Stuck in a quagmire

Baburam Bhattarai’s promise for a “forward-looking” constitution witnessed a tragic death with the demise of the Constituent Assembly. His promise for good governance is running out of gas with his signature populist “Hello Sarkar” programme turning into a black hole where public grievances are sucked in and vanish. His failure to take action against his Cabinet colleagues: Bhim Prasad Gautam and Mahendra for irregularities reveal his advocacy and conviction towards good governance. And what an absolute farce his promise for social justice has turned out to be! People, whose property were seized by the revolutionaries that he and his progressive colleagues trained to bring about socioeconomic transformation, are still waiting for the transfer of ownership. 

His claims that the bloody insurgency he and his fellow comrades waged was needed to wipe out nepotism and strengthen national sovereignty, too, have been proven false. The recent appointment of Chirak Shova Tuladhar, Bhattarai’s sister-in-law, as the Tribhuvan University’s dean of the Faculty of Science reveals his conviction towards eradicating nepotism and understanding his own ability to withstand external pressure. Given the fact that the Promised Land is nowhere in the sight, perpetual optimists who believed in Bhatarai’s honesty all along may want to ponder whether Bhatarai’s surrender to violence to get where he is now was an act of heroism or a shrewd political move to further his ambition. 

Was Bhattarai bound to fail? Absolutely. His playbook to remain in power is not very different from the one used by ideologues in the former Soviet Union and the one that is being currently used in Cuba and North Korea. Bhattarai believes in expanding the size and scope of the government so that people have a false sense of security. He is least concerned about the poor delivery of services. It may be hard for well-informed citizens to understand why he does not realise the fact that it is virtually impossible to run a welfare state when a big chunk of your budget comes from foreign aid and the bureaucracy responsible for running the welfare state is ill-trained and politically divided.  But here is what he is trying to achieve through his big government—a platform that allows construction of counterfactual propositions and arguments. Had I been given the required time and freedom to pursue all my well-intentioned and thought-out plans, the country would have been free from the shackles of poverty, dependency, and underdevelopment. The country would be in a different league altogether, where bargaining for equal bilateral treaties would be much easier. Can you see the brilliance behind the ballooning of the size and scope of the government? 

While Bhattarai exhibits unmatched political shrewdness, the opposition is utterly incompetent and delusional. The NC and UML leadership have no agenda whatsoever than to shamelessly pursue the struggle for power. The new boss of the NC, Sushil Koirala, has surrounded himself with a herd of Girija Prasad Koirala protégés, who are not only dishonest and corrupt, but also lack the imagination needed to outsmart the establishment that very well understands and manipulates the sensibilities of the general public. Koirala himself does not seem to realise the fact that his own claims and actions are at odds. He claims that the party stands for democracy but denounces the conviction of Khum Bahadur Khadka, who is regarded as one of the most corrupt politicians of the post-1990 era. It is quite understandable that seeing a protégé of your mentor be convicted for corruption is painful, but the kid-glove treatment to corruption and misrule eventually derails democracy. Your claim as a saviour of democracy becomes indefensible the very minute you try defending people convicted by the Supreme Court, whose approval rating is way higher than your party. 

The NC leadership’s incompetence becomes even more glaring, when leaders such as Sher Bahadur Deuba, come out in support for the reinstatement of the expired CA. This shows the lack of understanding of the importance of rule of law in democratic consolidation, which Deuba claims to have worked for all his adult life. Dishonesty runs even deeper. Leaders shamelessly flip-flop on their position and records. Recently, a former finance minister in Girija Prasak Koirala’s government after the Jana Andolan of 2006 that oversaw the transfer of funds accused the Maoists of being involved in corruption in the name of more than 6,000 “fake” Maoist combatants. It is not the Maoists, but him, who should be blamed and held accountable for the failure to carry out due diligence and plundering the state coffer. This claim of corruption at this juncture sounds like a well-calculated move to climb the ladder. With the former super stars of the NC already behind bars or on their way to the big house, there’s room for upward mobility. Who says Nepali politicians lack vision? 

Political tribalism, incompetence, and dishonesty run deep within political parties. Some argue that the Supreme Court derailed the constitution-making process by forcing the politicians to adhere to a deadline. But in reality, it was political tribalism at its best that derailed the process, which was supposed to be participatory and transparent. In order to further political ambitions, a handful of leaders acted like tribal chiefs that benefit from a mix of loyalties, earned respect, and well-wielded power. As a result, the democratic deliberation process of constitution-making was turned into something so hostile and filled with anger and rage that the CA members were doing little more than screaming at each other. The country would not have been better off on an endless journey of constitution-making. 

If Nepal is to get back on track and evolve as a modern society, judicial activism alone is not enough. There is another institution, which needs to follow the path taken by the judiciary, and that is the media. Increased media scrutiny of politicians’ actions and the support for rule of law is needed. Consensus is great, but in this day and age, whereby a household cannot be run on consensus indefinitely, it is useless to keep on harping on the idea. At present, representative politics is completely disconnected from people, which has tremendously increased the risk of a legitimacy crisis as well as a crisis of policy implementation. Unless the media takes a greater responsibility and forces politics to connect with people, which is not something that bosses of major political parties are interested in, consolidation of democracy is virtually impossible. As long as the current herd of politicians have the opportunity and power to decide on contentious issues, prospects of having a viable constitution will remain bleak. The media should push for a referendum under the leadership of a neutral figure to settle contentious issues of the new statute. Let people decide what they want.
 

 

BRB, BIPPA & Beyond

Baburam Bhattarai’s ascendency to power has drawn mixed reactions. For foreigners without any stake in Nepal’s internal affairs, his Cinderella run from a battle-hardened radical ideologue to a democratically elected prime minister is a fascinating story. At home, the most cheerful is the middle class that has gotten utterly frustrated with the politicians who have been tirelessly fleecing from state coffers by extending their terms in office.

The bar of expectation on government’s deliveries has sunk so low that even the raids on sweet shops bring cheer. One thing is for sure: Bhattarai’s ascendency to power has brought desperate optimism in the middle class. It is basically a reflection of the fact that people have been through a lot in the last one and half decade, and now look forward to better times. They desperately want to believe that, under Bhattarai’s rule, life will be good—they want it, they need it, and above all, they think they deserve it.

Many seriously believe that he is the one who will dig us out of deep economic and insecurity hole we are in, even though in their hearts and minds, they know that desperate optimism cannot be the answer to our misery. The desperate optimists are pinning their hopes on populist rhetoric rather than reality. If you scrape away Bhattarai’s populist rhetoric, you will find a very different image of the man. First of all, he is one among many who raised arms against the inefficacies of the democratic system, which he himself is now manipulating to the core to remain in power. Remember how he justified the need for the largest cabinet in history by calling it coalition compulsion? And he is yet to confess he was naïve enough to believe and fight for establishing a radical communist state. Or was it a calculated strategy to carve a bigger political role for himself and his fellow comrades because the opportunity costs of doing so was extremely low? Don’t we, as a nation, deserve to know who he really is?

Bhattarai, for sure, is a shrewd politician. No one in the domestic politics knows better than Bhattarai how to sway public opinion. In dirt poor nations basking in the glory of communist ideology like ours, people always love “relief packages”. Instead of coming up with measures that would ensure market competition in the private sector, which would automatically ensure the prices of goods and services, Bhattarai does what his Red Book heroes did and continue to do in Cuba and North Korea—dole-out relief packages without being responsible for balancing the books. Window dressing of the problems of very serious nature can only lead to the crumbling of the state foundation. Does Bhattarai remember how fiscal irresponsibility, among other things, bankrupted the former communist states which then crumbled under their own weight?

Bhattarai knows very well that, in order for him to remain at the top of the ruling class, he will have to earn the trust of Madesis, middle-class Paharis and India. Dalits and ultra poor, whose sensibilities have been aroused to the maximum, are already with the Maoist party. Keeping the former happy is not a big deal. The ethnic entrepreneurs from the Tarai are only too happy to settle for plum ministerial berths instead of asking for large scale infrastructure and industrial investments that would create jobs and eventually uplift the state of downtrodden. Bhattarai has figured out that as long as they have an opportunity to buy gold, ethnic emancipation is going great guns. As far as the middle-class Paharis are concerned, small thing here and there, for example, raiding sweet shops and subsidizing liquid petroleum gas will keep them happy and content.

In a country where politicians are increasingly perceived as scoundrels, window dressing with austerity measures like riding Mustang will continue to be appreciated. Who cares whether there are revenue streams to pay for the so-called progressive programs? It is all about revealing grand intentions rather than showing how these grand intentions will actually be translated into sustainable practical actions and paid for. They are never audited. Listening to people’s plight will make their heart lighter but getting their plight addressed is what people are more interested in. Has anybody, including the media, actually looked into how many of the grievances made through “Hello Sarkar” actually been addressed?If it was not for India’s heavy lifting to get the Tarai-based ethnic parties back together, Bhattarai would not have become the prime minister, at least not now. For India, Bhattarai was the logical choice amongst the Maoists because of his unflinching willingness to tack their line. Plus, by promoting Bhattarai the Indian establishment seriously believes that the internal struggle within the Maoist party will reach a peak and cause a vertical split. For India, the Maoist party is too big and too unpredictable to handle and Bhattarai is their last best bet.

Through BIPPA, Bhattarai has scored brownie points with the biggest force that he needs on his side to remain in power and politically relevant in Nepal. On principle, there is nothing wrong in signing BIPPA. Without investment guarantee, none would like to invest in a country where brainwashed hotheads can randomly shut down operations of any industry. But in reality who are these people that are threat to investments in Nepal? They are none other than people who Bhattarai and the likes got into believing that foreign investment is actually a threat to native investment and indigenous entrepreneurship. It is altogether a different thing that these hotheads have gotten sophisticated in extorting money using ideology as a cover. Instead of tightening the grip on the people he himself once trained, Bhattarai has rather decided to pay to Indian investors from state’s coffer. Can anyone think of a better way of shifting the cost and avoiding intra-party backlash? See the brilliance!

Speak the Truth

The political stalemate continues unabated. While the members of the current coalition continue to stick to the demand of the dissolution of paramilitary structure of the Young Communist League (YCL) and return of the property seized property, the Maoists like in the past are trying their best to get away without fulfilling these demands. Given the level of political dishonesty that the Maoists exhibit, will these demands, that have a far reaching consequences on how we live and pursue our livelihoods, be ever met? Many concerned citizens have these questions crossing their minds.

Let’s get this straight: The paramilitary structure of the Young Communist League (YCL) will not be dissolved and the seized property will never be returned. There are many reasons for this, the prime being: In the Maoists’ collective consciousness, YCL is not a paramilitary force. It is a youth political force like the ones that every other major Nepali political party has. As far as the seized properties are concerned, 90 percent have been already returned. This is what the chief architect of the Maoist Party, Baburam Bhattarai said when grilled by Fauziah Ibrahim of the Al Jazeera television, recently. Is Bhattarai telling the truth? Absolutely not! There is ample evidence to support the fact that YCL is a paramilitary force. As far as the return of the seized properties is concerned, the process is yet to begin. Despite their pledge to return the seized properties, the Maoists continue to seize private properties. Ms. Ibrahim presented the fact that the latest event of confiscation occurred in May of 2010.

Bhattarai’s latest interview raises a serious question on his integrity. Bhattarai, whom many youngsters revere as the most honest politician, may not be what they believe him to be. The time has come for the bewildered youths who see political messiah in Bhattarai to take a close look at things he says and does. There is clear disconnect. It might be dangerous to chase fantasies preached by intellectual guru that believes in radical violent means to social reform and has an audacity to lie with a straight face knowing the fact that he will be watched by millions within and beyond the national boundary.

What should we expect from our politicians? Should we expect moral perfection? Or should we expect them to do the job they were hired to do? Or, the both? Answering these questions might be even considered redundant given the level of dishonesty that Nepali politicians exhibit. Despite consistent outlandish remarks and violent outbursts, Bhattarai is considered as a relatively clean and competent leader. He has been so far successful in not only charming relatively well educated youths but also keeping the Indians that call the shots in Nepal guessing. At the end of the day, he might turn out to be not very different from his current boss Pushpa Kamal Dahal, whom India groomed unsuccessfully to serve its interest.

Indians in their never ending experiment to turn Nepal into a client state are hedging their bet on Bhattarai primarily for two reasons. First, the Maoist party at its current form with Pushpa Kamal Dahal as a supreme leader is impossible to dictate. Hence, it needs to be cut down in size. And the best way to do that is by promoting Bhattarai, which they think will eventually lead to a vertical split in the Maoist party. Indian bureaucrats and intelligence operatives, especially the ones stationed in Kathmandu, seriously believe that making Bhattarai the next prime minister will bring about a split in the Maoist party. Second, Indians at this point have no bankable leader with popular mass support, whom they can rely on, to fulfill Indian interests.

Bhattarai with a straight face lied to Ms. Ibrahim. Why did he do that? He did so for a very simple reason. And, the reason is—he can afford to do so. He very well realizes the fact that he is dealing with a fragmented electorate. People whose property has been seized belong to the upper middle class and beyond, who did not support the Maoist rebellion to begin with. Plus, they are the ones that complain about the YCL’s paramilitary activities. So, why even bother about being correct?

Instead of engaging in a futile exercise of wining the hearts and minds of urban elites and “feudal” in hinterland, he talks about the rights of peasants to till the land. It is important to understand why Bhattarai and others ideologues in UCPN (Maoist) raise the issue of land reform, which they failed to act upon, while heading the government. In a country where approximately half of the population lives below the poverty line and millions are landless, the idea of land reform has tremendous political appeal. Through land reform the Maoist, want to hand out “rights” to politically correct groups (read landless and tenants). At the end of the day, by expanding the entitlements of these groups, they want to garner their undivided support and use them against other citizens that oppose Maoists’ agendas. In doing so, Bhattarai and his fellow ideologues conveniently ignore the fact that the cost of the gifts they bestow on these groups have to be borne by other hardworking citizens.