You may be surprised to receive this letter from me. It was only yesterday that you asked me to write an article on a current economic issue, which I politely declined, giving you objective reasons which you did not question. In fact, economy is not an issue in our country, though it cannot remain so forever. I hope economic problems will soon emerge as a priority issue for the government, for the political parties and for families whose bread winners have left for Qatar, Malaysia or Saudi Arabia to support their folks back home (I was recently told that almost 60 percent of household in Nepal is now managed by women as the male members have left for foreign shores).
The situation is undoubtedly pathetic. It is an absurd world but of course a familiar one: the government is in the process of finalizing new plans and new destinations for labor exports, including women. In Nepal, the government exists to rule, not to serve the voters as the recent political developments also clearly indicate.
It is imperative to have a system of accountability and legitimacy in the country. In its absence, even for a moment, any new thought, however useful, may just be a potent weapon to divide the nation in two opposite camps as we are observing right now. In one camp, we have those political leaders who argue that they were victorious in the last election and have therefore received the public mandate to rule without fear. The other camp gives another convincing argument: the winner must follow the principle of checks and balances. “Yes! Everything is permitted”, they argue, “but that does not mean nothing is forbidden”.
You now know why I declined to write an article. The leaders will hardly listen. But we cannot leave them in the current state.
True, as explained by Paul Collier of Oxford University, if there are no limits to the power of the winner, the election becomes a question of life and death, and eventually the contestants will be driven to the extremes. This is what we are observing in the country and the result is not democracy but democrazy. What wrongs did we commit in the past that have made it difficult to see Nepal’s speedy industrialization! In fact the contribution of manufacturing sector in the country’s national income is expected to decline further in the current year.
What was our expectation and what actually is the reality? We thought that the election, which was held very peacefully would solve all our problems. Now, I guess, it was a folly on our part to expect one election to solve all problems. The economic issues have been overlooked– the government was in the process of producing an interim development plan for the meeting of the National Development Forum but that has now been canceled – by all the powerful political personalities without any credible reason. Instead, the leaders have employed, with pleasure and pride, all the power for their own benefit.
The economic growth rate in the current year is not expected to exceed the natural annual growth rate of 3 percent but the rate of inflation, defined as continuous rise in price or fall in the value of money, has been officially estimated to be more than 10 percent. Call it stagflation using economic terminology or by giving any other name; it will not make any difference. And that too is human freedom. People are living without hope. Is it possible to live without hope? True, the people and the government, in particular, are scared to know about decreasing investments in Malaysia or Qatar, further affecting employment opportunities. Poverty has sustained the nation and the policymakers are proud that the export of labor is still increasing, which will support our balance of payments, financial institutions and more importantly guns, votes, political violence and democrazy.
In the current year, we must admit that the income in monetary terms is higher than total product of goods and services, usually referred as gross domestic product (GDP), due to an obvious reason i.e. receipts from remittances. This receipt amounts to almost 25 percent of the national income. When income in monetary terms is high relative to national output, it means import from the other country has increased. The government is quiet because it has helped to increase government revenue and Nepal Rastra Bank is happy as it is the reason for the increase in country’s foreign reserve.
It is poverty that has sustained the nation and it may act more forcefully in “New Nepal” if the current structure of the country does not change. Unfortunately, once the election was over, a dichotomy has emerged between the leaders and the voters. The leaders act on the implicit assumption that they have the mandate until the next election. But we did not vote for dictatorship!
Dear editor, we are now living in Kafka’s world. If I am permitted to use his terminology in our context, for the Nepali people the world is divided into three parts: One, in which we, that I prefer to call the Silent Majority, live under laws that have been invented only for us but do not know why; the second part is infinitely removed from us in which our leaders and their friends live, just concerned with issuing orders and subsequent annoyance if they are not obeyed; finally, there is another part outside the country where everybody lives happily, free from orders and compulsion to obey.
Dear editor, you now know why I declined to write the article. The leaders will hardly listen. But we cannot leave them in the current state. It is time to change and change we must!
Warm regards
Raghab D Pant
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