The first conversation begins in an airplane aisle, en-route from Delhi to Kathmandu, as the peaks were just beginning to come into sight.
I spot someone I know at the front of the plane. He is a person of repute, someone who has had an impact on the social, economic and political landscape of Nepal. [break]
I admire him for his perseverance and his forward thinking. His ability to remain focused on his goals without being daunted in the face of unmitigated challenges, I feel, has been an inspiration to many.
I fold up my computer and head up front. Fortunately, there’s a seat available next to him and he invites me to join. All good conversations begin with an empty seat, I think.
I ask him about his preparations for the elections.
“I am still thinking about it,” he tells me. He has not yet confirmed that he will run. “But unless you have the influence within the party to produce better outcomes, why bother running?” he turns around and asks me abruptly.
Why bother running? The question takes me by surprise. It is the first time that I’ve met someone who I feel would almost certainly win from his constituency but was still contemplating whether to run.
I urge him to run, and begin to lay out my case, “Nepal needs change. She needs people that are willing to be single-minded in the pursuit of an economic agenda. You can deliver that agenda.”
I stop there. But what I don’t tell him is a far simpler fact: as a Nepali, I’m in need of hope.
“You can still influence change without being elected. You could be nominated and still work for that objective without being elected,” he tells me.
I disagree. I point to the Indian Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, who at the end of this term will have served two full terms as Prime Minister without really having been elected. Will he leave India a better place than when he took over? I ask.
Political leadership requires the ability to convince the masses about a future where everyone has to play a certain part. Political leadership is not just about administration or intellectual ability.
He doesn’t think my analogy of Dr. Singh is relevant. And anyway, he doesn’t believe Prime Minister Singh has been ineffective.
A month later I bump into him again at the baggage belt of the Delhi airport, this time having travelled from Kathmandu to Delhi. He tells me that he has decided not to run for office.
The second conversation occurs under the bright lights of the Soaltee Hotel, where an animated conversation is unfolding on the stage among several experts. It is on a dry topic—Nepal’s electricity demand—full of numbers, estimates and hypothesis. I whisper to my table-mate that nowhere else in in the world have I seen such liveliness in such an esoteric discussion of numbers.
The experts are debating Nepal’s electricity demand. In focus are the estimates provided by Nepal Electricity Authority that show electricity demand growing 4-5 percent annually over the next decade to reach about 2,500 MW or so by around 2025. The critics hem and haw, they disagree with the specifics of those estimates. But even if the assumptions of the critics are incorporated, demand could be pushed up marginally by say another, 500 or even a 1,000 MW, but not much more.
No matter which way you look at it, Nepal’s per-capita electricity consumption will be no more than 500 units annually in another decade—still one of the lowest in the world. Estimates in this range are most likely to be used for planning. The numbers, and more importantly its implications, dismay me. It relegates us to another decade of poverty and despair.
My mind returns to the question of my first conversation: Why bother running? But by then a far more fundamental question is already racing through my mind: Why bother with a constitution at all if the only thing we are chasing is a mere goal of 400-500 units of per-capita electricity consumption annually, which means we will continue to remain poor?
The current Nepali political system provides little space to challenge these economic limitations. It provides little room to collate economic aspirations into a compelling force for change. The political process is focused entirely on the symbolism of socio-political concept (for example, federalism, secularism) rather the argument of how any of this translates into rapid prosperity. Instead, our political leadership sell us the idea that some magical transformation will translate 7 or 14 states, or whatever it will finally be, into a case of growth and prosperity.
Even the most perfect constitution and political systems are meaningless without able political leadership. What Nepalis need today are able leaders who can weave a story of hope, growth and the belief that the future is bright.
What the elections must deliver for me is not just a constitution with symbolism but a political leadership that has the audacity to lay out a plan for how Nepal’s GDP can grow by over 20 percent annually over the next decade; a plan for how our annual per-capita electricity consumption must double to 1,000 units or even triple to 1,500 units within the next decade.
To chart a new course of change, Nepal’s political leadership must be willing to challenge the sullen overhang of poverty reduction and social inequality. Nepal’s current budget tracks two metrics: pro-poor spending and pro-gender spending. The striking irony is why one of the poorest countries should even be measuring pro-poor spending. Shouldn’t every rupee automatically be going towards it?
Such metrics illustrate the overhang of Nepal’s sullen story about poverty and inequality. They are great for development jargon. They are effective as nice picture in a flashy development brochure to justify the impact that foreign aid or contributions have had. But they are counter-productive to a political process that must inspire a nation to believe that the future is bright.
For these elections to produce a meaningful outcome, political leadership must be willing to go beyond the discourse of token symbolism. It must be willing to change Nepal’s emphasis from poverty reduction to growth, from inequality to justice and from despair to hope.
The political process must offer Nepalis a new story about resurgence and growth, where poverty reduction and social equality are outcomes of that process. It must be a story of opportunity that resonates equally with young Nepalis sitting on an airplane considering whether there is a future for them back home.
bishal_thapa@hotmail.com
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