New Nepal

Siddhicharan Shrestha

About Poet Siddhicharan Shrestha :

Siddhicharan Shrestha was a Nepali  romantic poet who was born in 1912 in Okhaldhunga. He worked as a editor of Sharadha and Gorkhapatra. He wrote about political hope and frustration of the general public. For this he was sentenced for 18 years of detention by Ranas. His famous poetry include, Kopila (1958), Partibimb (1959), Urvashi (1960). He has received very prestigious awards like Tribhuvan Puraskar (1970), Prithvi Pragya Puraskar (1980)

Main Idea :

This is a political poem composed during the Rana regime which calls all the Nepalese to raise their voice for equality, freedom and human dignity; and for eliminating all evil social practices like discrimination, domination and class divisions. It portrays the contemporary political situation in the Rana regime when people were dominated and discriminated by the autocratic rule. Most of the people were not aware about how the Ranas had controlled their freedom of speech and some others who had known their despotism, were not allowed to speak. As a poet, editor and a contemporary writer of that time, Shrestha calls all the Nepalese to wake up, struggle and fight for bringing a radical change to make a New Nepal in the new ruling system of democracy. 

Summary of the poem by Siddhicharan Shrestha :

From the beginning, the poet calls all the people to arise, to wake up and to reveal their hidden energy for creating a new Nepal, for breaking the old discriminative ruling system. He requests them to speak for truth because truth is the beauty and it was ugly for the rulers. He calls them to come up with the cleanest current of consciousness with their gusty vigor to create new Nepal. For that, they needed to jump up and soar over the black precipice/mountain. Here, the black mountain is none other than the Rana ruler that should be overcome by the people's movement. 

He calls the people to set their legs free from age-long persecution with courage and send out the old disorder with furious laughter. It shows how Nepalese were suffering in the long night of autocracy and how they needed to break those rules with courage. He calls up all the people to collect their courage and kick off the old injustice. They should let the advancing feet take a new step for the new rule in the New Nepal to bring a bright day of sunlight, equality and freedom. For that people needed to show their courage, move with caution, collect power and get unified. He also reveals the condition of the people how they were living in discriminative rituals and heartless class divisions of the higher royal class and the hopeless common people. He calls them to put away all such idle forces that had put them in such domination. And he calls them to let the living thought of Nepali hearts conflagrate and open up their true identity. The hungry stomachs and bare backs of the people will annihilate all evils and cankerous inequality between them. After they sweep away the existing evils, they would be able to make a New Nepal, ah, my Nepal, beautiful Nepal