Of course, academics must engage in politics. But a million-dollar question is – what element of politics should they factor in and what kind of politics should they engage in?
Academics do have a greater responsibility and leading role for policy contribution. Be it through a policy consultation or leading national debates on some emerging issues that are not yet critically observed by the public or serving as part of policy stakeholders if they are invited for a certain term. All these roles have a strong tie with the studies they conduct.
Party-based and policy-based politics
Academics in Nepal are mostly found to have engaged in party-based politics associating themselves with sister organisations of different political parties which sharply contrasts with what they should do. Consequently, they become commonly available cheaper pawns that are movable to any direction as per the will of a political party they follow. They won’t be able to engage in critical discourses, instead they become party devotees and happen to advocate for any malpractices of a party. This is scary; however, this is what we observe often.
To engage in policy-based practices, the first thing is that academics need to train themselves to use policy language and they must explore ways to engage in policy-making activities. The good thing is that, currently, by and large the trend of conducting research by academics in Nepal is growing. Based on their research findings including recommendations, they can create two pages or a very brief report either by themselves or with the support of any other agencies using public language that is suitable for general audience or policy stakeholders. After the draft is ready, they can send these artefacts to relevant discipline specific committees in parliaments (lower and upper) or they can request the parliamentarians’ time for a brief policy consultation. This will help the parliamentarians to frame policies informed by the evidence contributed by academics. The other way could be by engaging themselves in discipline-specific or policy-related think tanks that directly contribute to government policy making or legislations.
Since Nepal hardly has such think tanks, these academics can help establish think-tanks based on their area of expertise, and contribute to policy making activities through them. Such think tanks can dedicate to provide policy inputs and constantly liaise with parliamentarians and other policy stakeholders to organise policy consultations.
It can be a very comfortable utopian assumption for academics in Nepal to think that the policy contribution is taking place through the papers or journal articles they publish as those artefacts help build knowledge on a specific area that is being explored, and the academics have recommended certain policy-related initiatives in them. I would argue It is not, or at least may not be a case owing to several convoluted reasons.The language used in academic papers is often too complex for policy stakeholders to fully grasp, and there is rarely any mediation to simplify these materials. Moreover, Nepal still lacks a strong culture of evidence-informed policymaking, and even when evidence is collected, the reliability of the methodology is frequently questioned. Policy stakeholders also do not have the time to read lengthy journal articles, often more than 6,000 words and determine how each one contributes to policymaking. Together, these factors highlight the need for academics to play a more active role in the policy process. They must be familiar with policy language and concepts to ensure their work has real impact and to position universities as key drivers of policymaking activities.
Why do academics engage in party-based politics?
The key issue is a political parties’ systemic penetration in a university e.g., major positions in a university are recruited by distributing these positions to key political parties. This encourages academics to show strong ties with key political parties from the very inception of their career so that they will be able to acquire some key positions down the line during their career progression.
These academics should remain pro-active and strategic as far as possible. Thus, their party-based politics begin from the entrance to new roles, and it firmly adheres to their stability and promotion.
A choice to be made
Now the choice is for academics whether to take part in party-based or policy-based politics as they have an instrumental role to shape national policies by providing sufficient evidence and guiding policymakers to a right direction.
The policy leads to prosperity of a country, and provided the implementation of such policies is a concern, the academics can constantly question through public debates, writing and some important forums. They can do it since the policies, the implementation of which they are questioning include their contribution and their intellectual shares. Any follow-up debates and constant questioning can productively and positively pressurise to implement the policies if latter is the issue. Now the choice is up to you, academics!
