If you ask an IQ to Nepalese school children about Nepal’s National Unification Day (NUD) and they’ll surly fail to answer it. In fact, it’s a million dollar question.

Nepal had a tradition to celebrate NUD on Poush 27 (this year this date falls January 11) as the date to remember country’s unifier King Prithvi Narayan Shah. More than that, this is the day of national unification to mark as a day to spread harmony among various casts, creeds and ethnicities.

However, the government stopped the celebration of the day without declaring any other day as NUD.

Nepal became the newest republic on May 28, 2008. The 601-member Constituent Assembly abolished the 240-year old monarchy and declared the country a “Secular, Federal Democratic Republic.”

This has indeed scripted a new chapter of the Nepalese history. But, the country was unified by King Prithvi in the latter half of the 18th century. His conquest of the Kathmandu Valley in 1768 created a single state out of medieval kingdoms and small fiefdoms. It’s a harsh reality that Prithvi created the country with the help of his people. Compared to other nation’s unification, Nepal’s was less bloody.

However, in the name of rejection to all the past histories of the country, the modern rulers have stopped to recognize the national unification process. We could go to modern systems, but we couldn’t reject the historical fact. If we fail to recognize the basic fact that we’re a country created by our founding fathers then surely we would not be able understand the basic of the formation of a country.

The leaders, mainly UCPN (Maoist) has termed the unification process as ‘expansion of the state’. It means they don’t accept the unification process as genuine one. We’ve to be clear on the context of the history and need to explain events accordingly. Moreover, the unification process of all the countries had happened almost at the same time. And the social reality of the being unified was the demand of the time.

I’m also amazed to see the behavior of Nepali Congress, CPN (UML) and other Madhesi parties, who do not recognize the contribution of Prithvi. Even Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal couldn’t come out of Singadurbar, the country’s government headquarters to offer a bouquet to the founding father. I think, he was afraid to be portrayed as ‘Mandely’ (a harsh word to portray the supporters of the monarchy). However, the whole country is moving with the ‘mass psyche’. So all are running behind the crowd. One should be cool headed to act with her/his own brain rather following the crowd.

There is a small number of people who really expressed their view at this time. Very few people marked the NUD. I’m sure people will come out of the crowd and think about the unification process and national unity. We shouldn’t remember Prithvi as a King but as a unifier of the country. It’s a heartily tribute to him!