One way political party communicates with the general mass is through symbols. It uses symbols to reaffirm its existence and display its strength, from which it derives the ability to portray itself as a legitimate party. Popular leaders and accomplishments—which could be political, economic or socio-cultural contributions of national interest—are two such symbols.
BP Koirala, Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Ganesh Man Singh of NC, Manmohan Adhikari and Madan Bhandari of CPN-UML were leaders whose appeal spread across parties and people of different political beliefs. They significantly contributed to the founding of their parties and to different democratic movements. The movements against autocratic regimes in 1940s/50s, 1990 and 2006 were outcomes of popular sentiments to gain supremacy of the people in polity. These leaders and the movements embody a huge symbolic value in Nepal’s politics.
The symbols that the NC and UML rely on continue to be strongly restricted to the aforementioned personas and movements. For the Maoist parties—the new power in Nepal’s multiparty politics—the rhetoric of “People’s War” and of being “agent of change” and the “party of the masses” are dominantly used symbols. In all likelihood, the rhetoric will continue to be used to identify and portray the party for years to come.
The tendency to strongly rely on old symbols is reflective of the parties’ failure to provide strong leadership and deliver socio-cultural, political and economic advancements in the contemporary political landscape. In other words, this reflects a weak polity. The fragile political environment and increased public insecurity that become prominent in such a polity provide ideal platforms for undemocratic forms of governance. Therefore, the symbols and the factors that propel or hinder their creation become issues of public interest.
In this light, some questions need scrutiny. Why haven’t we had any other leader whose political contributions, in spite of their active involvement in politics for decades, do not measure up to what the above leaders achieved? Why do the symbols used by Nepal’s major political parties largely remain the same?
In a democracy, the state of polity and political parties’ ability to create symbols are strongly dependent on three factors pertaining to political culture and party system—using democracy as ‘means’ to advance socio-cultural, economic, political achievements; culture of self-appraisal; and opportunities for new leadership.
These interrelated factors reinforce each other and often, one follows the other, creating a cycle. Hence, when democracy is viewed as a means to achieve a just and equal society, it can positively instigate parties to focus on their performance. This promotes a culture of self-appraisal and provides avenues where strong leadership can emerge. A strong leadership always makes democratic space a means to achieve people’s expectations. The opposite trend is visible in Nepal.
Multiparty political space that came with democracy has served as an end in itself for the very forces who led the democratic movements. Power-politics has become so entrenched that party and individual politicians’ interests superseded national interests and many potential leadership perished under the ambitions of a few in the echelons of power. Corruption, patronage and criminalization of politics became deeply entrenched as they became means to ensure one’s strength among different competing rivals.
When power-politics gave way to autocracy again, absence of self-appraisal culture meant that some pertinent questions were not asked by the concerned political parties. For instance, while holding the seat of government for most of the democratic period, how did the NC and UML work towards realizing the popular aspiration that instigated the fight against autocratic regimes? What was these parties’ role in the downfall of democracy in 1960 and 2002?
Questions pertaining to political parties’ ideology and performance have fallen within the blind spots of the parties. How do the lives of Maoist leadership reflect the spirit they say the “People’s War” carried and their claim of being “the party of the masses”? How do the actions and decisions of different political parties reflect their respective ideologies?
In other words, political actors have failed to evaluate their performance, ideology and inter- and intra-party issues vis-à-vis their alignment with people’s expectations. One consequence is that a discord is evident between the ideologies professed by the ‘democrats’ in Congress and the ‘communists’ in UML and their actions. Many leaders, who before 1990 showed signs of turning into strong leaders, instead transformed into incompetent, unaccountable politicians when they came to power post-1990 and 2006.
It is this breed of incompetent, unaccountable leaders who continue to hold the echelons of power in the party and the government. They view their position as legitimate given the ‘sacrifice’ they made during the pre-1990 era, and are adamant about not giving up their hold on the parties to the ‘new’. So the ‘new’ voice, often the younger, aspiring and dynamic cadres of the parties, continues to be suppressed for the sake of the ‘old’.
But politics can only carter to the needs of the changing times when political parties give space to ‘new’ voice in decision-making. Every political party in Nepal has a group of young leaders whose thoughts and approach to pertinent socio-political or economic issues orient towards a more constructive and positive outcome as compared to hoary ideas of the ‘old’. Hence, the culture of ‘old’ embracing a caretaking role by delegating party roles to the ‘new’ becomes intrinsic. But the new and young have been systematically sidelined. Ultimately, given a deeply-rooted patronage system in which the party system functions in Nepal, they risk being ‘institutionalized’ in the ways of the ‘old’.
Inevitability of new symbols
Perhaps, nothing more than the cumulative degradation of the political parties explains the failure of the contemporary polity to handle challenging political transition following Jana Andolan 2. Politics is marred by a deficit of trust among political actors and of leadership capable of bridging mistrusts. So, political deadlocks have become a norm.
In such a political scenario, political parties and leadership must assess their roles and make desirable changes in the aforementioned traits of political culture and party system. This is essential for the very existence of political parties. Because, as they operate in dynamic socio-cultural, economic and political contexts, political parties have to create new symbols they can identify with to strengthen their position in the fight for political power. Strong reliance on old symbols, on the other hand, reinforces the inability to create new ones, that is, weakens their ability to deliver and produce strong leaders. Subsequently, a time may come when the rift between the old symbols and parties claiming those symbols becomes unbridgeable. Don’t we already have NC and UML having to defend their socialist and communist ideology respectively? Old symbols are relevant only if they are used as foundations upon which new ones are created.
The author is a research officer with the Asian Study Center for Peace and Conflict Transformation (ASPECT)
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