No point pretending

The state seeing loan shark victims in Parliament premises as a security issue should fool nobody.

Now that the government has fenced the premises of the Office of the Prime Minister, the Residence of the Prime Minister and the Parliament of Nepal, it can finally go back to sleep again. In a country that hardly has footpaths, to begin with, the government’s sealing off of its Singha Durbar, Baluwatar and Baneshwor premises is not going to make a huge difference to public convenience in the literal sense. But how long can the government live within its own cocoon, scared by the very people that have propelled it to power? How much longer can it pretend to be in deep slumber even as the voices of the loan shark victims grow louder and louder? With dozens of the victims entering the high-security premise of Parliament earlier this week in an attempt to draw its attention, the government is bent on interpreting the episode as a security issue.