Mar 19, 2012

From heaven to hell -- The Kathmandu Post

Anil Bhattarai

(Read from The Kathmandu Post )

-If geography is destiny, Kathmandu would be among the most beautiful cities on earth. Some of the old photographs of Kathmandu have started circulating on the Facebook lately and they make us truly nostalgic. The clear white mountains with blue skies in the background were once reality. Even those of us who grew up in Kathmandu during the ‘70s and ‘80s remember clearly that until early 1980s, it was common for Kathmandu residents to breathe clean air and see the snow clad mountains against the blue sky.

But sadly geography is not destiny. Through a series of public choices, we have converted a potential heaven on earth into a hell hole of perennial smog, deafening noise, smelly rivers and suffocating dust. It is not a piece of news anymore, but lest we forget, we have to remind ourselves again and again. In just a little over three decades, this city has become one of the ugliest and most physically difficult places to live in for the majority—the selectively manipulated tourism posters and videos notwithstanding. Only by taking a series of different public choices can we take Kathmandu towards a humanly liveable future. One of the key choices has to be about the way we imagine a transportation system in the valley.

Kathmandu’s young people—from high schools, colleges, youth clubs, environmental groups, government offices, student organisations and journalists—have a clear stake in taking the lead. First, let’s be clear: unless young people take a serious lead in generating public dialogues for a liveable Kathmandu, the existing leadership in our public institutions will not deliver a livable Kathmandu to us.

Therefore, everyone who wants to see a better Kathmandu—a Kathmandu without dust, noise and smog—please mark your calendar for Nepal’s first mega bicycle rally on April 6. On that day, nine in the morning, thousands of bicyclists will begin their rally from Khulamanch. The message has to be spread loud and clear: when it comes to Kathmandu’s transportation, the existing status quo is not acceptable.

We have to make it clear in no uncertain terms that thousands of deaths and tens of thousands of painful injuries in road accidents are not acceptable to us anymore. We have to tell everyone that if you have chronic cough in Kathmandu, don’t blame your throat, but the ever-burgeoning fleets of private motor-cars, and badly managed and fragmented public transportation. We have to tell those who take charge of city infrastructure building that we cannot accept impaired lungs in our children anymore. Let’s make it clear that chauffeur driven cars for our public office-bearers are not acceptable. It drains the tax-payers money. It corrupts the polity. It simply crowds the public space. There is no reason why we should accept Baburam Bhattarai’s so-called nationalist posturing about the Mustang car. If he is genuinely interested in creating a liveable Kathmandu, he has to go out on a limb—get on a bicycle and pedal all the way to Singha Durbar.  On April 6, after the planned mega rally, the organisers are planning to gift him a bicycle. Let’s see how much use he makes of it.

A few days ago, the Minister for Physical Planning Hridayesh Triphati assured Kathmandu valley residents that they no longer had to live in dust and muck (Kathmandubasile aba dhulo ra hilo ma hindnu pardaina: mantra Triphati, March 14, Kantipur ). Since I live in Toronto these days, I do not know exactly how Kathmandu valley is right now. If I were to rely on print news, I would be left with what the journalist published which is nothing more than the verbatim quote of the minister.

Within a few hours after the news was published online, many readers posted their comments and some of those commentators claimed that they were from different parts of Kathmandu. As of early morning March 16, only one among over two dozen commentators had anything positive to say about the Minister Tripathi’s assurances. All of them want a liveable Kathmandu. We can imagine many things. We can dream of a Kathmandu where there are parks for the children and where old people and small children do not have to worry about their lives crossing the roads.

But we don’t know what kind of dust-and-muck-free Kathmandu Tripathi will build. Until we see it done, we won’t believe it. All we have seen so far is clichéd promises of more roads. We know there is money in that. But to expect that Tripathi and other political masters will deliver a liveable city on their own, will be expecting too much.

Let’s not mince words. The promise of roads won’t create a dust-and-muck-free Kathmandu. Only a vision that explicitly sees private motorised vehicles as the major source of the problem, and not a solution, can lead to a liveable Kathmandu. This vision can emerge only through the wider mobilisation of citizens. Minister Tripathi can join in on that front. Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai definitely has an opportunity to truly inspire citizens for a different vision of Kathmandu. I don’t know if they see the world as I, and many others, do.

anilbhattarai@gmail.com

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