Oped»
The real experts
AUG 05 -
Nepal is very good at not utilising what it has. The abundant Himalayan water resource has turned into a cruel joke of long hours of load-shedding and scarcity of drinking water for its citizens as the country remains unable to exploit and use it. This tendency of inability to use its resources is also becoming evident in the debate and process of state restructuring and constitution making.
Some commentators complain that detailed work on the various aspects of federal state building, such as the rights of regions, inter-regional relationships, resource distribution, minority rights and so forth are not being deliberated. This is true to some extent, but one of the reasons for this lacuna is the neglect by the state and donors of people who have knowledge and interest in the subjects. The Nepali state and influential donors often consider knowledgeable people on the subjects of federalism, proportionality and inclusion as “community advocates”, and hence have often not availed themselves of their expertise.
If one were to look at international experience, advocates of issues, on the other hand, are often considered experts on the subjects. Such advocates learn and become knowledgeable about the matters because they are deeply concerned and interested in the issues. They gather information, evaluate and analyse it, and put forward ideas and positions that can help to address the problems. Advocates of new issues are often the most knowledgeable people on the subjects because they are usually the only ones who deeply care about the issue enough to spend time and resources to find more about the matter while the mainstream society, academia and media may be oblivious, uninterested, or ignorant about it.
NGOs that advocate new issues are often consulted and recruited to draft new legislation and policies when governments accept new issues as something that have to be addressed. A few examples will make the point more clear. Once environmental problems were accepted by the US government as a major challenge, it recruited the environmental advocates to draft new legislation and head the newly formed environmental agencies. Similarly, in Brazil, once the government accepted the call to prioritise the public health system, it recruited the advocates of the public health system to formulate new policies and run the newly established agencies.
The experience during the state restructuring and constitution making process in Nepal has been, however, quite different. Instead of tapping the expertise of socio-political reform advocates who knew about the matters like autonomy and federalism in much detail, they have largely been ignored by the state, media and academic organisations and donors. The expertise of advocates of secularism, constituent assembly, republic and federalism has been established by the fact that their assessments of Nepali society and politics have been accurate.
Prior to the 2006 political transformation, for example, the “community advocates” were the ones who had published on federalism. After the issue was adopted by the Interim Constitution, another set of “experts” whose only expertise appear to be having degrees in unrelated fields and a solid caste-based network within the state and donor agencies. It is understandable that the major parties and the state agencies dominated by CHHEM (caste hill Hindu elite males) have ignored them because the reform agendas are against their interests. It is surprising, however, that even many donors who love to present a progressive façade have failed to utilise the local expertise.
The knowledgeable people have been undermined by labelling them as “community advocates”. The same epithet connoted expertise in other countries while in Nepal it has been presented pejoratively, as if it is a crime to advocate a progressive issue. This has happened largely because not only the state but the media, academia and donors are filled and surrounded by CHHEM whose hegemonic discourse has been successful in portraying knowledgeable people negatively. It is said that CHHEM, who fill the state and donor agencies, claim that they cannot work with community advocates who raise issues that are uncomfortable to them. Ability to work smoothly with CHHEM has become an additional criterion for determining merit in Nepal!
While the people who know about the issues are not recruited, “experts” who self-project themselves as being objective and neutral are often hired. The only problem with such “experts” is that they lag behind in knowledge on the issues. A comparison of the writings of such “experts” on federalism exposes that they are much behind the knowledge curve. These “experts” began to think and write about constituent assembly, federalism and proportionality after the structures were incorporated under the pressure of various movements. Many of them began to study the issues after they were recruited to fill some positions or hired with lucrative contracts by donors. Such a process is very costly to the country as their learning process takes up considerable time and resources, which could have been used to further the issues if real knowledgeable people had been recruited. The problem with the concept of “neutral experts” is that all people have positions—to claim neutrality is a lie. Such a notion is possible only because the dominant group has established its values, norms and perspectives as universal. The façade of universalism hides the position of dominant groups.
A good example of portraying the position of one set or group as universal is a book called Creating the New Constitution: A Guide for Nepali Citizens (2008) by IDEA International and UNDP. Except for a Dalit and a Madhesi, no single contributor is a non-Newar indigenous nationality or Muslim. Bahun-Chhetri and Newar made up 85 percent of the “distinguished” Nepali contributors. It appears as if to be considered a “distinguished” intellectual in Nepal, one has to be born as a Bahun, Chhetri or Newar. The only problem with the self-declaration of “distinguished” Nepali contributors is that some of them may have never published in peer reviewed outlets! The interesting aspect of the whole process was that the editors/funders were warned of the lack of representation of the excluded groups’ perspectives. However, they continue to exclude the excluded groups and their perspectives.
The powerful in Nepal (political leaders and donors) recruit “experts” who represent their positions, who are loyal to them and who do not raise uncomfortable questions. Reliance on such “experts” will hardly take the issues further.
(Professor Lawoti is the guest editor of the recently released volume of Himalaya that focuses on Ethnicity, Inequality and Politics in Nepal)
Posted on: 2010-08-06 08:53
Headlines
Advertisements
