Kathmandu: On December 20, 2020, Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli dissolved the parliament. The move was quickly followed by mass protests and rallies by a large faction of the then ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) as well as opposition Nepali Congress, Janata Samajbadi Party Nepal, and civil society. Nepali Congress organized mass protests on December 28 across the country against the House dissolution. Even civil society came out on the streets. In these rallies, safety protocols were rarely maintained.
At the time, per day Covid cases in Nepal ranged from 500-700. However, in neighboring India, cases were being recorded in thousands and deaths in hundreds in the last week of December. On December 31, India recorded 21,821 new COVID-19 cases and 299 deaths.
Rising cases in Nepal have been directly correlated with the rise of cases in India. Thousands of people in Nepal have caught the more infectious mutant strains emerging out of India, reported Reuters on April 27.
Anti-government protests dragged on through January by which Nepal had already experienced the UK variant. On January 18, 2021, three Nepali returnees from the UK tested positive for the new variant of Covid-19.
Mass gatherings were a regular phenomenon until a week ago. And political parties, mainly ruling, were participating in such gatherings with pride.
The NCP faction led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Madhav Nepal and the one led by Prime Minister Oli began to compete in the streets in a show of strength. On February 5, Prime Minister Oli organized a mass assembly in front of the Narayanhiti Palace. By the first week of February, the weekly Covid toll in India had reached nearly 600. Nepal did not feel alarmed.
Defiance, lies
Prime Minister Oli has established a track record of providing wrong information to the public about Covid treatment. On June 18, 2020, while addressing the National Assembly, he said that if one catches Covid, one should just sneeze, drink hot water and drive the virus away. On that very day, as many as 22 people had died of Covid in Nepal and 671 people had been infected.
On April 8, 2021, he made a statement that gargling with guava leaf water can help drive away the coronavirus. On that day neighboring India recorded more than a hundred thousand cases, with 685 deaths.
Mass gatherings were a regular phenomenon until a week ago. And political parties, mainly ruling, were participating in such gatherings with pride. The government on April 19 issued a public health order banning gatherings exceeding 25 people. But who cared?
On April 23, PM Oli organized a meeting of the 265-member General Assembly Organizing Committee of CPN-UML. Madhav Kumar Nepal, on April 22, attended a press conference in Janakpur amid a huge gathering. On the same day, CPN Maoist Center organized a program on the occasion of Lenin Jayanti in the presence of dozens of leaders. The inauguration of Dharahara by the PM on April 24 also witnessed huge mask-less crowds.
Over the past year, neither the government, political parties nor the general public appeared serious about maintaining Covid protocols. The country’s prime minister looked bent on downplaying the lethality of the virus.
The spreaders
Experts argue that the government and the political parties should never have promoted mass gatherings in the face of rising cases at home and neighboring India.
Dr Babu Ram Marasini, former director of the Epidemiology and Disease Control Division, Department of Health Services, agrees that the political parties acted as the spreader of the virus. “We had warned them since the beginning that mass gatherings and rallies would trigger rapid spread of the virus,” he said, “But they did not listen. They brought cadres from different parts of the country to participate in the rallies. This movement contributed to the spread.”
According to Dr Marasini, once the spread rate rises it just goes up and up whenever it gets the opportunity. “It’s like adding fuel to the fire,” he said.
Experts argue that the government and the political parties should never have promoted mass gatherings, in the face of rising cases at home and neighboring India.
Dr Rabindra Pandey, a public health expert, regrets that the political parties themselves violated the government guidelines of not exceeding 25 people in gatherings. “They should have set the example but they themselves started to gather in hundreds. This encouraged the general public to ignore the safety protocols and gather in mass, adding to the spread of the virus,” he said.
According to Pandey, political gatherings and rallies of the parties have always contributed to the spread of the virus. “The chance of infection from one cadre to another is highest in such gatherings and rallies,” he said.
Looking back, Dr Pandey raised the alarm. “What would have happened if the new variant had spread in Nepal amid the rallies and protests conducted by the political parties?”
“It would invite an unimagined disaster,” he said.
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