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Aagat Sharma

The Kathmandu Post

Publication Date : 12-03-2013

When the Nepali police recently decided to give their batons a rest, and took up scissors instead - to start their very own enterprise in hairdressing - youngsters were angered, and rightly so. The bewildering decision to convict guys with long hair and give them a haircut invited fury for one obvious reason: There was no visible logic behind the act. The truth is, the length of a person’s hair, or the diameter of his ear-studs for that matter, aren’t indicators of how violent he is. But, of course, authorities here aren’t driven by logic and reason; their philosophies transcend such mundane ideas.
This farcical hairdressing scheme, unfortunately, isn’t even the first instance of fantastical lawmaking in Nepal. I’ve been a victim of another. And this is my bitter story. 

I had planned on studying medicine in the UK, having already been admitted to a university following arduous admission processes. When it was finally time to depart, I’d gone to the state-run Nepal Medical Council (NMC) to get an ‘eligibility letter’ that would state I was qualified to pursue medical studies. But I was denied the letter, thanks to a cruel twist of fate.

Apparently, a rule had been established stating that only those students who had passed an entrance test administered by one of the Nepali medical colleges could be given the eligibility certificate. Much to my dismay, all these exams had already been held, or were scheduled after my course was set to begin in the UK. I presented my case, tried to show them that my A-level results were outstanding, that I’d already passed a difficult entrance test to get admitted, that I was qualified.

But the NMC people were unrelenting; exceptions couldn’t be made, they told me. Their website reads that it is “crystal clear” to them that it is doctors who have trained in foreign countries who have performed most poorly in their licensing exam. “Among the multiple failing candidates (even upto 19 times), majority are from abroad.” And so, by introducing the rule, our medical council was to be assured of an exceptional standard of doctors coming in from overseas. By their definition, if candidates pass the Nepali medical entrance test, they are most definitely ‘qualified’ to study medicine; if not, they might as well consider their medical careers doomed.

A month later, I took one of these exams, administered by the Institute of Medicine (IOM). The content of the test was as ludicrous as the provision to take the test itself. Answering questions like “In which segment of an earthworm is its male genital aperture found?” and “Who coined the famous saying ‘Ontogeny repeats phylogeny’?” I managed to pass. But I wondered how scoring well on such questions would mean I was better qualified to become a doctor. In the ethereal realm that is Nepal's medical council, however, it did.

When I dug a little deeper, it was made clear to me that these measures were taken after many students had left for China to study medicine and come back under-qualified. They’d failed to pass the licensing exam even after several tries, which meant they couldn’t practice in Nepal. That is understandable, but why put everyone in the same bracket? How is it fair to indiscriminately bar all candidates going to study medicine abroad and dump this meaningless test upon them? The administrators at NMC had some sympathy for me but no answers.

Four months on, I’m now on a gap year that was forced on me. I had to defer my entry into university for next year. And as if to add insult to injury, this preposterous rule has now been revoked. Some health assistants looking to study medicine abroad thought it unfair that they should be made to give the exam alongside younger candidates fresh out of high school. They petitioned against the regulation in court, won, and had it suspended. Not that it makes much difference in my case.
Thus came to pass my tale of misery. I’ve been compelled to take a year off, and to memorise the nomenclature of rabbit bones. Obviously, I was enraged, but it also got me wondering - and this is where the haircut crusade jigsaws in - what is it that prompts authorities to make these rules, to believe them anywhere close to effective? Do they seriously think a haircut could be a panacea for crime? Or that people who get 50 per cent in a ridiculous medical entrance test will automatically make great doctors? I suppose part of the reason such rash measures are taken is because there are no comprehensive laws in this country to deal with such issues, and broad, unfair generalisations are consequently resorted to.

With their own hands tied by lack of proper overarching mechanisms, authorities here seem to want to be seen as doing something - or maybe they just don’t know any better - and so emerge these reason-defying regulations, stupefying the public, the very ones for whose benefits these services exist in the first place. Either way, we lose. But hey, at least the crime rate in the country is going down, and standards of doctors rising, right? No? Well.