During Nepal’s Gen Z uprising, one slogan captured the frustration of an entire generation. “Your father rides a car; our fathers are in the Gulf.”
There were many other slogans. Some emerged spontaneously, while others appeared to be sponsored. But their underlying message was largely the same. There were no meaningful employment opportunities in the country, and the few that existed were monopolised by a small, privileged and protected class. For 35 years, the country had failed to deliver. Now, young people wanted to see Nepal prosper.
At the time, Nepal was governed by a coalition of the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML under KP Sharma Oli. It was hardly surprising that the Oli-Sher Bahadur Deuba alliance became the target of accumulated public anger. Their words and conduct had provided ample reasons for people to turn against them. Oli frequently claimed that he worked 18 hours a day, but he also seemed to say something controversial almost every other day.
Had their supporters been unable to speak out today, would they have been able to do so then?
Whatever the case, there was little serious examination at the time of how misleading and incomplete the narrative that “nothing had happened in 35 years” actually was. That was perhaps understandable. The political mood had reached a point where staying in the mainstream and being part of the country’s existing institutions was almost portrayed as a mistake. Even some journalists and intellectuals were swept along by the populist wave, turning what should have been a critical examination of their own backgrounds into outright condemnation.
Two governments have been formed since the Gen Z uprising. The latest, elected under Balen Shah, has now completed six months in office. Those who once promoted the narrative of 35 years of failure might argue that six months is too short a period to judge a government. After all, Rastriya Swatantra Party (RSP) chair Rabi Lamichhane had also asked people to give him 100 days, promising that his party would show what it could do.
But hope is a powerful thing. Is that hope still alive? Or is the government gradually pushing citizens towards a mixture of fear, retaliation, concerns about authoritarianism and further economic and policy uncertainty?
And what explains the youth-led uprisings currently taking place in different parts of the world?
Today’s piece takes a closer look at these questions through the arguments of a recently published book.
The politics of insecurity
Princeton University published a book this year by Lorenza Antonucci titled Insecurity Politics: How Unstable Lives Lead to Populist Support.
The book is important because it offers compelling arguments and insights into the forces behind the growing waves of opposition to governments in different countries, and the deeper reasons behind them.
Unemployment is often cited as a cause of youth uprisings. And rightly so. Rising prices and the growing cost of living are also frequently blamed. Again, rightly so. But the book argues that the politics of insecurity can flourish even when people enjoy a reasonable degree of economic security. Economic circumstances are not the only factor. Cultural anxieties and other forms of insecurity can also create the conditions for the emergence, growth and eventual dominance of populist politics. The book illustrates this through examples from different countries.
One of its central arguments is particularly interesting. Prolonged rule by the same political forces, their continued grip on power and the absence of meaningful political change can create a secure political elite. People eventually grow resentful of this elite, even when it continues to deliver development, employment and public services.
In other words, people can revolt even when their lives are reasonably comfortable. They can simply become tired of seeing the same faces, the same political style and the same people holding power for years.
Another important conclusion is that understanding populism requires looking beyond whom people vote for. We must also understand why they have begun to feel insecure about their lives.
Populists can persuade people who are otherwise living relatively secure lives, barring a few difficulties, that they are in fact vulnerable and under threat. They sell them promises, slogans and visions of a better future while repeatedly telling them that what they currently have is not enough. In doing so, they turn relatively secure citizens into dissatisfied voters and eventually into supporters of populist politics.
That is how difficult it can be to remain an ordinary citizen amid a populist wave.
Populist politicians, it turns out, can be quite a troublesome lot. They convince people that whatever they have is worth nothing, sell them dreams that are often unrealistic or nearly impossible to fulfil, and then convert the resulting frustration into votes.
They tell people, in effect, “You may have a job, but you are still insecure.”
They manufacture dissatisfaction out of contentment by turning fear and insecurity into political instruments.
There used to be an advertisement for soap that went something like this: “Oh no! This turned out to be fake soap!” Perhaps we should borrow that line for politics, too.
“Oh no! This turned out to be fake politics!”
So much for the key arguments and conclusions of Antonucci’s Insecurity Politics. Now, let us bring this new book into the Nepali context.
A detailed discussion of the youth movements currently unfolding from France and Italy to India will have to wait for another day. But in Nepal, it is worth noting that many of the slogans heard during the Gen Z uprising are now being directed at the very government led by Balen Shah, the RSP in power and its chairman, Rabi Lamichhane.
Balen Shah, who once told the government to “Let me speak”, is now the prime minister. I do not need to explain the state of press and freedom of expression under his leadership. Their present condition speaks for itself.
When the government suspiciously parked a vehicle outside Onlinekhabar’s office, former finance minister Rameshwor Khanal questioned us rather than the authorities. “How was this suspicious?” he asked. Now that journalists are facing intimidation and arrests, perhaps he is reconsidering some of his earlier assumptions. His Facebook comments seem to suggest as much.
The government has reportedly placed editors and several journalists under surveillance. Its intention to subject them to unnecessary harassment is becoming increasingly apparent. Yet some of our colleagues in the journalistic fraternity seem so blinded by their affection for those in power that they have abandoned even basic common sense.
They are joining a campaign to promote the supposed benefits of digital versions of card games such as Callbreak and Ludo, as though a pandemic of positive thinking about these games were somehow necessary. At the same time, they are participating in efforts to discredit those who ask questions.
Some have even taken advisory positions in government ministries and draw salaries from the state, yet seem more interested in offering advice to the opposition.
It is easy to explain how digital gaming or a shoe company can become symbols of political change in Nepal. It is considerably harder to stand on the side of truth and integrity.
No matter how much the RSP and its government promote certain Facebook pages, asking difficult questions and pursuing even more difficult follow-ups remains the work of journalism. Perhaps that is why those in power periodically come up with lists of journalists they dislike, first the “12 brothers” and now the “28 brothers”.
There are also plenty of women journalists who can question those in power. But they receive little attention from the authorities.
Insecurity still exists in this country, and once again, much of it comes from the state itself. People who once gained influence through poetry are now using poetry to take jabs at their political opponents. I need not name them here and give them any more publicity.
The questions that still need answers
Here are some of the most pressing questions facing the country today.
Have prices come down, or do they continue to rise? Have flood victims been properly supported and relocated, or has the government been more interested in projecting an image of heroism and running publicity campaigns? And what about the landless people who once lived in the capital? What has happened to their resettlement and rehabilitation?
There are also individuals around the government who, in the name of containing the violence in Kaptanganj, appeared to work towards fuelling it instead.
Those who once accused previous governments of providing political protection to fraudsters and influential wrongdoers must now answer a simple question. Have they ended that practice, or have they merely continued it in a different form?
Are judicial appointments and the more than 1,100 other appointments made under this government free from controversy? Is its promise of good governance being fulfilled? Or are we witnessing a situation in which whatever this government chooses to do is labelled good governance, while similar actions by previous governments are dismissed as remnants of the old system?
We must ask questions, and we must not be afraid to ask them. The rule of law cannot flourish without institutional accountability.
But is the rule of law actually being upheld today? Or is the government attempting to establish a discretionary system of governance in which social media posts are treated as orders?
Perhaps the most important question is whether the people who need government support the most have actually felt its presence.
The government came to power with a mandate approaching a two-thirds majority. But have economically vulnerable and marginalised communities felt that they finally have a government that represents them? Have they experienced any meaningful change in the cost of living, employment opportunities and the delivery of public services? Has the government changed not just the faces in power but also the way power is exercised?
These are not insignificant questions. They are precisely the questions we must ask if we want to prevent another group from emerging in the future, carrying the banner of what Antonucci calls the politics of insecurity.
Consider what happened during the landslides and floods in the Budhigandaki region. Harka Sampang, leader of the Shram Sanskriti Party, blamed geopolitics for the disaster.
It is always easier to identify an enemy than to confront the problems in front of us.
When Balen Shah was mayor of Kathmandu, he imposed a partial ban on Hindi films and controversially restricted Chinese nationals from holding events in Thamel. I will not even revisit the language he used in his Facebook posts directed at the US president.
This is why we must pay attention to who is actually engaging with the real problems facing citizens. Who is addressing genuine concerns, and who is manufacturing artificial problems before distributing packets of equally artificial solutions?
We must learn to recognise the difference and keep our distance from those selling such politics.
Otherwise, what happens?
As Lorenza Antonucci argues, the politics of insecurity will flourish once again. Our lives will become even more unstable, and another populist showman will emerge, only to leave our hopes and aspirations in ruins.
