Down into smoggy India

It was a surreal experience to ride down off the Himalayan foothills, where the horizon changed from mountains and blue sky to a line of grey smog and blue sky. At times the visablity was less than 50 meters, slow going but then this is a crowded part of the world and my average speed to way lower than usual.

I then drove down to Varansi, Khajuraho, Taj Mahal and onto New Delhi. The whole time I have been under a layer smog and with the cold air from the Himalayas creating fog, this meant the sun only appeared for a few hours a day.

Maoists – red is ruining the country!

No matter how you classify wealth, Nepal ends up at the bottom, ie: GDP 163 out of 181 and per capita 55% leave on under US $2 per day. A small number who interact with tourists do well and the majority has a tough life, similar to many countries I have visited so far!

Unfortunately for Nepal, they have no products or resources that the world desires and their major income earner is tourism. Tourism is good but it is hard to distribute the wealth in a cash economy, affected by civil war and political uncertainty. The Transparency International 2009 corruption ranking for Nepal was 143 out of 180 countries.

Summarizing a complex issue, in May 2008 a new government was elected, a coalition between the Maoists (37%) and Unified Marxist-Leninist (17%)(you would assume the same ideals to be one party), with the Nepali Congress (18%) heading the opposition. The 3 main parties follow the UN negotiated peace agreement and agreed to write a new constitution within 2 years and after the abolition of the monarchy. The UN monitors the peace accord to ensure all parties stick to the deal. There were a few problems so the Maoists’ resigned from the government over 12 months ago. On a regular basis (twice a month between 1 and 3 days), the Maoists shutdown the country, block the roads with stones, logs and people. Then threaten violence to people who use the roads or businesses that are open for trade. Foreigners are exempt and I did drive several times through road blocks with some angry shouting and waving of red flags.

The Maoists are new to democracy and are learning on the job (they are use to pulling the trigger if someone disagrees) and democracy is all about compromise (Barak Obama will agree).
On a similar wave length, parts of the Islamic world educate the illiterate with an extremist view. In Nepal the Maoists tell the illiterate to ‘follow me and life will improve’ and very successfully people follow, who are un-educated from the country side, on mass to the major towns to block the roads and shutdown the country. When making a living depends on time open for trading, this impacts the majority and affects the earning power of individuals and governments, who need all the help they can get. The result of these strikes means everyone is poorer; country people are more frustrated with no change to their living standard, city people dislike being held to ransom by the Maoists and everyone is disillusioned with the Politian’s.

Is there an answer…yes...Maoists need to open their eyes and live in the real world, sure political agreement is difficult , change takes time but shutting down the country and stirring up the uneducated from the countryside is detrimental to Nepal and its people going forward.