Gallup World’s findings that indicated that Nepal was one of the least emotional countries of the world has been available online for more than a month. The ever-popular nepalnews decided to publicize the fashionable pollster’s results on the day some activists had planned to protest against robbing and rape of an overseas worker returning home at the Tribhuvan International Airport.
Sita Rai (name changed to protect the identity of the victim) had a passport that bore a name different from hers. Unfortunately, that is not as unusual in Nepal as it appears. Touts of manpower agencies often dupe unsuspecting folks into assuming expedient identities. In their desperation to migrate, eager workers meekly accept whatever deal is sold to them as convenient. Sita was merely one of the thousands that bribe their way out of the country in the hope of making a living and returning home with some savings.
REPUBLICA FILES
Her hard-earned savings proved to be Sita’s undoing. A group of government officials—identified by ekantipur as Ram Prasad Koirala, Tek Raj Pokharel, Somnath Khanal and Parsuram Basnet (names retained to shame perpetrators)—conspired to divest the poor returnee of her belongings. Her ordeal was not yet over. The woman was physically abused and threatened. Thus was an innocent citizen robbed, forcibly disrobed, and then raped by officials entrusted with the responsibility of serving her and protecting her life, liberty, dignity and property.
Outrage is an extremely strong reaction of anger, shock, or indignation. Centuries of slavery under Rana-Shah family and their cronies, followed by decades of submission to an authoritarian system and years of enduring chronic instability have together weakened the collective will to protest against injustice. Violence of the armed insurrection has damaged the moral fiber of the nation to such an extent that the very ability to stand up for civil rights has been grievously injured. Perhaps the greatest challenge that would test the mettle of the collectivity in the coming days is the capacity to face pathologies of yet another subverted revolution in the history of the country.
David Hume (1711-1776), the Scottish philosopher of skepticism, argues that emotions rather than reason drives moral judgments and that the ‘reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions.’ Where did one of the most unemotional people on the planet find the energy to pursue the path leading towards freedom, equality and justice in the Spring Uprising 2006 and the Madhesh Uprisings 2007?
Perhaps the solidarity of the oppressed produced euphoria. The excitement then helped overcome fears and created energy to overthrow symbols of the repressive past. That passion of the oppressed has dissipated, but the substance of the authoritarian structure remains intact. A dispirited nation tolerates political antics and waits helplessly for the interesting times to end.
LOSS OF MEANING
Commonly accepted definitions of terms are crucial for the emergence of a commonality. “Define your terms,” Socrates would challenge his interlocutors before getting into prolonged discussions. Confucius was even more emphatic, “If you want to ensure peace in the kingdom, take good care of definitions.” Part of the reason the country is in an “emotional state characterized by anxiety, depression, and unease” is because certain common words have lost their established meaning.
Apart from being a country without monarchy, the ‘Republic’ has a few other connotations too. For the Marxists, Leninists and Maoists, prospects of what communist scriptures call a “People’s Republic” are always alluring. Conservatives consider “the Republic” to be a playground of the powerful. Establishment of a republic of laws that works for the protection of the last person and the welfare of the least endowed is the goal of centrists.
Federalism is an even more misunderstood term. Part of the confusion is ideological. Old-school democrats that have grown up reading Harold Laski and his “Grammar of Politics” share their master’s fear of federalism who viewed it as ‘an incomplete form of national government, a transitional mode of political organization that was generally undesirable but was in few exceptional cases necessary to accommodate political divisiveness.’ The exception is the norm in countries that can overcome risks of fragmentation only through genuine federalism.
Sir Ivor Jennings (1903–1965), the British academic and constitutionalist that inspired Padma Shamsher’s “constitutional arrangement” in 1948 and helped draft the Constitution of Kingdom of Nepal, 1959, was even more frightened of federalism, “Nobody would have a federal constitution if he could possibly avoid it.” His acolytes in Nepal are busy exploring all avenues of avoiding federalism and limiting it to decentralization as a concession. Devolution without recognition of identity can be termed de-concentration or decentralization, but not federalism.
Contestations over definitions of other political terms such as constitutionalism, democracy, secularism, and inclusion are equally fierce. Constitutionalism and consensus are incompatible concepts: The former prescribes resolution of conflicts under supremacy of laws while the later advocates reconciliation through accommodation. Democracy can be absent even in the rule of majority; without it however, it is almost impossible to exist.
Atheists are often more progressive while the religious are generally more compassionate. Secularism aims to synthesize the two through separation of religion and governance. The kind of meaning secularism has acquired in Nepal gets the worst of both persuasions: Conservatism of the religious and the impiousness of the atheist has come to pervade public life.
Inclusion is not charity: It brings much needed diversity and talent into decaying systems of exclusivist societies and polities. Under the pretext of merit, entrenched elite of Nepal has developed a rightwing version of North Korea’s Juchhe chauvinism. Messrs Koirala, Pokharel, Khanal and Basnet were probably recruited ‘on merit’ through a supposedly independent Public Service Commission. The sense of entitlement that such systems breed turn public servants into mini-tyrants of their tiny fiefdoms. No wonder, inclusion is the second most hated word in contemporary Nepal after federalism.
FAILURE OF FAITH
When words lose their meaning, people turn towards legitimate institutions for direction. In 2012, one after another institutions fell off their pedestal. The legislature failed to resolve contradictions inherent in its composition and meekly accepted the supremacy of the judiciary. The judiciary in turn decided that the legislature had outlived its utility and declared that it must commit hara-kiri on a designated date. The executive ignored the wishes of the legislature, honored the directives of the court, and killed the mother that had birthed it. Matricide is considered one of the worst possible crimes in any civilized society. However, communism and developmentalism are scientific ideologies and hence completely amoral.
Unlike the Press of yore that at least maintained the illusion of being the voice of the voiceless, the Media—the so-called Fourth Estate—is unabashedly an instrument of the market and consequently a handmaiden of the powerful. On every issue of concern of the marginalized and externalized population—democracy, federalism, inclusion, secularism and welfare economy—by and large the Nepali media stood solidly behind traditional forces.
The civil society—an amorphous group of the intelligentsia and professionals that Marxists consider agents of the market and Marketers regard as apologists of the state—was subsumed into the bourgeoisie and it stood for its class interest rather than concerns of the commonalty. In May 2010, the White Shirts—comparable to the composition and temperament to the Yellow Shirts of Bangkok—had shown their true colors at Basantpur Peace Rally. They repeated their feat through yet another Astroturf Movement—the Harmony Rally—at Durbar Marg in 2012. It will take quite a while for the term ‘civil society’ to gain acceptance among the masses.
The international community did not fare any better. Ban ki Moon succumbed to the pressure tactics of haute bourgeois and cancelled his planned visit to the birthplace of Lord Buddha. The much-awaited change of Proconsul at Lainchaur did cause a correction in attitude, but the substance of its domineering diplomacy remains the same.
Albert Otto Hirschman (1915-2012), one of those “philosophers of everything” that only US academia seems to be able to produce, passed away early this month. Regarded as one of the finest economists of his era, Hirschman has generated an enormous amount of literature in fields as diverse as sociology and management studies, psychology and public administration, and tradition and laws, among various other topics.
“Pursuits of happiness wherever it was being dispensed left trails of disappointment,” Prof. Jeremy Adelman remembers Hirchman telling his audience at a Princeton University lecture on “Private and Public Happiness: Pursuits and Disappointments.” Nepali society would probably have to relearn the art of survival, sufficiency and solidarity.
That is where the necessity of grassroots movement, and not the Astroturf ones that advance the agenda of manipulators, acquires significance. Movements generate agendas, produce leaders and rekindle hope that work as antidotes to the culture of indifference, passivity and ennui.
After his cooptation by banker, builder and business house nexus, the performance of Baburam Bhattarai has been extremely underwhelming. The tragedy is that all his likely successors appear equally uninspiring. That makes a political movement even more necessary, failing which the ground will be ready in 2013 for the emergence of a putative savior on horseback. That’s the way mass passivity often ends: In a whiplash.
cklal@hotmail.com
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