E-Kantipur

Girija Prasad Koirala believed deeply in the superiority of the system of multi-party democracy and in his own estimate saw himself as the defender and champion of its norms. And indeed, the major role he played in bringing down the Panchayat system, then later, those of bringing the Maoists to abandon their armed struggle against the state and leading the movement to topple the autocratic regime of King Gyanendra has lent public credence to his self-estimate. But as major as these accomplishments were, he also symbolized — and not to a small degree was responsible for — the dysfunctions of the post-1990 Nepali state, of the damage caused to fragile institutions that needed protection, and thus of the undermining of democracy itself. 

Not a man of great learning, GPK’s certainties were largely a hardened and simplified form of the deeper reflections of his much more cerebral brother BP. For many years GPK languished in his brother’s shadow; his reputation was primarily that of a foot soldier and organizer. After 1991, however, thrust into the midst of innumerable negotiations by virtue of having to wield state power, he emerged as a master tactician, a political animal most adept at adapting to and manipulating political exigencies to his own ends, which, usually were those of maximizing his own power. Only towards the end, more precisely from 2002 onwards, did he begin to give indications that he had learnt from past mistakes and was willing to use his political skills in the service of bringing an end to a bloody decade-long civil war and the establishment of a stable and democratic peace.

The perils of power

The demands of political survival combined with his underdeveloped (through deeply held) political beliefs meant that GPK almost exclusively pursued short-term goals through the 1990s, to the detriment of democratic institutionalization. The nature of his personality also contributed to this. A poor orator, his strength came from his ability to reach out and cultivate loyalty within the party organization. Fulfilling and accommodating the needs and interests of his followers were of primary importance to him. Otherwise, GPK was authoritarian and peremptorily dismissive of rivals both within and outside his party. It was these tendencies that aroused undying loyalty and intense hatred in equal measure. 

In fact, it can be said that the origins of the instability that prevailed throughout the 1990s can be traced to the immense polarization caused by the person of G.P. Koirala during his first term as prime minister (1991-1994). There is, first, the example of the protests held by the civil servants union (demanding, among other things, a revision of salary and benefits) soon after GPK assumed office. As most civil servants, particularly those at the lower levels, were communist supporters, the Nepali Congress was suspicious of. It was thought that the protests had been instigated and led by the CPN-UML, with the objective of weakening the Congress government. GPK himself was ardently anti-communist; here, as in other cases, his shallow political ideology made him susceptible to simplistic distinctions between the good liberal democrats and evil, totalitarian communists. A firm line needed to be taken against the protestors he thought, and thus fired over 400 of them from the civil service and transferred or demoted numerous others. The communists — including the UML and the United Left Front (the parliamentary front of the underground communist party that went on to wage a people’s war) — were outraged and caused great disruption within parliament and on the streets of Kathmandu.

Koirala’s treatment of rivals within his own party wasn’t much different. Differences between him and the other top two leaders of his party — Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Ganesh Man Singh — began to appear soon after the success of the 1990 Jana Andolan. GPK did all he could to undermine the power of his rivals, including by sabotaging K.P. Bhattarai’s chances of electoral victory in the 1994 by-elections. It was an accumulation of grievances against him that led the party’s “group of 36” to withhold their support in parliament for the government’s programmes and policies. And, as will be remembered, it was this that led to the collapse of the first GPK government. A furious Koirala then went to the King, requesting dissolution of the House of Representatives and the holding of fresh elections. He thus set into precedent a mechanism that successive prime ministers were to use against threats to their authority. Needless to say, the use of this mechanism eventually played into the King’s hands. It was the political opening provided by Sher Bahadur Deuba’s similar request to dissolve parliament in 2002 that eventually enabled King Gyanendra to seize executive power in 2005.

For the first half of the 1990s, then, GPK was harsh and draconian when he should have been receptive and conciliatory. Such measures after all served only to erode the legitimacy of the multi-party system and the state’s grip over the population. Further, they weakened the Nepali Congress itself — it was the fissures between Koirala and the “group of 36” that eventually led to Deuba’s rise and the split in the party. 

A new man

Judging by Koirala’s actions after 2002, it appears that he had learned from the mistakes he made during the early years of the democratic revival. Recognition that the political vacuum created by Deuba’s dissolution of the House threatened the future of Nepali democracy — as it would only enable the monarchy to consolidate its power at the expense of the political parties — his first task was to form an alliance between various political parties against “royal regression.” The process, of course, was slow and painstaking, but here GPK revealed that he could still bring his formidable obstinacy and doggedness in service of a cause.

This time, however, the doggedness was not accompanied by his habitual peremptory haughtiness. The needs of the alliance against the monarchy superseded all others; and a great degree of flexibility and conciliation was required in order to strengthen it. After Feb. 1, 2005, when the monarch took over all power, Deuba’s Nepali Congress-Democratic and the UML, which had previously claimed the “regression” to be “half-corrected” and had joined a government under the king, came crawling back to Koirala begging to be accepted into the alliance. Some of its members demanded that the two parties publicly repent beforehand, but GPK accepted them unconditionally and without rancour as partners in the struggle against royal absolutism. This, in the opinion of the historian Surendra KC, was the first time any party leader in Nepal had acted like a statesman.

More momentous were the efforts GPK brought to bear in negotiations with the Maoists, who, since 1996, had become the parliamentary parties’ archenemy and whose leaders had referred to him repeatedly as the “fascist Girija Prasad Koirala.” The history of the negotiations that led to the alliance between the parties and the Maoists, the subsequent Jana Andolan and peace process is too familiar to recount here. What is worth noting, however, is the remarkable transformation of G.P. Koirala from the communist-hater of the early 1990s to the mature politician who, acting in service of larger considerations of democracy and peace, demonstrated the utmost flexibility and trust in negotiations with a rebel group that had for years announced their intention of establishing a Communist People’s Republic. Here too, it was clear that GPK had learned from the experience of the UML that political participation would moderate the more extreme positions of the communists.

But a man, no matter how much he has learnt from experience, cannot be born anew. Especially not one who is over eighty years old and with more than six decades of political experience behind him. So once the difficult process of rebuilding peace, engaging with the Maoists on matters of detail and not just broad principle, and dealing with hitherto marginalized groups newly asserting themselves began, Koirala started to demonstrate old weaknesses. He was, of course, old and infirm, and could only feebly run the government from his bedroom at the prime minister’s residence at Baluwatar between April 2006 and September 2008. The failures of governance that occurred after 2006 were partially due to this.

But there were other reasons as well, those that can be traced to GPK’s governing methods and political understanding. Despite his new flexibility and openness, he found himself unable to delegate responsibility, preferring to concentrate much power in his own hands and those of a few trusted aides, to negotiate in back rooms with the Maoist leadership while other political leaders — from his own party and the UML — were kept in the dark. He constantly underestimated the depth of the grievances of Madhesis and other newly assertive groups; he never understood that these grievances could only be assuaged through direct and public addressal of the issues they had raised. Instead, his administration preferred, again in back rooms, attempts to co-opt Madhesi and other leaders through various incentives and separate them from the constituencies they represented.

OLD TENDENCIES

And, even as doubts regarding the Maoists’ intentions and the efficacy of the peace process arose within his own party, GPK never felt the need to reach out and convince party members — even those who at various times had been close to him — of the direction he was leading the country. Old authoritarian tendencies reemerged, this time manifesting themselves in his relations with his own party. He would come into party meetings — of the Parliamentary Party or the Central Committee — and issue orders, his index finger raised and wagging. Any dissent was perceived as a direct challenge to his authority, and no party member dared go beyond a few feeble questions.

And so, towards the end, great resentment arose towards Girija Prasad Koirala within the Nepali Congress. His authoritarian nature was one reason, his promotion of his daughter Sujata over other senior leaders of the party another. Beyond these, however, was the fact that GPK no longer seemed to offer those in the party any vision for their future, nor did he seem much concerned that the Nepali Congress should flourish after his departure.

The party was worried about its declining support base. It was worried that the Maoists had, through their radical agenda, undercut anything that the Congress could offer the population in its stead. It was worried that the Maoists, with their immense and often brute organizational strength, would continue to batter the Congress down. But when such issues were raised, when in helplessness, some leaders of the party stated that the Congress should physically challenge the Maoists or needed ideological regeneration, Koirala stood by blithely unconcerned.

IN HIS LAST DAYS

It was as though, in extreme old age, Koirala was concerned solely with the establishment of a stable peace and a democratic system. And even then, he was concerned only with the establishment of the skeletal framework of democracy; its substance he was willing to leave to others. If, as was the case, the Maoists were the only force that could fill in the framework with their promises of radical socio-economic change, so be it! GPK, for decades since the 1940s a leader in the struggle against royal absolutism, was content to pass his legacy on to a newer movement that had arisen in direct and violent opposition to his own party and the political system it represented. Girija Prasad Koirala’s character, then, in his last days, underwent a somewhat ironic reversal. If, in the early 1990s, he was concerned chiefly with the interests and needs of loyalists within his own party, and was willing to act harshly against everyone else, in the late 2000s, he became conciliatory and flexible towards his party’s chief opponents, and it was instead his party itself that he treated peremptorily and in an authoritarian manner. 

aditya.adhikari@gmail.com

Post Your Comment

Please note that all the fields marked * are mandatory.
* Full Name
* Address
* Email Address
* Comment
* Captcha	Get another CAPTCHA code
Note:	Comments containing abusive words or slander shall not be published.