While the fixation of the Indian news media verges on the fantastical, our verges on paranoia. Why did Prachanda leave unannounced for Singapore while Girija Prasad Koirala was being treated there? Why did Jhalanath Khanal and Upendra Yadav go on a weeklong visit to India (not to forget KP Oli’s repeated medical and personal visits)? Why did Paras Shah meet the Dalai Lama in Arunachal Pradesh?
What grand design waits us? Where is it being hatched? Let us then leave that to the designers and the hatchers. It is us, the people and the media, who should stand up for any infringement in our liberties.
Every evening at around prime time, befuddled ‘experts’ analyze and interpret these events, egged on by the aggressive hosts flouting their nursery rhyme skills. Depending on the station you are watching, you can get an assorted set of answers to suit your political palette – right, left, or center. These are filled with theories of grand design, not coincidentally perhaps looking at the origins of the word in our political past.
These days, there is a big fear in certain circles of Kathmandu, that of an impending Maoist takeover of all state apparatus. So much so, that the suggestion of another complete takeover of the state was conveniently ignored. The suggestion was that the Constituent Assembly be dissolved, presidential rule be declared and another elections be called. The idea was apparently floated by certain sections of the Nepali Congress, leaked by a prominent UML leader and later retreated.
It is not surprising that this fear exists strongest among the self-anointed ‘silent majority’, much better classified as the ‘chattering classes’. They claim that democracy is at threat due to Maoists intentions. Can they not see that the people they want to empower through the preservation of democracy are already empowered enough to resist any authoritarian moves by the Maoists? Perhaps not, for their own autocratic intentions lie in believing that the people are sheep.
On the other hand, the Maoists play on the ‘right-fear’ factor, feeding it to their overzealous and largely rural support base. Thus, the ghost of ‘civilian supremacy’, which by now should have been a legal issue, still heats up the streets. Displaying their dexterity at double-speak that would embarrass George Orwell, they say one thing and mean another, and then say it to both the sides.
Much blame has been laid on weak-kneed intellectuals for being sympathetic to the Maoists but surely these intellectuals are aware that the creation of communist regimes is a thing of the past, be it North Korea, Cuba or China (though sustaining them is another matter). What American media calls communist states, such as Venezuela or Ecuador, are democratically-elected and moderate socialist states. And surely our Maoist leaders, who pride themselves in the history of communist movements, are well aware that no communist state has been formed for more than a quarter century. Technology transfer (that the capitalists swear by) and people power (that is the left’s mantra) both have made it impossible, along with the prevalent geo-political reality, to implement a communist regime in the old sense of the word.
Meanwhile, with all their aspirations and admonitions, the political parties hold the nation hostage. They amend the promise they made to the nation – to complete the drafting of the constitution within a given timeframe – for the seventh time. The budget lies in limbo. They make new deadlines for submitting suggestions to the different subcommittees in the CA and then miss them. They agree to a protocol on how to draft the constitution and then flaunt them. And we helplessly follow politics like sports, anxiously waiting to see what will happen next.
This state of uncertainty, disillusionment and dysfunction ultimately benefits both the right and left wing aspiring authoritarians. But let there be a staunch warning from the people – you can bring this nation to a standstill but you cannot turn it back. We are, after all, a generation that has grown under democracy, however dysfunctional it was.
In merely three years since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA), that codified the mandate of the April Uprising of 2006, we have somehow turned immense optimism into abysmal pessimism, unprecedented trust between the political parties into utter mistrust. Talk about a miracle – this outdoes Jesus turning water into wine.
So what grand design waits us? Where is it being hatched? Let us then leave that to the designers and the hatchers. It is us, the people and the media, who should stand up for any infringement in our liberties. It is us who should hold them accountable for any broken promises. And it is on us whom, as the Interim Constitution stipulates, the sovereignty of this nation is vested.
daulat.jha@gmail.com
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