Edited by Mahendra Lawoti, Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at Western Michigan University (USA), the book presents the recent and not-so-recent political happenings. It then proceeds to unpack the perplexing nature of such happenings in light of Nepal’s ongoing democratization process.[break]
Published in 2007, the book is as every bit relevant today as it was when it hit the streets after the April Uprising. A collection of articles, it is penned by thirteen Nepali and foreign scholars, journalists and intellectuals. The book is organized into neat parts that each contains two to four articles; the five parts are titled Context and Framework, The Maoist Insurgency, Identity Politics, Collective Public Protest, and Contentious Politics and Democratization. In this brief review, one article from each part will be drawn in to give the reader a taste of its contents.
Lawoti begins in part one by eloquently posing questions few Nepalis could have possibly avoided. Can the fundamental democratic rights to dissent, mobilize and protest work against new democracies? Did the Maoist insurgency increase people’s power or undermine it? Did the identity and women’s movement expand the democratic polity toward the traditionally marginalized groups, or did they overwhelm the fledgling democracy?
Working off of David McAdam’s definition of contentious politics, Lawoti loosely translates it to mean “a collective political struggle.” And what a struggle the past two decades have been – from Jan Andolan one, two and (what perhaps will be intentionally ruled out as andolan number three. However, in the struggle itself, democratization is at play, for if democratization is an attempt to extend political rights and civil liberties to all, then such andolans most definitely expand the polity.
Part two includes an assessment by Li Onesto, the first international photojournalist that the Maoist party provided exceptional access to in 1999. In The Evolution of the Maoist Revolution in Nepal in an Adverse International Environment, she describes the very humble beginnings of the Maoist movement to their Mao Zedong-inspired strategy and guerilla warfare. Onesto sheds light on the role of the then international context; the Maoists having denounced the Chinese government as “socialist in name, capitalist in fact” and having been disowned by China in return, of India trucking in military hardware and helicopters to being placed in an official US terrorist list.
Onesto wrote (months before the Prachanda government was ushered in) that “a new Maoist government would immediately face the problems of being surrounded by unfriendly governments.” The brief Prachanda government saw none of the sanctions, interventions and military invasion envisioned by Onesto, but is still today “fac[ing] difficulty in being surrounded by unfriendly governments.”
Part three takes account of post-doctoral fellow at the University of Leiden (the Netherlands), Bal Gopal Shrestha’s Ethnic Nationalism in Nepal and the Newars. In providing a thorough account of Newar nationalism, national forum, organization and challenges to the Newari nationalism, Shrestha touches upon elements of ethnicity and nationalism. His article refers to a 2005 study conducted by Bishnu Pathak that predicted the ethnic insurgency Nepalis find rampant today, which had claimed that if the People’s War deviated from the main political ideology and failed to ensure the promised social justice, ethnic insurgency as is evident today would come to the foreground.
From the desire to challenge the narrow notions of a Nepali that demanded composure by the non-caste hill Hindu elite, there emerged the Madheshi Andolan. But before the Madheshis were recognized and their demands assessed, the Tharus claimed they too did not want to be shadowed by the Madheshi cloak. Ethnicity-based identity has ushered in ethnic politics and challenges, all of which masks ‘national unity.’ Hardly surprising, for if a New Nepal is to be carved from the same old wood, the New Nepalis at the very least, should be able to choose their own form, assert their identity; thereby expanding the notion of a Nepali.
In part four, Genevieve Lakier, having conducted her dissertation research in Kathmandu on democratic political protests, writes Illiberal Democracy and the Problem of Law. In this, she speaks of how the newfound freedom of the early 1990s to protest gave the otherwise disadvantaged groups a tool to reach for political and social rights. Citing the case of Kamaiyas who were able to accomplish in a few days what the movement hadn’t been able to for much longer, Lakier surmises from the Kamaiya struggle that “sometimes, illiberal and coercive methods of protest proved necessary to achieve classically liberal ends.”
Breaking the law to enforce the law is pure irony, but so is democratization in contentious politics. Lakier’s development of the term “illiberal rights” is complimented in the following chapter by Amanda Snellinger. In Student Movements in Nepal, Snellinger writes, “[the] state must be institutionalized enough for the citizens to have expectations of it; otherwise the relationship between the state and citizens would have a different code of conduct.” And what a code of conduct it is – in the infamous bandas of today, police, as agents of the state, facilitate the protests as they redirect traffic and pedestrians.
Finally, Lawoti returns in part five to conclude with chapters like Democratization Promoting and Democratization Hindering Contentious Politics: Lessons from Nepal. Just as the title suggests, the article struggles to comprehend whether democratization has helped or harmed democratization in Nepal. Lawoti walks the reader through how democratization can promote contentious politics, which can hinder democratization. A slippery walk, for if Robert Dahl’s claim that democratization takes place when more people participate in polity is in fact true, then so is increased participation.
If that is the case, Jan Andolan III must count, especially when Jan Andolan I and II already do. However, the irony lingers – andolans promote democratization in (contentious) politics and simultaneously hinders democratization through the “use of coercion …violence, or threat.” Lawoti suggests that Maoists don’t conceptualize democracy in a fitting manner, but even in contentious politics, people determine “undesirable elements” and shape the center as they see fit. A commendable collection of articled, Contentious Politics and Democratization in Nepal provides the tools necessary to comprehend the events surrounding the Panchayat era, People’s War and right up till the events of last week.
Thirteen articles and 335 pages later, the words and explanation are not only refreshing but they assist in articulating and contemplating the meaning of what is happening, even today. The book won’t answer all the questions, but it will provide readers with a sound start to gauging the bumpy road mapped for Nepal’s democratization in its inevitable contentious politics.
(Sradda Thapa is a student at Nepa School of Social Sciences in Kathmandu.)
Related story
Media for Deep Democratization
