In one of those quirky polls that Gallup conducts to keep public attention, pollsters found that Singaporeans were the least emotional people in the world. Nepal was one among the group of third least emotional countries.
That partly explains the fascination Nepalis have for Singapore Dreams despite all other dissimilarities between the island city-state along one of the busiest shipping routes and the landlocked nation enclosed by two of the biggest countries in the world. [break]
Gratitude is an emotional response. So are feelings of fear, hope, love, hate, attachment, aversion, fraternity, solidarity, and loyalty. Shorn of a heart that beats for the other and ties that bind together, a person becomes self-centered to the point of being self-destructive. That could be the reason the Gallup survey also found that the least emotional countries in the world were also the greatest consumers of cigarettes and alcohol.
In charmed circles of Kathmandu, fewer people drink and smoke now than they did before. In the working class, the story is completely different: Almost everybody drinks and smokes. The middleclass attempts to strike a balance between social drinking and personal abstinence. The duality is reflected in their behavior.
In private conversations, more or less everyone irrespective of their political affiliations admit that Biratnagar owes part of its prominence to the Koiralas. Nobody is willing to admit it in public. The town has functioned as a second capital of the country since 1950s. In the period between 1950-1960, it produced two prime ministers from the same family. During the Panchayat rule (1960-1990) of enforced stability, the Koirala Niwas remained the bellwether of democratic struggles. After the changes of 1990s, major political decisions of GP Koirala were made public from his ancestral home.
Biratnagar Airport has not yet been named after the most towering figure of Nepali politics. Perhaps that is just as well. Had he been alive and touching 100 this week, BP Koirala would have been horrified by the spread of the Messiah complex. Multiple redeemers claim that only they have all answers for the problems of society, polity and economy. In the certainties of a savior, there is little space for deviation from the received wisdom.
A democrat to the core, BP prioritized his country over the party, the party over his family, and his critics over loyalists and habitually corrected his course without compromising fundamental beliefs. He begun as a freedom fighter in India, learnt Marxism, became an armed revolutionary in Nepal, grew up to be a towering socialist, embraced Gandhian principles, and died a disillusioned humanist without deviating an inch from having complete faith in the collective judgment of common Nepalis. He could articulate his perplexities and passion with equal fervor without sounding confused or dogmatic. Such people seldom succeed in founding political dynasties.
Koirala clan
There seems to be a widespread belief even in Biratnagar that GP became what he did only because of his elder brother. That probably is a gross injustice to the memory of a person that helped steer the country from tribalism of Panchayat-era to the tolerance of democracy, oversaw the transformation of Marxist-Leninist radicals into smooth operators of parliamentary practices, ushered Maoist insurgents into mainstream politics, calmed agitated nerves of Madheshbadis and then convinced the reigning monarch to vacate the palace and accept the reality of Nepal becoming a secular and democratic republic.
Like all ‘successful’ people in public life, GP had his legions of detractors, but few could manage to make their allegations stick. All his spectacular failures—crony capitalism, petty corruption and the curse of consumerism—were on political economy front where he had no way of escaping the LPG (liberalization, privatization and globalization) tsunami that had wiped out social justice from government agenda in poor countries of the post-1990 world. The successes, however, were mostly his own.
Unlike value-based politics of BP, GP pursued goal-driven agenda and saw fruits of most of his effort in his own lifetime. Value-based politics is for posterity. Pragmatic goals produce instant results. BP was temperamentally unsuited to establish dynastic succession in politics. GP could have done it. He probably found that the roll of succession was too complex to institutionalize the dynasty and chose to become a manager of family politics.
Sujata’s claims of being her father’s political heir have not been substantiated by ground realities in Morang. Other members of the family—Shekhar and Shashank in particular—have been trained as professionals and can’t simply connect with the masses in the way BP or GP could. Amod doesn’t belong to the patriarchal Koirala lineage, but he has the advantage of having been the point man of family interests in Biratnagar. He knows interrelationships between influential players of business and politics in minute detail and can marshal support at the flick of his fingers. However, the problem with all these claimants of Koirala legacy is that none of them is immersed in mass politics.
Many believe that Sushil has little qualification of being the president of the default democratic party of the country other than his surname. That is an extremely uncharitable view. Few question his credentials. His commitment to whatever principles of NC now remain intact is beyond reproach. He is not a good organizer, can’t inspire supporters and fails to communicate his views in clear terms, but many find his unbending and uncompromising attitude appealing. That has been his success and failure. The anti-Maoist lobby feels that they can rally around him and keep him propped up until the time comes to drop him for a better deal. Such risks couldn’t be taken with ‘authentic’ Koiralas who have their own connections in the corridors of power in Kathmandu, New Delhi, Beijing and Washington. Unfortunately, Sushil doesn’t want to be GP but doesn’t have it in him to aspire to be BP. The surname for him has become a liability. He is part of the reason the magic of Koirala family name doesn’t work anymore.
Family politics
Family and dynastic politics are often used interchangeably. Similarities are obvious, but differences are no less distinctive. Family politics is merely a management of patronage network and negotiation of electoral deals in lieu of political protection. Loyalty is bought. Benefaction is sold. Politics is merely the currency of transaction.
Dynastic politics runs on faith. Loyalty is offered without expecting return. Favors are dispensed without being asked. Cause of the downtrodden is championed on principle. Discomforting the comfortable is necessary in order to placate plebeians, but moderation has to be maintained so as not to annoy the ruling class.
Dynastic politics is not a business arrangement. People that stayed with BP even though better terms could have been obtained from billionaire political entrepreneur Subarna Shamsher, or the cunning king fishing for deserters from NC ranks did not do so in expectation of immediate returns. The NC was a sinking ship until the late-1980s. A person of Ganeshman Singh’s stature stayed with BP because Koiralas had a vision, howsoever hazy. Becoming the premier of a reformed order was perceived not as the goal but merely a stepping-stone to a higher purpose. A politico pursuing a political office creates jealousy instead of inspiring loyalty.
Unlike the dynastic politics of Bhuttos and Nehru-Gandhis in South Asia, Nepal has failed to produce a ‘republican-monarchy’ surname. Unemotional people love rational politics and establish relationships based on cold calculations. A future Koirala can hope to be a Lee or a Kim only if she can somehow manage to capture the state and run family politics based on reward and punishment. Dynastic politics has little future in an unemotional society.
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