GPK’s abiding gift
- Ringside View
During a recent visit to the eastern Tarai, a striking issue was the relative popularity, or unpopularity, of the various Madhesi parties. All Madhesi outfits were seen to have failed. There was anger at the Madhesi ‘messiahs’, and in the next round of polls, the conventional wisdom was they would all get swept away. The mood in Kathmandu about national parties is similar, not only in drawing room conversations but on the streets. The parties are seen with disdain, if not outright contempt. And it is usual to hear people blame all politicians for looting the state. One does not have to be a political genius to figure out that that the entire political class faces a severe credibility crisis.
But in politics, even the way democratic politics has evolved in Nepal, there is a difference between popularity and strength. Few leaders understood this better than the late Girija Prasad Koirala, who can be credited, or blamed, for instituting the present political culture in the 90s itself. Most leaders—be it Koirala’s disciples or rivals, in the NC or outside—treat him as the master of the kind of politics they practice.
What did GPK do?
The well-known television anchor, Vijay Kumar Pandey, often remarks how GPK had cracked the code for political success early through a four-fold formula—’paisa, prashasan, police ra Dilli’. Money, administration, police, and Delhi.
Even though Koirala’s personal lifestyle may have been austere till the very end, there is little doubt that the man had a smell for money. Getting into his coterie depended largely on how much wealth one could contribute to the Koirala kitty. The likes of Khum Bahadur Khadka, Govinda Raj Joshi, Bijay Gachhedar, Chiranjivi Wagle, and Sujata Koirala may have become the face of corruption of the 90s, but all of them were close to GPK and owed their power to him when they indulged in the deals that earned them the notoriety. Koirala gave them, and many others, lucrative positions, and they returned the favour by putting in a share of the money back in the leader’s coffers.
From contracts to appointments in state institutions, the Koirala coterie had its hands everywhere, contributing to the degeneration of institutions after the restoration of democracy. GPK was very thick with key business networks, and helped spawn crony capitalism. But GPK’s strength was not in accumulating resources. It was in distributing the wealth. From helping a loyal party activist who needed money for his daughter’s wedding to engineering major deals in the parliamentary maze between 1994 and 1999, GPK knew to how to use his finances.
Simultaneously, as someone who spent decades in the opposition fighting the regime, GPK knew the importance of state power. Till the very end of his last prime ministerial tenure in 2008, GPK micro managed bureaucratic and police appointments. This became both a source of wealth (you had to pay your way to either get in, or rise up the services) and a lever of control. He was remarkably well-informed about developments both in the capital and the districts, and through loyalists in the state, did favours for those caught up in the web of law thus expanding his patronage network.
And while GPK had a love-hate relationship with Delhi at the end, he tried hard to maintain warm ties with India. GPK did not want to repeat what he saw as BP Koirala’s mistake of antagonising Delhi. In his first tenure, he was lucky to have Bimal Prasad as the Indian envoy who used to drop in every few days to see the PM and chat about the old Patna days. GPK also had an old relationship with Indian agencies, which he admitted tangentially while recounting his activities during the opposition days in the Panchayat period.
So even though GPK’s credibility had hit rock-bottom by the late 90s, he managed to remain politically powerful through these multiple elements. His control over the organisational apparatus remained intact, and Gyanendra learnt the costs of ignoring him. The lesson Nepali politicians learnt from GPK was this—popularity comes and goes, so maintain and expand your strength and network through whatever means possible.
From Sher Bahadur Deuba to K P Oli, all leaders have essentially tried to replicate the Koirala formula. Take Bijay Gachhedar, the leader of the biggest party in Madhes, who is often dismissed with contempt in Kathmandu. Gachhedar has cultivated ground support in the Tharu belt of Morang-Sunsari by distributing money to activists, earning life long loyalty by protecting them from the clutches of law when they get into trouble, keeping good ties with the local administration, making a huge splash by announcing development projects while in power, and trying hard to be in Delhi’s good books.
Despite the major differences in how they came to power, Prachanda’s formula is not that different from GPK either. Power may have come from the barrel of the gun, but now Maoists know open politics requires a different skill set. The Maoist Chairman’s control over his party’s finances is now widely accepted as a key source of his strength. The Maoists are trying to gain control over key bureaucratic and police appointments—this would add to the party kitty, as well as earn them support networks within the state. The trouble for them is that the top echelons of the state services are already dominated by NC loyalists, while the UML has managed to penetrate deep into the mid-ranking and senior officials. But for a party that still sees the state as an adversary in its mindset, they have made progress in penetrating the bureaucracy which can smell power from a distance. The other missing spot for Prachanda is of course the difficult relationship with Delhi.
Politicians, who are busy in building up their political strength through such means, often tend to under-estimate popular anger till election results put them in the proper place. While following Girija Prasad Koirala’s footsteps may help them maintain strength, they would do well to remember that even he had to spend years out of political power once his credibility and popularity dipped. It would be fatal for netas to ignore the weight of public opinion once again.
Posted on: 2011-06-22 09:15
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