Know when to talk

The MCC row may be over, but the Nepali media and intellectuals need to reflect on their role.

If somebody wants to make a fast-paced political thriller in Nepal, the drama over the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Compact ratification of the last few weeks offers a good script. From shifting political alliances behind closed doors to diplomatic overreaches from the north and beyond, everything boiled down to a showdown on the streets in front of the Parliament building. The scenes inside the House were equally intriguing, with the opposition silently supporting the deal, but a party in the coalition government determined to play spoilsport until the very last moment. What is there not to love about the drama, amid which the speaker declared that the House had ratified the controversial aid compact? Except that it came at considerable cost to the nation and its international standing, a nation that has only recently emerged out of several decades of political instability.