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What's wrong with our Ministry of Foreign Affairs?

A minister in the current interim government has left office, wishing the government employees at his ministry all the best while calling himself the worst minister ever. His farewell speech ended with a call for a big 'bhoj' for the hakims who did not help him a bit to carry out his duties efficiently and warned them that one day they will be held responsible for their misdeeds.

Most of our politicians who have become ministers in successive governments over the years have the same story to tell when it comes to our incompetent, corrupt and bloated bureaucracy. Folks like Sarat Singh Bhandari will have no complaints because he has become a minister more than a dozen times in the past two decades and mostly the Labor portfolio, where he made billions of Rupees from manpower agencies and from citizens who had to process their labor permits as well.

I remember meeting Dev Gurung at a party once many many years ago. He is a Maoist and was a mantri then and he was cursing the hakims like our local Khalasi cursing the traffic police. Even hard-core rebels were turned into soft-core puppies by our great hakim sahebs. It seems that most of our high-ranking government officials work according to their party affiliation and get along easily with corrupt netas than the 'I am here to do some good' types.

The funny thing is that Sarat Singh Bhadari is our RSP man Biraj Bhakta Shrestha's father-in-law. We hope Biraj will also investigate his Sasura Ba when it comes to illegal wealth earned from corruption by the previous ones. It will be tough but hope he does the right thing!

Well, let's get back to the story of the day about our Foreign Ministry. Arzoo Didi was our Foreign Minister before the Gen Z massacre. She did not use her experience as a NGO woman who managed to get bideshi funding from 40 different INGOs and countries into working out building better relationships with the world. Instead, we were treated to her grand collection of handbags and wonderful saris while on foreign trips.

She did not do much for Nepalis during the Gaza conflict. She did not do much when a female student who was harassed by her former boyfriend committed suicide in India. She never did much, and our foreign ministers over the past two decades have done the same.

When it comes to Ambassadors, our past governments normally hand the 'His or Her Excellency' thing to their crony byaparis or near and dear ones. Even Arzoo's mom became our Ambassador to Japan many years ago from the a RPP quota. The Yeti group's bhanji became the Ambassador to Spain even though she had nil experience when it comes to anything except she lived many years in New York City and was Pasang Lhamu's daughter and her uncles were the main donors or UML then and KP Ba's favorite byapari.

And we find many byaparis becoming Ambassadors and it is reported or not reported about the financial dealings to bag these positions. Our country also sets aside these seats for the Foreign Service bureaucrats who become Ambassadors when they have a few years left for retirement. I think we need both mix of our Foreign Ministry civil servants and civilians as well but all of them should work for Nepal and the Embassies should be the main resource center for the Nepali diaspora instead of ignoring them when help is needed and treating these postings as luxury vacations.

I think we should start first with our Embassy in New Delhi. The current Ambassador has been there for ages and all he does is attend some cocktail dinners and book readings and have yet to start a database for all Nepali migrant workers, students and even professionals who are in India. Apart from those serving in Gorkha regiments or working as professionals, millions of our migrant workers are exploited and discriminated but our Embassy acts like they are blind.

I think Manisha Koirala is the best person to become the next Ambassador to India. Well, she is a Rajabadi. Who cares? She has enough goodwill there that she might be instrumental in bringing Kamal Hassan and Rajnikanth to visit Nepal, along with all the 90s Bollywood heroes and heroines.

Then, maybe we could have 10 million upper-class Indians who are willing to spend Rs 15,000 for hotels per day and pay more for better services as tourists here instead of the get youor own bus, your own cooking gas and utensils and cook on the road and throw trash everywhere kind of Indian tourists we seem to get most of the time.

For China, we need someone who has studied there, knows the language and will help to promote tourism and maybe some manufacturing jobs if possible as well. We think it is a big deal when a Chinese company announces billions of Rupees in investment in our land for buying buffalo meat but we really don't have the supply to meet their demand. 90% of it will come from India and the buff meat prices in Kathmandu will hit Rs 1,000 if this company really starts exporting the meat to China someday.

When we were kids, buffalo meat was the cheapest thing in town but I guess the China market or maybe the vyar vary momo pasals in Kathmandu have now made it twice as expensive as chicken. But Chicken is the healthiest option when it comes to protein so maybe someday, all of us can afford it while only the ultra-rich will have a buff steak once a week. And let us not blame our momo sahujis for the buff price because buff is now a caste-friendly meat while decades ago, it was an exclusive thing for a certain community.

Now for the US, we need someone who has studied there and worked there and maybe has come back to do some good for the country. I see many of this kind of folks in Kathmandu. They went to Ivy League schools or any schools (doesn't really matter), had great jobs, but now work at some NGO providing support for underprivileged children or some think tanks or still trying to be an entrepreneur here.

We need to have these countries look at our Ambassadors as someone they have something in common and would want to party with that person and give us something be it investment or tourism or 1,000 firetrucks or 1 million laptops ...instead of looking at us as just a tiny country, one of the poorest in the world with corruption from head to tails.

I think it is about time we created a database of all Nepali workers, students and professionals in countries where we have our Embassies. How hard is it to buy a server, get a software guy to come up with a database program and make it mandatory for all of us to register ourselves with our Embassies or else face a huge fine when returning back home.

And also make it mandatory for our Embassy officials to work efficiently and do something like send Nepal Airlines when it comes to rescuing our stranded brothers and sisters in conflict zones and helping many of our workers in the Middle East who are exploited physically, sexually, verbally, and financially as well. It doesn't matter if you ended up in Kentucky or Kuwait without the legal visas or went through illegal channels. A citizen of our nation deserves all the help from their Embassies anywhere.

Let us all hope that the new government will send the right kind of people as Ambassadors. We are happy that there will no longer be any political bhag-bandas like before but the new government will have to be careful with people who may have a conflict of interest and no nepotism, please!

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