However, there is nothing bland about our posts and the permutations and combinations we employ to fill them up. On the contrary, it is quite the circus of intrigue with some posts being contested (National Tourism Board), some negotiated like the National Reconstruction Authority and yet others seemingly predestined as it appears to be in the case of Sujata Koirala for the chairmanship of Nepali Congress.
The route to these posts notwithstanding, we need not look further than our own Prime Minister for signs of the love we have for them. Our politicians – more than most – love their posts, revel in them and often use them as a tool for ‘managing’ their parties or in the case of KP Oli, the shaky alliance that passes for our government.
What else would explain his ‘constitution flouting’ jumbo cabinet? In this instance there were no pretences being made at all to make it look like it was done for the people but was done as, admitted indirectly by the PM himself, to purchase the loyalty of fringe parties. If people aren’t happy you give them a‘posting’ in order to – pardon the pun – address the situation. It seems like it doesn’t really matter to our PM if he flouts the constitution by one post or fifteen. As they say in England ‘in for a penny, in for a pound’.
What will he do next to accommodate the disgruntled souls in his coalition? Will we see weight divisions in politics similar to what they have in boxing? Or are we going to witness age or ethnic classifications like they have for beauty pageants in Nepal? It wouldn’t be out of place for the government having run out of ministerial portfolios and also serve as a natural progression for us common folks who’ve already lost track of our ministries and ministers given their various avatars over the years and our propensity for ministerial musical chairs.
In our political sphere, with the exception of money, a ministerial post is the single greatest motivating factor for our politicians and KP Oli is simply pandering to this whim. Our voting system should really be called ‘first to the post’ because a post apparently gives our ‘netas’ a perceived sense of achievement and belief that they’ve well and truly arrived on the political stage. A ministerial post brings with it perks (lifelong – if KP Oli has his way) and a certain level of impunity in their work as the earthquake and the blockade have recently shown us.
That we have a constitutional body specifically for curbing the abuse of authority should tell you all you need to know about the importance of ‘posts’ in the national psyche.
This love for posts is by no means restricted to our politicians. The inclination for fancy titles and posts is common in our private sector too where founders of companies and start-ups alike have taken to giving themselves fancy designations, irrespective of their body of work.
There are companies with five employees, four of whom are executive directors and one a chairman, all of whom have yet to attain puberty.
The work, experience, knowledge and expertise all come a distant second to the biggest ego boost of them all – the post.
However, everything else pales in comparison to our bureaucracy where this phenomenon is perhaps the most pronounced. While our politicians see the post as a means to an end (enriching themselves) our bureaucrats see the post as a destination in itself. The clamour for limited posts manifests itself in the reverence that our bureaucrats have for those above them in the hierarchical ladder and is – for those who have witnessed it – mind numbing in its servility.
A person is recognized first by his post and then by his political affiliation (for the naïve amongst us civil service neutrality really is a joke).
This results in bureaucrats making preparations for their assault on the summit of promotion immediately after entering the civil service, often at the expense of their duties because the higher up you go, the better is the state sanctioned opportunity to make a quick buck, and if you’re lucky enough some sort of insulation from the law. It also helps to ensure that you can – if required to, like our AGP’s – post a bail or guarantee for eye watering amounts.
The clamor for posts and postings are a lifelong game of affiliations, subservience, money and opportunity. If Abraham Maslow had ever bothered to make a Hierarchy of Nepali Needs theory, ‘posts’ would undoubtedly feature at the sharp end of our pyramid. We are all ‘post bahadurs’ in our own way but in pulling off his Houdini act of manufacturing posts and ministries from thin air and trying to guarantee lifelong perks for retired ‘postings’ our otherwise inept Prime Minister deserves the title of postmaster.
I wish I had a better title than that to bestow on him, something along the lines of Kim Jong Un’s ‘Supreme Leader’ or Jose Mourinho’s ‘The Special One’ or one of those facile one word monikers that communists tend to give themselves. But I have a feeling, judging by our PM’s performances, that I might get lots of opportunities to rechristen him sooner rather than later.
gunjan.u@gmail.com
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