It might sound far-fetched to say that such a situation prevails throughout the country but that is the impression one gets when traveling around the country and talking to farmers, businessmen, industrialists and professionals. My personal loss from the emergence of such a lawless environment is that I cannot spend a night in my own village without fear of being robbed or kidnapped. My village in eastern Tarai hasn’t changed much in the past 50 years in terms of access to modern facilities—electricity, roads, water supply, sanitation, education and health services. The only change is that public safety and the overall security situation has deteriorated to an all-time low. I am told that no educated or well-off people can choose to live in the village anymore.
There is no dearth of people who long for Panchayat days and for life under the Ranas. It is not that these regimes were known for benevolence or treated people fairly but for providing basic security.
The absence of public security has taken its toll on the quality of life in a much more decisive way than can be imagined. Many families I have talked to during my recent travels to many places in the Hills and Tarai told me that bands of Maoist cadres make forced entry into private residences, demanding food and shelter for as long as they need it (free of charge, of course). One family in Sarlahi district narrated to me that the commander of one such group placed a loaded revolver on their dining table and demanded that they be served food.
Though such on-the-face incidents are far and between these days—thanks to the signing of the peace accord in 2006—lawlessness is still prevalent in a subtle way. There are roving bands of armed groups in many parts of Tarai who serve notice to anyone—families, businesses, professionals—asking for donations. If they do not comply with their demand, they face reprisals, including kidnapping and murder. One hotel owner is Janakpur told me that he gets such notices delivered to his hotel gate regularly. He often negotiates but seldom ignores such notices, fearing unimaginable consequences. He added that reporting such incidents to the authorities was useless since, on most instances, these criminal gangs have links with the police. Even in Kathmandu, affluent households, businesses and industrial establishments have to pay protection money.
Rural areas, where the government has traditionally relied on influential families for maintaining law and order in exchange for political patronage, have been experiencing the worst form of lawlessness. Most of these influential families, which earlier restrained people from unlawful behavior, have fallen apart now. From the law and order point of view, such loosening of social fabric has attracted outside groups to indoctrinate villagers with the idea that it is their right to attack well-off farmers and take possession of their lands. Despite government efforts after the peace agreement of 2006, unlawful seizure of farm land in the Tarai region has not stopped and much of the land and properties seized during insurgency has not been returned to their rightful owners. In large part, police and courts are in no position to enforce existing government decrees or provide safeguards against new encroachment of property rights.
The sorry state of law and order situation in the country has been aptly documented in a recent report of The Asian Legal Resource Center, a UN affiliated human rights agency. “The area of control of the administration remains reduced to pockets including the capital city and a few far-flung towns. Beyond the limits of these towns the writ of the state is literally absent, thereby creating an administrative vacuum.”
LAWLESSNESS BREEDS POVERTY
Prevailing lawlessness in the country is harmful to public welfare in a number of ways but its main impact is economic – some of it immediate but most long-lasting. We can see the effects of bandas and road closures on the livelihood of ordinary people who have to earn their daily bread by doing hard work – street vendors, transport workers, shopkeepers, hotel and restaurant operators, for example. They have very little to fall back on if their daily earnings are interrupted. Similarly, the cost of forced closures of government offices, banks, education institutions, factories and workshops runs into hundreds of millions per day. Add to this the hidden cost of medical emergencies, shortage of essential supplies, delayed construction work and loss of millions of working hours otherwise available for useful work.
However, the major economic loss from lawlessness comes in the form of discouragement for engaging in socially-productive work and increased risk of planning for the long-term. If an unemployed youth can earn money just by totting a gun, he/she will not work on a farm or in a factory for low pay. A farmer will refuse planting his crops, raise livestock or establish an orchard if he fears losses due to theft. Or, if the government is incapable of enforcing property rights, very few will be motivated to work hard, save and acquire wealth. In a lawless society, distribution – legal or illegal – takes precedence over wealth creation.
LAW AND POLITICS
There is no dearth of people in this country who long for Panchayat days and for life under the Ranas. It is not that these regimes were known for benevolence or treated people fairly but they are loved for providing basic security for the population, in more or less an impartial manner. These regimes used the full force of security apparatus, judicial establishment and personal discretion to ensure the observance of prevailing laws and standards and sanctioned stiff punishment for those found guilty of violating established laws and traditions. There was no exception to the observance of public safety regulation except in rare cases when the accused had links with higher ups in government or were members of the aristocracy.
Much of the peace and quiet enjoyed by people in earlier eras have now been lost, perceived to be the side effect of democratization. Like in any other democracy, political parties in Nepal must win votes to claim their share of power but the winning votes does not necessarily mean winning people’s hearts and minds. The deciding factor in winning an election is party’s affiliation with key organizations and interest groups who, in return, receive protection and patronage of the party they align with. Party-based alignment of trade groups like labor unions is common in countries around the world but, in Nepal’s case, this has reached extreme levels, with the groupings of almost all types, except may be the families, now divided along party lines.
Politically-aligned groups are not necessarily injurious to public interest to the extent that they separate themselves by ideologies and mobilize support for the party they trust, based on their programs and agenda. In mature democracies of the West, political alignment and activism of trade groups, for example, is limited to maximizing voter-turnout for the favored party.
In this country, and in other countries facing law and order problem, politically-aligned groups spread their wings far wider than in matters strictly political. They use political patronage to obtain favors that exceed legal norms and it helps them escape persecution when caught violating the law. Therefore, the challenge to improving law and order situation here is less a matter of increasing police force or hiring more judges. A much more effective way of achieving this goal will be to separate politics from law enforcement, which means the withdrawal of political support for criminal behavior.
(Writer is an economist.)
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