Civic Competence Vital For Functional Polity

Popular sovereignty of Nepalis enshrined in the constitution means they are accountable to drive politics, law making and public policies. They can do so if they are enriched with the repertoire of civic knowledge, belief and attitude and acquire maturity.  Their cognitive dimension and courage transform their multi-layered identities into equal citizens and spur civic nationalism, able to mobilise connectors of society for nation-building. It is congruent with the heart and conscience of democratic polity and enables Nepalis to improve their evaluative capacity about the performance of political and administrative leaders, institutions and rules. People’s sense of security, self-respect and self-conscious authority can exert control over the political world and steer Nepali politics in a democratic course. 

It can animate them to deal with the failures of the market and the government to fulfill legitimate expectations. Nepali polity has an overarching interest in creating a commonly accepted political order which can reconcile rights and duties, laws and aspirations and state and citizens under the constitutional dispensation. This interest is vital to create informed public opinion, peaceful democratic competition and representation of people in diverse public institutions, political parties and the multi-level legislatures thus obliging them to assume duties as good citizens. There are certain caveats to know as to how Nepali citizens can drive multi-scale politics:

 Mandate

Mandate: Popular sovereignty of Nepalis required their active participation in crafting the power map of state power. The constitution has spelled out 31 rights for Nepali citizens — freedom of speech and organisation, right to work, social justice, social security, education, health, etc. including the provisions of universal human rights. The cognitive awareness of rights is the locus of free will of Nepalis. The legitimacy of polity rests on how people can drive the direction of politics through electoral choice, demand articulation, display of the power of public opinion, social struggles and institutional accountability. 

The constitution has spelled out four duties - protection of national sovereignty by being loyal to it, compliance of law, offering service needed by the state and safeguarding public property. Performance of these duties requires creative intelligence, vitality and civic competence. Politics fails to be public if it falls short of meeting the challenge of change and realizing the hope of people to control the condition of their life and use their potential. Political freedom amounts to a fraud in the absence of economic security, a precondition to fulfill the mandate of political democracy. 

 Participatory means: Local governance has offered a rich array of caste, class, ethnic and gender mixing in social representation such as women, Dalits, Janajatis, Aadibasis, Madhesis, Muslims and minorities in public institutions. Social inclusion and proportional representation have widened the domain for people to express their preference, represent, influence and participate in public affairs. Reducing the deepening inequality, joblessness, resource drain and dependence and impersonal operation of rule of law can enable them to exercise free will and democratise their agencies such as political parties, professional bodies, civil society and community groups. It helps them to drive politics of various scales with civic sensibilities. Series of social and political struggles have made Nepalis politically aware, active and aspiration-driven. 

Participatory means for the marginalised, legal and policy measures to ensure civil and political rights and right to information have enabled them to know what is good for them. The urgent need is active community entrepreneurship and commitment that can add to social innovation and enable Nepalis to adapt to the acceleration of ecological, economic, technological and value change.  Market-driven commercialisation has disembodied economic relations from every day public life of Nepalis in the same way as commercial media exposing them to odious ads and news full of brands, symbols and consent manufacturing that easily confuse the people’s real choice. People’s engagement in local government can cultivate the habits of citizenship, practice the art of rule and tapestry of trust in grassroots governance.

Bottom-up process:  Incentives for people-driven politics can keep the spirit of participatory democracy alive.  Community management of irrigation, forests, cooperatives, common pool resources, public utilities, education, health, infrastructures and the local commons enhances their leadership skills though economists increasingly rely on market forces for efficient resource allocation. However, the economic syndicate has skewed the system of market competition. Personalisation of public institutions including political parties and political centralisation of power are inversely related to the accountability of shared and self-rule of people. Democracy rooted in a bottom-up process tends to set a balance with the top-down process of public administration, discipline and security-oriented permanent organs of the state. 

Despite the notion of popular sovereignty, democracy reflects only formal trappings because decision authority is centralised in few strong men of political parties without any system of accountability as they collude with business, bureaucracy and interest groups and regularly face actions of the courts. Only knowledge of citizens based on reflection, social virtues and cooperation can grease the civility of society to cooperate across diverse parties and people and coordinate behaviour. It is vital to keep a balance between internal and external demands of society and ease inclusive social transformation. 

Integrity of politics: The will of Nepalis to pay taxes to the state defines their legal and economic status. If they are around their own self-interests, they end up tearing the web of rights and duties, of privileges and service. Tax-evasion is a crime. So does the elite capture of resources, corruption and allocating funds to misplaced priorities without social utility. The founder of modern Nepal, Prithvi Narayan Shah said, “Bribe giver and taker are the foes of the nation.” This means public authorities and the public have to comply with the ethical code of public affairs in voting, civic engagement and cooperative action. He cultivated a pluralistic social universe bound by common values which echo the Nepali national anthem now.  He wanted the integrity of politics so that it does not deviate from its raj dharma rooted in justice.  Nepali leaders cannot alienate themselves from their duties for opportunism and unfairness. These acts amount to their moral turpitude. 

Beyond partisan prejudice: A culture of entrenched partisanship has infected every public institution and paralysed their impartial service to people.  If a citizen, as a member of Nepali state, drives politics it can transcend partisan prejudice, create common ground for cooperation and resolve issues through deliberative means. Democracy thrives if loyalty of Nepalis to their state can override loyalty to mini identities — class, caste, gender, religion, region and ethnicity. The latter trends flake democratic citizenship. It cuts their solidarity for collective choice, voice and action.  Hope of sustainable progress can return if elite privileges and impunity do not skew the execution of constitutional and human rights and organic intellectuals help people to strategise for the future again through productive enterprises, justice, reconciliation and rebuilding of the communities. 

Any kind of privileges for the political class is exclusive in nature. It reflects a political culture of pre-democratic era affirming the old adage: “law for the poor, immunity for the wealthy.”  It re-tribalises the Nepali citizens as it is inverse to modernity expressed in terms of equality of individuals and tramples its civic ethos. The public-spirited people, therefore, demand a welfare state’s presence in the rescue and relief operations during natural and human induced crises with the ability to reshape politics and law and contribute to sustainable progress.

 Common good: The government is only legitimate if it pursues means proper to the common goods and where even ordinary Nepalis have access to and ownership in them. It is the basis of their autonomy, ability to drive the course of politics and exonerate themselves from the elite dominated political processes through image making of leaders by partisan and commercial media, lobbying, free-riding, campaign finance, organisational control and rhetoric. Some neo-liberals whom Pranab Bardhan deems “citizens of nowhere” seek to weaken the state capacity  to provide security, its unifying frame and planned progress for selfish benefits and shift local power to global geo-economics thus removing the stake, capability and outcome for people. Nepal has also witnessed the decay of public spaces by its growing personalisation, governmentalisation and capture by powerful elites denying people adequate debate on matters of public goods, shaping public opinion and engaging in collective action.   

Social investment

Ecological and social investment: Egalitarian society, promised in Nepali constitution, is more resilient than the hierarchic ones although communication is easier in the latter. It avoids anomie.  People-driven politics fosters quite a few strategies to overcome life dissembled from ecological conditions and grinding poverty. To sustain resilience, Judith Rodin outlines five characteristics — “awareness, diversity, integration, the capacity for self-regulation and adaptiveness” which Nepalis must know and follow suit. Only stability-driven social investment in agriculture, small-scale enterprises, education, health and infrastructures can bridge the development gaps across social classes and regions, enable the economy to fulfill basic necessities of life, address scarcity, avert the looming political instability in the nation and serve as a bridge to humanity.

Majority of Nepali youth, stifled by shortage of economic opportunity and high unemployment rate, is driven out of the nation to earn their family’s livelihood and bring in remittances to shore up the anemic national economy. Rural Nepali society is left with orphans, children, women, elders and disabled who are filling the vacuum in the labour market. Unless fair economic incentives are provided to them to stay at home and their practical education and skills are upgraded, people cannot consciously drive politics to a resilient nation. This entails not only the expansion of the labour market but also the recognition of the dignity of work, social security and organisation of workers and peasants to engage them in production, green economic recovery and social development. 

Education about people’s rights and duties, citizens' charter, public hearing on project allocation, planning and financial management, technical upgrading, administrative and political accountability and organisation of several agencies for collective action and provisions of effective watchdogs can enable Nepalis to stem the crisis of insecurity and enforce downward democratic accountability. It can offset the negative effects of adversarial elite politics and bring all sides in the middle path driven by people's dearest concerns.

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