Over the past 20 years, Nepalis have witnessed changes in the country’s social and political relations. Minorities are particularly conspicuous in demanding access to social equality and justice. They comprise people whom the mainstream society has historically marginalized to the point where their residential communities are transforming into ghettos. Reasons for relegating them to ghettoes stem from the social stigma associated with a people’s dark skin, their low status in the Hindu caste hierarchy, their physical or mental disabilities, their poverty, their ethnic origin, their linguistic background, their geographical location, their religion, their gender, or their sexual preference.
Perpetuation of a highly feudalized and autocratic monarchy well into the 20th century encouraged these practices but its replacement by popularly elected government implies that marginalization of minorities should be disappearing. In an authentic constitutional democracy, social equality is not only ingrained in national psyche but also empowers everyone. Were Nepal a true democracy, ‘minority’ would be an irrelevant concept because everyone would be a citizen entitled to protection of the state with equal rights.
MASTER OF VOICES
Geographically, Nepal may be relatively small but it’s a country with a disproportionately large and diverse range of discrete communities, the identities of which are defined by geography, religion, language or dialect, as well as custom and cultural traditions. As these communities also contain subgroups, many of which suffer from marginalization, Nepal is far from being a homogenous unified country. Every community, together with its constituent subgroups, has its own ideas about empowerment and how it should be achieved.
Everyone in Nepal is empowered at some level but disempowered at other levels. A person from a particular community may be empowered economically but disempowered politically. Indeed it’s possible that such a person might even be a pariah. Paradoxes like these are at the heart of current debates as to how best to craft a new national constitution. The ruling coalition and its followers have advocated a wide inclusive definition of empowerment that expressly legitimizes the aspirations of those the mainstream society has marginalized
In a nutshell, ‘empowerment’ is sociologically defined as a process by which people gain increasing control over their lives. It’s a process that entrusts power in specific communities by enabling them to act on issues which they decide are important. It’s important to understand that, firstly, the process enlivens us as individuals, as members of one or more groups, and as members of a community. Secondly, it’s similar to a pathway, empowerment being something that develops as we walk through it. Although its other aspects may vary according to specific contexts and people involved, empowerment basically connects individual and community.
As the word suggests, ‘empowerment’ implies a use or an application of ‘power’. As a possibility, empowerment depends on two things. The first is a requirement that an exercise of power can change things. The second depends on the idea that power can expand.
With regard to the first, if an exercise of power is unable to change inherent positions, situations, or people, empowerment is impossible. Conversely, if power can effect a desirable change, then empowerment is possible. The second condition is one that often reflects our experiences of power, rather than how we choose to think about it.
But what really is “power”? Max Weber’s definition serves as a starting-point. For Weber, power is ‘the ability of individuals or groups to achieve their own goals or aims when others are trying to prevent them from realizing these’. From this, Weber identified power as being either authoritative or coercive, with authoritative power being the exercise of legitimate power. Coercion, in contrast, occurs where someone exercises power through force. Authoritative power isn’t coercive, nor is influence, which also shares some features with power.
Before Weber, social scientists had often treated power as a commodity or structure that existed independently of human action. But Weber recognized that power exists within the context of a relationship between people. For him, power does not exist in isolation nor is it inherent in individuals; it’s both fluid and dynamic. Weber saw that power and power relationships can change because they involve people: power isn’t stationary; it can be created and re-created. In this context, empowerment becomes a meaningful tool with which to initiate, progress, and manage organizational and social change.
Because we are all so different in so many ways, each of us sees and understands power differently. In each society, an individual’s perception of power is invariably conditioned by the status, authority or resources that s/he may have at a given point. Only half-a-century ago it was both inconceivable that Nepal wouldn’t be a monarchy. The idea that a multiparty polity would replace a dynasty of autocrats was considered, if not revolutionary, then ridiculous. But autocratic monarchy destroyed itself and, for the people of contemporary Nepal, who struggle to adjust to an environment of popular political participation, through which they may express their collective will, understanding empowerment is of utmost importance.
Empowerment entails both negotiation and a sense of justice. The perpetual challenge for our nascent democracy is how to share and distribute empowerment equitably. If each person in Nepal is to aspire for social equality and reasonable share of national prosperity, what power—if any—must, say, Mr A, a healthy vigorous share-cropper from the Tarai surrender to Ms B, a childless housebound widow in Kathmandu, who’s also paraplegic. Similarly, people living in geographically remote places may believe that easy access to quality healthcare, education, transport, electricity, clean water, shelter and livelihood can empower them. In contrast, although these services might be irrelevant to urban housewives in Kathmandu, they may crave social equality with men as their source of empowerment.
Another example is that of the blind, unable to access education equally with sighted people if schools are unable to provide instruction through the medium of Braille language, if the blind students aren’t provided with white canes, and if the local people are not aware that these canes denote that their users are blind.
Identity based empowerment is a foundation for class based empowerment. The concept is also meaningful in promoting sustainable yet durable human capacity, developing social harmony and tolerance, reducing mental poverty and respecting dignity and voice of every individual in a democracy.
Identity based empowerment is vital to build a solid foundation on an individual level regardless of people’s background, whereas class based empowerment is meaningless without dignity, respect and security of an individual identity. Therefore identity based empowerment is the most important strategy to uplift and emancipate ethnically, religiously, socially, culturally and linguistically diverse people of Nepal.
The author has a Masters in Human Rights and Democratization from University of Sydney kdrmhrjn@gmail.com
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