Reflecting on Nepali modernity

The BBC Nepali Service aired a discussion last week on whether it was ethical to make public the now-famous Namrata Shrestha video. While moderating the discussion, the BBC journalist constructed a comfortable dichotomy between the Western and Nepali society to argue that if it were in the West, people could have moved on with their lives despite such an episode but, on the contrary, it may be hard for a Nepali living in our society.



Allow me to drift to a different subject for a while. The Nepali politicians continue to be garlanded by their cadres when they visit a district. Apparently, there is nothing wrong in being welcomed with garlands. However, the size of the garlands around their neck clearly makes a mockery of the ‘modern mind’ that the leaders are supposed to have. It gives a clear message that our leaders still carry the feudal psyche.



The Shrestha video and the grand garlands that our leaders love to wear can be used as metaphors to read Nepali modernity but I will come back to that later. Meanwhile, let me recall what happened a few years back when this scribe used the term Third World (read “not modern”) to denote Nepal during a conversation with some university people. I happened to say something like ‘we people living in the Third World’ when the rude awakening came to me as one of my seniors said: Let the West call us the Third World but how can you refer to yourself as the Third World? He was right. The term may have its roots in Jawaharlal Nehru and the Bangdung Conference but the positioning is inherently problematic. It becomes more of a problem when we unconsciously accept ourselves as the inferior “other” as constructed by the West.



So, how should we look at Nepali modernity? In relation to what—the West again? Where does the Nepali “modern” mind stand? Let us get back to the Namrata video now. Why can a person from a Western society move on with life after such an incident while a Nepali cannot? This probably has a lot to do with the hypocrisies with which the Nepali educated society lives. Ours is a society that enjoys watching that video on You Tube while immediately taking a high moral position to denounce the act. There are still a huge number of educated young people in Kathmandu – especially Brahmins and Chhetris – for whom women are still “untouchable” during menstruation. What is the “modern” rationale behind the practice? These are small things but they signify a lot and demonstrate where the society is in terms of modernity.



Meanwhile, coming to the disproportionate garlands, I have a few problems with the practice. In the first place, it looks pre-modern, un-smart, lousy, filthy and feudal. That the leaders enjoy such an act, for me, is a reflection of the political mindset that is not “modernized.” One of the conditions of modernity/rationality is that we establish reasoning behind every such act. Apparently, there seems to be no such thing here.



Meanwhile, how modern is the politics of Nepal? While every society progresses forward towards modernity, it adopts a political system that is in tune with the times. In recent times, we have witnessed a debate between who is “forward moving” (agragami) and who is status quo-ist or regressive (pratigami). While agragami apparently is closer to being modern, pratigami roughly means pre-modern. But there is an irony here. The Maoists consider themselves agragami but in politics, the shift towards democracy is considered a move towards modernization.



If democracy is a slow and an evolutionary process, other systems fare worse. The 103 years of rule by the Rana oligarchy slowed the process until 1950. Then, we had the 30-year autocratic Panchayat rule (1960-90), which was more crucial in terms of slowing down the process of modernity. This was the beginning of the post-colonial era and many nations around the world took the opportunity to “modernize” and for nation-building. This phase also marks the civil rights and feminist movement in the Western world. However, when the world was transforming, Nepal had to spend those precious 30 years under autocracy. This strongly indicates that democracy sets the background for a modernization of the society.



The state restructuring process which Nepal has entered now, albeit late, is a positive beginning. The rise of the ethnic identity groups and the movements may sound chaotic on the surface but this was bound to happen at some point before the country would firmly stabilize. Leaving the downside and bright side apart, the progression of the Nepali society in recent times offers an interesting reading from the point of view of modernity as rationality to interpret life and the world.



bishnu.sapkota@gmail.com

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