Nation among nations
- As I like
All countries aspire to exceptionalism. No country has perhaps perfected it better than the United States of America, with its resolute spurning of the metric system being but one little example. Countries like Nepal are not immune to such a belief either. In fact, exceptionalism serves as the raison d'être for many non-democratic regimes to cling to power. Remember the ‘national songs’ tradition from the Panchayat era, which extolled the virtues of king and country (in that order) through verses penned by some of the best-known litterateurs of the day? The message intended was that Nepal was an exceptional country and even more exceptional for being under the benevolent guidance of the monarchy.
As a popular genre, nationalist songs have died an unnoticed and seemingly quite unmourned death in the two decades since 1990, but exceptionalism as a national trait is still very strong in Nepal. One area where it manifests itself quite strongly is when we try to explain our contemporary history, especially conflicts past and present, violent or otherwise. There seems to be a strong view that what Nepal has been undergoing does not have any precedence and that it is our particular history, culture, society and geography which gives our country’s present travails a unique tinge.
There are those who are very well informed about the world at large and understand that the experiences of other countries can serve as a template, not to be borrowed wholesale for anything we do here, whether it be exploring the integration of combatants or expanding micro-credit. But there are many more who like to believe that Nepal is like no other, and that colours their understanding of issues of great pertinence to our present times, whether it be the transformation of social relations or seeking redressal for centuries of discrimination against particular groups. As bipeds who evolved out of a common ancestor in Africa, it is only to be expected that there would be parallels in more than one place that humans lived in to almost anything that we can think of as being uniquely Nepali.
This is the reason why the 2011 World Development Report (WDR) put out by the World Bank is worth more than one look. Focusing on the theme ‘Conflict, Security, and Development’, with an old Nepal hand, Nigel Roberts, as one of the two principal authors, it has a number of lessons that we could learn from. First, we have to move away from this mindset that we are truly unique and resist any information to the contrary.
For starters, the WDR reiterates some facts that are well known. One example is the oft-touted fact that low GDP often leads to political violence. But the WDR further points out that low GDP is also associated with high homicide rates, with youth unemployment being the main motivator for young people to join rebel movements and urban gangs. ‘Feeling more secure and powerful is also cited as an important and powerful motivator across countries, confirming existing research that shows that employment dynamics have to do not only with income but also with respect and status, involving social cohesion as well as economic opportunity.’ These are all factors that can be said to be true of youth groups whether the YCL or the Youth Force, whatever names they go by now, the overtly criminal gangs that all flourish with political patronage or the politico-criminal gangs that operate in the Tarai.
The WDR bears out the discourse in Nepal that there is a link between ‘real or perceived discrimination’ and violence. Note that discrimination need not be real. Discrimination against the marginalised groups, borne out by empirical evidence can be considered real, while the recent reaction from the dominant groups, the Bahuns and Chhetris, are examples of what they perceive is discrimination against them through state policies enacted since 2006 in favour of the excluded. Add another factor identified by the WDR as leading to violence, ‘ethnic, religious and regional competition’, which is becoming more of a reality in Nepal and you have a real tinderbox in the making.
Institutions count for a lot, says the WDR, since ‘countries and subnational areas with the weakest institutional legitimacy and governance are the most vulnerable to violence and instability...’ And it also warns against band-aid solutions as alternatives to creating strong and legitimate institutions. ‘Even societies with the weakest institutions have periodic outbreaks of peace...But temporary elite pacts...do not provide the grounds for sustained security and development unless they are followed by the development of legitimate state and society institutions.’ These facts sound uncannily familiar to Nepal, where the elite co-opts any and every challenger into behaving like itself, most notably witnessed with the Madhes-based parties when in power.
What is alarming though is that countries with a history of violent conflict are becoming more prone to relapse than in the past. As the WDR notes, ‘Few countries are truly “post-conflict”. The rate of violence onset in countries with a previous conflict has been increasing since the 1960s, and every civil war that began since 2003 was in a country that had a previous civil war.’ Hence, while the chance of violence resuming was only 43 per cent in the 1960s, it rose steadily over the decades and is currently 90 per cent. The report does not clarify whether Nepal falls among the 90 per cent or not since it is not yet clear whether we are post-conflict, as the Maoist conflict has easily given way to newer forms of violence.
Equally a cause for concern is how long it takes to build credible institutions. ‘Creating legitimate institutions that can prevent repeated violence...is slow,’ says the WDR. ‘Even the fastest-transforming countries have taken between 15 and 30 years to raise their institutional performance from that of a fragile state today...to that of a functioning institutionalised state.’ The table below from WDR provides an indication of how slow that change can be.
Fastest Progress in Institutional Transformation—an Estimate of Realistic Ranges
Indicator Years to threshold
Fastest 20 Fastest over the threshold
Bureaucratic quality 20 12
Corruption 27 14
Military in politics 17 10
Government effectiveness 36 13
Control of corruption 27 16
Rule of law 41 17
Using the last row in the table, it means that it took an average of 41 years to institute rule of law in the fastest 20 countries that managed to do so, with the quickest among them taking a full 17 years.
Unless we can prove that we are truly exceptional and can find ways to shortcut these time periods, we are indeed in for the long haul. The generation just born may be able to enjoy the fruits of a well-functioning country by the time they are young adults. That is, if we get our politics right, and persevere with a national will towards a national goal. Not impossible—others have done it.
Posted on: 2011-07-07 12:31
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