The late King Prithivi Narayan (PN) Shah was until a decade ago considered the person who unified this country. Instead of more than two dozen kingdoms, we became one country and the folks from Gorkha got to enjoy the power and the freebies that comes with it. Yes, the winners do write the history but every century we have different players and they would want to rewrite history to suit their own interest.

Let’s look at our chimekis. Modi cannot just tell his fellow citizens to forget about the British and the Mughal Empire. And the Chinese cannot just ignore the fact that once upon a time they too were under the Emperor till Mao finally came in. And we Nepali, whether we like it or not, cannot just ignore the fact that the House of Shah did unify this country then and then came the Ranas who played their part and then the Pancheys, so-called democrats and now, we have our republicans who tell us that we are a federal republic of Nepal!

But before our House of Shah could really rule the county, we had to deal with the courtiers who conspired against each other and used violence so that they could play the political musical chair for the next two hundred years. 

Then we became the ‘rip-off-the-public’ and our government decided that it would be better if we forgot our past, our history and just moved on with the new players in town. But we should never forget our past, even if it is good or bad. And we know that our political players of today are no better than the five families who fought with each other then. Now, we have five major political parties and the so-called top leaders of these parties will work together to share the loot while their cadres will fight with each other for no apparent reason. At least, our politicians do not have to worry about the King anymore and they can now freely loot and boot and shoot as they rule this country. Gyanu Uncle has no one to blame but himself because once you get hold of the Kurchi, you have to make sure that you do the right thing because all good things do come to an end someday. Empires don’t last forever, be it the Romans or the Pharaohs or the Greeks or the Mughal. Even today, our former King can be relevant if he opens his own party like the former Royals of India. But it seems that he has no interest to be our Chief Minister someday. If we had a politician like Mandela, then that person would have at least made Gyanu Uncle, the official Chief Guest for all Jatras in the valley.

And this year, our government has figured out that a decade later, it is okay to celebrate PN because it’s not a touchy subject anymore. Our President gets to honour the late King from Gorkha and thank him for at least unifying the country then. Today, we need a new PN but not to unify this country by using violence but by promoting tolerance and peace and working to make sure that our chors get their act right before it’s too late through reconciliation and forgiveness.

Let us at least thank our government for celebrating National Unity Day on the occasion of PN’s 296th birthday. Our President and Prime Monster garlanded the statue of PN outside Singha Durbar. And as usual, our government decided to give us a public holiday so that our civil servant can get a day off from work and enjoy playing cards and spent quality time with their friends instead of family.

Kamal Dai, who is still our Deputy Prime Monster until this government leaves the building, decided to organise a separate function to celebrate PN’s birthday. His party, Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) is no longer a national party and Kamal Dai has not much to do for the next five years either. But he still wants to be relevant and wants to play the ‘House of Shah’ card for his own personal benefit. We all know that our Panchey players don’t have much space in New Nepal and the people have at least given the mandate to our commies to govern this country for the next five years.

So, let’s hope our comrades will continue to make National Unity Day a day to celebrate our unity in diversity. Let’s hope that our politicians will not play the ‘ethnic’ card to divide us and make the people turn against each other while they continue to make shady deals behind closed doors while drinking bideshi whiskeys.

PN showed us that it is possible to unite this country. Before, they had to use violence and let us hope, we will get a new PN who will practice tolerance to unify us all. Even today, PN’s belief that those who receive and offer bribes are this country’s worst enemies ring true but there is only one honest person left in this country and he is our crazy Dr KC! We, the people are just the silent majority who allow our incompetent and corrupt netas and sarkari hakims to roll over us without being accountable for their misdeeds.

Guffadi is a grumpy old man who blogs at guffadi.blogspot.com. You may contact him at [email protected]