Please explain

ELECTORAL RHETORIC

In 2011, Suraj Thapa, then aged 12, crossed Trishuli River using a tuin (basically a rope). He did it along with other villagers to carry over some fruits in the local market across the river. Unfortunately, the rope broke and threw all of the villagers in the roaring currents of Trishuli. Five people were never found. Suraj fortunately survived. This short, real anecdote is indicative of what needs to be done in the country.

For children like Suraj, perhaps a bridge would represent a revolution. Perhaps that would literally save his life, and be a step towards prosperity. The important role of a bridge in Suraj’s life cannot be overemphasized.

There are thousands of Surajs in Nepal, some literally needing a bridge, while others crave for the metaphorical bridges to a bright future: schools, toilets, and healthy and adequate food. If lives of these poor people who comprise 40 percent of Nepali population according to UN can be improved, it will not be short of a revolution.

If one has to choose between the above revolution and a supposed revolution where the whole debate is about who becomes the chief of an anti-graft body or the president with executive power, I would choose the former. Democracy and the processes it entails are very important and the only way to bring about a real change in present day Nepal. However, the current debates are not about building bridges or schools. Those are left to a few INGOs and NGOs.

Now that elections might actually take place, my worst fear is that the political debate will again be abstract and not address the on-the-ground concerns of people. The abstract ideas can only be lively if they are debated in line with the daily concerns of the people. Then they cease to be abstract, they become something which you and I can touch and feel. Now an abstract idea such as forming federal states is mostly decided on the basis of political ideology. The dominant rhetoric goes this way: Maoists and Madheshi parties are the most “revolutionary” and so they endorse one ethnicity’s “leadership” per state. At the other end of the spectrum, current and former royalists want a “unified” Nepal as against the “divisive” model proposed by Maoists and Madheshis. Occupying the middle ground, Congress and UML endorse states based on socio-economic “realities”.

The debates that really matter are entirely missing or limited to latte-sipping intellectuals.

My major concern is that the parties will again repeat the same rhetoric in the debates leading up to elections, without specifying what vague concepts—“revolutionary,” “single-identity province,” “unified” or “divided” Nepal and “states based on socio-economic realities”—actually mean to the common people. What is the Maoist revolution? What are Madhesi parties’ ultimate goals? Why do royalists see federal states as “divisive”? What might be their interest in saying that? What is the middle ground all about? Why has the Congress not uttered anything about democratic socialism? Are they afraid of the tag “socialism”? Why does UML still call itself Leninist when it has abandoned Leninism for all intents and purposes? And finally, how do the answers to above questions connect with millions of Suraj?

If left to their own devices, the parties might again get away, never having to link up their vague rhetoric with harsh realities that people like Suraj are living with.

The debates that really matter are missing. The little conversation that has taken place has been limited among the latte-sipping intellectuals who cannot speak people’s language. Unlike the usual hostile reaction to politicians, I like their ability to speak in the clearest possible language. I urge them to use this ability to explain their vague rhetoric, political jargons and link them to the daily lives of common Nepalis. Please create a national debate on the things that really matter. Enough of the headlines for politicians sneaking into embassies of Lamzimpat.

The author is President, Middlesex University Students’ Union, London