BS 2069 should have been a year of elections and hope. Instead the period ends this week on a note of exasperation bordering on despair. Had the Constituent Assembly (CA) succeeded in framing the statute, Nepal would have had legitimately formed executive and legislature in place by now. Alternatively, if the CA had dissolved itself only after ensuring the procedure of forming its successor institution, a newly elected legislature would have been debating ways of consolidating gains of the most inclusive elected body in the history of the country. Alas, that was not to happen.
After nearly a year of pointless haggling, honchos of national parties have committed political hara-kiri. An extra-constitutional government sans popular mandate has been formed, ostensibly to conduct free, fair and impartial elections within the stipulated date. Meanwhile, the treasury is saddled with the obligation of paying rents for the empty Chinese-built Birendra International Convention Center (BICC)—ambitiously renamed the Constituent Assembly Building (CAB)—in the hope that representatives of the people would once again begin to crowd its desolate premises.[break]
Incidentally, it was at the very same building—still known as the BICC—that the then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and Maoist Supremo Prachanda had signed the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in a poorly organized but anxiously watched ceremony on November 21, 2006. Apart from declaring an end of the armed conflict and pledging to hold CA elections, the CPA has a long list of commitment that includes everything from scientific land reforms to democratization of the Nepali Army. However, the laundry list actually begins with two pledges that encapsulate almost every provision of the historic document.
Republica
In clause 3.4 of the CPA, signatories undertake to “Promulgate the political system that fully comprehends with the concepts of universally adopted principles of fundamental human rights, multiparty competitive democratic system, sovereign rights inherent in the people and supremacy of the citizens, constitutional balance and control, rule of law, social justice and equality, independent judiciary, periodic elections, monitoring by the civil society, complete press freedom, right to information of the citizens, transparency and accountability of the activities of the political parties, people’s participation, fair, able and uncorrupted administrative mechanism.” If that inventory sounds exhaustive, the next provision promises some more.
According to clause 3.5, parties to the CPA are committed to “End the existing centralized and unitary state system and restructure it into an inclusive, democratic progressive system to address various problems including that of women, Dalits, indigenous community, Madhesis, oppressed, ignored and minority communities, backward regions by ending prevailing class, ethnic, linguistic, gender, cultural, religious and regional discrimination.” Short of delivering mythical Ram Rajya—the heaven on earth—the CPA includes everything including an oblique reference to federalism by pledging to ““End the existing centralized and unitary state system...”
Intention alone is not a guarantee of success. People in the street know that even more than their leaders do. Had sincere attempts been made to formulate a constitution that lived up to the promises of CPA, it was likely that the voters themselves would have foiled every attempt of the entrenched PEON interests to sabotage the CA process. Unfortunately, political leaders in general and Pushpa Kamal Dahal in particular failed spectacularly in inspiring and galvanizing the masses.
Disillusioned Janjatis
Underwhelmed by the indirect reference to federalism in the CPA and its deliberate omission from the Interim Commission, Madheshis hit the streets and made the state accommodate their aspirations, though in an insincere and hesitant manner. Women had already received assurances that made the dissolved CA one of the most inclusive legislatures in the world. The miniscule Dalit intelligentsia has not yet managed to articulate its concerns. It would take a while before voices of the most oppressed group of the Hindu society begin to be heard. However, the failure of Janjatis in influencing proceedings of the CA was perhaps most dispiriting.
Janjatis have everything—an articulate intelligentsia, a pantheon of established leaders, a phalanx of promising organizers, and battalions of committed cadres—and yet they failed to take the agenda of federalism and inclusion to its logical conclusion. Either Maoist Supremo Dahal was not sincere about promises he had made to Janjati groups or he realized rather late that his interests would be better served by aligning with entrenched interests of Nepali society and polity. He is hardly the first and probably not the last to use the energy of Janjatis to advance his political agenda and then discard them once their utility was over.
The main support base of Nepali Congress (NC) has always been the Madheshis. Up until the first elections after the restoration of multiparty system in the 1990, NC was derisively referred as the Dhoti Party in the purist circles of Mandale-Male-Mashale (Monarchists, Marxists and Maoists respectively) ‘nationalists’. Along with Madheshis, the NC counted upon Limbus and Gurungs to propagate its politics in the hinterland.
The Marxist-Leninist, the Maoists of the 1970s that would later become the UML, too had its favorites. Primarily a party of Pahadi priestly caste, it had managed to lure considerable number of Rais and Newars into its fold. Despite Ganeshman Singh—the legendary leader of at least three generation of Nepalis—the Kathmandu valley remained a stronghold of UML politicos for a long time.
Parties of former Panchas too had their favorite Janjati groups. Their mainstay was ordinary Tamangs and the upper crust of relatively Hinduised Limbus and Gurungs. Maoists picked up whatever was left and radicalized somewhat disinterested Magars and Tharus. Dahal has shown himself to be no different from other caste-Hindu politicos that habitually renegade on their promises made to Janjati groups.
Janjatis are disappointed but not angry. That could be the reason aggregation of Janjati politics is yet to begin and leadership has not yet crystallized. That leaves the discredited Big Three leaders—all of them over fifty years of age, nursing one or the other disease, male, and Bahuns by birth—almost unchallenged at the helms of their parties. Unfortunately, their vocabulary is inadequate even to articulate common concerns of contemporary politics—identity, dignity, self-rule, shared rule, and an eagerness to break out of class-based ideologies—let alone accommodate aspirations of self-esteem.
Delusional apparatchiks
The problem with the Dash Maoists of Mohan Baidya and ‘nationalist’ Madheshi Janadhikar Forum of Upendra Yadav is that they have neither fresh political ideologies to offer nor new ways of doing old-style patronage politics. Their political acculturation has taken place through Marxism, Leninism and Maoism. These are ideologies that have little or no place for individualism—the marker of the cellphone society—and do not recognize communitarian impulses that have saved Janjatis from being completely assimilated into aggressive Brahmanic culture of the Gorkhali Empire.
Mocking Hegel, Karl Marx said that history repeats itself first time as tragedy and second time as farce. Perhaps the third repetition occurs as an absurdity: The human tendency to search for meaning in life and the very humane inability to find any despite continual efforts. Dahal failed to comprehend the significance of CPA provisions because they run counter to everything that has been taught to him in the process of Maoist schooling. Mohan Baidya and CP Gajurel are no different.
Janjati leaders with the prudence of NC, chutzpah of UML, audacity of Maoists and the tenacity of Madheshis can pull the country out of the present morass. In making that New Year wish, it would be appropriate to remember the retort of Bertolt Brecht’s Galileo: Pity the nation that needs heroes.
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