Something troubles me

Oped >> Lead Article

LOK RAJ BARAL

NOV 02 - Sustainability of democracy is a major concern of today’s Nepal. And the onus for making it possible falls on the leaders of the parties because their conduct alone can make the system work. However, to be more objective and cool headed, many factors seem to negate the prospect of an institutionalized plural democracy. Among such negative conditions are the conflictual political cultures, declining role of parties and ideologies, events overtaking institutionalized norms and lack of committed leaders who can work in tandem to make a smooth democratic transition.

In Nepal, political parties are created for launching movements and playing a systemic role as in any other functioning democracy. They have not evolved from within the legislature as in Britain. Nepal’s parties needed to be systemic after transforming themselves into constitutional roles. But from both angles, the parties in Nepal have played both violent and peaceful roles. A party like the Nepali Congress did take up arms thrice (in 1950, 1961-68 and 1973-75) notwithstanding its orientation in Gandhian methods of change. Similarly, other parties that subsequently emerged as major players in Nepali politics have come from a different non-parliamentary violent background. The latest example is the UCPN (Maoist). Other smaller parties are also products of immediate circumstances.

Development of political parties could not be possible during the “partyless regime”. Any person including candidates in the graduate constituency elections were jailed and debarred from the contest making it a serious crime against the regime. When the situation forced the king to become moderate, some gestures were shown towards the opponents including B.P. Koirala whose elected government was overthrown in 1960.

In fact, the royal regime wanted to eliminate political parties, but it could not do so due to a variety of reasons among which the crisis of legitimacy was prominent. Any regime bereft of popular legitimacy will soon decline. It is more so in an authoritarian regime whose immediate slogans or promises start eroding in the absence of delivery and programmatic actions. Yet, movements and revolutions, even if abortive in the practical sense, have contributed to transforming Nepal in many other respects.

Ironically, all the major political innovations made by the movements have defied institutionalization in both principles and procedures. Nor are the agreed principles adhered to by the political players ever since the introduction of the multiparty system in 1951. So, most movements that Nepal has undergone since 1950 have failed to become institutionalized. Politically, the 1950 change not only ended a family oligarchy but also tried to preserve the monarchy in a constitutional form à la the British type respecting the sovereignty of the people. The commitment to a Constituent Assembly and the acceptance of a pluralistic society and its attending features were some of the major “democratic innovations”.

But such innovations were soon discarded as if they were hostile to the “Nepali soil and climate”, a cliché used later by King Mahendra for rationalizing his coup. Although some institutions such as the Public Service Commission, courts, army, police and the bureaucracy were modernized to a limited extent, they in course of time came under the shadow of the regime. Overawed by the restoration of monarchical power, all the institutions also danced to the tune set by the palace political culture. A parliament was created under the constitution granted by the king, but that too did not survive more than 18 months not due to its own failure, but because of the vaulting ambition of the monarch to rule himself. During the royal regime (1960-90) all the so-called institutions functioned under the “peremptory and pre-emptory command” of the monarch. Even in the judiciary, the Supreme Court’s decision could be changed if the king didn’t favour such a decision. A Judicial Committee was created to review the court’s decision.

The post-1960 politics found parties as the major threat to the regime, hence the measures to eliminate them politically as well as physically. Such draconian measures forced the major parties to go underground to resort to any method — violent and peaceful — as the situation demanded. Ironically, an increased attraction of the people towards the parties could be reflected in the direct elections of the regime. Unless the parties become systemic and start working according to their norms and values, they remain as movements for achieving certain goals.

It was expected that the fallout of the 1990 movement would bring about stability, order and the culture of democratic institutionalization. But soon after the installation of the elected government, both the ruling Nepali Congress and the major opposition party the CPN (UML) triggered intra-party and inter-party conflicts forgetting to set the new democratic agenda that could blaze a trail for the future. Parliamentary democracy with the monarchy became a difficult process as the parties’ leaders lacked confidence and courage to stand up against the ambition of the king. In England, the parliament fought against the king to establish its sovereignty. In Nepal, the political parties in parliament scrambled for royal favour instead of taking ahead the agenda of popular sovereignty.

But thanks to the miscalculation and ambition of King Gyanendra, the leaders of the parliamentary parties were made to oppose the revival of monarchical absolutism. And the coalition they formed with the Maoist party, which had already emerged as a force, could make the 2006 movement a success. Nevertheless, a big question remains: Have the parties’ leaders ever tried to sit together to set some common agenda for translating the gains of the movement? The answer is NO. Institutions are crumbling, and the democratic culture has floundered along with excessive partyization (filling up posts with party members and hangers-on). Many try to explain politicization in a partisan spirit; but, in my opinion, it is a positive term that orients people towards the democratic political system. It is the process of creating a new political culture that sustains democracy within the parameters of the system.

Partyization, on the other hand, is a narrow (negative) concept that contradicts all the norms of institutionalization as is evident today. Thus, all such negative developments and the myopia of our leaders have only contributed to making the people despair more than ever before. Another serious aspect of the ongoing development is that the failure of the politicians to grapple with the emerging problems would accentuate the trends and developments that defy the culture of institutionalized democracy. Since such trends have gone much ahead of the present context of politics, it will be difficult for the existing leaders to correct them. So it often troubles me what type of regime we are going to adopt in the future.