Oped»
Mysterious people
JUN 08 -
For the last couple of years, the term civil society has been frequently used in different contexts. Nothing is complete without an explicit reference being made to civil society. But the fact is that it is still not clear what the idea of civil society suggests in Nepal. What does civil society actually look like? How are the notions and reality of civil society understood, interpreted and practiced? There are, however, many who use the term and posit as “civil society leaders” and developed “platform”. But what is a matter of curiosity is who controls that platform, who can enter it and who do they represent — the political parties, donors or the people? This issue has emerged primarily because neither do they describe their objectives nor does their composition look like civil society given their partisan outlook.
The extant debate on civil society emanates from two major incidents. The first is the People’s Movement of 2006 and the second is the Chief of Army Staff (COAS) episode. In the latter incident, some civil society activists threw their weight directly behind the political parties while others issued statements and published articles and letters to the editor both for and against what happened. By and large, these two incidents have forced us to seriously study the composition and character of civil society. The volume of debate these two incidents have generated is immense and will certainly guide future research on civil society in Nepal.
When we look at the role of civil society in the People’s Movement of 2006, it did play an important role in changing the regime. However, if the regime change was driven by the collective consciousness of civil society who rose against the monarchy (for democracy) and the Maoists (for peace), the same organisations have a responsibility to lead the ongoing change to its logical end. But that does not seem to be happening. Likewise, between the regime change and the COAS episode, many events took place where civil society’s intervention was desirable. But this also did not happen. If democracy (or loktantra as civil society activists prefer to call it) is its objective, civil society seems to have failed to achieve it primarily because the people feel betrayed. Civil society failed to advocate addressing the structural problems of society in a rational way. In contrast, some modern civil society groups were involved in putting oil on various types of movements sponsored by non-state entities.
This has only led to a civic crisis, and civic euphoria that came with the regime change in 2006 is slowly evaporating. What has been seen until now is that movements were waged to meet certain objectives such as creating space for certain classes and then transform quickly into an “amorphous” mass that tries to consolidate the space through street agitations in the name of civil society. The civil society activists who introduce themselves as leaders of “civil society” are interested in accepting prizes from foreign institutions; but what does that mean for poor farmers in Darchula or Taplejung if their situation does not improve; what does that mean for homeless persons and beggars in urban centres? Nothing seems to have changed except the rise of the globally mobile elite who can survive even if the state collapses as both their funding and philosophy come from outside. If political instability provides more opportunities and benefits to this elite class than stable and strong governance, they will prefer the former. Perhaps this could be the reason why the elite does not push for “change” everywhere in the world.
Paradoxically, part of the blame goes to the model that was used to “manufacture” civil society in Nepal. When we look at the development of modern civil society organisations, one can conclude that their growth was “unnatural”. They are not connected with the broader society of rural areas; in contrast, they are more tied up with the global market and political parties.
This is not only the case in Nepal, it happens to all Third World civil society groups where donors simply pick up well-off sections of society (who are averse to real change) and create extra layers of the elite who act as per their needs and not as per the needs of society and the state. This is exactly what has happened in Nepal.
Ex-bureaucrats and Kathmandu’s English-speaking elite simply changed their constituency and opened up the civil society market that took momentum from the early 1990s. Between 1990 and 1992, 12,000 NGOs were established in Nepal mostly owned by these very people in one way or the other. This has diluted the concept of civil society and it has been used and abused on different occasions by using an amorphous mass by equating it with civil society for different purposes. The urban-centred civil society which is fed by donors has failed to champion civic values nourished by the nation’s cultural heritage. The public sphere thus created is largely captured by the conglomerate of urban elite, retired bureaucrats and judges, business tycoons and unsuccessful politicians who carry agendas that serve their interests most.
Moreover, the public sphere, of which the media and civil society are part and parcel, in Nepal has been hijacked by a handful of intellectuals in a syndicated manner not confirming the needs and necessities of the life-world. This has undermined the role of the “others” in society and generated questions as to who really are the true stakeholders of the state. What is certain is that space for both independent and “public sphere” is getting squeezed. This fact reveals that the public sphere has not become sufficiently public primarily because there is neither a sense of “publicness” nor public “responsiveness”. If the public space that produces critical opinions and will formation required for change is controlled by the elite and urban intellectuals who mobilise the media and opinions in their favour, manufacture consent and promote their own cultural hegemony by depriving popular voices, there is no way that the people at large can feel progressive “change”.
For good or bad reasons, this civil society is bound to stay here with us; however, civil society groups have to bear in mind that they should engage in harmonising state-society relations, address the social diversity that Nepal has through a rational approach and work collectively on the state-building agenda. This alone will help to restore the people’s confidence in them which currently is in serious crisis.
C.D. Bhatta
Chandra.bhatta@fesnepal.org
Posted on: 2010-06-09 07:35
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