E-Kantipur

As the year 2011 draws to a close, it is worth reflecting on how we as citizens can push the boundary of politics for the better. As it is, the formal political sphere leaves not much room for optimism. The parties have remained inept both in their thoughts and actions on just about any public issues we can imagine. Public accountability at every level of our political institutions has plummeted to the lowest level. The chasm between the genuine aspirations of peoples on the margins of society and those at the helm of state affairs has become dangerously wide.

One of the reasons formal politics has become so trite is because most of the political actors that control our public institutions have almost no clarity of thoughts when it comes to addressing serious public issues. We can look at their documents, or listen to the leader’s speeches or read their newspaper columns. Does anyone of them have anything substantial to tell us, for instance, on our public health priorities? Has a single person among these leaders, whose face citizens have no choice but see on most of the headline TV news every day, written anything serious on how our agricultural priorities are? How about on alarming level of pollution and mismanagement of our urban life? Do they, even for one second, think seriously about urban public transportations as they ride on publicly funded, chauffeur-driven cars? You make a list of serious issues confronting our society today and try to see who among the politicians has given any serious thought to them. The record is pathetic, to say the least.

This state of public affairs cannot be changed without citizen’s active involvement. If 2012 is to be better, three broad areas need to be particularly focussed.

First, more and more citizens have to expand the horizons of creative interventions. In this area, there are very inspiring examples from across Nepal. They stand in sharp contrast to dismal reality of our formal political sphere. I am going to mention two among them. Among the field of creative philanthropy, Help Nepal Network’s activities are perhaps the most inspiring. Lately they have taken an initiative—together with various other groups—to collect warm clothes and rugs distribute them

among people in Terai suffering from cold. On 25th December, Rabindra Mishra, one of the key Help Nepal Network actors, posted on his Facebook page that a mini-truck full of warm clothes and 600 woolen rugs had been collected for the cause.

For sure, cold wave does not kill people. If they die of cold, then the cause has to be not in nature but in human society. These citizen initiatives will transform the lives of those who will have warm clothes and warm beds. I am sure soon many creative groups and individuals will come up with ideas for building warm homes for people. It is possible to build good houses with mostly local resources and at low cost. This in itself could be a major citizen-led initiative across Nepal. How transformative it will be if tens of thousands of youth volunteers together with local people build homes—that keeps them warm in winter and cool in summer? Besides keeping many people from dying of extreme cold and extreme heat in the future, this could also be an opportunity for people to forge solidarities across region, ethnicities, caste, religion, class and gender. 

In the far-western district of Achham, Nyaya Health has been involved in creating an amazing example of free public health service delivery system. Partnering with Ministry of Health, it has brought to life Bayalpata hospital. The hospital was originally built in the 1980s, but its equipment was taken to another hospital five hours away. The buildings were left to decay and buffalo grazed on its compound for over two decades. Since 2009, Nyaya Health has converted it into a fully operational hospital. As of now, it has provided services to over 80,000 patients. It has been doing this with a level of public transparency unmatched in any institutions in Nepal. Its data—on health outcomes, financial transactions, and many other aspects of its operations—are publicly available online. In early December this year, GiveWell, one of the most trusted charity-audit organizations—put Nyaya among the top six out of 750 it had examined for their quality of operations. I am sure there are many have mentioned these two by way of examples. Let’s hope in 2012, many more will emerge that can qualitatively transform the field of citizens’ creative involvement in Nepal.

Second, citizens need to put relentless pressure on public institutions toward public accountability. We saw some important citizens initiatives in the area of corruption. Citizens’ public audits have to be general public campaigns. A vigilant citizenry is important for transforming both the structure and culture of public institutions. The coming year will hopefully be a year of elections and citizens have to start their work on generating electoral agenda. No longer should it be possible for the prospective politicians to get away with ‘bikas gardinchau’ rhetoric.

Third, citizens have to accept that the quality of politics profoundly affects our public life. Therefore, disengagement from political life is not an option for those who genuinely want to transform politics. Many have to think of joining politics, too. When I say this, I do not only call for ‘more youth in politics.’ We know that most of our youth politicians are also no less corrupt. In fact, they have become increasingly violent in their everyday conducts. What we need more people with public probity and intellectual depth in our political process. Here also, we should not conflate ‘holding-of-degrees’ as measure of intellectual depth. We need people who have serious ideas to contribute to addressing serious public issues and who can inspire more and more citizens to participate in public transformative actions.

Let’s hope we can institute some measure of sanity in our public life in the coming year. Happy New Year 2012.

anilbhattarai@gmail.com

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