Heightened Insecurity Incubates Systemic Crises

A feeling of heightened insecurity has gripped the society. It rears the general condition of consciousness of people about current time and an awareness of many events, trends and tendencies portending precariousness of the orderly life. It is fuelled by complex factors: climate change, risk of nuclear proliferation, geopolitical conflicts, rise of religious fundamentalism, pandemics, transnational human trafficking, scarcity of foods, rise in the energy and food prices, etc. This insecurity has generated a structural context for the perpetuation of political stasis, a stasis serving the causes of febrile politics and corruption of power and public resources provoking anti-ruler demonstrations against the cost of living and lack of good governance.  With so many aspects of insecurity whose roots lie both inside and outside the frontiers of national sovereignty, how can Nepali leadership build institutional strength and capabilities to confront them? 

Obviously, the responsibilities of leaders are not alien to them. Still, the age of insecurity has made life of Nepalis -- individuals, communities, societies, state and even global order fragile as many causes are becoming increasingly interconnected in scope and magnitude. From the sufferers’ perspective, insecurity has become intensely personal.  Constant fear of leadership for survival in power and insecurity of people for livelihood needs determine the way both feel, think, experience and act in the public and private lives.  Paul Baren, a well-known political economist, has convincingly argued the reason why “the poor nations are programmed to stay poor.” Diverse Nepali media and attentive public are now extensively engaged in wide-ranging public conversations as to how to mitigate the multi-faceted fonts of insecurity and layers of labyrinths to cherish sublime civic virtues of this nation.

Systemic crises 

The new information technology, civil society and public platforms are reshaping the attitude of Nepalis in the crisis socialisation and igniting the power of protest in the public sphere, political parties, parliament and the streets sensing the dread of sadly moving the national polity in uncharted waters.  In Nepal, fear of economic crisis, organised crime and impunity for the powerful elites have exposed the vulnerability of its democracy to systemic institutional and normative crises. Many of these factors have enveloped the Nepalis into a sense of insecurity leaving an uneasy choice either in escaping, raising voice for relevant policies or suffering without remedial action. Hungry, jobless and politically excluded populations might find a solace in escaping to out-bound migration as the only way out to prevent suffering from the national crisis.

Nepali leadership has to conquer itself first before it puts a lid on the problematic issues boiling into unruly proportions and suffocating choice. In times of insecurity, personal survival precedes the goal of collective national progress. Top leaders seem survival oriented, not pro-active in worthy initiatives. Nepalis conception of self, image of the nation and dignity of both are what the constitution is committed to acquire and find the rhythm of progress. Still, the age of insecurity is marked by general anxiety disorder characterised by feeling of restlessness for being wound-up on the edge of progress, being weary, unable to concentrate on national priorities and finding hard time to sail with the passion of Nepali public to tolerate the social fractures, economic atomisation and political anomie.

The current Nepali generation suffers more from this symptom than previous one when life was more stable, the nation had food surplus, few people had to travel abroad for jobs and livelihood, education, health and communication remained in the domain of public and the bottom of society had not to flee en masse abroad for the survival of self, family and the nation. Many mediating institutions of society provided a cooperative frame for social, economic and political discipline and stability. The agriculture supplied the cities surplus capital, labour, food stuffs and agro-products in return for getting subsidy, fertiliser and technology. The only jittery was authoritarianism that required courage to awaken, exercise freedom of expression and organisation.  

But the construction of neo-liberal market economy less oriented to the satisfaction of basic needs hit both social cohesion and the productive potential of agriculture, industry and trade. The market-dominant “elite sub-culture” incubated by neo-liberalism only created vertical dependency and hit the constitutional goal of the creation of an egalitarian society that democracy promised thus becoming the structural driver of national malaises and insecurity and fomenting nostalgia of atavism in certain people. The official data of Nepal reveal that 15 per cent of Nepalis are below poverty line today who live precariously on the edge of glittering human civilisation. 

Despite the nation’s adoption of sustainable development goals and many sectoral programmes, the existing political and bureaucratic institutions of the nation have not been able to provide that nation and bulk of Nepalis sufficient food and social opportunities to enjoy the life of security, self-esteem and dignity. The scarcity of essential agricultural resources such as improved seeds, fertilizers, irrigation, energy and fertile land has caused rapid de-agrarianisation and production decline. The food deficits affect over 3 million Nepalis while exorbitant imports and remittance dependence leave little policy choice. The compulsive out-migration of youths has deprived the nation of catalysts of production and social transformation. 

The industrial sector suffered by the rent-seeking nature of privatisation of many import-substituting industries without any consultation either with Nepali workers or debate in the parliament. It has increased external dependence even on essential goods. Democracy cannot be robust within the power structure which restricts people’s participation in decision making affecting their life, liberty and choice but only exposes them to economic insecurity. If the habit of elite sub-culture stays with the undue acquisition of the nation's wealth, ordinary Nepalis will not have any choice other than to live in a constitutional fiction of national security, wellbeing and dignity.

The neo-liberal focus on deregulation, privatisation and competition has only acted as an erosive force for industrial relations, state sovereignty on public policy and inability of Nepalis to enforce their right to work. It has created a wide gulf between the rich and the poor and between the core Kathmandu and the periphery sparking violent revolts. In fact, indifference of ruling elites from national responsibility, contextual sensitivity and public expectations in the process of crystallisation of their privileges has, however, converted the nation’s politics into a career opportunity, not the public service. The spread of the market in every sphere of non-market sectors has continuously atomised individuals, family, community and society. 

In politics, its domination bred the birth of a new class oriented to materialism, unaccountable leadership and non-performance of public life of the nation. It created a dire leadership vacuum as old generations since almost more than three decades are reluctant to leave their positions graciously even if they had to trample the spirit of constitutional democracy.  The Supreme Court is a hostile witness to this fact. It has corrected many anti-public actions of the legislature and executive while also becoming a victim of partisan politics.  For many, the denigration of social and spiritual values offers no reflection of the dawn. Nepali people as a nation and culture, are feeling stress over the uncertainty of resilience if crises of various sorts are allowed to spill over the various aspects of national life. It is a wake-up call for the present and future generation of people.

It is worrisome whether the nation, with its insecure polity and vacuous political celebrities lacking a balance of power, knowledge and policy, and glowing political aspirations of ordinary Nepalis, would experience cataclysmic political change or self-lubricate structural reforms to keep social, economic and political discipline  away from its irreversible addiction to spending beyond the means the nation cannot live by.  The rage of the attentive public is spinning out of control as the media is producing concrete figures of organised crime, bribe, money laundering, human trafficking and odious psychopaths indicating the situation of perfect anomie — the performance deficits of institutional order whose recuperation is vital to control illicit opportunity structure and keep national integrity system of governance.

Indulgence of top brass of state institutions and political parties into grand corruption and organised crime has exposed the vulnerability of state and the people. When the Nepali state faces the condition of insecurity from within and outside how can ordinary citizens feel secure and safe? The established order is rattled by fractious politics, each rival leader of political party in an ungainly mood of self-congratulation accuses the other of inflicting pain to the nation, de-motivated the public admin, purposefully weakened the spirit of constitution and constitutional bodies, indulged in collusion with massive juggernaut driven by illegitimate profit and habit of special interest groups and congenital dependency on geopolitically torn world order veering to a new balancing process. 

Shared zones of solidarity

The decentralised nature of conflicts and proxy wars perpetuates a relatively anarchic nature of the international system in which ethical conduct of self-determination and self-rule has enormous costs while shortages of essential needs grim thus indicating a sadistic impulse for domination, not visible spell of democratisation of national and international order. Equal and decentralised distribution of life-supporting resources can protect Nepalis from the fear of insecurity, gain justice and enable them to exercise human and constitutional rights. This does not mean to bolster the lumbering leviathan overburdened by bloated size of political and bureaucratic classes and create a fully security state but enable it to perform basic state functions in matters of public good and ease the rituals of everyday life. 

The overcoming of insecurity requires continuous audit of the causes of insecurity, enabling productive economic and intellectual activities, discovering shared zones of solidarity and mitigating the causes of insecurity one by one to exalt the frame of justice. This means Nepali leadership has to look beyond pessimism to the long haul ahead like many nation builders did during their time. A secured social and national order can only be created when exercise of power use is regulated by the state and the normative spirit of constitutional culture becomes an edifice of good governance.   

(Former Reader at the Department of Political Science, TU, Dahal writes on political and social issues.)