I am trying to come to terms with understanding what is wrong with us that we take pride in blaming others to hide our failures. I am also trying to come to terms with comprehending our leaders’ political capacity, which does not lead to prudent economic visions and programs for the country. In this context of the problems of Nepali economy, technology, and development, I think that our leaders’ fear of the outside is becoming pathological these days. By outside, I mean the economic world outside, the globalized order, the economic internationalization, the neighbors, and the global systems. Such a fear of the outside is affecting common Nepali psyche too.
The outside, the economic and developmental world beyond the borders, is neither congenial nor tolerant. It is competitive and demanding. It is full of challenges and one requires the highest level of intellectual acumen to stand firm in the global economic system.
I do not know what this fear is. Is it fear at all? Incomprehensibility? Hatred? Ignorance? Lack of education? Let me call it fear to put forward my proposition. Let me view this fear from economic perspectives. Jahnavi-appa did not much approve to my calling the perspective fear, but I persisted with the term because nothing else came to my mind and I did not get much time to ask her what to use. I am free to suggestions though.
Whenever I interact with my students on globalization (I am not an outsider to such discourses), I sense two dominant misunderstandings. One comes out of orthodox Marxist stand, and the other results due to orthodox nationalist stand. They both are similar in perspectives, to some extent.
The globalist thinker Manuel Castells has been writing about the world economy and the global economy. My concept of fear delineates my reading of Nepali perspective as fear of the outside. By world economy, one means the international economic order, which is influenced by Western hegemony. The global economy, on the other hand, works in a unit in international scale. It is a late twentieth century phenomena. Nepali orthodox Marxist and nationalist thinking seems to conclude globalization as the world economy and hence rejects, hates, misunderstands, and fears the economic outside.
The experts write that the global economy, to borrow Castells’s phrase, is the consequence of new infrastructures provided by information and communication technologies. It is a matter of the management of production and distribution, and also the process of production. The role of the government is vital if a country wants to participate successfully in this new economy.
The global economic process is highly competitive. If we do not have technological capacity, we fail to stand in the competitive globe outside. Technology is complemented by science, management and production, writes Castells. The other picture of competition is to enter into large markets. If we cannot locate such markets, we fail again in the competition.
Nepali economy guided by the political institutions is both orthodox Marxist and nationalist in a regressive sense. I sometimes think, says Jahnavi-appa, such a viewpoint is the outcome of observing globalization as Western imperialism only. Such a comprehension of globalization is not a make-believe economic world-view. Globalization can be rationalized as coco-colonization, a kind of neo-colonialism, but the economic progress is not this simply unilateral gushing all the way from the West and engulfing everything which is non-Western. The economic progress of BRIC or BRICI countries challenges the conventional idea of world economy while becoming actors of global economy.
What is this fear then? It is the fear of univocal thinking, regressively nationalistic emotionalism, economic parochialism, and on top of everything, lack of critical education. This is the fear translated into all such opinionated orthodoxy.
Global economy is what one may understand by late twentieth century forms of globalization. This is akin to what Nandan Nilekani, the CEO of Infosys in Bangalore, meant when he told Thomas Friedman, the writer of The World is Flat, “Tom, the playing field is being leveled.” Hence, Friedman conceived the title of the book.
The acute apprehension is unfortunate not because many Nepalis fear such modes of globalization, but the fear is turning into hatred for modern modes of global development by political parochialism. The leaders have been inflicting such unfounded phobia into the common mass. This is how the Panchayat regime worked in the past by melodramatic nationalism, and the pattern has not disappeared.
Finally, one must take into consideration my selective use of the terms like orthodox Marxism and orthodox nationalism. I am not talking about all forms of Marxisms and nationalisms. However, I do not mind using the term fear to critique Nepali economic approaches in general.
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