What next?

The Youth Communist League (YCL) has recently been in the news for the wrong reasons. First, it was ill treatment of the royalists in Birtamod, Jhapa; this was followed by an attempt to disrupt the Madhesi People's Rights Forum (MPRF) protest in Birgunj; physical harassment of hotelier Hari Shrestha; and then came a failed attempt to foil the MPRF's mass meeting in Gaur.

Finally, the one that caused everyone to raise their eyebrows was the carnage in Gaur where the instigation of MPRF's men by the YCL cadres took an ugly turn. Twenty-nine YCL cadres were mercilessly slaughtered in cold blood and many more were injured by MPRF's cadres.

The Maoist arrogance, MPRF's political shortsightedness and inability to keep protests peaceful, and the government's inability to effectively deal with the Maoists and address the grievances of ethnic groups has been slowly pushing the country into the vortex of a full-blown civil war. The April revolution had provided a perfect platform for the re-establishment of peace and democracy. But inability on the part of the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) to effectively handle the situation and manage people's aspirations and the Maoist insincerity towards peace and democracy has left a million dreams lie shattered.

It is time to analyze what went wrong, who are the culprits, and what can and needs to be done to bring the country back onto the track. It is time to ask an indelible question: Why have the so-called leaders failed, over and again? Are we better off now than when the Maoists were in the jungles? Has the government's endless concessions to the Maoists contributed to anything other than increased insecurity, chaos, and blurred future prospects?

The glib idea held by SPA that providing political power will automatically lead to “moderation” of the Maoists is the main culprit behind the present mess. What the political leaders at the helm of the affairs have failed to realize is that political power only begets the desires of the radicals to perpetuate and aggrandize power and does not contribute towards “moderation.” Bringing the radicals to the helms of power has never resulted in moderation. It simply does not work. On the contrary, after coming to power, they get even more “strong headed” and rhetorical.

After coming to power, Hitler did not budge an inch from what he had set down in Mein Kampf , nor did Mussolini disband the Fascists and stop killing his political opponents.

Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini's list of opponents that were to be silenced kept getting larger and bigger after he came to power in 1979. Even after being in power for four decades, the moderation of Fidel Castro never happened; he never toned down. The moderation of Kim Jong Il of North Korea and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela doesn't appear realistic either.

There is a colossal failure of intellect, effort, and imagination on the part of SPA. In order to understand the Maoist totalitarian aspirations, it takes an effort of imagination. It is necessary to put one's self inside the Maoist minds, to see things as they see them, to understand their beliefs, strategy, and actions.

However, it is not an easy task to analyze another's mind when it is so fundamentally different from one's own. It takes effort and the bitter truth is that the SPA leaders never made an effort to understand the Maoist beliefs, strategy, and actions. Had they made an effort to understand the Maoist traits, they would have understood what the Maoists are up to and learnt how to deal with them effectively. They would not have endlessly seceded to the Maoist demands and turned a blind eye to their atrocities.

Out of many mistakes, one of the major mistakes that the SPA government has been making is that it sees the ongoing ethnic movement through the lens of CPN (Maoist). Prime Minister Koirala, whose popularity skyrocketed during and after the April revolution, runs a risk of losing his newfound popularity if he does not desist from watching the ethnic movement through the Maoist prism. The delay in solving the ethnic movement will have far reaching repercussions.

The Gaur carnage should serve as an eye-opener, both to the government and the Maoists. Prachanda and his fellow ideologues might have never imagined that the people, whom they thought to be oppressed, could rise so quickly and counter the Maoist fiefdom by gunning down their fellowmen. It is absolutely understandable; however, the right to pick up guns is not Prachanda's or for that matter, the Maoist rebels' private domain. Nobody should be condoning the violence, but now, it appears that the only way to challenge the Maoist fiefdom is through the use of force, as the government has failed miserably to enforce law and order and provide ample security to its citizens.

The government has failed to take actions against the Maoists that have flouted the law and provide security to its citizens. The perpetrators of Lahan's killing, Nepalganj's riot, and Birtamod's inhuman acts are still at large. The government and the so-called human rights activists prefer to remain silent when the rights of ordinary citizens are infringed by the Maoist rebels. Why are the human rights of the YCL members killed in Rautahat more precious than the innocent Madhesi killed in Lahan, scores of Madhesis intimidated and harassed in Nepalganj, and the royalists subjected to the inhuman treatment at the hands of YCL cadre in Birtamod?

Unlike most human rights activists in Nepal, who are leftist ideologues and value human rights of leftists to be more precious than those in the center and the right, the government should get over the biases and strive towards protecting the rights to the life and liberty of all citizens, irrespective of their political ideology and affiliations.

As far as Gaur's carnage is concerned, before jumping to hasty conclusions, it is necessary to put things in context. What options did the MPRF cadres have at that point in time, when the YCL members showed up to foil their mass meeting? They basically had two options: (a) be humiliated and leave the ground for the YCL members (b) retaliate and teach the YCL members a lesson, so that from next time onwards they would learn to respect others' rights to protest. The royalists' fate in Birtamod, Jhapa has already taught the MPRF and other groups a good lesson on what happens if you appear weak. The only mistake the MPRF members committed in this case was that they went much farther than just teaching the YCL cadres a good lesson. The inhumane killings of the rowdy YCL cadres that occurred in Gaur were certainly a deplorable act and a colossal failure on part of MPRF to keep the protests peaceful.

If the sister organizations of the Maoists such as YCL that are working towards the establishment of a totalitarian regime are not sufficiently opposed, from within and outside the country, they will proceed to do exactly what they believe in. The followers of totalitarian regimes are brainwashed ideologues that see things only in black and white. For them, the grey area does not exist.

According to British Prime Minister Tony Blair, “You cannot teach people to hate and ask them to practice peace.” These ideologues have been taught to hate people that do not share their ideology and it is impossible to discipline them without using some kind of force or through the strict rule of law. As the latter is virtually non-existent in present-day Nepal, other groups might soon run out of options to protect themselves and their rights and be forced to follow the retaliatory path adopted by MPRF, unless the government acts strongly and dares to punish the Maoists for their atrocities. If the law and order situation is not improved and the YCL cadres engaged in infringing on the rights of others are not punished, the Gaur-type carnage may occur frequently.

The perpetrators of not only the Gaur carnage, but also of the Lahan and Birtamod incidents and riots of Nepalganj, should be brought to justice. The SPA government that has a tendency of falling into the Maoist spell should not get charmed this time around and commit the mistake of outlawing MPRF. If MPRF is outlawed, as suggested by Prachanda, it will open the door for a full-fledged civil war and turn Nepal into a killing field. Are we ready for a civil war?

Level the Playing Field

Since the fall of the Rana regime in 1950, few powerful elite have been shaping our collective destiny। If we were to realistically analyze our existence, we are worth more as 'human capital' than as human beings.

Despite the continuous flow of developmental aid for over five decades approximately half of the population still lives below the poverty line। The horizontal inequality that the political elite of the Panchayat era and the post 1990 revolution chose to ignore proved to be the culprit behind the highest intensity conflicts in recent time -- Maoist insurgency that took the lives of approximately 13,000 innocent Nepalis.

The Maoist insurgency should be considered an eye opener। It has exhibited what can happen when a society is severely unequal, and people conclude that the government is for the few, at the expense of many. When a society is unequal, it becomes economically inefficient and can be subjected to social unrest. In Nepal's case, it took the latter path. Out of many things that the Maoist insurgency has taught us, one thing stands out-- Do not undermine the plight of the poor and less fortunate.

No society is perfectly egalitarian, but some are more equal and just than others, with a larger middle class. Everyone, including politicians, agrees that there is a need to bridge the existing gap between the haves and have-nots. But putting theory into practice and harvesting results is altogether a different ball game. It requires vision and courage in political leadership.
Five decades of developmental experimentation has failed to raise the status of those at the bottom of the pyramid। While the children of the rich and famous quench their thirst with bottles of Coca-Cola, poor children continue to die from diarrhea in hinterlands.

While socially responsible entrepreneurs such as Karna Shakya, with uncommon wisdom and passion for the poor, come forward and advocate the need of economic revolution, thugs such as Sitaram Prasain, former chairman of Nepal Cottage and Small Industries Development Bank continue to swindle taxpayers' money and walk as free men।

Our progress and collective destiny rest on what we choose. If we choose to encourage people like Shakya and help them create jobs, we will be striding towards a more stable, prosperous, and egalitarian Nepal. But if we continue to side with people like Prasain and others like him who have defaulted multimillion rupees from the government owned bank, like we did in the past, we should be mentally prepared to witness another insurrection. It will not be very long for politically enlightened but economically deprived citizens of this largely hungry nation to conclude that the government is: "government for the few at the expense of the many."
There are good and bad people everywhere। There is Warren Buffet who donates his fortune to make the lives of those who have drawn the shorter straw better and there are people like the late Kenneth Lay of Enron, who cuts straws short. Our future as a prosperous nation rests in the hand of entrepreneurs that are fiscally as well as socially responsible, unlike Sitaram Prasain. We need entrepreneurs that can create jobs and at the same time give back to the communities where they operate. That is how we will be able to build a stronger middle class and a cohesive society.

In addition to encouraging responsible entrepreneurs, we need to level the playing field so that the less fortunate can take charge of their destiny। At this point in time, the playing field is dangerously tilted in favor of the few rich and powerful. As the intrinsic sense of fairness warrants for basic economic equality, the greatest challenge confronting us is how to ensure that the children of the poor, those who struggle simply to buy a bottle of saline to keep their child hydrated, while suffering from diarrhea reach at least an approximate condition of equality when they mature.

Before the war against the parents of Coca-Cola drinking children is waged by those who cannot afford to by saline for there dehydrating child gets nasty, we need to do everything possible to minimize the gap between the haves and have-nots।

Before the inequality gets out of balance and resentment against the wealthy gets ugly, it is necessary to redistribute wealth। A society where the monarch is a millionaire and approximately half of the population makes less than a dollar a day, achieving social stability is next to impossible without wealth redistribution. If wealth is allowed to be concentrated in small groups of people, this group will start exerting anti-democratic influence on social policy and try to block pro-poor policies from seeing the light of day.

The issue of wealth redistribution is not a new one। It can be traced back to biblical times. It has been extensively discussed and debated in the past.

However, the trickiest part is, how would redistribution be achieved? In the case of Nepal, the discussion about wealth redistribution is limited to land. Nobody seems to be talking about the enormous wealth in the form of cash and kind amassed by the ruling elite, fraudulent businessmen that have defaulted loans, and the power brokers of the last fifteen years. How do we assert their financial worthiness and redistribute the enormous wealth they have amassed?
The tax code should be made more progressive so that the ruling elite and businessmen with fat bank balances pay higher taxes। It is just another way of making those that have undermined the existence of the poor and enriched themselves socially, more responsible. The money raised through higher wealth taxes imposed on the rich can be spent on education and healthcare for those in dire need.

According to the Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen, education and health are enabling factors that promote freedom। They offer more choices to the oppressed and downtrodden and empower them to resist oppression.

Land redistribution is essential, but the Maoist style of land grabbing and haphazard distribution may not serve the cause। For example, Henry VIII in England seized the enormous wealth of the Catholic Church and redistributed part of it amongst his supporters. In France, during the French Revolution, the vast wealth of the aristocracy was either seized by the local authorities or looted by the populace. However, in both of these cases, the extreme acts of forced administration of justice did not contribute towards the establishment of an egalitarian society. On the contrary, it resulted in something that was not thought of. In the case of England, it led to a permanent realignment of power in society, and in France, it led to anarchy and the rise of a dictator.

The least disruptive approach should be adopted to accomplish the goal of wealth redistribution। Our goal should be directed towards saving the lives of poor children that cannot afford to buy a bottle of saline through universal healthcare and educating these children so that they can take charge of their destiny; while making the rich parents of Coca-Cola drinking children pay for the universal healthcare and education of the people who unfortunately drew the shorter straw in life.

We need to engineer wealth redistribution in such a way that the children of the rich, that are addicted to Coca-Cola can continue to enjoy taking a sip of it, but at the same time those with the shorter straw get a chance to move on up the social ladder. It is doable. People like Bill Gates, Andrew Carnegie, Warren Buffett, Henry Ford, Lakshmi Narayan Mittal, and Swaraj Paul had no prior wealth. They started with essentially nothing and built huge enterprises in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thus, we need to level the playing field so that the people with the shorter straw in life are able to assess their existence as 'human beings' rather than just a 'human capital'.

Challenges for Civil Society in Nepal

More than dozens of innocent civilians have been killed by the Maoists after the revival of parliament in April. The Maoists hacked to death NC cadre Sushil Gyawali in broad daylight in Bardia. They attacked and injured over eighteen people, including lawyers, journalists and pedestrians while they were demonstrating against the Maoist atrocities in Bara. Raj Kumar Kusiyat was abducted from his house in Sunsari district.

These are some of the Maoist atrocities that surfaced in the media in the last couple of weeks. All these cases have one thing in common -- the perpetrators. The perpetrators in all these cases were the Maoists who believe in Mao Tse-tung's "power comes from the barrel of a gun".

While the Maoist atrocities continue unabated in post-April Nepal, the human right activists are nowhere to be seen as they were during King Gyanendra's heydays -- crisscrossing the globe attending talk programs and delivering lectures on human rights abuses taking place in Nepal.

Shouldn't they be protesting against the Maoist atrocities and pressurizing them to denounce violence? However, it is not the silence of human rights groups that surprises me the most but the silence of the "official" civil society that vehemently opposed and helped bring down King Gyanendra's despotic rule.

Civil society can and has played a significant role in safeguarding human rights, peace building, and democratization in different parts of the globe.

In countries such as South Africa, Mozambique, Mali, the Philippines, Guatemala, Liberia, and Northern Ireland peace, reconciliation, and democratization became possible in part due to the relentless effort and neutral stance of civil societies.

During the April revolution, hundreds of thousand of citizens participated in mass rallies organized by the "official" civil society. Nepali citizens ignored and betrayed by politicians for decades had found a strong platform for citizen activism in the form of civil society.

However, the failure on part of "official" civil society to condemn the Maoist atrocities which is against the ceasefire code of conduct signed between the government and the Maoists has raised a question on the neutrality of the civil society.

The civil society of pre-April revolution era was the projection into the future of a vision that rested upon an emotional unity. However, the civil society of post-April revolution cannot and should not base itself on mere emotions. The leaders of civil society should strive hard on the building of carefully nurtured institutions, practical realization of ethical values, and involvement of the greatest possible numbers of people in public life.

The main task of civil society in post-April revolutionary era is to construct democratic mechanisms of stability that secure constitutional checks and balances, increase public awareness in the spirit of respect for law, and encourage citizen activism.

Civil society is a major component of democracy. It creates a much needed participatory space for the citizens. In Nepal where radical communist insurgency has taken a heavy toll, existence of an active and neutral civil society has an ideological function: as a component in a counter ideology to "authoritarianism".

The civil society has a greater responsibility towards safeguarding political freedom and legitimatization of a social space in which private property and economic institutions ought to develop independently without state's interference.

The obvious obstacle to democratization is the civil disorder, violation of human rights, and civil liberties. There has been an unprecedented upsurge in crimes, vandalism, and vigilantism in the last decade or so. Such social pathologies have tremendously eroded the levels of trust and social capital. The civil society now must work towards revival of the lost trust and societal capital that is necessary for democratic stability and societal well-being.

Both in the liberal and the socialist visions of civil society, the basic organizing principle is the same-human rights. The official civil society which once enjoyed tremendous public support and played an important role bringing down the autocratic regime may lose societal trust and support if it fails to voice concerns and protest against indiscriminate killings, tortures of innocent civilians, abductions, and extortions.

Indifference and passivity on part of citizens is the greatest threat to democracy. A democratic state cannot survive without active citizens.

Civil society does not act in opposition to the democratic state, but cooperates with it and helps achieve democratic stability. Instead of staying silent on the Maoist atrocities, the leaders of civil society should raise the concerns.

For the consolidation of democracy, we need a civil society whose members agree that we should all live together under a common system of rule making and enforcement. Human rights and democracy are inseparable and interdependent. Human rights standards underpin a meaningful conception of democracy and democracy offers the best hope for the promotion and protection of human rights and civil liberties.

The civil society should strive towards promoting truth, justice, and reconciliation. The parties involved in violation of human rights that took place in the last one and a half decades have not sought any kind of forgiveness. The victims of human rights abuses continue to suffer psychologically. These victims, most of which are internally displaced citizens do not even have a choice between either justice or peace because neither option explicitly or officially is offered to them yet.

Internally displaced citizens are still forced to live in subhuman living conditions. Their plight is still being undermined and ignored by both the government and the Maoists.

Like many post-revolutionary societies, political landscape in Nepal has evolved and changed tremendously in the past couple of months. Civil society should take a lead in promoting accountability and justice for past abuses.

It should assist in the long-term task of reconciliation. It would be extremely hard and in some case impossible for internally displaced people to forgive the Maoist cadres in their villages that forced them to flee their homes.

Nepal's future as a well functioning democratic state to a large extent rests on effectiveness of the civil society. The leaders of the civil society should not let public trust be eroded because when people are pessimistic and lose confidence, they withdraw from the effort to build a better life and community. Society begins to lose its talent and energy. The decade-long bloody insurgency has claimed thousands of innocent people and displaced millions of fellow citizens. We cannot and should not withdraw from the struggle of building our nation.

Whither Nepal's Future

April revolution in Nepal has pumped up unmatched enthusiasm among Nepali citizens. Enthusiasm is most potent among those championing domestic political reform –constituent assembly. The April 2006 popular revolt ended King Gyanendra's increasingly authoritarian fourteen-month rule. However, the leaders of Seven Party Alliance and Maoists (SPAM) face significant obstacles.

If the situation is mishandled, and Nepali people conclude nothing has changed except the names at the top, Nepal could become seriously unstable and politically vulnerable to the external interference. In order to become successful, it is extremely important to know your potential. Thus, political leaders of SPAM should shed negativities, vengeance, and explore new opportunities.

It was easy to point mistakes of the royalist government, but to maintain a clean image and fulfill citizens' aspiration is not an easy task. Like in the past, Maoists have once again started exhibiting their dual character by not sticking to spirit of the ceasefire. Recruitment of cadres, killing of innocent people, and extortion have not stopped yet. An unprecedented rise in criminal activities and extortion has forced Dabur Nepal to shut down its factory in southern Nepal.

Industrial climate has deteriorated to such a level that industrialist have been seeking the government's intervention. While the country's economic backbone is suffering, the leaders seem to be busy bursting out anti monarchy venom rather than trying to address pressing domestic and security issues. When it is all said and done, people will start demanding for jobs and security.

With the closure of factories, not only the already high unemployment rate will spike further, but also the tax base will dwindle. Already poor and foreign aid dependent impoverished nation may become further unstable and malnourished. As far as Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala is concerned, he may be enjoying an unequivocal support from radical communists for now, but time is something that is certainly not on his side. His poor health may ultimately force him to exit politics. Thus, he has a responsibility of unifying divided congress party and strengthening his party's already weakened base.

Koirala's exit or absence may be the end of an era for social and liberal democrats in Nepal. No second generation leaders seem to have same stature and hold among the party cadres as Koirala does. So, what next? We may be heading towards a long haul of communist rule in Nepal which may turn out to be an authoritarian in nature.

When communism is seeing its slow but steady demise throughout the world, rise of communism in Nepal is in part because communists have been so far successful in selling dreams of equality, prosperity and ownership, and political bickering among the social and liberal democrats. Despite the fact that every communist economy in the world has failed, communists in Nepal have been so far successful in selling dreams.

Communist economy has not only failed, but miserably failed to support the country that tried it. The USSR is a history now, and Cuba is struggling hard to keep its populace happy with slow paced prosperity and high dose of ant-capitalist rhetoric. When it comes to red North Korea, it can not even produce enough food to feed its citizens. China is long past the communist economy stage, even if the rest of the government is as commie as can be. Forget about current level of development, it could not be able to feed its gigantic population with a communist economy.

When it comes to the right to differing opinion and personal freedom, communism has a belief system keeping the people in line. Killing non-believers is certainly an effective way to maintain control of those who don't accept the party line. For example, fate of journalist Dekendra Thapa and expulsion of Rabindra Shrestha and Anukul shows dictatorial face of a communist outfit. The minute you dissent, you are a traitor.

"Intra party feud and failure to deliver developmental benefits to oppressed, poor, and unemployed citizens by the social and liberal democrats created a political vacuum which socialist propaganda promptly filled. It was not hard to brain wash already disenchanted populace with socialist propaganda of equality and freedom from feudalism."

Freedom of expression tends also to be mediated by the state to maintain the 'integrity' of a communist regime. You can find a Marxist book in a US bookstore but it is impossible to find a Ludwig von Mises in a North Korean or Cuban library. After the reinstatement of democracy in 1990, social democrats dominated Nepal's politics with 114 members in parliament. None had thought that things would change so soon in favor of communists. After barely 16 years, country has gone all red. You agree it or not (depends on your political inclination), rural areas are completely controlled by radical communists (the Maoists) and urban areas by comparatively liberal communists (UML).

Intra party feud and failure to deliver developmental benefits to oppressed, poor, and unemployed citizens by the social and liberal democrats created a political vacuum which socialist propaganda promptly filled. It was not hard to brain wash already disenchanted populace with socialist propaganda of equality and freedom from feudalism.

So, this may be the last chance for social democrats that are at the helm of affairs in seven party alliance's government. Few things they may consider doing is (a) get Maoists on board and persuade them to submit there arms to credible institution (b) address unemployment problem (c) provide security to threatened industrial sector (d) establish rule of law, and (e) ensure economic development of rural areas. Do it, and do it right this time or else we may have a new authoritarian communist nation in the globe.