Sliding into anomie & chaos

George Burns, a highly-celebrated American actor/comedian is often quoted as having quipped in his usual sarcastic tone: “Too bad, all the people who know how to run the country are busy driving cabs and cutting hair”. Though Burns’ sarcasm was primarily aimed at the contemporary American politicians and state functionaries some three decades ago, the cutting remark has, however, an astonishing application to the band of Nepali politicians who are currently wielding the reins of government and those desperately scrambling for it, at times indecorously though.

Today, Nepal finds itself bogged down in a political morass that is as paradoxical as it is lamentable. Its ultimate political destiny, as envisioned by the Nepali people in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of the 238-year-old institution of monarchy some four years ago, is still lost in a labyrinth of conflicting political ideologies and parochial interests of the major political forces. The dissonance that exists today between the key political players has given rise to a highly-alarming political imbroglio in the post-monarchy period.

When the country is desperately groping for a peaceful way out through the fog of insurmountable political dilemmas and contradictions, its responsible stakeholders are either indulging themselves in conceited rants or heaping blames on each other for their abject failure to deliver the goods that they promised to the people.

It is indeed a painful irony that for over two months now, Nepal is denied a legitimate government, in the true sense of the term. The Madhav Kumar Nepal-led dysfunctional motley coalition is simply a caretaker government after the prime minister tendered his resignation and enjoys no mandate whatsoever to make major decisions including presentation of annual budget in the Legislature-Parliament. The seven consecutive voting exercises conducted in the House to elect a new chief executive for the country turned out to be sheer fiascos.

Given the sequence of political events taking place over the last two months and the political calisthenics displayed by UCPN (Maoist), CPN-UML and the dysfunctional front of the Tarai-based parties, the ongoing imbroglio is not likely to be resolved in the foreseeable future.

Besides thrusting political uncertainty on the incipient republic, the seven abortive voting exercises have also exposed the vulnerabilities of Nepal’s leading political actors and their impatience for power and greed for wealth.

Similarly, it is absolutely unethical on the part of the Constituent Assembly (CA) members to consume hefty allowances paid by the poor taxpayers and remain neutral during the voting in the parliament. If the flawed provision of the Interim Constitution of Nepal (Eighth Amendment) is not rectified so as to clinch the issue in question or one of the contenders forsakes his disastrous political hubris, such farcical exercises are likely to continue for an indefinite period. But the crucial question is: How long Nepal can afford to remain in a political limbo? In a genuine democracy, as opposed to totalitarian communist regime, consensus of opinion among divergent political formations is very rare to come by unless the political stakeholders follow Nelson Mandela as their role model.

Chairman of UML Jhala Nath Khanal should be prudent enough to realize the basic gospel and stop displaying his political insanity any longer. Besides thrusting political uncertainty on the incipient republic, the seven abortive voting exercises have also exposed the vulnerabilities of Nepal’s leading political actors and their impatience for power and greed for wealth.

Proliferating tides of lawlessness, criminals enjoying total impunity under political patronage, absence of individual security, multiplying rights and diminishing duties on the part of the ethno-political activists, pervasive corruption in bureaucracy and the skyrocketing consumer prices beyond the affordable limits of the common man are some of the distinctive features of Nepal’s state of affairs. Going by the several reports brought to the public notice by the ubiquitous media and the murmurs trickling down from various segments of bureaucracy, members of the current ruling coalition are all busy perpetuating their plunder of the state coffer and other public resources.

A confluence of all these banes supplemented by improbity and hypocrisy among the leading politicians has thickened the shadow of political uncertainty in the country, besides creating a congenial ground for foreign interference in Nepal’s internal affairs. The highly-camouflaged visits of Indian Prime Minister Man Mohan Singh’s special envoy Shyam Saran and former Indian ambassador to Nepal K V Rajan corroborates Indian interference in Nepal ’s political affairs. Having said that, however, one should equally blame our incompetent and power-hungry ‘statesmen’ for excessively leaning on the shoulders of these external elements.

The doctrine of perpetual flux as propounded by Heraclites of ancient Greece that “one cannot step into the same river twice for new waters are ever flowing in …” has utterly failed to apply in Nepal’s political context. All its political players, be it the rulers or their antagonists, nurture a fallacy that they can step into the same river as many times as they wish and consider the Nepali people as their permanent hostages. To be brutally honest, 20 years of democratic exercises have produced nothing but these corrupt, dissembling and opportunistic snakes who deserve to be punished with zero margin of error. They have irretrievably lost people’s faith and confidence in every respect, be it political transformation, economic development or social reforms.

It is said that every radical political transformation carries an asterisk and the question linked with it is – quo vadis? Nepal does not stand an exception to this aphorism. Even after 20 years since the restoration of democracy and four years since the demise of monarchy, she still remains politically directionless. Unlike other countries effecting a radical transformation, the trajectory of Nepal’s political course appears to be absolutely indeterminate and uncertain. Owing primarily to the acute dearth of political honesty and dedication among the responsible politicians leading the country, the course of its internal politics is insidiously controlled by extraneous forces that claim to have an exclusive prerogative under various pretexts and excuses.

These political actors have relegated themselves to an object of public ridicule. Even the Nepali Bolsheviks, whose 10-year-long bloody insurgency operations cost more than 16,000 lives and national property worth billions of rupees, have fallen pathetic victims to power avarice. Their much-hyped rhetoric of ‘creating a new Nepal’ by bringing about a radical transformation of the country’s social and economic status has turned out to be a political hoax or a cornucopia, reminiscent of what Stalin did 90 years ago, simply to bamboozle the naïve Nepalis.

The CA, the first ever popularly elected political mechanism, to draft a new statute for the young republic, has spectacularly squandered 27 months since its inception. After its mandated term expired on May 28, it has been given a new lease of life to complete the mission, if it can do so. However, given the widening crises of confidence among the responsible political stakeholders, no light is visible at the end of the tunnel. Under the circumstances, establishing an enduring peace and political stability in the country will ever remain a fatuous illusion for the Nepali masses. Maybe we are destined for an absolute anarchy!

madhabkhanal@yahoo.com