Unearned victory

Everyone is contemplating the factors that carried the Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML to an impressive victory in the recent CA elections. The scale of the NC and UML’s victory has surprised not only political pundits, but also NC and UML cadres. The victory came despite the absence of fresh candidates and clear messages, and wavering political commitment towards empowerment and emancipation of Madheshis and ethnic minorities. 

The debate over whether people who voted for NC and UML actually subscribe to their liberal ideals will continue to play out over the months ahead. However, the most important question that everyone should be asking is: what led to the withering of the symbolic emphasis that voters placed on the need for radical change in the first CA elections? 

Long-standing socio-economic grievances, disputes among ethnic political parties, and security dilemmas brought about by weak and unaccountable system of governance are some factors that could have led to a more pragmatic move towards the center, leaving the bourgeois Maoist populists and ‘ethnic entrepreneurs’ that hijacked and subsequently maligned the genuine need for ethnic empowerment and emancipation to fend for themselves.

The Maoists and ethnic parties failed miserably to gauge public intelligence. Their attempt at defeating NC and UML by stoking the same agendas—establishing an ethno-centric republic, building an inclusive society, administering equality and justice, etc—failed. They ignored the same issues when in power, grossly underestimating the public’s intelligence. However, the loss of Maoists and ethnic parties which are infested with ethnic entrepreneurs is by no means a death of the quest for “total equality.” It will come back to haunt NC and UML if the ideas of social justice and egalitarianism are not enshrined in the constitution. 

Having witnessed the defeat of Maoist and ethnic parties, people are now in the process of figuring out what a NC-led coalition government means for Nepal’s peace and stability. Since the current polity is one that the Maoists have defined, it will be extremely difficult if not impossible, for NC and UML to deviate from the Maoist interpretation of democracy. While the Maoist leaders have said that they will be “pragmatic and cooperative,” it would be naive to imagine that this group will abandon its basic ideology and play second fiddle to NC and UML. 

There simply is not enough evidence at this point to believe that two Brahmins—Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai—who failed to fulfill their political dreams under multiparty set-up and turned the country into killing fields will consume NC and UML’s “liberal democratic” bait hook, line and sinker! The second CA elections might have temporarily transformed the political landscape whereby moderate democrats will now replace radical ideologues and ethnic entrepreneurs, but it will not take very long for Dahal and ethnic entrepreneurs to mount a comeback if the root causes of Maoist insurgency and ethnic unrest are not adequately addressed.

The Maoists lost for a simple reason. Dahal and know-it-all Bhattarai believed that political manipulation, belligerent rhetoric and occasional violence were sufficient to endlessly sway public consciousness. Their inability to transform from a guerilla outfit to an open, viable political party that is capable of translating popular support into effective policies was the main reason behind their electoral debacle. 

While the Maoists lost because of their inability to actually transform, NC and UML won despite the absence of clear vision on how they would actually solve burning socioeconomic problems, growing insecurity, and wavering political commitment towards empowerment and emancipation of Madheshis and ethnic minorities. 

More than anything else, the victory of NC and UML is a result of incompetence on part of the Maoists and ethnic Madheshi parties, and that is where the problem lies. When the opposition’s victory is largely a result of an inability on part of the party in power to fulfill the aspirations of the people, there is a great risk of screw-ups. You tend to value things that you earn the hard way. 

If you look at the history of the people who have won big lotteries, most of them waste their newfound wealth on women and alcohol. Another classic example is of Nepali students and the diversity visa lottery winners in the United States. Students outperform their fellow citizens who have won the diversity visa lottery a large percentage. Students’ competitive edge comes from their conscious decision to be in the US and belief that hard work can conquer all obstacles.

The early signs of an unearned victory are already becoming visible. It’s been a month since the completion of CA elections, and major parties are yet to give full shape to the new CA. NC’s opposition to elections for President and Vice-President exposes its lack of seriousness towards democratic institution building. Selective preference of this nature will open the door for political perversions, which is the last thing we want at this juncture. NC’s political immaturity is also quite clear from the way it is engaged in appeasing the Maoists. 

Yes, you want them to be on board, but not through endless appeasement. The more you try to appease them, the more inflexible they will get. They would try to drag the political process down to a level so juvenile and debased that the infant democratic order could find itself in a dump. It would not take much after that to convince voters to vote them in. After all, if we look at our history, parties get back in power not because of their vision, good governance, and service delivery, but because of the incompetence and failure of those in power. 

Nepali people have, once again, given NC and UML a chance to prove their worth. It will become clear within a couple of weeks whether NC and UML’s learning curve continues to be hampered because of their self-inflicted mental block, or if these parties have actually learned from their mistakes. One will not have to wait too long. All you got to do is see the kind of people that will be nominated under proportional representation and brought in as cabinet members.

 If Girija Prasad Koirala’s protégés make a comeback, we can be pretty sure that the Maoists and ethnic entrepreneurs will have the last laugh. All that they will then have to do is keep riding the wave of people’s anger and wait for these drunken sailors to push the country into another political and constitutional abyss, which they are very much capable of doing. 

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.
 

 

Address ethnic grievances

Nepal´s politics is famous for ugly feuds for power and vertical splits. Virtually every political party suffers from factionalism. While the larger parties like Nepali Congress (NC), the United Marxist Leninist Party (UML), and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) are barely holding on, the Madhes-based parties are withering faster than anybody could have imagined a while ago.

One of the reasons why the factions within the larger parties do not dare to walk out from the parent party may have to do with already divided political space and political apathy that is out there. But when it comes to the Madhes-based parties, which either ballooned (read Madhesi Janadhikar forum) or was created (read Tarai Madhesh Democratic Party) to benefit from rising ethnic sentiments, there is nothing that glues politicians that deserted their previous party to join or form the Tarai based parties. In the case of major political parties like the NC, UML, UCPN (Maoist), ideology binds people together, albeit loosely. In the case of the Tarai-based parties, it is increasingly becoming clear that they flocking together was purely because of the perceived political opportunity.

The ongoing disintegration of the Tarai-based parties is more dangerous than many think. It would be quite naive to expect that ethnic uprising, which the nation witnessed in 2006 as a result of high level of marginalization in the society, will not take place again. As a matter of fact, with the seed of ethnic hatred already sown, half of the work toward instigating ethnic violence is already done. There is no reason to believe otherwise that the opportunists that deserted parties that they belonged to before the Tarai uprising to join or form the Tarai-based parties and who have now been walking away from them, will not further stoke ethnic divisions to mobilize support and use that support for instigating violence. Violent ethnic conflicts always serve ethnic-entrepreneurs. Muslim identities in Bosnia after Bosnian civil war became much stronger than they used to be.

Governments’ apathy towards creating equal opportunity has provided a space for ethnic-entrepreneurs to benefit from ethnic grievances. Fearon and Laitin (2011) looked at 139 civil wars during 1945–2008. They found 79, or 57 percent to be “ethnic” and another 24 or 17 percent to be mixed or what they call ambiguously “ethnic.” What is even more disturbing is that while 53 percent of the 17 civil wars breaking out in the years 1945–49 were ethnic, for the next six decades, the corresponding percentages are 74, 71, 67, 81, 83, and 100 (for 2000–08). These ethnic wars happened not just only because that the governments were insensitive but also because many saw an opportunity to benefit from ethnic violence.

Ethnic violence is more likely in the districts, where ethnic-entrepreneurs succeed in establishing their base. As followers gain access to local institutions through patronage networks that derive electoral gains from communal violence, the propensity of violence will further increase. Belonging to smaller political outfits will not bother them. In a country, where the majority government is unthinkable given the expansion of political representation in the name of inclusion, who needs a bigger party? Small is beautiful and profitable. The likes of Rajendra Mahato can vouch on that.

The real problem in Nepal is that while people belonging to marginalized ethnic groups want equality, those representing them want the marginalization to persist, as they are politically and personally benefiting from it. Hence, the real challenge is to defeat the agenda of the ethnic-entrepreneurs and foster a cohesive subnational community that can on its own generate progressive social policy capable of fostering equality among the citizens.

Even though the ethnic quest for equality is losing its luster because of the wrong people taking up of a very worthy agenda, it is moral responsibility of the ruling elites to work towards making citizens equal. The best place to start would be to introduce a policy that would reduce ethnic income gaps. Income gaps between ethnic groups stoke ethnic divisions. Such a policy was introduced in Malaysia after the race riots of 1969, which has on the whole worked well so far.

The government needs to act swiftly and introduce policies aimed at uplifting the status of ethnic minorities, or else with continued disintegration of regional parties, there will soon be too many ethnic-entrepreneurs resorting to violent means to achieve their political ambitions. In a country where the person that initiated a bloody conflict, which killed more than fourteen thousand people and displaced thousands can become a prime minister, is there really a reason for some ethnic zealot with political ambition to refrain from instigating violence

Fight power outage

Recently, one of my friend’s younger brothers told me that he is working on finding an employment in Dubai through a manpower agent. I initially laughed it off as a joke as I thought the guy who was doing pretty well for himself running a computer training institute would not leave the country to do some odd job in the Gulf.

Besides, he was supposed to get married in a couple of days. But, as we chatted along, it became quite clear that he was quite serious about his decision to leave the country. I could not understand why someone who had decided to stay put while most of us left the hometown long ago wanted to leave all of a sudden.

Well, crippling power supply may be a mere inconvenience for well-to-do in Kathmandu and elsewhere in the country for which many have found solution in inverter and generator but for people like my friend’s brother, it is having a devastating impact on livelihood.

Many politicians, pundits, and bureaucrats have done well for themselves selling the dreams of changing the fate of the nation through hydro dollars. Does promise of transforming Nepal into Switzerland ring a bell? It’s been 20 years since we adopted free-market economy, and in all these years, what dream merchants have done is push the nation further into perpetual darkness. Isn’t 20 years a good time for us to see some positive results? Forget about benefiting from water resources financially, shouldn’t we be at least self-sufficient to meet our own energy needs by now?

The chances of benefiting from selling energy appear bleak. India, which is the primary and the biggest market for Nepal’s energy has already started building nuclear power plants. During the recent visit to India, French President Nicolas Sarkozy has agreed to build two European pressurized reactors of 1,650 megawatts each worth $9.3 billion. It appears that by the time we will be actually able to break the close nexus between hydro-mafia, politicians, and bureaucrats, which does not appear like it will happen anytime soon given the dysfunctional state of the country, and unleash our hydropower potential, India will be nuclear-powered. Even if it needed energy, it will be in a better position to bargain for cheaper price. By then, the so-called jingoists that are now opposing hydropower contracts to Indian companies will have been long gone. But by letting these jingoists have their way, we will have compromised the prospects of future generations benefiting from the economic gains made now through hydropower generation and energy sales.

While the hydro-mafia, politicians in power, bureaucrats, and jingoists stall the progress of the hydropower sector’s development in the country, lack of electricity, which could have been subsidized for poor from the energy sales to the neighboring countries, has hurt lower middle class and poor the most. If we look at the consequences of the energy poverty at the public level, it becomes evident that the lack of electricity is a main problem for poor health and educational outcomes. One of the main problems caused by energy poverty is indoor pollution.

Hundreds of thousands of girls and women of these households that are responsible for cooking suffer from respiratory problems that are caused by an inefficient biomass system used for cooking. Girls and women of a nation, which is only next to Brazil in water resources, certainly deserve a better deal. If these households have the access to subsidized energy, girls and women can use the time they save from collecting biomass fuel used for cooking for studies. The existing gender disparity in educational outcomes would bridge over time. Without a reliable access to electricity, health centers are often forced to treat patients in the dark and to rely on biomass and fuel generator to keep vaccines and medicines usable. For the rich, lack of regular supply of electricity might be a nuisance, but for the poor, to whom remaining healthy and getting decent education is the only way out of poverty, it is one of the major barriers.

In a country, where the government is unable to create jobs for its growing population, lack of secure energy access is limiting the opportunities of growth of the private sector and increasing their costs. For radicals that want to turn the nation into a welfare state, bleeding of the private sector is good news. As the private sector – the only hope for creating jobs for a growing population – fails, there will be more hotheads to recruit. Deep down, radicals and “ethnic-entrepreneurs” do not want the private sector to flourish because they very well know that robust private sector is an engine of growth.

Take India as an example where free market and strong private sector is changing the lives of Dalits, who happen to be at the rock bottom of the pyramid. A study led by Devesh Kapur at Pennsylvania University´s Centre for the Advanced Study of India, which quizzed Dalit households – more than 19,000 – in two clusters of villages in Azamgarh and Bulandshahar, two poor, backward districts in Uttar Pradesh state, clearly show that free market and strong private sector is benefiting Dalits. When asked to compare their material and social conditions now and in 1990 when economic reforms just started in India, Dalits have overwhelmingly reported substantial gain in material status as well as changes in a wide variety of social practices affecting Dalit well-being. Access to capital assets was found to have increased, consumption had become better, and relationship between the Dalits and other castes is undergoing subtle, but substantial changes.

In our case, why would the jingoists and ethnic entrepreneurs that are benefiting politically from the backwardness of Dalits and other ethnic groups care about the hemorrhaging in the private sector? While the jingoists and ethnic-entrepreneurs do not have interest in promoting the sector, the ones that credit themselves of introducing free-market economy in the country have personal interests that they think needs to be fulfilled along with the development of the sector. They are yet to realize what one-and-half decade of chasing personal gains has done to the party’s standing and their personal image. May be, they don’t care about it, as most of their siblings are settled abroad and do not intend to intend to join politics like the children of Indian politicians do. So, why invest in political capital building? Makes perfect sense!

One of the reasons why a selected few have been able to squander Nepal’s hydropower potential is because we let them. Power outage is forced upon citizens of one of the earth’s most water resources-rich nation because we as a nation accept it. People tend to accept unfavorable conditions more readily and this is precisely what greedy opportunists need in order to line their own pockets with the wealth that is supposed to benefit the people. We remain cheated because we are not protective of our fundamental human rights and realize that we deserve the best that life can offer.

Time for course correction

Chickens of “consensus” politics have come home to roost. The manhandling of Finance Minister Surendra Pandey by the Maoist members of parliament is a preview of what the future holds for the politicians of the current coalition, who once endlessly harped on the need for consensus, if the outcomes of the political bargain do not go the Maoists’ way. The footage of the ultra-progressives (read the Maoists) manhandling the less-progressive (the minister from the less-progressive CPN-UML) is just a mouse-click away for the world to see. The timing could not have gotten any better. Pandey got roughed up at a time when the never-ending rounds of elections for the post of prime minister was providing the world a glimpse of how exactly a dysfunctional political system looks like.

As usual, each side is blaming the other for the incident. Anything new in that? Not really. The blame-game has been going on for a while now. Instead of trying to figure out who is at fault, it would be helpful if we spent our time and energy trying to understand why something as serious as this happened inside the parliament. It happened for a simple reason. And the reason is that as a nation, we allow politicians to run the country by cutting deals in the name of consensus. Nobody except the dealmakers actually know the terms and conditions of the deals. So, it is very easy for them to lie about them later. What makes this deal-based process even more complicated is that, for these dealmakers, pleasing their masters (Chinese for the Maoists and Indians for the current coalition members) is much more important and lies at the heart of anything they do or agree to than serving the nation’s interest and fulfilling people’s expectations.

Blaming the Maoists for insincerity at this point in time is completely absurd and unintelligent. The Maoists have been inconsistently consistent throughout about their motive behind joining the hands with the political parties. They wanted to use the opportunity to achieve their goal of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat. The rationalization of the Maoists’ intent to come overground came from the very politicians that now grouch about the Maoist motives, pundits who change their color faster than chameleons to remain politically-relevant and human right activists that are now nowhere to be seen when a people’s representative is manhandled in broad light inside the parliament. Hence, the wound that politicians of the Nepali Congress (NC) and the UML complain about is self-inflicted. The sooner they learn to live with it, the better off they will be.

The Maoists are now one of the dominant players of Nepali politics and there is logic to what they do. Every move of theirs is well-calculated and is meant to serve their political agenda. With India against their quest for power, the Maoists have no choice but to tilt the domestic political balance by coercing their political opponents. They want the opponents to be perceived as feeble and power-hungry who will eventually succumb to their bullying tactics. And there is precedence to what they believe in. On the other side, there is no political preparation to tackle the Maoists. All they have is the same old slogan of how big a threat the Maoists are for democracy, which gives them an opportunity to cash in on India’s soured relationship with the Maoists, both of which will not take the coalition very far.

Putting the blame on the Maoists will not serve any purpose when it comes to correcting the course that they are in. The NC and the UML should prove to the people, which they have not done so far, that they can effectively govern the nation and meet people’s expectations. The state’s reach has been shrinking with each passing day. Regurgitation of the same old stale slogan of democracy being in danger from the likes of Krishna Prasad Sitaula, who not very long ago used every argument that they could think of to justify how bringing the Maoists overground was good for democracy, makes the case that the coalition is trying to make against the Maoists look malicious and empty.

The ongoing small-scale confrontation between the major partners of the coalition and the Maoists will get bigger and more frequent in the days to come. This is just the beginning. The NC, with its new president, can be a game changer if it dares to get away from the influence of the likes of Sitaula that failed miserably to correctly assess the Maoists’ motives. It is time to play the game with the Maoists the way they do. Backdoor dealings with them should be completely stopped. Things as important as budget should be made public with or without the Maoist support. If they oppose, they are the ones that will be seen as obstructionist, and if they get physical, they should end up behind bars. Appeasing the Maoists so far has not gotten the nation anywhere, has it? It is high time that they be held accountable for their acts.

The moving of the political process forward should be done smartly. Staying put in a futile prime ministerial election process makes the NC look like a club of politically-immature jokers. Its obsession with the prime ministership is pushing Jhala Nath Khanal and his fellow comrades closer to Pushpa Kamal Dahal. Helping the UML retain its political base is as important as maintaining its own political space for the NC. The UML’s loss is the Maoists party´s gain. Hence, letting Khanal become the prime minister is politically more profitable for the NC than alienating him by endlessly bidding for Ram Chandra Poudel. Even if Poudel became the prime minister, there will absolutely nothing in this lame duck environment for him to achieve that will change the NC’s face and fate. So, why remain obsessed? Cut your losses by not appearing insensitive to Khanal’s desperation to become the prime minister.

Banking on India’s support and regurgitation of democracy-in-peril rhetoric may work for a while and help the coalition stay put in power for some time, but with China’s support, the Maoist party is hell-bent on tipping the balance. If and when the balance tips, India will have no choice but to reengage with the Maoists. Aung San Suu Kyi received Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding in 1993 from the Indian government, but when the Indian government later on realized that the Burmese junta was not going to release Suu Kyi anytime soon, it started reengaging with the junta that put her under house arrest. Than Swe’s recent gala reception in India and the endless case made by India’s foreign policy experts, including Shyam Saran, about the necessity of becoming pragmatic when it came to dealing with Myanmar’s junta is an example of how far the Indian pendulum can swing with change in domestic political situation. Endless complaints about the Maoists’ anti-democratic acts have not made them change their ways, so it is time you change your ways and do things differently Mr Sushil Koirala. By opting for that, you would be doing a huge both to your party as well as the nation.

Sacrificing animals

Every year, around Dashain, festival writings and ranting against animal sacrifice get a lot of coverage in media. From little known animal rights activist groups to amateur writers, many jump into anti-sacrifice bandwagon. As Dashain gets over, the noise dies down, gradually. It is really difficult to understand the real motives behind the dissent. Are these groups or individuals really passionate about animal rights or sponsored by external forces that aim to benefit from the portrayal of Hindu religion and culture in bad light or is it coming from anarchists that see progressiveness as everything that is against established norms and rules? Are these people really vegetarian that value life of other beings as their own or opportunists trying to seek some limelight as and when they can? In a country, where dreams are sold (remember “New Nepal” hoopla?) freely without any fear of being held accountable, being cynical at times is perfectly normal, isn’t it? 

Animal sacrifice is nothing new. It has been happening for centuries and in all the ancient religions of the world. The ritual of animal sacrifice is seen as a means of getting closer to the almighty. From the Hebrews to the Greeks and Romans and from the Aztecs to the Hindus, ritual killing of an animal has been part of a religion. Moral purists, atheists, opportunists, and limelight seekers question whether ritual killing of animals is right just because it has been practiced for generations? Do they have a point? Absolutely. But are they missing a larger picture? You bet!

What they conveniently forget is the objective behind the religious sacrifice. People sacrificing animals are not religious nuts. The objective of sacrifice is to express gratitude to the almighty. They truly and selflessly believe that by offering our life symbolically to the almighty by offering the sacrifice of an animal, they are in fact expressing their gratitude. Are they right? May be, may be not, but again, who are we to question someone else’s belief system? If their belief affords them comfort, they have all the right and freedom to believe in whatever they want to believe in. Besides, it is their constitutional right to practice their religion.

Sacrificing an animal as long as such animal is not endangered and protected by law would be the same as killing a chicken for McDonalds. As far as the method of killing is concerned, what is torture and what is not is again subjective. Some may believe gulping meat while advocating for animal rights to be more primitive, double standard, and culturally damaging than animal sacrifice practice itself. Are they wrong? Depends upon how you see it. Everyone has a different starting point, a different personality and differing degrees of faith. When it comes to beliefs, debating helps but it will eventually reach the "nihilist threshold." People have beliefs that they simply hold to be true for no other reason than trusting them to be right.

Those that make a hue and cry about animal sacrifice in Nepal somehow try to associate animal rights with killings only. Animal rights is not all about how you kill them. Animals like humans do have rights to live in a free environment. Millions of goats that were sacrificed during the recent Dashain must have enjoyed a better life and a less ignominious death than veal calves, geese, and battery hens that that are kept in cages that are little more than the size of a sheet of A4 paper in Western farms. Animal rights are violated everywhere, irrespective of developmental status.

Advocacy has become a lucrative profession in Nepal. The so-called human rights activists that demeaned the state’s right to defend itself against those that initiated violent bloody insurgency have now pigeon-holed themselves. They do not raise voice against the marauding raids of the Maoists, ethnic hustlers, and criminal gangs that have violated the rights of millions of Nepalis to live freely and pursue their dreams. Rights activist in Nepal have tremendously benefited at the cost of the liquidation of the state.

Populism doesn’t bring real change. For real and long lasting change to happen, there has to be a social and economic basis for it. It is important to understand that still approximately half of the population lives below the poverty line and is illiterate. The state, for them, is virtually non-existent. If they had faith in the state, Pushpa Kamal Dahal would not have had recruits to fight against the state, opportunity to parachute to the parliament, and get away even when he crawls to Kamal Thapa’s residence for votes to become the prime minister. Isn’t change, for which, approximately 14,000 people lost their lives and hundreds of thousands got uprooted visible? Nobody seems to be questioning if the promise for change was worth the sacrifice? The never-ending claims from both the extreme left and the right is nothing but the politics of grievances. But we rather take easy way out and question if the sacrifice of animals is worth it?

Animal sacrifice is not a good practice but it is not happening in vacuum. Belief system drives it. Bemoaning it is of little help and stopping it altogether is outright dangerous. When the state fails, religion and faith help. Already there is enough of bloodshed and anarchy in the country and taking off the religious and cultural lid altogether will make things even worse. Change should be gradual and calibrated, only then it is long-lasting. Indicator-less quest for change will be something like that of the current peace process. Nobody knows where it is going except for the United Nations Mission in Nepal. First of all, economic and social basis for change needs to be established. With education, prosperity, and economic development, people may be more willing to explore other ways to please gods and celebrate religious ceremonies. Till then, energy should be spent towards nation-building, not withering the glue that holds it together.

Reinventing Nepali Congress

The 12th General Convention of the Nepali Congress (NC) can be regarded as a giant leap toward intra-party democracy, which, as a matter of fact, was long overdue. By reserving seats for women, Dalits, Madhesis, and indigenous people in the central committee, the NC has taken a stride toward reforming its image as a party dominated by pahadi Brahmins and Chettris.

It would be unfair to say that the groups that now have the privilege to represent themselves because of the policy of reservation were completely overlooked in the past. Ram Baran Yadav, Mahantha Thakur, Chitra Lekha Yadav, Bijay Gachchhedar and Jay Prakash Gupta are Madhesis who were at the helm of power both within the party and outside. It is altogether a different thing that their meteoric rise in the Nepali politics cannot be termed as merit-based. It is true that they did the initial leg-work required to get to the limelight but what is even truer is that Ram Baran Yadav, Chitra Lekha Yadav, Thakur, Gachchhedar and Gupta tremendously benefited from Girija Prasad Koirala’s benevolence.

It was a two-way street. The Tarai being the base of NC, Koirala needed Madhesi faces to cater to the base. But the condition was that they ought to be completely subservient. All of the aforementioned personalities fitted the bill. At least, till the late 1990s. Unlike the two Yadavs and Thakur, Gachchhedar and Gupta, who happen to be notoriously shrewd and opportunists, skimmed the system quite well to transform themselves from lightweights to heavyweights in the NC. The relationship, however, was perfectly symbiotic.

As long as corrupt and incompetent people who surrounded Koirala exhibited their unflinching support for him, he did not care about their incompetence or corrupt ways. By the time Koirala realized their actual intent, it was too late. They had already established themselves in Nepali politics. Turning a blind eye on wrongdoings of the followers proved to be costly for the NC. The party that people once looked up as a party of ideas and vision under B P Koirala’s able leadership has been completely reduced to a party of self-serving power mongers.

With Koirala gone, the NC is at a crossroads. The recently held general convention provided the NC with an opportunity to gain its lost ground and glory. How Sushil Koirala, the new president of NC, runs the party will largely determine whether or not the grand old party will be able to reinvent itself. Sushil’s lack of desire to enjoy power reflects his selflessness, which is rare in Nepali politics. He is the kind of man that Nepali people would like to see as party bosses. But in the political landscape full of opportunists, will his idealism be able to bring the much-needed transformation? Will his idealism triumph over opportunism, which is rampant within NC? The people that made Koirala sleepwalk toward the end of his life are now rooting for Sushil. His electoral victory was necessary for the likes of Krishna Prasad Sitaula to remain in circulation in Nepali politics. Sushil’s success as the NC’s president will largely depend on whether or not he will be able to ward off undue pressure from the likes of Sitaula.

There was quite a buzz about the emergence of new faces in the NC’s district-level elections. But will this translate victory into anything meaningful for the party? Of course, it is a good thing. Especially in a country, where almost 65 percent of the population is below 30 years of age, such change will have to be engineered. NC, for its own survival, needs to promote young leaders that better understand the aspirations of Nepali youth. The failure to do so has led to mass exodus of middle-class youth that are the actual believers of liberal democracy.

NC’s reinvention largely depends on reversal of this trend and its ability to better connect with them. However, for young, newly-elected district leaders and central committee members to focus on problems confronting the nation, they will first have to be assured of their political career. For the drive for hard work to come, these youngsters have to have faith over the leadership’s integrity and its commitment toward promoting hardworking and competent individuals. So far, the youngsters in the party have not exhibited that level of independence. The votes that Bhim Bahadur Tamang and Narahari Acharya garnered during the recent convention clearly show that the youngsters are not willing to break free from clientelism and risk their political career. Will Sushil be more willing to promote competence over clientelism?

Will Sushil be able to get out of the influence of the fat cats within the NC whose insensitivity toward problems of citizens and ideological decay sunk the party this low? His first major test will be the nomination of the central committee members. It will make clear whether Sushil is truly a selfless man ready to gamble his post for greater good of the party and the nation or an indecisive politician whose lack of confidence in solving problems made him to shy away from powerful positions in the cabinet. Sushil has a greater responsibility than any other past presidents of his party.

Today, multiparty democracy, whose existence is crucial for the survival of NC, is in real danger. He needs to find a clever way of mainstreaming the Maoists and prevent the CPN-UML and ethnic parties from falling into the Maoists’ trap. His ability to solve these problems and reinvent the party will largely depend upon whether or not he will be able to operate as an independent thinker and bring in new faces with new ideas onboard.