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A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

Today, I simply wish to share Deepak Thapa's wonderful article "Distractions of their own making" published in today's The Kathmandu Post (Thursday, August 6, 2020). 

The two Chairpersons of the ruling party continue to squabble over the PM's chair ignoring the sorry state of the country and the people due to Covid 19 and monsoon havoc. People are dying of this dreadful virus and landslides. Until now, we have not heard any condolence messages coming out from their mouths rather than blaming each other for issues and concerns irrelevant to people’s sorrow and difficulties.  

Time has come for them to mend their political differences and serve the nation and the people at this critical situation. If they cannot, it would be wise for them to split the party and take their own course. The people are fed up with their unproductive political drama that is going on for some time.

Distractions of their own making

What Prime Minister KP Oli and his challenger, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, seem to have forgotten is the sorry state Nepal is in, caught between a killer pandemic and a disastrous monsoon. 
 
As I had alluded to in one of my earlier columns, there are those who, having come to power, readily succumb to the ‘great man’s disease’. That is when a politician assumes that winning an election has somehow conferred on him (and, it is mostly a him) god-like omniscience. That is clearly the affliction of our prime minister, KP Oli, who has throughout both his prime ministerial stints taken to launching into impromptu lectures without consideration of the audience, including at times providing ‘scientific’ advice to a room full of scientists. His performance in Parliament in early June when he asserted that a supposed Nepali exceptionalism resulting from our geography and food habits have made us resistant to viruses, corona or otherwise, is a classic instance to prove true the old saying: ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’.

 

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