Is politics imploding?

BY ABHI SUBEDI

Nepali politics in less than one year has opened up many avenues of change. But judging by some developments over the months, we can make wild speculations about its future. But the hope that a new era of stability, equality, freedom and prosperity will alight like a glorious morning on the Nagarkot heights from a special clear sky once the elected jumbo Constituent Assembly (CA) writes a new federal republican constitution of the land is slowly fading. But we should approach this problem without harbouring any preconceived notions about any political parties or organisations, and close or not-so-close friends of this land.
Some of the landmarks of the chaos are the virulent battles among the youths of this land. We ordinary teachers who have witnessed the dynamics of youth for decades have always warned that the seeds of belligerency planted by political parties among the young people of this land will grow to such an extent that political party leaders will have to define their actions according to the degree of casualties that the youngsters inflict on each other in the skirmishes that will happen on a regular basis.

An example is in order. The assassination of a member of the United Marxist Leninist (UML) Youth Force member Prachanda Thaiba in Butwal allegedly by a Maoist YCL cadre on March 26 has even threatened the very existence of the coalition government. The Maoists are asking the UML and the Nepali Congress (NC) not to politicise this event, but nothing short of “decisive action” against the killers is likely to save this uneasy alliance.
The CA session opened in Kathmandu on March 29 with a note of obituary, just a day after the prime minister of the beleaguered government Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda left for a visit of the Nordic countries to curry economic and trade favours that Nepal needs urgently for its economic stability. It is commonplace to hear the litany of what happens when the prime minister leaves the country at a time when it is plunging into chaos. But the CA has commenced like a wartime parliament where the predominantly male voices in the House create a choric song with contrapuntal variations of different styles and modulations. The CA session this time is going to be a pandemonium, one can guess. Parties want to settle scores with the Maoists who will get a chance to review their own occasional misfires. Some parties are overtly expecting this session to pull down the Maoist-led government and create a new coalition. But that will not bring a more stable government and far less a more stable situation in the country. The country can slowly plunge into civil war, at worst.
Implosions have begun to occur; ideological boundaries of simulation and reality kept up by Nepal's social democrats and communists are getting erased. They have begun to curry the favour of external powers to replace that loss. The psychological projection of India as a power that can put leverage on the political parties to change the power equation here is one example. Former monarch Gyanendra tried his own round of this psychological game by meeting Hinduism stalwarts like Narendra Modi, L.K. Advani and others in the third week of this month. This visit of Gyanendra clearly and timely organised by his supporters and Hindu parties was a reactionary exercise more than anything. Just see the reaction of the people here and also there appears to be the motto of this visit.
Indian writers and journalists asked me mind-boggling questions at the Agra SAARC writers' meeting in the second week of March about the possibility of restoring the Nepali throne to the erstwhile king's grandson for the sake of unity in a chaotic land. Girijababu's concurrent visit was linked to the former king's visit. I said that there could be no such political possibility at all. I even spoke publicly about that. Ironically, by overreacting to Gyanendra's India visit and his meetings with Indian politicians, the political parties and the media are giving him and his men what they have precisely wanted to achieve from this visit.
Nepali politicians and the people know very well that it would be a futile attempt to revive the influence of the Hindu monarchy in Nepal either as a symbolic institution or a symbolic presence in the form of a party favoured by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other Hindu parties of Nepal and India. For India, Hinduism is a social construct, which, in the postcolonial context, has become a subject of political study. The Hindu nationalist movement known as Sangh Parivar was created concurrently with the secular Congress party in the 20th century. Though Hindutva could not gain tremendous influence, it remained an important religio-political construct in Indian politics.
In Nepal, the Hindu aristocracy has a different historicism. When Jung Bahadur Rana visited Britain and France in 1850 as a so-called “Hindu prince”, which is an interesting postcolonial study of mimicry, the British colonial rulers did not have much idea of what a Hindu religious designation would be like. They established Hindu as a religious group only 21 years after Jung's “'Hindu prince”' visit to Britain, i.e., after the census of 1871. The Indian Hindutva used and has been using strong rhetoric, terror and violence to create its niche. The leaders of the BJP that formed the national coalition government in 1998 made no secret of their camaraderie with the RSS and Bajrang Dal that carry the legacy of Sangh Parivar.
The confusions that the politicians in Nepal and India make about the so-called symbolism of the Nepali monarchy (of the past) is that the people of this country through a very powerful political process and consensus have overthrown a feudal order, and with it the institution of so-called Hindu monarchy. They have shown the world that the Nepali political experience and history does not need to emulate the Indian politicised Sangh Parivar legacy of Hinduism in Nepal. The monarchy was not in any way related to that Indian Hindu political experience, and for the Indian Hindutva politicians to try to use a very Westernised erstwhile monarch to contest the Maoists, the leftists and other republicans would be a futile political exercise. Any future Indian government will find it worthwhile to establish links with the leftist political parties and the NC on a pragmatic basis to solve political problems not only in Nepal but also in India and Bhutan. And the seasoned Indian politicians know that reality very well.
The political parties of Nepal are mainly responsible for the political chaos that reigns in the country now. However, what they cannot escape is their existentialism. They are united by agreements; they are brought together by the CA; they have put their heads together over problems that they can solve only jointly. I feel that the politics of Nepal is not changing; it is only seeking new dynamics. But the problem is that political leaders are not showing magnanimity, openness and democratic commitment that are in short supply in Nepal now.

Posted on: 2009-04-01 00:07:19