months by Girija Prasad Koirala, whom she felt, and wrote, had betrayed Nepal, democracy, and the village-oriented socialism of his brother, the beloved BP Koirala. She was one of the first political observers to recognize the importance of the Maoist movement in Nepal, and to write about it sympathetically. She had always been on the side of the poor and innocent villagers and of the idealistic urban youth who flock to her house with their tales of desperation and discouragement. She understands why many of them have since jointed the Maoists. In recent years she has had a weekly column in a leftist weekly, Jana Aastha. The column is under the heading: “note of dissent” Barbara is a dissenter, original in her thoughts, but always writing with the welfare of Nepal in mind. For the last years she has been involved in peace campaigns in Kathmandu, Hetaura, Rajbiraj and other rural areas. In many places in Kathmandu she is greeted, as “Shanti Didi”. Barbara loves Nepal and Nepal reciprocates.