In much of Tarai-Madhesh, the beginning of BS is marked with the festival of Judshital. After being woken up early in the morning with blessings of cold water splashed over one's head from family elders, youngsters go out and play in the mud with each other; wash themselves in neighborhood ponds; and then eat rice that had been left overnight to cool with thick Badi curry, spicy drumstick vegetables and hot and sour chutney of raw mangoes.
The term Judshital can be roughly translated in two ways—'cool together' or 'cool your head'. This Judshital, the political chill is yet to recede, there are no signs of spring awakening, and the summer of accord appears as elusive as ever. As the calendar turns to welcome 2072nd year of the reign of legendary King Vikramaditya, the country readies itself for certain uncertainties all over again.Willful indifference remained the fundamental feature of the Conservative Coalition (CC) headed by the Ceremonial Premier Sushil Koirala. "When you have to make a choice and don't make it," observed William James, one of the founding fathers of American pragmatism, "that is in itself a choice." Premier SuKo may have appeared to dither aimlessly for over a year in office, but clearly there was a method in his meandering ways.
Compaction is achieved when outside forces are applied to pack things together. Similar results can be gained over a longer period if materials to be densified are left untouched as natural elements and forces of gravity do their work. The process of consolidation is often slow, and appears unobtrusive for the same reason. Progressives love to compact with determination; conservatives prefer to let things consolidate through the impact of public opinion.
The reigning CC emerged after an extra-constitutional interim council constituted by the inter-party consensus had conducted extraordinarily militarized elections for the second constituent assembly. The fact that it has done nothing other than feathering the nest of near and dear ones—no progress on constitutional issues, reforms of extractive instruments of the state stalled, and less than 20 percent budget of development projects utilized—shows that BS 2071 was a year of considered inactivity rather than accidental incompetence.
For a politician, not taking a decision is hardest of all decisions to take. Premier SuKo had been egged on to remain on course of supreme sluggishness by a battalion of opinion-makers that can perhaps be termed as Malinowskian Minds after the US ambassador Michael E Malinowski who helped solidify rightwing politics in Nepal.
Malinowskian Minds
In social sciences, labeling carries negative connotations. Labels, however, help in making sense of complex realities. Political ideas are known by their pioneers. Thinkers give name to philosophical schools. Social models carry the name of their innovators. Creators consecrate streams of thought in arts and literature. Practitioners sanctify rituals with the name of their masters. In political-economy of half-literate societies, instigators often carry more weight than even their patrons in influencing intelligentsia of their time.
On the face of it, King Mahendra succeeded in marshalling brainiest Nepalis of the epoch behind his authoritarian politics. However, those in the know have known all along the role Bunkers' Boys played in institutionalizing despotism of the monarchy ostensibly to prevent the rise of dictatorship of the proletariat in a strategically important but dirt-poor country. Ambassador-at-Large Ellsworth Bunker and Ambassador Carol Laise Bunker together nurtured a group of Nepali intelligentsia in the 1960s and 1970s that dominated the thought of the Panchayat regime at least till the 1980s. Bunkers' Boys proved to be the vanguard of Mahendramala chauvinism.
Once the curtain had fallen on perceived Soviet threats, Ambassador Julia Chang Bloch emerged as the new director of a play intended to manufacture consent in favor of free-market fundamentalism. The Bloch's Blokes have since penetrated deep into all segments of society, economy and the state. In that sense, all that Ambassador Malinowski had to do was extend the ideology of Bunkers' Boys and consolidate the hold of Bloch's Blokes. He deserves to be venerated with the name of a thought because he skillfully decimated the opposition with a combination of coercion, conversation and cooptation.
His successor Ambassador James F Moriarty gained some notoriety as diplomatic spokesperson of political conservatism, but all that he did was give continuity to Malinowskian policies during his tenure. He did the groundwork for the emergence of militarism in place of monarchism as the dominant political idea.
During his earlier stint as a senior diplomat in the 1990s, Ambassador Malinowsky had helped steer Nepali Congress away from its avowed socialist platform. When he came back to Kathmandu as an envoy after the Narayanhiti Palace Massacre, he made Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) junk its five patron deities—Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao—in the attic and embrace cultural conservatism and free-market fundamentalism as twin pillars of its new ideology. When combined with militarism, the triad of belligerent conservatism is complete, which UML Supremo KP Sharma Oli personifies. Little wonder, Chairman Oli is perceived to be the de facto Chief Executive of the country while Premier SuKo sleeps over his de jure role.
Conformist cacophony
The overactive rumor mill of Kathmandu runs on tall tales of Indian intrigues and embellished hearsay about Chinese conspiracies. But among the opinionators—the cohort that deals with creation, production, and distribution of public opinion—the American way rules the roost.
Everything about the USA comes with superlatives. It is a war-making entity—the expression 'military-industrial complex' running the most militarized country on the planet is in fact an understatement—and needs an enemy on constant basis to justify its excesses. Pursuit of happiness being one of its founding creeds, there is little place for nonconformists in its society, which is the largest manufacturing machine of social uniformity.
The biggest economy by far in the world feeds on inequality at home and abroad; hence the very thought of socialism is an anathema to accumulators of wealth. All this leads to the need for propaganda, which undergirds all media activities in the most cacophonous cultural universe imaginable. The Bruce Springsteen song—57 channels (and nothing on)—is so by design. This is the outlook that the Malinowskian Minds of Kathmandu have internalized.
McCarthyism may be long dead and buried in its home ground, but it thrives in a country where the so-called Stalinists (the UML) and Maoists have both taken part in general elections. In a democracy, free media is expected to be ferocious watchdogs of public interest. The Nepali press spends more time and space in running down the opposition than critiquing the government. Rather than be the permanent opposition, the commentariat has turned out to be committed apologists of the Permanent Establishment of the Nation (PEON). The UNMIN and OHCHR-Nepal attempted to counterbalance Malinowskian Minds for a while, but the PEON had them expelled, ironically at the behest of Indians and instigation of the Chinese.
The rot has penetrated deeper. The litterateurs, artistes, writers, filmmakers, and intellectuals—conscience-keepers of vibrant societies—have allowed themselves to become for-hire intelligentsia hawking their creativity and voice for better living standards.
Premier SuKo is rumored to have harbored Hollywood dreams in his youth; he is living a life that is almost as useful for the greater good of society. Alaina Teplitz is designated to be next US envoy in Nepal; whether she gives continuity to Malinowskian mindset or charts a different course remains to be seen. Meanwhile, New Year Greetings as the country exits and enters from one American year of BS to another in the country protected by the Lord of Animals.
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