Initiatives galore – why for? Where for?

While working with WAVE some years back, we often soaked up the sun on the terrace of the Sanchaya Kosh building, right opposite the United Nations office at Pulchowk. We were always impressed and awed by the fleet of gleaming white SUVs that were lined up each evening in the UN parking lot, despite an unimpressive track record on the activities and transparency front. Is humanitarian work, in a country that one of its agencies (UNDP) puts in the mid 140s of the Human Development Report, so demanding as to require that big a fleet of SUVs? Or is it plain extravagance, borne out of unmonitored, misguided and forced charity in the name of corporate social responsibility: corporate ‘<i>paap kaatai</i>’, to use local lingo.

I read about the United Nations in school, and I was duly impressed. But, as I grew up the image slowly crumpled, and I now view it as a house of vice. While there have been instances when the UN has come off in exemplary light, in general I have nothing but cynicism for it. While the Secretary General perennially rants about the lack of funds to fulfill all its goals, the establishment and its numerous appendages suck the main body dry through sheer extravagance and corruption.

This post is very different from my usual ones – in fact, this is the first time I have expressed my ire against a public body in a public platform, but I guess it is high time each one of us expressed our disappointments more openly. And the credit for this outpouring goes to Lochan Rizal. Most know him as a singer, some as a ‘very good person’ (the <i>aankha halda pani nabijauney</i> type), and a very few as a ‘UN White Band ambassador’. As a goodwill ambassador of the UN, he was invited to a Millennium Development Goals seminar held in Kathmandu recently. The event may have found mention in the media, but what was snubbed out was Lochan’s oration during the event.

The floor flew high fuelled by bloated, far-fetched plans and initiatives, characteristically UN, UNDP, Youth Initiative, the government… It was big in every respect – the dignitaries, the budgets, the plans, but hollow to the core. Finally, it was Lochan’s turn to address the gathering and much to the ire of the preceding speakers, he proceeded to speak out his heart and his soul. His speech was rudimentary, but it was ‘honest’. While the speakers before him painted a hollow picture of achievement for the future, he scrubbed the sheen off it, exposing the sordid reality that we live in. His agenda was not big initiatives, bigger budgets and much bigger piles of reports and declarations – but, an honest effort at poverty alleviation, driven not by the multi-million dollar budgets of the INGOs, but by a true zeal to see a positive change in the plight of the underprivileged.

As Lochan spoke a silence descended upon the gathering. Many heaved a sigh of relief as he left the podium. There was no applause, but he had struck a discordant note among all those assembled – and that was evident in the air. He may have failed to get public approval for his outburst, but I am sure he has gained the respect of many like myself.

He was a layman speaking among a group of experts. His speech lacked the finesse, the oratory or the statistics displayed by the others, but it was 'honest'. Way to go Lochan.

Now that is attitude!