Prosperous Nepal: Ways of achievement  

In his ambitious book Samriddha Nepal (Prosperous Nepal), a promising youth leader Rabindra Adhikari strives to explore various possibilities for national development and points out ways to achieve unity for that purpose. Basically, the book is a compilation of articles on development and politics and their interrelation with each other.

At the very beginning, Adhikari honestly says, “It is not an academic dissertation; however, it is a thought paper.”

The book contains 21 articles under four chapters on different areas like economics, socio-politics, policy, justice, traditional approaches of development, dependency, interdependency, scientific land use policy, new construction and reconstruction projects and mobilization of human resources among others.

He nicely presents the descriptions on recent border blockade, terror wrought by the earthquake and insufficiency of rescue and relief operations.

He basically opines for good governance, transparency, visionary policy, development of entrepreneurships for socio-economic development and further investment in vocational education.

Adhikari is worried about capital flights, brain drain and young outbound workers. While dealing with all topics he seems to be pure pragmatic rather being guided by Marxist ideology where his political leaning lies.

In the foreword to the book, Professor Pitambar Sharma also writes “The articles do not reflect the writer’s ideological ground but he seems more pragmatic.”

While analyzing topics on development, he finds out unnecessary political interference and an unplanned policy as major responsible causes forbidding good results for the country.

Most of the articles were published in the national dailies over past few years while some are presented for the first time in the book. The book begins with his remembrance of school days and he shares the experience of his political career from that time. He remembers his efforts to establish a library in his village and his attraction towards leftist politics.

But without wasting any time, he immediately turns towards political and developmental issues which are the dominant subject matters in the book.

As the Chairman of the Development Committee of the Legislature-Parliament Adhikari knows about the issues raised in the book and puts them to debate.

Adhikari has criticized the sluggish trend of development and haphazard way of dealing with it in the country as there is serious lack of proper expert views and pragmatic resolution of the issues.

The book has paved way for further reading, writing and interacting trend among political leaders who so far have been mere orators and propagandists. Nepal lacks visionary leaders since long.

He has proposed for integrated settlement projects in hill and mountain region so that services can be taken to the common people. He also presents the modality of agricultural pocket zones and strongly opines for resolving problems of landless peasants and squatters.

Has any executive leader ever thought of why many small nations similar to Nepal and even smaller than Nepal have developed a lot with limited natural resources? Why are Singapore and Malaysia more developed than the surrounding Southeast Asian countries?

Experts say that Singapore and Malaysia have become prosperous because they abide by rule of law and free trade.

Adhikari expects same development model to be implemented in Nepal but unbridled free trade in poor country like Nepal may harm national production.

He has stressed on forming think-tank in developmental issues and several policy levels.

Mr Adhikari proposes various infrastructures for development. Basically, he focuses on hydropower, alternative energy, and modernization in agro sectors.

Nepal is lagging much behind whereas neighboring giants China and India moving ahead quickly in economics. Therefore, Adhikari concludes that it’s too late for Nepal to be prosperous.

He compares economic growth of Nepal’s neighboring countries which is as below:

Economy of India in 2016:

Economy of China:

Economy of Nepal:

Thus, Nepal is one of the least developed countries in the world and it completely relies on foreign aid and remittance for its survival. Adhikari is much worried about it and recommends ways to left the country out of it.

Overall, the book provides food for thought to experts and lay readers alike.

Adhikari has used secondary materials to support his arguments but they are not sufficient enough.

Some of the shortcomings in the first edition of the book might be corrected in later editions.

Title: Samriddha Nepal

Author: Rabindra Adhikari

Publisher: Fine Print

Price: Rs. 370

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