By Dr. Janardan Subedi--------------

There is an ancient wisdom that has survived the test of time, crossed continents, and evolved into multiple languages—but in Nepal, it now has its own refined form: “Never underestimate the stupidity of others. But always be prepared—they might say something.”
This timeless insight may not be carved in stone, but it should be etched into every bureaucrat’s forehead, stitched on the kurta of every minister, and printed as a warning label on every political manifesto. Because in this age of hyper-sensitivity and hyperspeed communication, the line between idiocy and ideology is getting alarmingly blurry.

Let’s be clear: stupidity, like gravity, is a natural force. It is universal, consistent, and immune to criticism. It doesn’t need logic to function—it thrives on momentum and attention. And yet, the real danger isn’t stupidity in silence—it’s stupidity with a microphone, a TikTok handle, and a fleet of social media followers waiting for the next “viral wisdom.”
Welcome to the Republic of Remarkable Remarks

We live in a country where people don’t just speak before they think—they speak instead of thinking. From Parliament benches to press conferences, we are surrounded by elected or selected individuals who confuse volume with value, and boldness with brilliance. The national pastime is no longer guff gaff; it has become guff governance.

For instance, someone in power will say, “Corruption is just a perception,” while another confidently declares, “The constitution is whatever I say it is.” These are not fictional characters in a Kafka play—they are real people making real laws and real money. They even do press briefings to explain the gravity of their own ignorance—without irony.
You may laugh. But the real punchline? They still win elections.

Democracy vs. Democrazy

In a healthy democracy, people are free to speak. In a Nepali-style democrazy, people are free to speak nonsense—and get rewarded for it. We are told that “everyone has a right to an opinion,” which is true. But here, having an opinion has become more important than having a fact. We are now a nation where feelings beat data, where slogans defeat sense, and where rhyming insults qualify as political ideology.

Economists write white papers—no one reads them. A YouTuber screams “Everything is a scam!” and suddenly becomes a public intellectual with a mobile app, a merch line, and maybe a future candidacy.
Welcome to our new public square—populated not by philosophers, but by Facebook livers, TikTok preachers, and part-time astrologers with full-time arrogance.

Insta-Pundits and the Cult of the Confident Clueless

The Nepali public intellectual has now been replaced by a hybrid species: the Insta-pundit. This new breed thrives on likes, follows, and outrage metrics. They drink instant offense for breakfast and produce “hot takes” for lunch—commenting on everything from foreign policy to cricket team selection with equal conviction.
They quote Freud out of context, flirt with Foucault on Twitter, and invoke Marx like a spice—just enough to sound revolutionary, never enough to be coherent. Their arguments are made in memes, their logic outsourced to Google Translate, and their evidence is usually “I saw it on YouTube.”

Their highest academic credential? “My cousin works in an embassy.”

The Silent Minority vs. The Loud Majority

Meanwhile, real thinkers, quiet civil servants, and people who actually read books have disappeared into silence. They are scared—not of speaking truth, but of being misunderstood, misquoted, and meme-ified into irrelevance.

These are the folks who dare to say “It’s complicated” in a world that demands slogans. They believe in nuance, question certainty, and sometimes say, “I don’t know.” In today’s climate, that’s a career-ending offense.

So the airwaves are left to the loud, the brash, and the blissfully unbothered by nuance. It’s like watching an orchestra being led by a kazoo player on steroids.

Ministry of Misstatements and Department of Denials

Our national institutions now seem to specialize not in governance but in gaffes. Ministries are less about planning and more about platforming. When a public health official says, “We don’t need clean water, we need discipline,” you begin to realize the virus is not in the air—it’s in the thought process.

We have ministers who don’t understand their portfolios, advisors who can’t spell “policy,” and spokespersons who treat facts as optional accessories. The only qualification required seems to be confidence bordering on delusion.

From Panchayat to Punchline

This phenomenon is not entirely new. We’ve long had a tradition of elevating mediocrity and punishing merit. But today, it’s supercharged. What Panchayat did with censorship, our republic now does with algorithms. The message is clear: Don’t think, just trend.

The public discourse has devolved into parody. Once, our leaders debated land reform and nation-building. Now they argue about TikTok bans and whose party flag looks more patriotic. It’s not the fall of democracy—it’s its transformation into a reality show.
What’s to Be Done?

We can’t ban stupidity. Nor should we—freedom of speech includes the freedom to sound foolish. But we can strengthen public literacy, revive civic education, and create spaces where thinking is rewarded, not ridiculed.
Universities must stop being passport distribution centers and return to being hubs of rigorous thinking. Journalists must learn the difference between reporting and repeating. Citizens must demand more than slogans from their leaders—and more than memes from their movements.

And most of all, we must learn to laugh—not out of apathy, but as resistance.

Final Thought: Satire is Survival

So how do we cope with this rising flood of confident cluelessness? We laugh. Not cruelly, but critically. Satire is the last refuge of the thinking citizen. If we can’t stop the nonsense, we can at least name it, frame it, and occasionally, shame it.
We are not helpless. We are just hypnotized—by noise, by charisma, and by the strange new religion of opinion-as-truth.
So the next time someone says something confidently absurd, don’t be shocked. Just smile, take a deep breath, and whisper to yourself, “Ah yes… there it is again.”
The prophecy fulfilled.

(The author is a sociologist who once believed logic would win—but now carries humor as a backup.)

@HT