Many of you may not have noticed what I noticed in the recent physical attacks on our senior leaders. First, it was CPN-UML Chairman Jhalanath Khanal; then NC President Shushil Koirala; and most recently, UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal. They all met the same fate—public humiliation—apparently in an attempt to send them a message that they have failed as leaders!
When looked at up close, the latest incident—the attack on Chairman Dahal—is extremely noteworthy and carries much more significance than the ones that preceded it. This is so because until Dahal and his Maoist party appeared on Nepal’s political horizon, the country’s politics had evolved essentially along dynastic lines and, not surprisingly, was designed to serve dynastic interests. This meant that there was not much in terms of peoples’ direct involvement in politics, even during the period of electoral democracy that started in 1990.
PHOTO: KAREN MEAD/TINYBUDDHA.COM
PEOPLE’S SOVEREIGNTY
The commencement and eventual success of Maoist movement turned Nepali politics on its head—from then on, it was believed, the country would be governed to serve the interests of the proletariat and that traditional bourgeoisie society would be done away with. This clearly meant redistributing wealth for the benefit of the poor and putting up safeguards against their exploitation.
The path to these worthy goals was clear and had a respectable backing in the writings of Karl Marx—state ownership of the means of production, guaranteed employment, abolition of profits, and workers’ claim on the total (instead of partial) fruits of labor.
Marx’s labor theory of value and the implied extraction of surplus by property owners made good sense in the context of Nepal where riches of the few represent, for most part, rewards from rent-seeking (otherwise known as inheritance, official title, or selling of patronage), and not from the creation of new wealth—over and above what is contributed by labor. The Maoists’ love for this proletariat doctrine fit Nepali society very well and there was nothing objectionable in putting this doctrine into practice.
Though Karl Marx did not mention it, the Maoists could have promoted their proletariat doctrine fairly and forcefully in another (no less significant) way by boosting investments in public properties which, by their very nature, benefit the disadvantaged and those living in the fringes of society, much more than they do the rich. These public properties are popularly known as infrastructure, of both social and physical types. In the first category are basic health and education services, among others, while the latter type includes public transport, electric power, drinking water, and sanitation services among many others.
The absence of these facilities and poor quality of existing ones affect everyone’s welfare, but lower income groups are more impacted. The reason is that high income groups have resources to acquire these facilities on their own (private schools, private hospitals, personal transport, electric generators and filtered drinking water) which poor families are less able to afford. In a very real sense, this outcome helps perpetuate poverty. For example, poor families cannot educate their children and afford good health care, which keeps them uneducated and unhealthy, transmitting poverty to the next generation.
In the next category of pro-proletariat policies we can include public corruption—in politics and government offices; court proceedings and law enforcement; pricing and delivery of public services; and government licensing and contracting. Presence of these social distortions has a much more deleterious effect on the country’s long-term growth potential than just a shortage of development funds. In fact, control of corruption is an essential prerequisite for a country to scale the development ladder and acquire resources to combat poverty.
DESPAIR AND DISAPPOINTMENTS
During its ten-year struggle against a decadent monarchy and associated evils of a feudal way of life, the Maoist rebels put up a credible fight to win the hearts and minds of people in the most obscure corners of the country who had never been counted for much and were left out to live a miserable life on their own. Despite the strict censorship imposed by royal regime on news coverage of Maoist advances, the Maoist rebellion spread from West to East, turning ordinary citizens into committed militia—eager to bear arms and risk lives fighting for the Revolution.
The long period of rebellion is full of stories: stories of cruelties and atrocities, of heart-touching acts of heroism, of women’s participation in the militia, and of 17,000 dead people. All these risks and sacrifices were thought of as merely the price for wiping out the vestiges of the past and ushering in a new era of liberty, equality, access to opportunities and overall, a hopeful future.
Given this well-meaning and glorious background of Maoists’ struggle for change, what do the records say of what exactly they have accomplished? The short answer is: very little or almost nothing!
This is evident from the extent of public unease over the mounting difficulties of daily living with Maoist-led administration turning a blind eye to critical public concerns such as law and order, official corruption, government transparency, and deteriorating quality of civic and public institutions. All these developments have negatively impacted the key sectors of the economy—agriculture and industry in particular—which has shrunk job opportunities at home and forced our young men and women into menial, and sometimes abusive, foreign employment.
Looking back, there is no belittling the fact that Maoists did have a mandate—and a credible ideology to back it up—to change the course of history and build a new nation. They were believed to have the vision and the zeal for doing so, and a committed group of believers to help them lead the charge. But on its way to implementing the Revolution, the entire movement seems to have gotten stuck in the same kind of muck that had undone all past regimes.
END OF THE ROAD
The abysmal record of Maoist stewardship of the country appears to have brought the whole nation to the end of the political road, meaning that politics alone—in whatever form—is unlikely to steer the country out of its current rut and instill enthusiasm for a better tomorrow.
What we need is another transition—call it Revolution—that goes beyond politics and forces change in our medieval way of life, which is basically hostile to anything that looks foreign. As it stands, Nepal remains one of the most closed societies on Earth, open to the world just for receiving tourists and handouts. Most notably, free trade and foreign investments remain alien to Nepal and this includes contacts with its large neighbors to the South and North.
Opening the country to foreign influences will be no less visionary, ambitious, and transforming than great transitions in history, of the likes that happened in Meiji’s Japan, Ataturk’s Turkey, Deng’s China, and, closer home, Manmohan Singh’s India. Although the historical transformations ushered in by these leaders differed in scope and details, the underlying theme of their initiatives was to open up for international exchanges and embrace other cultures. These openings were intended to welcome new ideas, new technology, and—on a cultural level—a new way of life which, in particular, were very typical of Meiji’s and Ataturk’s push for modernization.
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