Illusive realization

A renowned journalist in Kathmandu during a conversation last week acknowledged something that very few journalists in Nepal dare to write about. He basically told me three things. First, the peace process is dead. Second, the euphoria of spring 2006 revolution has all but dissipated and there is a seething anger among the public about the ongoing political mess. Third, the country needs a major course correction if it is to be saved from slipping into anarchy. 

His views did not surprise me at all. It did not surprise me, because for me, achieving multiparty democracy by joining hands with the violent radical communists was always a far-fetched dream that I simply could not conceptualize. Hard- headed me? Sure, but I have to have evidences to believe in something. For me, hope is not a method. And, if history is any lesson, it has never happened anywhere else. Deep down, this is one of such instances where I very much wanted to be proved wrong. Honestly, there are very few instances when I have felt that way. The nation and people would have benefited and their hope for peace would have come true.

His words got me thinking. How did we get where we are? The political malaise that we witness in Nepal is not of current making. It is a result of inept political decisions taken year after year for more than the past one and a half decade. The revolution of 1990 had provided a perfect platform to radically transform the nation. It is impossible to have such a golden opportunity anytime soon. Girija Prasad Koirala’s hunger for power, ballot-rigging and horse-trading culture that he oversaw and did nothing to control, herd of incompetent and corrupt politicians that he cropped to checkmate Ganeshman Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai’s more moderate and comparatively well-educated followers destroyed the prospects of democratic consolidation in Nepal. Inability to bring about a social change through radical reforms turned a perfect ground for democratic consolidation into a breeding ground for violent insurgency, which Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai had failed to achieve their political dreams under Nirmal Lama’s leadership and beyond were sharp enough to see.

GP Koirala’s annihilation methods of fellow competitors within the party and exceptional expertise in bringing down the government soon became the norm in Nepali politics. All sides: United Marxist Leninist (UML) to former royalists adapted it well to their best advantage. The recent audio tape scandal in which Krishna Bahadur Mahara is heard pleading his Chinese handler millions for political horse-trading is nothing new in Nepali politics. The only difference is that Mahara having been on the run in jungles did not realize that, unlike in jungles, in human settlements, communications can be intercepted and recorded to score political points. People learn from mistakes. This incidence is sure to bring about enhanced sophistication in Mahara’s future dealings.

In Nepal, politics has never been about people. It is practiced in the name of people but not for the people. If we look back, justifications for political change has been always based on people. But as and when political changes materialize, it is quickly reduced to a political opportunism and money making scheme. Repetition of it over and over again can be interpreted in two ways. A more neutral interpretation would call it as the failure of political leadership without raising a question of about whether or not it ever had a vision about as and how to bring about socio-political and economic change. But if an evidence based approach is to be taken, there is ample room to suspect the very intentions of politicians that advocate political change. Looking back political change that politicians pushed for appears more like a ploy to get to the corridor of power and remain there than anything else. What follows the change is misinterpretation of what change was actually for.

The political bickering and power struggle of mid-90s and onward succumbed whatever little vision that Nepali politicians had in terms of bringing about the real change in Nepal. Politicians both within the Nepali Congress and the UML spent more time sharpening their skills required to out-compete the opposition faction within the party than thinking through the issues confronting Nepali society. In the absence of their ability to solve people’s problems, emergence of a powerful political force was eminent, which they conveniently undermined till the Maoists gained grounds and emerged as a prominent threat for their political survival.

Gyanendra’s political adventurism provided a perfect ground for the Maoists to lure the major political parties. The political parties by then had become so used to remaining in the power that they saw nothing wrong in the Maoists’ lewd act.India’s assurance as a guarantor must have provided additional confidence. But what the parties that agreed to bed with the Maoists and India that provided both the moral and material support to the Maoists during the insurgency undermined was that the Maoists that were promising to play by the rules were not loafers that all of a sudden had gotten their hands on guns.

The mainstreaming of a violent radical communist group that had picked guns after being disillusioned with the parliamentary democracy cannot and should not have been based on mere commitments. But the necessity clouded judgments. India saw it as a perfect opportunity to dislodge ultra-nationalist monarchy, parties wanted additional force to fight back the crackdown on them, and as far as the Maoists were concerned, it was the best opportunity to parachute to the urban areas. There might be few, but there people like myself, who still believe that Gyanendra’s political adventurism could have been defeated without joining hands with the Maoists. It would have taken time and that is what GP Koirala did not have on his side. Joining hands with the Maoists has created more problems than it has solved. Looking back, politicians must have realized that putting strategy before ideology is never productive in the long run. Joining hands with ideologically antagonistic force is always counterproductive and dangerous.

It is not the politicians’ fault, entirely. Neither media, nor intellectuals cautioned about the possible dangers associated with bedding with the Maoists. Some did not want to jeopardize their status by sticking their neck out, whereas others did not want to come across as a “regressive” element in a nation that is immersed in “ultra-progressive” glory. That was three years ago. The media and intellectuals are still reluctant to question the utility of the Constituent Assembly, whose main function is to draft a new constitution and act as a legislature. Failure to promulgate a constitution within the stipulated date and elect a prime minister even after the seven rounds of voting has already proved its futility. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity. Isn’t it high time for Nepali media, academics, and intellectuals to engage in real analysis rather than put faith in the process that has failed to produce results? Committing one mistake after another is not the way to build an egalitarian society. Learning from the past mistakes and doing things differently when things do not work is.

Shameless power struggle

The political parties continue to foist ugly power struggle on an unwilling and ailing nation. It is very unlikely that the ongoing power struggle will end with the sixth round of prime ministerial election slated for Sept 5. The struggle will not end, not because it cannot, if sincere effort is made, but because the stakes are too high for the parties involved. Nepali Congress (NC) does not want Puspa Kamal Dahal to become the PM for a very simple reason. Once Dahal gets back to the power, it will be virtually impossible to edge him out. With the strength that Dahal has in the Constituent Assembly, money his fellow proletariats have made after coming over ground, and the muscle power that he has kept intact by not agreeing to the integration plan proposed by the ruling coalition members, NC with its dwindling base has more than enough reasons to play safe. Besides that, NC’s politicians that have gotten shamelessly used to taking turns in enjoying power without facing the electorate, genuinely think that it is their turn to rule the country.

For the Maoists, the situation is equally tricky. Dahal and his fellow comrades very well understand that whoever becomes the Prime Minister now will oversee the expiration of the CA. They will have no bargaining power that they enjoy now once the CA expires, all bets will be off. The transformation of image, from murderous guerillas to elected politicians has been a glorious one. Power, prestige, and money that came with the transformation of image are not things that the Maoists would want to lose. Going back to jungles is, thus, not an option anymore, no matter how hard they try to lie about it. They want more power, not less. And, they will keep holding the nation hostage one way or the other till they get what they want.

As far as Jhala Nath Khanal is concerned, he has no option but to operate under the guise of neutrality. The pace with which political and security situation is worsening in the country, he very well understands that he might not have another chance in the future. For now, playing at the hands of the Maoist comrades very well serves his purpose and there is very little K P Oli and Madhav Nepal can do about it. Pushing Khanal too hard may result in getting him even closer to the Maoists, which obviously Oli and Nepal do not want. Madhav has already become the Prime Minister, but for Oli, that dream is still alive, and in order to fulfill that, he needs his party to remain intact. If courting external force alone was enough, politicians of fringe parties would have become PM long ago. Oli is seasoned enough to understand that reality. So, for Oli, there is very little that he can do at this point in time than letting Khanal continue his quest for premiership under the veil of neutrality.

The problem, however, is not limited to domestic struggle over power. It runs way too deep. Like domestic political forces, international forces, too, are also trying hard to out-compete each other. The quest for control has gotten so fierce that India has engaged itself to such a level that it has started micromanaging things in Nepal. Increased Indian activities have alarmed China. Recent flurry of visits by Chinese officials clearly hints that China is definitely not happy about bloated Indian presence in Nepal. Besides, India and China, which happen to have the biggest interest in having Nepal in their sphere of influence, there are other Western forces that have significant interest in Nepal. Multiple external actors with both covert and overt interest and their support to warring sides have brought the political process to a grinding halt.

While both domestic and external struggle for control over Nepal is getting uglier and deadlocked, there is something else that is happening in Nepal. The state is slowly but certainly inching toward collapse. The industrial sector is bleeding to death due to a daily eight-hour power cut and the militant activities of the Maoists’ labor union. More than 300 industries, mostly small and medium ones, are believed to have shut their gates for good. When the entire world is progressing from industrialization, Nepal is wriggling backward. The dependency on subsistence agriculture is increasing. The only ray of hope is foreign employment. But putting too much faith on it will not get us anywhere. Had remittance been answer to domestic growth, the Philippines, Vietnam, Bangladesh and other leading labor exporting countries would have been first world nations long time ago.

The decay in security situation is equally alarming. Some 10,000 illegal small arms are believed to be floating around in the capital alone. If this is the situation in the capital city, what it would be like to live in hinterlands, where the state’s authority has completely eroded? In order to buy-in popular support, political parties, especially the Maoist, pushed social mobilization to such a dangerous level that it has out-stripped institutional capacity. The level of sophistication and impunity with which land sharks operate in the country and radical communists that pretend to be playing by the norms of democracy confiscate private property says all about the power of the institutions on the ground. Both personal and political freedom of citizens has been severely curtailed. For citizens, the collapse of the state is an abstraction. It has already happened.

The chaos will further worsen if strong action is not taken immediately. The problem, however, is that there is no institution in Nepal that sees itself as the bulwark against worsening chaos. The president has so far been reluctant to send even a strong signal. He seems content hosting dinners for foreign dignitaries and gracing religious functions. The only bold step he took after he took office was the reinstatement of Rookmangud Katwal as the army chief. The time has come again that he steps forward and does the needful. The first thing in his to-do list should be the dissolution of this worthless CA. Even the partisan hacks now acknowledge that this CA will not draft the constitution, so what’s the point in wasting tax payers’ money in feeding fraudulent sharks? Dissolve the CA and demine the field by putting criminals behind bars. The election date should come along with the dissolution notice, or else, these very politicians that have been making a mockery of democracy will try to paint the president as a dictator. Contentious agendas such as the federal structure should be put on the ballot.

It is important to put an end to the manipulative politics that Dahal and his fellow comrades are engaged in and force politicians of moderate political parties that have mastered the shameless art of backdoor dealings to face the electorate. Enough is enough!

End experiments

The political situation in Nepal is getting murkier each day. Recently, India sent two of its former ambassadors to Nepal to find the "outlet". One of them, K V Rajan, who landed immediately after Shyam Saran left is still busy with parleys. Subsequent visits of the former Indian diplomats make it clear that the situation is out of control of the handlers based in Indian Embassy campus in Kathmandu. This is certainly not the situation, where bureaucrats, especially the young ones trying to vault higher into the overly bureaucratic and hierarchical structure of the Indian Foreign Service (IFS), would like to be in. They, for their part, seem to have tried everything from backdoor dealings to issuing open threats. But at times, things do not work despite all sweat and toil, and that is life. It certainly doesn't feel good, does it?

To India's dismay, things in Nepal is surely not going the way Saran and other "Nepal experts" based in Delhi had imagined, when they came up with the formula of bedding the violent Maoist radicals with the moderate mainstream political parties. They thought that by catapulting the Maoists into the mainstream—which is what they thought they were doing till the Maoists swept Constituent Assembly elections—they would have complete dominance over Nepali politics and politicians. It would have been true if politics was an electric circuit where you exactly know the way electric current flows, and stop it, if need be. But politics is not an electrical circuit. In it, you have an ego, ambitions, power, and money at play. Hence, deciphering how one would act in changed circumstances is a very tricky business.

Saran and others crafting India's "pragmatic" Nepal policy should have taken cues from what happens in India all the time. Protégé abandon their political mentors as their political base and popularity expands. Nitish Kumar, the current chief minister of Bihar, which is also the home state of Saran, is one such example. Nitish ended the parliamentary career of George Fernandes, who was not only his mentor but also a person that helped a formerly lightweight Nitish to jump start his stagnant political career under Lalu Prasad Yadav. It was Fernandes that helped Kumar to break away from Lalu's Janata Dal in 1994 and form the Samata Party. 

Saran and fellow pragmatists placed enormous confidence on transformational power of Indian establishment's moral and materialsupport to the Nepali Maoists during the insurgency and their role as a "guarantor" and "facilitator" of the twelve-point agreement signed in New Delhi. They thought it was more than enough to keep the Nepali Maoist on a leash. But little did they realize that impacts of moral and material support strength-bound and wane as protégé gain their own strength. As support base swells, they feel less obliged to remain subservient. It happened with the Maoists and again with the Madhesi People's Rights Forum. In the case of later, India was quite successful to contain the defection by administering vertical split. The bottom line is that moral and material support does not buy eternal subservience.

To say the least, India's policy toward Nepal is seriously flawed. It wants to turn Nepal into a subservient client state like Bhutan, butcan't articulate exactly how. This inability has led India to engage in a never-ending series of dangerous experiments that have completely destroyed the prospects of establishment of egalitarian republican order in Nepal. India sincerely hoped that uprooting of the Monarchy would align its Southern neighbor permanently in its sphere of influence. But that hope got dashed away when the tactical use of nationalism by the monarchy was soon replaced by the jingoism of the Maoists. In order to neutralize the Maoists, Indian establishment then exploited the genuine quest for ethnic empowerment. While the Madhesi politicians are being assured of all help in their quest, the likes of Laxman Tharus that are dead against Madhesi parties' one madhes agenda are being occasionally ferried to New Delhi for secret consultation and direction by the Indian intelligence. Ethnic populace clamoring for their genuine rights appearas confused, if not more, as ever. Even the leaders appear bewildered. Recently, Upendra Yadav, during one of his media interviews said that it is not only Kathmandu but also Delhi does not understand their plight. If Nepali media is to be trusted, there are reports all over about K V Rajan and the current Indian ambassador meeting Gyanendra Shah. If this is true, the never-ending experimentation in the name of "pragmatism" by the Indian establishment has made a complete circle.

At present, India's policy toward Nepal is no different from managing a brothel—a purely business transaction, where the pimps are identified and paid off to get the best beauty in town in bed. Playing one forces against another has completely uprooted people's faith over the political process. It is not only that, people are losing lost faith over liberal democracy. The politicians of ethnic parties now come across as puppets playing at the hands of external power.

In summary, India has made Nepali populace, both Pahadis and Madhesis, wary of its intentions. It can certainly do better. All it has to do is stand by its commitment to the democratic process. People of Nepal, at least the educated ones, very well understand the sensitivity of Indo-Nepal relationship. The new herd of politicians and bureaucrats cropped up from the well-established transparent democratic system would be more level-headed and reliable than the ones currently in circulation and bartered occasionally. They may not serve Indian interest completely, but for sure, they will not be foolish like the herd we have now to resort to jingoism. The transaction costs of dealing with them will be far less than what India is incurring now. End experiments and get back to the basics. It will be beneficial both for India and Nepal.

Identify the problem

Will the nation have a new prime minister on August 2? The chances are slim. The chances are slim not because the political parties are not on the same page on who should be leading the government but because there is no proper framework that forces them to come to an agreement. If the past history is any indication of as and when Nepali politicians come to a consensus, it is the political survival or the chances of losing pay and perks that drive them.

Where has the call for “political consensus” gotten us? There is a rapid decay in social and institutional capital. Insecurity and political instability have triggered massive flight of human and financial capital. Lack of security has forced thousands of village development committee secretaries to resign en masse, which will have disastrous impact on community development. The Maoists cashed-in on local disenchantment when local bodies were functional. Their absence, now, will result in an unchecked mushrooming of radical and criminal groups. The difference between the two is pretty blurred in Nepal.

Let’s accept the fact that living in the hell of misplaced good intentions has not gotten us anywhere. The never-ending cry for political consensus will have to come to an end some day, the sooner the better. Politics is a competitive business and it is better that way. Every politician has an ambition to reach to the top most level. And, especially in a context like ours, where the political process is translucent and rules are arbitrary, it is quite natural for the politicians to do whatever it takes to get the job. Political pundits and the media should shed their obsession with “political consensus” and think about ways to as and how we can make politicians act responsibly and deliver so that we are not at their mercy. They should stop hinting that without political consensus the country is going to go down the drain. We are already on our way there if we don’t reverse our course!

We live in a nation where a majority government did not last a full term. What kind of consensus are we talking about here? Is it even rational to ask for everlasting consensus among the parties with such a stark difference in ideology and agenda?

Yes, we all need a constitution, and without a consensus among the political parties, it is not possible to have one. Makes perfect sense, at least theoretically. But theories are good on paper. We live in a practical world where economic dividends and power define political actions. Constitution-making is neither economically profitable, nor does it bar politicians not engaged in its making ineligible to enjoy power. So why bother? Besides, each party has its own view as to how the constitution should be. The Maoists do not care about it, as they know very well that with the current configuration in the Constituent Assembly (CA), they cannot have the constitution of their liking. The major political parties of yesteryears want to have a constitution not very different from the 1990s, which they very well know is not possible given the fragmented political landscape and upsurge in ethnic consciousness. As far as ethnic parties are concerned, sticking to the ridiculously inflexible ethnic demands, which they themselves put on the backburner while in power, is the only way to remain in circulation in Nepali politics.

If the Maoists agree to the kind of the constitution that the NC and the UML want and the way they want the Nepal Army-People’s Liberation Army (PLA) merger to happen, it will be like mainstreaming into the post-1990 political system. If that is what they wanted, there was no need to fight the decade-long bloody insurgency. For the NC and UML, agreeing to the Maoists’ terms and conditions for constitution-writing and PLA merger would mean dwarfing their own future prospects. Why would they want to do that? The rude awakening that came with the Maoist victory in the CA election is enough to keep them skeptical toward the Maoists for a long time.

Every political parties on the ground will talk about the necessity of having a constitution and moving the political process forward but that is all we will get if the system is not forced to change. The change in guard is irrelevant at this point in time. The debate should be over whether or not the new prime minister will be able to achieve the things that we want him to achieve? If not, how does it matter?

There is a fault within the existing system, which political pundits, media, and the so- called intellectuals are collectively ignoring. Endless regurgitation of the need for consensus is not going to help ease the existing political stalemate, which actually is the result of the consistent abuse of the political system in the name of consensus. By forcing strange bedfellows to conjugate indefinitely, we are dwarfing the chances of realization of democracy. The realization of democracy is contingent upon rules of the game that provide political parties competing against one another a chance to govern within institutional systems that guarantee fairness and a genuine opportunity for alternation of power between competing parties. We need a political system that can punish crime and corruption, mediate between ethnic forces and competing economic interests and turf incompetents out peacefully.

There is no way that politicians are going to agree on the contentious issues, for example, whether or not the entire Madhes should be one province. Such issues determine the political career of many politicians who would be jobless if these issues are solved amicably. The best way to deal with such issues would be referendum. By trying to take a short-cut, we are wasting our time, resources, and energy, which need to be used in creating employment opportunities for youths. In the absence of decent employment opportunities, young Nepalis are being turned into hotheads by conniving separatists, radical ideologues, and criminals.

Our obsession with “political consensus” has allowed politicians to abuse the political system endlessly. They can conveniently choose chance over sovereignty; uncertainty over certainty; darkness over light. The only way to stop the free fall is to take the route that we should have taken after the CA failed to do its duty. We should have gone for fresh elections with contentious issues on the ballet. The process would have been much more transparent. By shying away from the democratic processes and forcing unusual bedfellows to remain in symbiotic relationship indefinitely, we are stifling the prospects of democratic consolidation. It is about time we identified the real problem behind the existing political stalemate.

Will political drama ever end?

It’s already been two weeks since Madhav Kumar Nepal resigned from his post as the Prime Minister. His resignation would break the political deadlock and enhance the possibility of consensus politics. At least, that is what the Maoists said before he formally put his resignation on the paper and called it quits. Contrary to their assertion, his resignation has further thickened the plot.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal and his comrades had really hoped that once Nepal quit, it would be really easy to use gullible opportunists within the CPN-UML to pressurize their leadership to support the Maoists, which obviously has not happened so far. The Maoists’ calculation has once again gone wrong. But at least they had a formula that they thought would work in their favor. They are down but not out. They will pull up their sleeves and gear up for another showdown. So no matter who replaces Nepal, he or she will not have easier days ahead. It is, therefore, better to realize the fact that radical communism is part and parcel of Nepali politics. Undermining or wishing it away is naïve. Instead of engaging in endless checkmate game, it is better to keep them engaged and find ways to mainstream them.

While the Maoists are committed to achieving their end goal, come what may, the ruling coalition is glued together by two things: The lust for power and the threat of the Maoist intimidation and take over. The fragility of the coalition is evident from their differences over who should head the next government. If the coalition was really sincere about institutionalizing democracy and safeguarding the people’s rights, the issue of premiership would have been insignificant. Nepal’s resignation has thrown coalition members out of orbit.

The lust for power among the major political party leaders of the current coalition is the major reason why the President’s call to form a national consensus government failed to produce any results. Not only the first deadline but the second one was also missed. If the ongoing wrangling continues, we will have no idea of Nepal’s successor till the last minute. It is quite possible that the election of the new PM through voting in the Constituent Assembly (CA) on July 21 may still not produce a conclusive winner if the Nepali Congress and CPN-UML were to field their own candidates.

Is anything wrong with the ongoing political drama? For external forces that have political and security interests in Nepal, politicians can wrangle as much as they want to. As long as the chaos is controllable, political pendulum can swing the way it likes. For politicians, it is the pay and perks that need to keep flowing. In the current situation whereby the prospect of facing electorate is extremely remote, the need to deliver is simply not in anybody’s priority. As far as the power brokers in Kathmandu are concerned, till the chances of remaining in circulation are alive, they will not have to worry about benefiting from the liquidation of the state. They have mastered the art of rebranding, can become anything from civil society members to partisan hack, as the political landscape shifts.

Given the level of insensitivity exhibited by the external players, politicians, and power brokers toward the degrading political and economic condition, it is high time that people hit the streets like they did against the Maoists’ blockade couple of months ago. The sooner the better. Nepali people need to be concerned about the degenerating political culture which is having a disastrous impact on the way we live and enjoy political and personal freedom. Not only that, it is also jeopardizing the prospects of socioeconomic development. Recently, the Maoist Central Committee member and commander of the PLA Fifth Division in Rolpa, Kali Bahadur Kham, was found to have conducted suspicious transaction with Chinese traders, who eventually ended up getting robbed by the revolutionary. This shows the level of criminalization in politics. It is not only the politicians that are resorting to criminal activities to enrich themselves. Tej Bahadur Karki, a Hetauda Appellate Court Judge, was recently suspended for his involvement in an inappropriate release of abduction kingpins: Sanjaya Shrestha, Rohit Paliwal Agrawal and Bhimsen Pundit. The ongoing rapid decay of institutions is having a serious impact on our chances to emerge as a modern and prosperous society. The new measure, called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI), developed and applied by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative with the support of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) shows that 78 percent of Nepalis live on two dollars a day. These poor are barely surviving, not thriving. We are even behind impoverished nations like Haiti, Djibouti, and Swaziland.

The reason why we are regressing despite never-ending progressive hoopla is that we let politics triumph over rules. We, as a nation, are more interested in political outcomes, rather than the process. We, as a matter of fact, do not care about the process at all. For example, we want a new government but are least concerned about whether the process of having such a government in place is transparent and ethical. By not doing so, we undermine the fact that what we are doing today will build on what we want to do tomorrow. If we want a transparent and functional political system, we should be prioritizing the process, rather than getting obsessed with outcomes. It might be a long and arduous process, but it at least ensures definite outcomes that cannot be easily rigged by corrupt politicians, that are more interested in enriching themselves rather than serving their constituents.

We should stop letting politics triumph over the rules. President Ram Baran Yadav, should make the CA members play by the rules and stop extending deadlines. Yadav, a decent man, must take part of the blame for political malaise. By appearing too lenient, he is making the swamp even murkier. It is time we drained the swamp to prevent it from becoming murkier and smellier. Politicians in the CA see take him for granted and treat as a fellow traveler rather an authority, where the buck should actually stop. The buck has to stop somewhere. Someone has to be there to say enough is enough or else the political drama will go on forever.

The game is on

The clock started ticking for the thrilling and unpredictable drama of the race for the prime ministerial post the very minute Madhav Kumar Nepal put down his papers. Along with the usual contenders of major political parties, the bosses of fringe parties too have thrown their hat in the ring. Given the level of hatred that the Indian establishment harbors against Pushpa Kamal Dahal, it is very unlikely that he will end up having the job once again. The leader of the largest party in the parliament is all but out of the race. Dahal is a victim of his own unwarranted shrewdness. By now, he must have realized that even in a gullible nation, there is a limit to which you can exploit populism and stoke ultra-nationalism to get to power.

India would have no problem letting the Maoist party head the government if Dahal made way for Dr Baburam Bhattarai. The work to make that happen has been underway for a while now. India’s proxies in Nepal have been openly promoting the idea of Bhattarai as prime minister. The Tarai-based Madhesi parties have come out openly in favor of Bhattarai. Recently, Brikhesh Chandra Lal of Tarai-Madhes Democratic Party went to the extent of saying that Bhattarai was the only capable candidate in the Maoist party to head the government. The change of heart in favor of Bhattarai is not a coincidence. It is a part of a greater design of the Indian establishment to bring about virtual split in the Maoist party. The Maoist party at its current form is too big for India to dictate and its proxies in Nepal to compete with. Indians calling the shot truly believe that the only way to break the Maoist party is by promoting Bhattarai and making him compromise on contentious issues like integration of Maoist combatants.

Given the intra-party feud in the Nepali Congress (NC) and its antagonistic posture against the Maoist party, there is a huge possibility that Jhalanath Khanal might emerge as a consensus candidate for the prime minister’s post. Having Khanal as prime minister has its own pros and cons. It may temporary halt the migration of CPN-UML cadres to the Maoist party and delay the defection of the likes of Bamdev Gautam. In other words, having him as a prime minister may delay the surge of the political left in Nepal. The longevity of the government under Khanal will be greater than that of anyone from the NC. This is mainly because the Constituent Assembly members from the UML will not support the NC government for long even if it materializes. The chances of the NC heading the government are very slim at this point of time. Given the fact that even the likes of Krishna Prasad Sitaula and Shekhar Koirala, both of whom once openly boasted about bringing the Maoists over ground, have now become weary about the Maoists’ intentions, there is very little reason for the Maoists to support NC to form a government. If they cannot head the government, they want someone who favors them. Or else they had no reason to persist on getting rid of Madhav Nepal.

The danger associated with Khanal’s ascendancy to power is that he is too tilted toward the left. If you look at Khanal’s views on crucial issues and his relationship with Dahal and other Maoist leaders, it becomes quite evident that there is not much of a difference between him and the top-level Maoist ideologues. Additionally, Khanal flip-flops too. At this point in time, we need someone who can tactfully deal with the Maoists on the issue of integration of combatants, pressurize them to return seized properties, demobilize Young Communist League’s paramilitary structure, and crush criminal activities under ethnic cover. We need someone who can deliver on the aforementioned fronts and still have enough political capital to spend on the constitution-making process. Given Khanal’s cozy relationship with the Maoist party, his emergence as a compromise candidate may help solve the existing political stalemate but will be of no use when it comes to mainstreaming the Maoists. The mainstreaming of the Maoists is crucial because unless that happens, the desire to have a republican order of their liking will remain alive and kicking.

Madhav Nepal’s government failed on all possible fronts. It could not work well with the opposition party, failed miserably to maintain law and order, and was fiscally irresponsible. But Nepal must be given credit for not heeding to Maoists’ coercion. He did not heed to Maoist threat of indefinite strike, which the Maoists were forced to withdraw because of the lack of popular support. Nepal might have gotten the directives from international players to not get coerced by the Maoists but it takes some courage to stand the heat. We all know how capable the Maoists are in extracting concessions from gullible personalities. The late Girija Prasad Koirala’s post-2006 stint as prime minister is a classic example. At this juncture, the country needs a strong but tactical prime minister to effectively deal with the Maoists. We need someone who can adopt a carrot-and-stick approach required to tame the Maoists and take the constitution-drafting process forward at the same time. By now, even the eternal optimists must have realized how misguided the process of achieving peace through the appeasement of the Maoists has been.

None of the claimants for the premiership have the required political will and capital to deliver on all fronts. There is no evidence whatsoever to believe that the new government will last longer than the one it replaces. But the resignation of Madhav Nepal has opened up a space for political compromise. It has once again given chance to Nepali politicians to come together and solve the problems confronting the nation. Nepali people would feel lucky even if some of the contentious issues are resolved.

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.

Never-ending political crisis

The nation would plunge into a bigger chaos if the Constituent Assembly (CA) is not extended. Nepali people must have heard this countless times in the past months, of course, and many must have accepted it without thinking. Life would be hunky dory and we would all live happily thereafter, political pundits and the media hinted. It was portrayed as the final hurdle to the finish line. Contrary to the political pundit and media’s assertion, the political stalemate has rather thickened. The latest deal retailed as an essential leap to bail out the country from plunging into the bigger chaos is increasingly appearing as another doomed assertion.

The gravest problem this nation faces is the inability of the so- called intellectuals and media to confront the fact that we shouldn’t resort to deals to govern the nation. Deals can be conveniently bent or broken to suit political outcomes. In a country, where the end justifies the means, resorting to deals to bail the nation out of political stalemate is itself a recipe for disaster. Where have the countless deals signed in the past taken us?

Nepalis complain endlessly about how immoral and stupid politicians are, and how badly they have lied to the public about this or that. But what we forget is that our politicians perfectly represent a nation that shows such a thoroughgoing incapacity for thought, and such an aversion to the truth about their own behavior. We seek morality and honesty in our politicians, when we, ourselves, are unwilling to confront the truth for what it is. It is high time that our political pundits and media bosses take a deep breath and try to analyze the crux of the problem before suggesting the easiest way out.

By endlessly opting for an easy way out, we are piling up the problems and letting it accumulate for implosion. Instead of letting the parties fight it out democratically in elections, we are forcing them to do backdoor dealings, which are often not followed. If one is to venture forward mentally one baby step, one will quickly come to see that the deal that was struck minutes before the expiration of CA was a political necessity more than anything else. It was not something that came out of realization of responsibility towards Nepali people. Had KP Oli not struck a deal, the UML would have witnessed a vertical split. With the migration of the likes of Bamdev Gautam to the Maoist camp, Oli would have lost substantial amount of political capital and the backing of India that he enjoys now. For Oli, it was a desperate act of political survival. As far as Pushpa Kamal Dahal is concerned, with dissolution of the CA, his stature and the bargaining power, which stems out of the sheer number that the Maoist party has in CA, would have ceased to exist. With India and the major political parties against Dahal’s prime ministerial aspirations, keeping the CA alive was a political necessity. For the Nepali Congress, sailing with the CPN-UML was the only option at hand. Keeping the CPN-UML intact is not only in the best interest of Oli and the incumbent prime minister but also the congress party. Any vertical split in the CPN-UML and the breakaway faction’s migration to the Maoist camp shall further dwarf the NC’s stature, which is the last thing that the NC wants at this point in time. NC’s political future is very much dependent upon its symbiotic relationship with the CPN-UML.

What happened during the eve of May 28 was a desperate act of political survival. Now, that political parties have successfully bailed themselves out without spending much of their political capital, the game is on to out-fox each other. The NC and CPN-UML are all set to outsmart the Maoists in the very game that the Maoists used against them not a very long ago. The Maoists want to bounce back to the power by adhering to one of the three points in the deal—Prime Minister’s resignation—and undermining others. Whereas the CPN-UML, NC and India want to checkmate Dahal by asking the Maoists to first fulfill other points in the deal, which is virtually impossible. The power of the Maoist party and its control over the society comes from the muscle of the battle hardened fighters, whom it slyly rebranded as young communist leaguers and the loyal party members who are now enjoying the property looted in the last two decades. Why would the Maoists alienate its base and heed the demands put forward by NC and CPM-UML? It simply does not make any sense.

So far, Pushpa Kamal Dahal has kept his prime ministerial aspirations under wraps. He wants to throw his hat in the ring after the incumbent resigns. And, that is where the problem lies. Both India and politicians of the major political parties do not want Pushpa Kamal Dahal as the next prime minister. For India, he is too unreliable to serve Indian interests, whereas for others, he is too ambitious and charismatic, who they think can cut their size further down. India would immediately give its nod and other parties would follow suit, if Baburam Bhattarai was to become the next prime minister. With the major political parties at home and India in an antagonistic mode, it might be the last thing that Pushpa Kamal Dahal might want at this point in time. In a quest for a shortcut through a new set of deals, we might have embarked on a senseless political quagmire. Very soon another round of deal-making might be needed to troubleshoot the snag in the deal signed on May 28.

After all our nation is governed through deals, what’s wrong with that?

Let CA expire

The two-year term of the Constituent Assembly (CA) is coming to an end on May 28. If not extended, which is highly unlikely, the CA’s 601 members will become jobless. Those that want to see these 601 bench warmers get jobless after May 28, hold your breath, do not hedge your bets, yet. A last minute deal on extension is very likely. The extension also extends flow of pay and perks. And when it comes to enriching oneself, Nepali politicians are shamelessly forthcoming. Consensus evade our politicians only when it comes to agreeing on matters that affect common men whose lives are severely blighted by the effects of poverty, unemployment, and lawlessness.

So far, the Nepali Congress (NC), CPN-UML and few smaller parties are the ones that have come forward vouching for the extension of the CA. I, for one, am totally against such a move. Extending the tenure of the CA is wrong on many levels. To begin with, there is no provision in the interim constitution that permits the extension of the CA. Also, it is against the spirit of electoral democracy. The major political parties that are vouching for the extension of the CA are, in reality, undermining the fact that in democracy, office holders are supposed to be responsive to the needs and desires of voters. In the case of failure to do so, which is the case, voters have the right to “throw the rascals out.” Basically, by extending the CA, the politicians are trying to devoid the voters their right and subvert the process of accountability.

As clever as they are, the Maoists do not want to lend their support for extension of the CA until Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal steps down. After suffering major setbacks in recent months, they now have realized that their chances of getting back to power through majority rule are slim. Hence, they want to revert back to the consensus system, which they milked to the fullest extent. They were the ones that undermined the consensus system in an attempt to get Ram Raja Prasad Singh elected as the president. Despite their firm posture, there is very little room to believe that the Maoists will actually stick to not lending their support for extension. More than anything else, it is a bargaining ploy. For the Maoists, it is the CA that provides them the status of the largest party. With its expiration, all bargains that stems out of their status as the largest party is off the table.

In this debate on whether or not the CA should be extended, the real issues that dwarfed the chances of having the new constitution in the first place is still not being discussed. Pundits bemoan the absence of bipartisanship. Implicitly, they believe that bipartisanship is necessary and sufficient to solve the existing political crisis. In their short-sightedness, they fail to acknowledge the fact that Nepali politics today actually is beset with irreconcilable differences. What the Maoists want at the end of the day is drastically different from that of the NC, UML, and other pro-parliamentary forces in Nepal. The nation is bitterly divided over ideology. Most people who care about politics are on one side or the other.

It is time to acknowledge the fact that it is not the lack of time but differences over the issues that derailed the prospects of timely constitution. Without consensus on contentious issues such as integration of members of the People’s Liberation Army, dissolution of the Young Communist League, return of property seized by Maoists, guarantee of return of the internally-displaced people, and agreement on federal structure, the extension of the CA really does not make any sense. We can extend the CA by another five years and will still not have a constitution. And even if we ended up having one, the question of legitimacy will simply not go away. So what’s the point?

Doing something that is beyond the spirit of interim constitution is not the right thing to do. It is high time that we do the right thing rather than things that are easy or appear right. There is a huge difference between doing the right thing and doing things right. Doing things right is a moving target that is based upon influence, power and control. In other words, it is another way of conforming to a politically-correct agenda or taking the easy way out. And, we all know where embarking on politically-correct agenda or taking the easy way out has gotten us. Many of those that took the credit for bringing the Maoists over ground are in the relentless process of reinventing themselves. They are now showcasing themselves as the wall of resistance against Maoist takeover. It is amazing to witness how easy it is to re-brand oneself in Nepal. By now, educated Nepalis, to whom country comes before political masters, must have gotten a good long look at the audacity of shamelessness, and seen how well it works out for those who dared try it.

The political parties should let the CA expire and brace for fresh election. At this juncture, facing the electorate is the right thing to do. It takes great character, conviction, and confidence to do the right thing, which is why it has become a rarity in Nepali politics. It would involve personal sacrifices, political risk, and standing against the incompetent bench warmers in the CA that are constantly looking out for short-cuts to save their job, but also provides an opportunity to come clean and separate oneself from those that are masquerading as democrats.

The silent majority awakens

The Maoists’ “indefinite strike” aimed at dislodging the government hardly lasted a week. Comrades, who roared like lions while delivering their May Day speeches, appeared like wet kittens during the press conference organized to call off the strike. And, it all happened within a week. What forced the Maoists to call off their strike? It is a second major setback for them. The first being their unsuccessful attempt to bring down the government by obstructing the Constituent Assembly (CA).

People watching the press conference could easily tell that Pushpa Kamal Dahal was lying when he said the decision to call off the strike was due to the discomfort faced by the general public. While he slyly based his premise to call off the strike on discomfort of the general public, he contradicted the very stance within minutes by labeling thousands of anti-strike protesters conspiratorial puppets riled up by the government to ignite confrontation among the public. The audacity it takes to tell these lies, straight to people’s faces that have watched Dahal’s honest side in Saktikhor tape shows that he doesn’t really care about the truth.

Forget about the Saktikhor tape, it does not take much effort to find out the level of compassion that Dahal and his comrades have for common folks. The Maoists are still not letting thousands of people displaced during and after the insurgency to return home. Their property is yet to be returned. Every now and then the sister organizations of the Maoist party shuts down schools and colleges to prove their strength leaving children wondering about their future. The infamous acts of Young Communist Leaguers that have terrorized public are yet to stop.

If Dahal and his comrades were really serious about providing comfort to the people, they would have disbanded YCL long time ago, returned the seized properties, and instructed their ideologues in the guise of student leaders not to fiddle around with the educational sector. All these are sufficient to prove that Dahal’s reason to call off the strike is nothing but a lie.

Here are the real reasons why Dahal and his comrades called off the strike. The relationship between India and the Maoist party is getting worse, and India is hell-bent on not letting the revolutionaries come back to power unless they tone down their anti-India rhetoric. With India antagonized, the Maoists could not afford to lose the support of Europeans, specifically the Scandinavians. It would not reflect positively on the Scandinavians to support a party that pretty much makes the common folks life difficult.

To make the matter worse for the revolutionaries, a peace rally was organized by the Valley folks. The Maoists were caught off guard by the sheer number of participants in the peace rally. Thousands of people who participated in the rally provided a further jolt to the Maoists’ crippling strike. Diminishing returns and increasing domestic and international pressure were the real reasons why Dahal and his comrades called off the strike. Beneath the heaps of lies and deceptions, is the compulsion that transformed the roaring lions into feeble kittens.

We have to understand that the Maoists were forced to call off their indefinite strike. If they hadn’t called it off, it would have certainly invited bigger troubles for them. Had the Maoists gone berserk, the government would have been left with only one option, ie, to deploy the army. In the worst case scenario, the CA would have been dissolved. The mobilization of the army would have stalled the so-called peace process, which the Maoists have abused to every possible extent for their benefit, and which has so far produced everything but peace. With the dissolution of the CA, they would no longer have the status of the largest party, from which, comes their demand to lead the government. The Maoists took the lumps because they realized that they were treading on dangerous grounds. Swallowing pride when cornered is straight from the radical communists’ playbook.

For now, the Maoists’ push for mobocracy has been defeated. But the battle is far from over. The Maoists have withdrawn, temporarily, but have not completely ejected themselves from the game. They will reassess the failure, re-plan, and strike again in the future, for sure. Let’s not be mistaken. They are in this game to win, not to let others win. They fought the decade-long insurgency because they want to dislodge the system and establish the one that works for them. The parties finally seem to realize the Maoists’ intentions and end goals. Whether it is the survival instinct that has kicked in or the international players’ warnings, the realization seems to have come to the Maoist leaders, finally.

The brighter side of the Maoists’ failed attempt to promote mobocracy is that it has riled up the silent majority and sidelined the Maoist supporters in the guise of civil society advocates and human rights activists. The silent majority, whom the Maoists have been taking for a free ride and whose power they have been undermining, is, finally, waking up. This is also an indication that people are willing to confront the comrades if the government is really serious about tightening the noose on the Maoists. The appeasement of radicals has never brought peace anywhere in the world. It is good that the post 12-point agreement has all but vanished. We need pragmatists who understand the threat and dare to deal with it. The politics of lies and deceptions that Dahal and his fellow comrades have been using should be brought to an end once and for all. They should be stopped from coming to the power at any cost unless they reform themselves completely, and fulfill their past commitments and promises.

Way out

Finally, the politicians are acknowledging that constitution will not be drafted by May 28. However, they are yet to acknowledge their personal responsibility in the failure. Everyone has their scapegoat ready. If you are someone with a radical bent, by now you must be convinced that it is the Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML’s fault. For the NC and CPN-UML sympathizers, it is all because of the Maoists lack of interest in drafting the constitution. Finger pointing and the blame game will continue for a while.

With the chances of promulgating the constitution by May 28 getting slimmer with each passing day, some politicians and pundits have already started floating the idea of extending the deadline. The deadline should not be extended for two reasons. First, rewarding incompetence is a horrible idea. It would set a wrong precedence. The absence of an adequate mechanism to reward the competent and, as a corollary, weed out the incompetent, is perhaps the most important factor that discourages talented youngsters from joining politics. Second, the politicians have promised heaven and earth to the people. In order to garner support, the Maoists and mushrooming ethnic parties have promised rights and resources to every ethnic group that they found would benefit them. They genuinely think that pursuing ethnic agenda will politically profit them down the road. Given the fact that the Maoists and ethnic parties are not going to budge on ethnic agenda, the NC, UML, and other smaller parties of yesteryears, frankly do not see room for negotiations. Giving in to the Maoist and ethnic parties’ demands means constricting their own base. So it is not the lack of time but refusing to rise above petty party interests that has stalled the drafting of constitution.

For a viable constitution to be drafted, there has to be a minimum understanding between the major political parties. In the current adversarial environment, reaching any kind of consensus looks almost impossible. Therefore, instead of pushing for an extension of the deadline, what is needed now is a real sincere push toward the creation of an environment, whereby a constitution that is acceptable to the majority of the population can be drafted. It is not enough that we have a constitution. There has to be a consensus on the need to honor the one that we will eventually end up having. Or else, the very people engaged in drafting it will start running away from it as fast as their legs can carry them.

It is important to lessen the hostilities and create an environment suitable for consensus. In order to create that environment, we need to have a national unity government. But before the national unity government is put in place, there should be an all-party agreement on contentious issues that derailed the possibility of having the constitution on time in the first place. With the rise of the possibility of getting into the government, politicians will be more willing to make compromises. As a regional power, and more than that, as the one that orchestrated and solemnized the marriage between the democratic forces and the radical communists, which was sure to end up in a nasty divorce not due to the ideological differences but due to the equal greed for power, India has the biggest role to play in bailing Nepal out of the current mess. It is not just because cleaning one’s mess is a moral imperative, but also because a rogue neighbor can be a pain in the neck. With Pakistan to its west and Bangladesh to its east, the last thing India wishes for is a rogue neighbor to its north.

The problem that India has when it comes to dealing with Nepal’s perpetual mess, which is partly of its own making, is that its script is often like a B-grade Bollywood movie. It appears promising in the beginning but soon falls apart. What is needed is a tight script and professional directorial venture that very well takes into consideration the dubious nature of the characters. First and foremost, it is important to understand where these characters come from, where they stand, and what they want to achieve at the end of the day. If one is to look closely, it becomes very evident that all of them want the same thing, ie, power.

In their quest for power, the Maoists want to subvert the rule of the majority through mass mobilization. They basically want to paralyze the government through their urban-centric uprising. While the Maoists want to inculcate a sense of fear among the people and paralyze the government, which they think will eventually pave their path to power, the non-Maoist parties, especially the bigger ones, want to portray the Maoists’ urban-centric uprising as a prelude to government takeover. The Maoists are not that stupid to take over power forcibly like some NC and UML politicians seem to suggest. They know it very well that it is not feasible to capture the state and run it in a fragmented political landscape like the one we are presently in. NC and UML leaders have their own interests in portraying the Maoists as dictators in making, which does have some truth to it though. They want to use it as a basis to justify their right to remain in power indefinitely.

It is almost impossible that political parties will find a solution to the existing political stagnation on their own. The deficit of trust is so wide that no side is willing to blink. It is sad but true that without Indian intervention, the current mess is not going to get sorted out. India needs to act immediately. If the current political system that relies on India’s “stabilizing” role breaks down, there will be an undeclared civil war in the country. The best way to salvage the current situation is by cutting a deal with Pushpa Kamal Dahal. And, this is the best time to do that. Get the most out from his unquenchable thirst for power. Dangle the prime ministerial lollypop in front of him and make him agree to things like dissolution of the infamous Young Communist League, and return of seized property. If he does not agree to that, bargain for inclusion of the smallest possible number of Maoist combatants in the security forces. Given the power-hungry nature of Dahal, this is the best time to get concessions on many important issues, which if not resolved soon, pose greater threat to peace, stability and democracy.

Expedite the process and get it done within a couple of months. In the meantime, someone else can head the government to satisfy Dahal’s narcissistic ego. Once the weapons are firmly under the government’s control, PLA integration issue is amicably settled and the YCL is disbanded, Dahal can head the national unity government where all parties in then expired constituent assembly will be incorporated based on their respective strengths. It may be a tall order but worth pursuing. Establishing a national unity government by making Dahal first deliver on pertinent issues is the only safest way to get out of this current mess.

India's diminishing options

In his signature speech last week at Khulla Manch, Pushpa Kamal Dahal said what lower rung Maoists leaders have been tirelessly regurgitating since then: There could be no peace or constitution as long as Madhav Kumar Nepal’s (MKN) government is in place. But more important to ponder upon is what he shied away from saying. There can be no peace or constitution as long as MKN’s government is there does not mean that Dahal will allow his own party to join the government as a coalition member or support someone else to head the government. What Dahal meant is that for peace to be restored and constitution to be drafted by the stipulated date, he should be allowed to form the government.

Given India’s reluctance to let Dahal get back to the corridors of power and Dahal’s own stance of non-cooperation in constitution making unless he is allowed back, it is almost certain that the constitution will not be promulgated within the stipulated timeframe. It is unfortunate that millions of tax payers’ money has been already spent for the two-year deadline which will most likely be missed.

Besides India, several Nepali political parties, whose political base has been cut short do not want the Maoists to come to power. While Pushpa Kamal Dahal wants deliverance of peace and constitution on his terms, and only if and when he is allowed to head the government, other players too have not given up their claims to rule the nation altogether. Strangely, their authority to rule the nation comes not from their ability to establish good governance, maintain law and order, or bring peace, but from the political polarization resulting from rapidly degrading relationship between the Maoist party and India. The Maoists’ gross miscalculation of the consequences of vilifying India proved to be costlier than they expected. It is not to say that India is in a better position when it comes to realizing its security interests in Nepal. It, too, is in a tight spot.

India knows that MKN’s government is incompetent but there are no viable alternatives for it to tap into. The minute it dislodges the current government and puts together another one under the leadership of a non-leftist leader, it is almost certain to trigger migration of the likes of Bamdev Gautam to the Maoist party. This will make the number game politics being played out to keep the Maoists at bay very unpredictable. The last thing India would want to do is go after politicians who has stooped to the level of forging travel documents for reimbursement to keep the government of its liking intact.

The existing political stagnation cannot last for ever. How politics will unfold in the coming days and months will largely depend on how far the Maoists and India are willing to go to seek an upper hand. While Maoists have the indoctrinated foot soldiers, battle hardened guerillas, and sympathy of the poor and ethnic minorities, India has the money. Top leaders of the major political parties, whose popular base has been cut short, and hence, have to rely on India’s benevolence to have any significance. But most importantly, India has Nepali Army in its grip, which after the Maoists’ attempt to sack its previous chief and reluctance in extending the tenure of eight brigadiers has found a savior in the Indian establishment. Given India’s reluctance to put together a democratic alliance to fight out the Maoists surge in Nepal makes it clear that India has realized the transaction costs of putting together such an alliance and maintaining it will cost higher than letting the controlled instability reign. India might have come to a conclusion that getting the Nepali Army out of the barrack, if and when the Maoists go berserk is more cost-effective with guaranteed outcome than investing in Nepali politicians, whose allegiance are often questionable.

There is no doubt that the Maoists should reform before they are allowed to head or join the government. They need to heed to the promises made in the past. Return the seized properties and dissolve the para-military structure of its youth wing the Young Communist League (YCL). Expecting their moderation after they join the government would be purely daydreaming. The moderation of radicals while in power has never happened in the world history. Had this historical fact been acknowledged and dealt upon accordingly in the past, the Maoist party today would have been a more disciplined and sober political force.

Taming the Maoists at this juncture is extremely difficult because Pushpa Kamal Dahal needs indoctrinated foot soldiers, dogmatists, and battle hardened YCL more than ever, as he has lost the support of India, a major player and the “decider” of who remains in power and who does not in Nepal. Given Dahal’s dubious character, India wants him to first fulfill the promises he made in the past and tame dogmatists within his party, whom he has been subtly portraying as lunatics lurking in the background, ready to go blow their top any moment. To Dahal’s dismay, the very things that India wants him to do before allowing him to get back to power are things that will make him unpopular and may be irrelevant in front of the mass that made him what he is today. Dahal had the real opportunity to defang the dogmatists while in power but the train has already left the platform. Dahal will continue to play a “rebel rouser” for his political survival if nothing else.

As far as India is concerned, it too does not have many options at hand. Citizens do not have an indefinite appetite for incompetence. Sometime down the road, people will eventually get fed up with the current government, whose ministers are forging documents to claim reimbursement. There is a limit to nonsense. It cannot go on for ever. And, when that day arrives, the ground will have swollen in favor of the Maoists. Dahal may then very well use that golden opportunity to make his men do what the opposition recently did in Kyrgyzstan. If and when that fateful day comes, there is very little that the politicians now in power or the Army that India is banking on to safeguard its interest will be able to do. In the process of taming Pushpa Kamal Dahal, we should not be challenging narcissism.

The safest way to avert impending crisis is by keeping Dahal and other power hungry Maoists engaged. Re-run of what the Maoists did with GPK will do the trick. It is advisable to lure Dahal with power and somehow make him fulfill the promises he made in the past. Once that happens, other political parties will be in a better position to challenge the Maoists both on the ground and on ballot boxes. It is important to create that situation if peace and stability is what India really wants in Nepal.

Setting the Record Right

Scores of people have written about Girija Prasad Koirala (GPK) since his demise. From incidents such as the flight that they took together with GPK to the advice that they gave him were meticulously recollected in order to highlight their association. Strangely, people did not hesitate to reap creative mileage from his death. Instead of sincerely highlighting his achievements and fallacies, which is important to set the record straight, they used the opportunity to toot their own horns. The rarest and the biggest example of duplicity came from none other than the Maoist duo Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai. It was quite obnoxious to learn that the Maoists duo that lured him with presidency, but eventually double-crossed him in the last minute, considered his passing away as a demise of a guardian. Hypocrisy at its best!

GPK might not be anywhere near in terms of moral virtues that Mahatma Gandhi had or selflessness that Nelson Mandela practices, but to fight relentlessly for democracy for decades is not something that everyone can or will be willing to do. One may argue that living in the proximity of one of the world’s greatest socialist thinkers like B P Koirala could have planted the virtues of democracy in a megalomaniac, but understanding virtues of democracy alone is not enough when it comes to making democracy work for the common men, which is what happened in the case of GPK. I am not particularly enthused at discussing GPK’s checkered past, considering that he is no more with us and that culturally we avoid talking about someone’s shortcomings after their demise. But, in weighing his achievements and fallacies, I find it important that between the eulogies, the unending praises and the references to GPK as a “maverick” that we take a moment to step away and be just to history. Revisionist history, especially in matters that may frame the future of modern Nepal, can be harmful, and, hence, must be avoided at all costs.

Making mistakes is human. In between birth and death, certain things are bound to happen one of them being mistakes. Like everyone else, GPK had his share. What sets his mistakes apart from common men’s is that they could have impacted the dreams of millions of Nepalis clamoring for a just, prosperous, and peaceful Nepal. They could have had far reaching consequences. Political pundits that churned out articles left and right after GPK’s demise made an interesting argument about what would Nepal be like had GPK not stood for democracy? But that is only one side of the coin. Given the fact that he had already achieved what he fought for the good part of his life through restoration of democracy in 1990, his ability to provide democratic dividends to the citizenry also needs to be evaluated—thoroughly.

Given the international goodwill he enjoyed and respect he commanded at home, at least in the early days of restoration of democracy, what would have Nepal looked like had he understood the importance of intra-party democracy, strengthening of institutions, quelling political corruption, enhancement of social justice and equality, and strict handling of the process of mainstreaming the Maoists, to name a few?

GPK ruthlessly destroyed the political career of his contemporaries. Ganesh Man Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai’s political careers were cut short to promote his own. Had he allowed intra-party democracy to take root, NC would not have been left with just mediocre leaders that they have today. The party does not have a dynamic leader that can effectively energize the base, forget about energizing the nation and bringing it together. Intra-party democracy fosters emergence of competent leaders. When GPK became the prime minister in 1991 for the first time, the current president of the United States was a visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. None beyond his family and friend circle really knew him. It is the transparent intra-party political system that allowed an African-American man and the son of a single mother with limited means to become the president of the most powerful nation on earth. Given the role that intra-party democracy has on the emergence of a leader, can we truthfully ignore what he did to perpetuate his hegemony within NC and its implications on the emergence of future leaders?

GPK repeatedly inducted people implicated for political corruption in his cabinet. Instead of using people like Pradeep Giri, whose potential to this date remains unexplored, he repeatedly chose to be surrounded by the same herd irrespective of their fading public persona. This led the emergence of a political caste – a sort of Brahminical caste. His turning of blind eye to massive political corruption ultimately created an ethical disequilibrium as the lines between good and evil thinned. It had a disastrous consequence on the moral fabric of the nation. Corruption trickled down to courtrooms, which is the last thing that a young nation struggling to remain requires. Dozens of judges are currently under investigation for corruption charges. We, as a nation, have been slipping in all indicators related to good governance, accountability, corruption, and this is not an effect of a single overnight incident. It a ripple effect of institutional failure resulting from letting the corrupt herd manipulate the system to their advantage.

Importance of social justice and equality never got GPK’s attention. The practice of nominating a handful of politicians belonging to ethnic minorities for important ministerial and other important positions to showcase ethnic equality, which had been the norm during the Panchayat era, continued unabated. When the time came to recognizing equality eventually, he signed an agreement with groups from a particular region, which was dead wrong. What the nation needs today is a comprehensive equality policy, not the oiling of squeaky wheels.

One of GPK’s greatest failures was not to understand the real intentions of the Maoists. They made him sleepwalk tirelessly to fulfill their own agendas and double-crossed him when it came to fulfilling their promise of supporting him for the first president of Nepal. His unabated appeasement of the Maoists created more problems than it solved. Whether his judgment was clouded by his failure to understand that appeasement never brings peace or by the Maoists coordinated lewd acts carried out in concert with his inner coterie shall always remain a subject of speculation.

When it comes to the prospects of democratic consolidation, he left the nation far worse off than the one he had inherited in 1991. He had a ‘clean slate’ back then. He could have utilized the opportunity to build and strengthen institutions, nurture the rise of competent politicians by promoting intra-party democracy, extract the loyalty of citizenry through big social reforms and comprehensive equality policy, and contain the decay of law and order through strict handling of the Maoists. We might have been better off compared to where we would have been otherwise, but we are way behind from what we could have achieved had GPK been a more thoughtful and visionary persona. GPK was really good at seizing the opportunity, but when it came to translating them into success for all, that is where he failed, and failed miserably. He has left us a country, where the promise of the dividends of democracy and the resultant expectation of it by Nepalis remain illusory.

Setting the Record Right

Scores of people have written about Girija Prasad Koirala (GPK) since his demise. From incidents such as the flight that they took together with GPK to the advice that they gave him were meticulously recollected in order to highlight their association. Strangely, people did not hesitate to reap creative mileage from his death. Instead of sincerely highlighting his achievements and fallacies, which is important to set the record straight, they used the opportunity to toot their own horns. The rarest and the biggest example of duplicity came from none other than the Maoist duo Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai. It was quite obnoxious to learn that the Maoists duo that lured him with presidency, but eventually double-crossed him in the last minute, considered his passing away as a demise of a guardian. Hypocrisy at its best!

GPK might not be anywhere near in terms of moral virtues that Mahatma Gandhi had or selflessness that Nelson Mandela practices, but to fight relentlessly for democracy for decades is not something that everyone can or will be willing to do. One may argue that living in the proximity of one of the world’s greatest socialist thinkers like B P Koirala could have planted the virtues of democracy in a megalomaniac, but understanding virtues of democracy alone is not enough when it comes to making democracy work for the common men, which is what happened in the case of GPK. I am not particularly enthused at discussing GPK’s checkered past, considering that he is no more with us and that culturally we avoid talking about someone’s shortcomings after their demise. But, in weighing his achievements and fallacies, I find it important that between the eulogies, the unending praises and the references to GPK as a “maverick” that we take a moment to step away and be just to history. Revisionist history, especially in matters that may frame the future of modern Nepal, can be harmful, and, hence, must be avoided at all costs.

Making mistakes is human. In between birth and death, certain things are bound to happen one of them being mistakes. Like everyone else, GPK had his share. What sets his mistakes apart from common men’s is that they could have impacted the dreams of millions of Nepalis clamoring for a just, prosperous, and peaceful Nepal. They could have had far reaching consequences. Political pundits that churned out articles left and right after GPK’s demise made an interesting argument about what would Nepal be like had GPK not stood for democracy? But that is only one side of the coin. Given the fact that he had already achieved what he fought for the good part of his life through restoration of democracy in 1990, his ability to provide democratic dividends to the citizenry also needs to be evaluated—thoroughly.

Given the international goodwill he enjoyed and respect he commanded at home, at least in the early days of restoration of democracy, what would have Nepal looked like had he understood the importance of intra-party democracy, strengthening of institutions, quelling political corruption, enhancement of social justice and equality, and strict handling of the process of mainstreaming the Maoists, to name a few?

GPK ruthlessly destroyed the political career of his contemporaries. Ganesh Man Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai’s political careers were cut short to promote his own. Had he allowed intra-party democracy to take root, NC would not have been left with just mediocre leaders that they have today. The party does not have a dynamic leader that can effectively energize the base, forget about energizing the nation and bringing it together. Intra-party democracy fosters emergence of competent leaders. When GPK became the prime minister in 1991 for the first time, the current president of the United States was a visiting Law and Government Fellow at the University of Chicago Law School. None beyond his family and friend circle really knew him. It is the transparent intra-party political system that allowed an African-American man and the son of a single mother with limited means to become the president of the most powerful nation on earth. Given the role that intra-party democracy has on the emergence of a leader, can we truthfully ignore what he did to perpetuate his hegemony within NC and its implications on the emergence of future leaders?

GPK repeatedly inducted people implicated for political corruption in his cabinet. Instead of using people like Pradeep Giri, whose potential to this date remains unexplored, he repeatedly chose to be surrounded by the same herd irrespective of their fading public persona. This led the emergence of a political caste – a sort of Brahminical caste. His turning of blind eye to massive political corruption ultimately created an ethical disequilibrium as the lines between good and evil thinned. It had a disastrous consequence on the moral fabric of the nation. Corruption trickled down to courtrooms, which is the last thing that a young nation struggling to remain requires. Dozens of judges are currently under investigation for corruption charges. We, as a nation, have been slipping in all indicators related to good governance, accountability, corruption, and this is not an effect of a single overnight incident. It a ripple effect of institutional failure resulting from letting the corrupt herd manipulate the system to their advantage.

Importance of social justice and equality never got GPK’s attention. The practice of nominating a handful of politicians belonging to ethnic minorities for important ministerial and other important positions to showcase ethnic equality, which had been the norm during the Panchayat era, continued unabated. When the time came to recognizing equality eventually, he signed an agreement with groups from a particular region, which was dead wrong. What the nation needs today is a comprehensive equality policy, not the oiling of squeaky wheels.

One of GPK’s greatest failures was not to understand the real intentions of the Maoists. They made him sleepwalk tirelessly to fulfill their own agendas and double-crossed him when it came to fulfilling their promise of supporting him for the first president of Nepal. His unabated appeasement of the Maoists created more problems than it solved. Whether his judgment was clouded by his failure to understand that appeasement never brings peace or by the Maoists coordinated lewd acts carried out in concert with his inner coterie shall always remain a subject of speculation.

When it comes to the prospects of democratic consolidation, he left the nation far worse off than the one he had inherited in 1991. He had a ‘clean slate’ back then. He could have utilized the opportunity to build and strengthen institutions, nurture the rise of competent politicians by promoting intra-party democracy, extract the loyalty of citizenry through big social reforms and comprehensive equality policy, and contain the decay of law and order through strict handling of the Maoists. We might have been better off compared to where we would have been otherwise, but we are way behind from what we could have achieved had GPK been a more thoughtful and visionary persona. GPK was really good at seizing the opportunity, but when it came to translating them into success for all, that is where he failed, and failed miserably. He has left us a country, where the promise of the dividends of democracy and the resultant expectation of it by Nepalis remain illusory.

Work together

Less than three months remain before the deadline set for promulgation of a new constitution expires. Except for the likes of Subash Nembamg, who can with a straight face claim the possibility of the impossible, even the perpetual optimists that believe in the last minute miracles in Nepali politics have given up hope. The chances of having a new constitution by the stipulated date are pretty slim, if not impossible.

It may be difficult for many to understand why there is no concerted effort toward drafting the constitution. The simple answer to this question is that for politicians it is not the priority. The progress toward meeting the deadline is not attached to the pay and perks of the politicians in the Constituent Assembly (CA). It is a classic example of what could happen if the pay is not contingent upon the performance and deliverables. Even if the politicians make it a priority, the chances of reaching an agreement in issues such as federalism is highly unlikely. So why spend time and energy on doing a thing that is going nowhere? Makes perfect sense!

Although the country witnessed a revolution, the nature of Nepali politics has not changed. Instead of working together to tackle the issues confronting the nation, the politicians aim to outfox each other. Increasingly widening deficit in trust, especially between the radical left and the centrist forces, is perpetuating a system that is not just Machiavellian but outright Hobessian.

While the Maoist party is struggling hard to maintain its ballooned support base, the centrist forces that ruled the country for the good part of the last two decades are having a hard time minimizing the defection of their cadres to the newly-emerged ethnic groups and to the Maoist camp. The political vacuum that Maoists had aimed to fill after the uprooting of the monarchy has not been as easy as anticipated. Ethnic grievances which the Maoists cashed in during the insurgency have been successfully hijacked by the newly-mushroomed ethnic parties. Lack of a visible enemy that they can claim important to defeat for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat might have brought trepidation on the Maoist camp. In the absence of a visible enemy, a march to the promised land will remain on hold without any particular timeframe. This may eventually bewilder the cadres that might well then turn against the dream merchants.

The Maoists themselves are responsible for the state that they are presently in. The autocratic aspirations harbored by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and his fellow comrades could not remain dormant for long. They wanted to neutralize the Nepal Army (NA), which they see as the biggest hurdle toward complete control over Nepali politics, early on in the game. The souring of the relationship with NA, which was not that good to begin with, was not a huge problem, but the decision to vilify India for their own political miscalculation was the biggest blunder they committed. The Maoist propagandists really shot themselves in the foot as they started shooting from their mouths.

Looking back, it becomes quite evident that the Maoists played the master manipulator and successfully herded the centrist forces to minefield but they seem to have no vision following that. Lack of their ability to outgrow the guerrilla mindset is the main reason behind the erosion of both the internal community’s goodwill and internal political support early on in the process. There was no reason to create Young Communist League (YCL) and continue marauding raids on innocent civilians after they came over-ground. If political insecurity was the reason behind YCL’s creation, they could have disbanded it after CA elections. The general public that had been betrayed time and again by the mainstream political parties for years had no reason to not support the Maoists had the Maoists fulfilled their promise of contributing toward establishing peace and stability.

It would, however, be quite unrealistic and insincere to blame only the Maoists for the current state of affairs. The major political parties are equally responsible for where we are now. Propaganda aside, unlike the major political parties that are yet to admit publicly that there has been a failure of intellect on their part in not realizing the Maoists’ real intentions, the Maoists have been inconsistently consistent about their end goal. They have been clear that at the end of the day, they want the dictatorship of the proletariat. We may choose to disagree with what they believe in or of the viability of their belief system in the current geopolitical context, but at least they have something that they believe in, and have a path charted out to achieve it.

As far as the major political parties are concerned, except for lofty promises, which they failed to deliver during their heydays, and instilling fear about what the Maoists would do to the nation if they have their way, there is nothing substantial that they have to offer to the general public. They are yet to realize that the best way to remain in power is by delivering. Instead of setting good examples so that they regain the trust of people, they are still clinging on the path that led them down. Look at what Madhav Kumar Nepal did to save his face in the aftermath of the broad daylight murder of two media entrepreneurs. Instead of asking the home minister to resign, he forced the State Home Minister Mohammad Rizwan Ansari, who happens to be the only member from UML to win the CA election, to resign. What kind of message, if any, does this kind of action send? Poaching weaker targets to save face is not only bad politics but also bad governance.

Nobody deserves more blame for the country’s sorry state than the politicians. The 2006 April revolution had provided a perfect opportunity to reconcile their differences and start afresh toward building an egalitarian society. But realization of it appears bleaker with each passing day. The time has come for the centrist forces to realize that radical communism is here to stay. It’s better if they learnt to live and deal with it. As far as the Maoists are concerned, it’s time for them to come out of their guerilla mindset. It might be easier and safer for them to get to power through electoral means than by completely bringing down the existing system through another “revolution” which has to be violent if it is to achieve its objective. The later may be too risky and has its consequences.

And, let’s say even if they succeeded in achieving it, it may not last for long. Even if it lasts for sometime, the possibility of what Cambodian Khmer Rouge leaders are facing now in the international criminal court will always remain a possibility. Khmer Rouge leaders too believed that their movement was for the betterment of people, didn’t they? Given the risks associated with bringing down the state, adhering to electoral politics may be a safer bet.