The Rising Nepal Is Like A Family

Yuba Nath Lamsal Journalism had never been on my wish list until the later years of college life. But circumstances led me to be a journalist with The Rising Nepal in the decade of 1980s. Right from the beginning, I held the belief that reading alone does not make a person knowledgeable. Reading makes a person informed on certain matters and issues. Information and knowledge are two different things. Information is not knowledge. Knowledge comes with a deep and accurate understanding of issues. It is often said that reading makes a person better informed, writing more precise, while discussion and interaction make one better. A combination of all three alone equips a person with knowledge, wisdom and leads towards perfection, although perfection is something one can never achieve. Thus, reading, writing and discussion should go hand in hand for everyone to be better, accurate and perfect. Yearning for writing In the beginning, writing was not my cup of tea. Reading was my hobby and writing gradually became a habit. Now I find it easier to write in English than in Nepali. In those early years, I used to write in Nepali and later I switched over to writing in English. The initial writings in English were definitely poor and I did not try to approach the newspapers and magazines for publishing. Perhaps it was in the early eighties, I happened to meet Gopal Das Shrestha, the then editor of The Commoner (English language tabloid daily) and hesitatingly expressed my yearning for writing in English. He encouraged me. One day, I went to his office with an article, he easily published and said that my English was okay. He further asked me to do reporting for The Commoner and I did so for a few months. This is how my interest in English journalism and writing grew. This created the ground for writing and later joining The Rising Nepal. I joined the TRN as a sub-editor and continued to climb the career ladder to ultimately reach its apex position of Editor-in-Chief. It is in this daily that I honed my writing, which I continue today even after my retirement nine years ago. In almost 28 years of innings in The Rising Nepal, I was witness to different political systems and regimes of different natures. I joined the paper during the height of the King’s absolute regime under the Panchayat system. The popular movement for democracy of 1990 overthrew the Panchayat regime and restored multi-party democracy. A multi-party interim government headed by Nepali Congress president KP Bhattarai was formed with representation of different political parties. A new democratic constitution was promulgated and an election was held in 1991 in which Nepali Congress won a simple majority in parliament and NC government headed by Girija Prasad Koirala was formed. This government lasted only for three years and Prime Minister Koirala dissolved parliament and announced fresh elections in which no political party won a majority. As the largest party in parliament, a CPN-UML minority government was formed with Man Mohan Adhikari being the first communist Prime Minister in Nepal. This minority government lasted only for nine months and the era of frequent change of government began. The government would change every two years or even less. Around this time, the Maoists started an armed insurgency seeking to topple the parliamentary system of government and install a revolutionary communist regime. In a decade of insurgency, about 17,000 people were killed and thousands of others were disappeared and injured. The royal palace massacre took place, in which ten royal family members, including King Birendra, were killed, following which Gyanendra Shah climbed to the throne. The new king summarily sacked the elected government and took over executive power. But that could not last long as political parties, including the insurgent Maoists, rose against the king’s absolute regime, which ultimately forced the king to relinquish power. As the Maoists joined the peace process on condition that the election be held for a Constituent Assembly to write a new constitution. New Political era Accordingly, the constitution was written and Nepal entered into a new political era of a republican system with a federal structure. This was the political development during the 28 years of my stint in The Rising Nepal. I witnessed the Panchayat regime with the King’s absolute power, a multi-party democracy with a constitutional monarchy, and a federal republic of Nepal. Similarly also 15 prime ministers (excluding the repetition of some of them more than half a dozen times) during the 28 years of my days in TRN. The Rising Nepal was a platform that gave me identity and exposure. While in The Rising Nepal, I had the opportunity of dozens of international travels, professional trainings in several countries, including the USA, the UK, Sri Lanka and Germany. I also had an opportunity to join the high-level entourages, including the King and the Prime Ministers. The journalism job is always demanding and challenging but it was exciting and an adventure for me. I always enjoyed working in this paper as being a part of one family—The Rising Nepal family. (The author is a former chief editor of this daily and a former ambassador. lamsalyubanath@gmail.com)