At this moment, the future of Nepal and Nepalis is poised on a pinhead. Serious problems of security, politics and public communication remain rife. On the other hand, and while it has been less than two weeks, it is much like another age (yug) altogether, with the nature of the next yug fraught and uncertain. Anger and revenge are running deep and wide while courage and wisdom remain scarce.
In the meantime, a promising cabinet has been sworn in. The new does sometimes rise from the ashes of the old. But nihilism, plenty of which was in show last week, refuses to distinguish between the good and the bad may yet raise its ahead.
Most political leaders of yesterday and the political practice they legitimised did not prioritise public service. What they did prioritise was private and parochial interests, example, benefits to self and relatives, cronies, middlemen and bribe providers, traders and importers and, above all, the political parties.
Such benefits accrued at high costs to the government and, given the systematic nature of such plunder, to the legitimacy of the state. Even more importantly, the expansive and heavy boot of political parties rode across the social, economic, organisational, educational and professional fabric of society.
It was also so coercive and extractive that it ground down upright citizenship, professional excellence, empathy and prosperity. The political parties did all they could to disrespect, penetrate, organise, usurp and decimate the autonomy of the community and civil society.
Thus, party-affiliated organisations illegally but politically powerfully controlled the functioning of schools, hospitals, community forestry groups, mother’s groups, the bureaucracy, etc., as well as a host of status, occupational and professional groups, example students, teachers and professors, physicians, lawyers, engineers, farmers and tenants, the landless, and so on. Indeed, even the courts of law were packed with party workers.
Political parties gloated over large memberships. Members very often regarded party membership as the highway that allowed them to transgress regulations and laws with impunity. Corruption among politicians and bureaucrats had become widespread if not the norm. In addition, a self-same group of party leaders played the prime ministerial musical chair for a longtime and stymied second and third ranking leaders in the party.
The parties were largely there not to serve the people but for private enrichment and influence peddling as well as electoral and political clout. The predominantly self-serving and arrogant nature of the political parties and leaders, in effect, had largely hollowed out the government and the state.
In consequence, most citizens had become alienated from the government and the political parties. Nepal was not becoming a state of engaged citizens and a civil state but a state in which political parties and political leaders ruled the roost. Something had to give.
The rise of a new political party and, perhaps more significantly the election of a young new mayor of the capital city of Kathmandu, could perhaps have been taken as a writing on the wall. But the old parties failed to derive lessons from this political shift.
The nature of the what transpired last week was shocking. An apparently flexibly organised and rapidly growing platform for rather disparate online groups of young people that has now come to be labeled “Gen Z,” which was under the radar until recently (for the older generation at least), had called for a day of protests.
The immediate aim was to speak out against the just instituted ban against some social media platforms (which had flouted national regulations as well as repeated government calls for legal registration in Nepal).
But the larger context of the protests was directed against corruption in political party circles and in the bureaucracy, which, by all accounts, has grown very large both in incidence and scale. A general public disengagement from the political parties and governments, de-ruralisation, a high rate of youth unemployment and urban poverty constituted the key background factors.
Even as the first couple of hours of the protests were conducted in a civil manner, the protest took an ugly turn immediately thereafter. The crowd swelled, intruded into and attempted to damage no-go zones such as the parliamentary and courts-of-law compounds and buildings.
The police, apparently egged on by senior bureaucrats, fired indiscriminately killing – as of today, nearly six dozen protestors and injuring in the hundreds. Curfews were announced, but given the heat generated by the killing, were more often disregarded during the immediately following days.
The widespread arson, destruction and looting of and public and private property – mainly homes of political leaders and “the rich” as well as business establishments and supermarkets that followed was the second day of the mayhem.
The terror was palpable across the country; there was no one who could act or speak out against the forces of destruction. Apparently, no one really knew who the agents of destruction were either. In fact, while stray news is trickling in, there has been no reporting to-date on the nature of such agents. It is obvious that journalists, among others, have preferred to keeping much shamefully low.
Several “Gen Z” leaders, on the other hand, have avowed that the protest, which was expected to be rather low key to begin with, could not have led to the acts of violent protest on the first day let alone the second-day arson, looting and destruction of people and property.
Surely, the killing of scores of the young the previous day had enflamed passions among the friends, sympathisers and relatives. But the nature and scale of death and destruction could not have been organised and implemented by them. This then begs the question of who was at the forefront of the large scale and nationwide destruction – a question that has yet been answered only minimally.
Several newspaper reports and statements by “Gen Z” leaders have also noted that the initial storming of the parliamentary compound was fomented and by “others,” including “older people,” “people in motorcycles,” and so on, example by forces other than members of the “Gen Z”.
In addition, if we recall the reported statement of the former Home Minister PR Lekhak to a Nepali Congress Party meeting Monday night (September 8) that he will – despite party chairperson Sher Bahadur Deuba’s disagreement, resign from his position because the police forces had flouted his orders.
This raises the possibility that the killings on Monday could have, in part, also been carried out by infiltrator groups as a prelude to the Tuesday (September 9) arson. In addition, it is also possible that the same group forced the prisons open and used the prisoners, among others, to carry out its designs.
In other words, it is possible that the leadership one or more infiltration groups were playing a big-time chess game where the moves were planned in advance. If that was indeed the case, and with hindsight, it does not require much sleuthing skills to make an informed guess either that some of the killers could also have been planted as fake police personnels.
One should recall also that a similar set of infiltrators and course of events could have led to the scores of death and gunshot injuries a few months earlier at Tinkune in Kathmandu. The investigation of the events that the new government just instituted, may throw the required light on these serious matters.
More to the point perhaps, and to the extent that this reasoning holds true, the coming days of the interim government – and people of Nepal – is likely to be rough. The interim government will have to tame a thousand political skirmishes. It may also have to investigate and tame one or more conspiracies. Of course, all this may be wrongheaded and could be explained as an outcome of crowd contagion.
In any case, it does seem like that there is much trouble ahead for the next year.
The interregnum is certain to be eventful, and the interim government will go through a series of trials and tribulations. There will be claims and counterclaims from groups galore – not the least because Nepal has long nurtured a politically active, even militant culture over the last several decades.
These might be political parties and their allies as well as regional, ethnic, linguistic and faith-based communities. Those who estimate that they are likely to win a majority or plurality of the parliamentary seats will insist that the elections take place “in time” while the rest may pursue activities that seek to postpone the elections.
Clearly, law-abiding actions will have to be honoured and, indeed, encouraged while those that challenge laws and regulations will have to be discouraged and muzzled. The government and the security organs will have to make all effort to contain the security challenges while at the same time requesting citizens-at-large to stand vigilant and firm.
In addition, the interim government will have to judiciously listen to and act on international “counsels”. Hopefully, the cabinet itself will remain intact through the interim period. Internal dissension within the cabinet will hopefully be internally deliberated thoroughly and the decision reached will be unanimous.
It is noteworthy that the interim government has promised to hold general elections after six months. As a goal, this is laudable, not the least because the illegitimacy of a prolonged rule by an unelected government.
Existing political parties, which are now in the defensive but which are likely to gain gradual ascendancy in addition to other now dormant political forces, will surely go against the interim government as the interim government moves forward.
On the other hand, it can well be argued that a longer interim rule, example one that spans a full year, would have much to commend. The interim government is charged not only with organising general elections but with initiating a direction and process of salient reforms in governance.
The government should insist upon and implement substantive reforms at the very least in relations to enhanced youth representation and participation, control of corruption, equity, and much more enhanced communication among and between citizens and the government.
An extremely compressed time table runs the risk of foregoing such initiatives. It is also likely to lead to a failure to learn lessons from the massive tumult that Nepal just experienced and witnessed. In the absence of new and salient reform initiatives the erstwhile parties in particular will almost certainly go back to the old self-aggrandising routine. The interim government must not lose this opportunity at pollical and electoral reforms while at the same time prioritising law, security and public communication.
It is fundamentally important to mark this transition as a catalyst towards a better future. For this, the worst of the past should be immediately identified and neutralised and some of the best initiatives Nepal could take should be identified and initiated right away when the pot is hot.
Some such steps will require suspending some of the articles and sub-articles of the constitution. Such suspension is best carried out with the consent of the political parties. But, at the same time, the government should not be unduly constrained by the counsel of the parties.
More importantly, the interim government should leave no stone unturned in engaging citizens-at-large. The government should right away and ceaselessly – and not only when politics and protests heat up, cultivate the public – and the media – as allies.
The following are some of the initiatives that should be undertaken:
- Re-state the basic features of the projected nature of the state of Nepal. Re-declare the interim government’s fealty to the key foundations of the constitution, i.e. a democratic, republican, federal and secular state where all citizens are equal before the law as well as a state promotes inclusion and social democracy (or, as stated in the constitution, a state that implements socialism-oriented democracy”). On the face of it, such a re-statement by the interim government may not appear necessary. But questions and suspicions will inevitably arise on this issue as Nepal lurches forward towards the elections. A restatement, on the other hand, will assure its supporters as well as frontload the disagreements that may remain. It is better to face disagreements on the fundamental nature of the state immediately than to postpone it for later closer to the general election. From the information we have to-date, all “Gen Z” groups approve of the nature of the existing state and a restatement from the interim government should allay their fears that they will be blamed should the current political process derail and an autocratic form arise instead. It appears that “Gen Z” groups, without exception, affirm the declared nature of the existing state while at the same time insisting that the gulf between what is declared and what is actually practiced has grown way much too wide and deep and that the distance and the depth must be drastically narrowed. It is not the political system as such but the nature of the practice of the political system, i.e. the nature of governance, that the “Gen Z” is speaking out against. Finally, the interim government must also come out with a succinct statement with its mission and engage in Nepal-wide conversation over it.
- Open up political space for the young and make retirement obligatory. If one can be a citizen when one attains the age of 18, all other statuses including those of a ward member, mayor, member of parliament, minister, prime minister, etc., must remain potentially open for them right at that age. This, of course, rarely if ever implies that one will become a prime minister or supreme court judge at 18 – or even 28. On the other hand, all public positions must remain open for one who is a citizen. As such, all existing constitutional and other statutory age bars, which blatantly and arbitrarily require a specified “minimum age” for attaining a given public position, must be immediately suspended. Young persons must be invited early on to play leading roles in shaping the future of the country. Similarly, all public office holders, including the prime minister, must be required to retire at 65 years of age. There is no reason whatsoever to regard a specific public official as someone who is irreplaceable. The older leaders will have to be judged, among others, not on how long they rule but on the basis of the number and quality of “successors” they are able to mentor early on. If 65 years of age can be recognised as the cutoff date, the ongoing calls for “a maximum of two (and sometimes, three) terms” of prime minister-ship will have to be regarded as arbitrary as well.
- Take much more effective measures to control corruption. The normality of corruption that, above all, erodes public trust and rots up the body politic, must be broken. Initiatives on this front may include hiring fewer government officials with higher emoluments, instituting rewards for effective and efficient job performance, hiring contract than “permanent” officials, requiring each supervisory position to exercise authority over the corruption or otherwise of an immediately junior official – thus, among others, limiting and focusing the authority if the CIAA to the executive chiefs of departments, ministries and the cabinet, and withdrawing the practice of designating “policy decisions” made by the cabinet as decisions that cannot be considered illegal. This practice, which has increasingly come into vogue, has made a mockery of the law by ensuring that the illegal comes to be regarded as legal when a cabinet so decides. In addition, there is a swathe of conflict-of-interest areas – most prominently in the legislature. Indeed, parliamentary committees have often housed members who are known to personally benefit from or deliver benefits to cronies or derive commissions from those who personally derive benefits, from tweaking a parliamentary bill in particular ways. Similar conflicts of interest are palpable in the upper echelons of the bureaucracy in particular because many existing laws and regulations remain deliberately underspecified and, in turn, allow senior administrators to tweak them in specific ways. Under-specified laws and regulations – the ones with a plethora of “tokiye bamojim” provisions – allow unscrupulous senior administrators to, as it were, fill up the blanks in the legal void in ways that benefit them, their cronies and their seniors, including ministers. An underspecified article or regulation (or a legal void) does provide for a definite measure of flexibility that may at times prove expedient. But it also allows an unscrupulous administrator to utilise the void as a lucrative and perennial highway to corruption. In addition, given the widespread nature of petty and larger-scale corruption, the government should give serious thought to legalising public shaming of the those convicted of corruption. This measure is often met with disapproval. But it is also likely to be a potent deterrent to corruption. Public shaming can also be implemented hand in hand with reduced sentences and fines.
- Suspend laws supporting all “sister organisations” of political parties. As hinted, the fattening of political parties has gone hand in hand with the malnourishment of the citizens. In addition, parties have fattened at the expense of the weakening of civil as well as state institutions and government resources. “Sister organisations” have damaged the integrity of civil society. Such organisations have also severely compromised the integrity of almost all non-party institutions, including professional, voluntary, business, etc., organisations. Professional dedication and excellence have died out or are rapidly drying out in all such organisations in part because of such organisations. In essence, “sister organisations” with country-wide organisations have eaten up much of the innards of life and society in Nepal.
- Regulating political party funds and election financing. The fattening of the political parties is also due to under-the-rug state of party funds and financing. There is no transparency whatsoever on sources of party funds. There is no transparency on expenditures either. Party finances go unaudited. The political party is possibly the most illegal, yet privileged, funding and financing institutions in Nepal. While this a severe financial malpractice, it is even unhealthier from the point of view of democracy and public trust in the political system. Parties and leaders have consistently resisted calls for funding and financial transparency. They do not wish to become accountable to well accepted regulations governing public bodies. A similarly corrupt practice is exercised in elections. As is well known, the expenditures reported to the Elections Commission bears no resemblance whatsoever to the actual costs that are far above the ceiling specified by the commission for almost all of the candidates. The interim government must take firm steps to regularise finances of the political parties as well as elections.
- Reorganisation and re-training of security agencies. There have been a repeated failure to secure and analyse information, assure the public, protect the protestors – in addition to oneself, control crowd, identify and isolate militants, and so on. Such failures, as is well known, have had massive costs in terms of death and injury, destruction of resources and property, and widespread loss of public trust. Protests are part of politics and remain inevitable during this political tumult as well. As such, all efforts must be made in order to resolve key lapses in ensuring security. Security blunders often waylay the political process. When such blunder becomes the norm, it leads to a state of anarchy such as the one Nepal experienced last fortnight.
- Doing away with “proportional electoral college”. The “proportional electoral college” has proved to be a poisonous pill for democracy even as it has served as a boon for party leaders – in as much as “proportional legislators” most often spring out of the pockets, as it were, of such leaders. Un-elected, they remain untethered to public interest and public policy. The “first-past-the-post college” can instead be enlarged to incorporate all 40 per cent of the parliamentary seats currently allocated to the “proportional electoral college”. The inclusionary clauses currently employed in the elections to the parliament must, on the other hand, be fully honoured in an expanded “first-past-the-post college”. Suspending the “proportional electoral college” can go a long way in democratising elections, weakening the stranglehold of party leaders over own parties, rendering parliamentary deliberations more substantive and connecting voters and who they voted for. The interim government, as such, should immediately take an early step in this regard.
- Reforming governance. Governance reform covers a host of dimensions. Enforcing a fit between the constitution and the administrative structure, such as those mandated between the federation and the provinces and the rights of the municipal governments, example those related to school boards and hiring of teachers, are crucial to governance reform. The administrative framework must be made to conform with the constitutional mandate even with mutually agreed guardrails put in. Clarity on the mission and objectives of a public service organisation and its units is essential and resources required to meet those priorities must be weighed appropriately. Potential and existing officials must be trained and periodically assessed for public service orientation, expertise and accomplishments. The annual assessment of officials must be normalised rather than universally inflated to the highest levels. Ministers and politicians must not be allowed to turn public officials into handmaidens by means of illegitimate rewards and punishments, including by enforcing irregular and frequent transfer from one office or location to another. Some government services have in recent years become easier for citizens to access. This is, however, not usually the case. It is necessary to initiate steps that render the use of middlemen illegal in all public institutions. As such, the interim government should charge a body with quickly identifying the administrative reforms required, prioritise the list and implement the first tranche immediately. The nature of a state is an abstraction that is not immediately apparent. What shows up, what helps the public and what leads to mutual trust is the nature of cooperation that the public receives when it enters into government premises.
- Conducting and learning from series of dense public dialogues. The importance of this initiative has already been hinted at a couple of times above. It may, however, merit a more consolidated emphasis. It would not be far off the mark to suggest that the two sad and tumultuous days a fortnight ago, which led to the disbandment of the old cabinet as well as legislature and to the creation of this interim government, on the face of it, failed to leave many guiding messages for a new government and society. The upfront messages from the initial hours of the first day were very important – respect the young and facilitate their access to productive livelihood, control corruption, and do not shut the social media off. In addition, the message from that evening onwards and the next day were very important as well – exhaustively collect and analyse security-related information, do not underestimate the power of the crowd, protect and remain in constant communication with the protestors, control infiltration and isolate infiltrators and, for the political leadership in particular, stand up and speak out rather than vanish altogether. On the other hand, these important messages do not at all exhaust what the “Gen Z” wished to convey. A slogan, by its very nature, captures only the tip of the proverbial iceberg. A slogan has to be correctly unpacked for it to tell a fuller story. The points raised in this writeup seeks to identify some of such story lines. It remains, however, far from complete. Indeed, there may well be a better way to grasp the story than the one outlined here. A better and fuller story can only be approximated by meeting and listening to citizens from various walks of life regarding what has gone right, what has gone wrong and how the wrongs ought to be righted. In addition, in this novel and extraordinarily important moment in history, the new government has to respect the citizens, carry out dense public dialogues and distill what can be done to initiate a set of resolutions to the key problems identified.
- Initiating political reforms. The makeup of the government, at least at this stage, is widely praised. The prime minister, in particular, is seen as a person of high accomplishments and unimpugnable character. There is much goodwill now in the country for the new government. Yet, a review of news stories during the last two weeks indicates that the interim government has settled on a minimal set of tasks for itself – principally of conducting a free and fair elections within the stipulated time. It appears, in turn, that the government is not willing to define its responsibilities in a more expansive manner that of identifying and initiating key political reforms that address the problems that led to the events two weeks ago. There are, of course, good reasons for a mild and “conservative” agenda. The government is interim and unelected, and has declared that it exits only for a period of six months. On the other hand, it is as clear as the day that one additional round of elections, sans political and electoral reforms, leads not to a better political practice but merely postpones a potentially larger scale disaster. As such, the interim government should identify the political detritus accumulated over the years, the excesses of the parties and leaders, the ills of the proportional electoral college, widespread corruption, massive erosion of public trust, and so on and initiate measures of reform. The interim government should draw strength from the support the public has bestowed upon it. It should not waste the opportunity it has been offered to change the future of Nepal.
- Memorialising events and actors. Finally, it makes eminent sense to memorialise the events both for the good and the bad. It should be utilised as a day of reflection on youth, duty, pride, empathy, destruction and repentance all of which were to be found in plenty during the two eventful days. We can, as whether as individuals or together in a group mark it wherever we are, at home, in workplace, during travel or wherever.
