Predicaments of organic cities embracing modernity abound as SUVs wheeze past peddlers hawking trinkets from overflowing pavements. The Bangkok Skytrain offers a peep into the possible future of Kathmandu when the capital of Nepal too would be forced to introduce mass transit system.
There was a time when rich Thai kids changed into their uniform and had their breakfast in the back seat of chauffeured cars because the traffic gridlock in Bangkok made an estimation of commuting time to school impossible. Kathmandu has yet to reach that stage. But if vehicle importers had their way, middleclass Nepalis would soon be stuck in traffic jams struggling for breath in their tiny Nanos and Altos even as fuel import bills ballooned out of exchequer’s control.
Similarities between Nepali and Thai societies are striking. About half-a-century ago, political scientist Fred Warren Riggs propounded the theory of prismatic societies based on his fieldwork in Thailand and Philippines. One of Prof Riggs’ key insights was that societies in the so-called developing world were not merely in a stage of transition from traditional to modern, but in a category of their own. In his astute observation, “The prismatic situation was neither traditional nor modern, but it contained novel elements generated by the juxtaposition of old and new social structures” and needed to be understood as a recognizable phenomenon common to many Asian countries.
In popular terminology, Thailand and Nepal would be called transitional societies. In a way, this formulation is not inappropriate. The desire to embrace modernity is strong in developing countries. Traditions are sometimes considered hindrances on path towards progress. But it fails to accommodate the attachment towards quaint customs and ancient institutions. The transitional explanation is inadequate to explain lack of patience among a section of the population that tires of new experiments too easily as the polity keeps swinging between democratic innovations and authoritarian conventions.
Since Field Marshal Plaek Pibunsongkhram, Prime Minister and virtual military dictator from 1938 to 1944 and 1948 to 1957, began the ‘modernization’ drive, the Siamese kingdom has experimented with at least 17 charters and constitutions of different combinations and permutations of dividing political power. Nepal has not done too badly either with at least 11 charters and constitutions within approximately the same period. Chronic instability, however, continues to be the defining feature of Thai and Nepali polities.
Even though impressions from a short visit and limited interactions are not sufficient to draw useful conclusions, events in Thailand appear so familiar that it is difficult to control the urge of passing quick judgements. If experiences from Nepal are anything to go by, strict adherence to ancient les majeste laws are unlikely to benefit either the institution of monarchy or the Thai society in the long run.
The Thai courts recently decided that 61-year-old Amphon "Ah Kong" Tangnoppakul deserved 20 years in prison for allegedly sending four SMS text messages deemed defamatory to Her Majesty the Queen and the monarchy to a personal secretary of the then-prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Honourable justices in their infinite wisdom also condemned 55-year old Joe Gordon to prison for two and a half years. The Thai-American had been living in Colorado when he translated excerpts from a proscribed biography of the king and published them online.
The day after King Bhumibol Adulyadej’s 84th birthday, the cover of venerable daily Bangkok Post looked very much like The Rising Nepal of yore where the royal family graced the entire cover. Buried inside the opinion page was a learned commentary upon Ah Kong (The Chinese word for grandfather) case by newspaper’s deputy editor Atiya Achakulwisut without hinting anywhere that the central issue of democracy in Thailand was the question of unitary system, not merely the implementation of archaic laws dating back centuries.
The cost of independence
In South Asia, Nepalis claim that their country was never colonised by any European power. The assertion is partially true in the sense that no proconsul or viceroy had to set up office in Kathmandu. The British, Chinese or the French flag never fluttered from Hanuman Dhoka Palace Complex. However, what is also equally true is that Nepalis were never truly free to pursue their own domestic or foreign policies.
Since the conclusion of Sugauli Treaty after the Anglo-Nepal skirmishes in 1814-16, the British Resident in Kathmandu had acquired the position to intervene decisively in every court intrigue. Emergence of Jang Bahadur may have been necessitated by internal power struggles in the royal palace, but one of the greatest beneficiary of the establishment of the Rana rule were the British. Nepal saved its independence because it did not have to be colonised to be used and misused by the colonial masters of South Asia.
The Kingdom of Siam too saved its independence by making compromises with the British to its North and West and the French in the East. Its buffer status came in handy, but at every crisis in Thai history, its rulers had to bow before foreign masters. During the World War I, Siam was an ally of Great Britain. In 1939, the country changed its name from Siam to Thailand (Land of the free) only to let the Japanese walk over its lands towards Malay Peninsula, Singapore and Burma during the Second World War. After the 1960s, Thailand gladly permitted US forces to use the country as base during the Vietnam War. Formal independence apparently extracts a high price, which the masses pay for the benefit of the elite.
Despite the ‘never-colonised’ claim, Nepal’s passport was useful only to control movements of Madheshis to and from Kathmandu valley. To travel to foreign shores, Nepalis had to acquire travel documents from British authorities in Calcutta. In that respect, Thais were slightly more autonomous. Their people did not have to serve in foreign armies. Unlike landlocked Nepal, Siam’s long coastline provided ample opportunities for trading with distant lands. However, it also meant that the Thai elites wielded even more power over their societies than the ruling families of Nepal.
Formulation of Karl Marx that colonization in India was good for the emancipation of the downtrodden can be faulted on several counts. Colonialists often patronised the local elite. Modernization of economy created new forms of bondages as the landless labour became squatters in newly industrialised towns. However, Marx had been correct in intuiting that intervention of outside powers de-legitimised traditional power elite and made the emergence of new leadership possible. Like Nepal, Thais too suffer from the continuation of social elite that boasts of its history, culture, religion, language, militarism and patriotism to maintain its monopoly over state power through a unitary structure.
The price of freedom
The ‘yellow-shirt’ traditionalists in Thailand have been pitted against ‘red-shirt’ radicals for nearly half-a-decade. Traditionalists swear by the monarch and fear the electorate. Some of them even insist that voting rights should be restricted to genuine Thais and fear mongering of Chinese takeover through proxy is darkly hinted even in polite conversations. Perfectly reasonable and educated Thais sporting smart-phones and talking with an American accent insist that monarchy is the fulcrum of their society and only ‘pure’ institutions left intact are the military, the police and the bureaucracy. Sounds familiar? The comparable dread in Nepal is of an Indian takeover through Madheshis. No wonder, the social elite from Nepal finds the cultural ecology of Bangkok so much to their liking.
A kingdom with the size and population of France, Thailand is equally uniform in the composition of society with almost everybody forced to acquire a Thai name and learn the national language. And yet, challenges of transformation require that power be devolved to lowest levels and federalism be adopted to ensure self-rule. No matter how democratic, post-traditional and pre-modern, states are always in danger of elite takeover. Proto-fascist forces remain strong in all prismatic societies. Nepal is no exception.
Related story
