People As Source Of Welfare Politics

People are a multitude of entire inhabitants of any society or a nation.  They refer to the conscious public or general mass of individuals of a state able to exercise freedom for shared life-plans on the basis of the sanity of tradition, culture, language of communication and values. The stoic concept of the equality of people manifests in equal freedom and dignity of all inhabitants. The study of the link between people and politics in Nepal is by no means new nor their self-definition of “Nepalis” and feelings and symbols attached to it. It began with the evolution of its civilisation when people began to live in a band and then in a community to defend themselves, make choices for mobility and secure their territory, culture, livelihoods and continuity of offspring without shifting much ancestral cultural bonds and social consensus. 

Currently, younger generations of Nepalis are, however, troubled by the enduring political instability, hold of politics by patriarchal leaders and growing loss of trust in the nation for a lack of opportunity to live a life of dignity. Leaders are endowed with the responsibility to uplift people from the cycles of the saga of scathing criticism and revenge against each other and steer the nation forward. Unless the centrality of people as demos is admitted for democratic politics -- many pre-existing mini identities of Nepalis situated in tribal domains will persist to contest the national identity. This means modern politics will hover around leadership contests for ego-inflation while people will demand their care, good faith, integrity and kindness. 

Inversion of purpose 

The interest and responsibility of Nepalis in politics have grown bigger with the dawn of democracy while the notion of selfish gene helped them to secure the rationality of self-rule that has nourished the tissues of national sovereignty. General sociability of Nepalis in the wisdom of classical treatises framed the glue of social unity, national loyalty and shared humanity. These values also helped them to struggle against the vicious cycle of scarcity, insecurity, violence, theft, fatalism, prejudice, risk and coercion in politics. The inversion of the purpose of politics to expand the public sphere of freedom for conversation and decision pertaining to public goods has provoked cycles of political change in the nation. 

It can conquer the lure of certain Nepali elites to indulge in nihilism or historical amnesia about the nation’s splendid past and collective insecurity of the nation's future sparked by the declining indicators of national progress.  Arresting the causes of multiple sclerosis requires attentive people to move politics beyond undemocratic bargaining of top leaders and the interest groups allied with them. It is vital to revive the spirit of people to mend national psychological feelings of solidarity and brace capacity for positive social change. Nepali language, culture and spiritualism have served as link points for collective awareness of people that crafted a shared identity. 

In no way these components are, however, congruent with politics, law and economy. They are confined to the sectoral realm. Nepal’s spiritual, cultural and linguistic realm is much larger than the territorial state, adversarial polity and partisan politics. 

The social contract has negotiated many rules and norms for the accommodation of diverse groups and primordial identities of people. Modernity has entailed a shift to a new, larger horizons of identity of national citizens and universal human beings.  The fresh analytical developments on peace, democracy, human rights and progress do not miss the weight of people in the political process as a source of domestic and universal legitimacy.

The doctrinal value of the sovereignty of people or “we, the people” in democracy has shifted bourgeois and representative politics into participatory turn.  Sovereignty of people means they have to be self-awakened, acquire political maturity and keep individual autonomy and personal responsibility in the political life of the nation. Popular sovereignty is doomed to exist if the Nepali leaders do not mobilise critical minimum resources to self-determine politics, laws and public policies, promote both public and national interests and explore a diverse range of possibilities. This view establishes that people are not the cog of machine politics steered by powerful leaders of political parties for political action.

Principle of national self-determination as the right of Nepalis justifies their freedom in many matters of governance and defies predators infringing upon the internal and external affairs either through proxies, doctrine of necessity or geopolitical determinism. Nepali people’s collective desire for national self-determination resonates in national independence and a sense of belonging to the sanctity of political space. The constitutionally – imposed subsidiary identity politics in the nation has categorised one set of people from the other as a social community with their own empirical features, focusing less on the national identity of citizenship and benefits and obligations associated with it.

 The centrifugal forces fostered by certain political parties and social engineering by others do not foster comprehensive national reconciliation pursued by the old generation of Nepali leaders. Nepal’s growing cognitive and economic dependence, debt, labour market opportunities, etc. marks democratic deficits where people have no control.  In the process they have been plunged into political labyrinths. A sensitive approach is vital to understand the context and structure where people live in and engage in ecological, social, economic and political practices that underlie the bases of their communication. The structures of society are both enabling conditions for solidarity and constraining conditions to set their limits to action. Nepali people are enthused with feeling, sentiments, emotion and thinking and acting abilities. Their concepts are derived from their classical wisdom and everyday social practices. 

Now one cannot imagine people-free visualisation of politics as it amounts to the rise of authoritarianism, amorphous populism and increasing distrust of people in the authority and legitimacy of political leadership. This is the reason the power of the state is constitutionally embedded in the positive and negative rights of people which demand equality of life-enhancing opportunity, its separation, checks, devolution and humanitarian dispensation. How can Nepali people know about their rights and duties enshrined in the constitution when there is no general civic mechanism to educate them about rights, laws, power, leadership and constitutional actors?  Without the general politicisation of people about these values, how can they develop volunteerism in informed and orderly participation in the political process?

Democratic education is the key function of educational institutions, political parties, civil society, media, local government and community bodies engaged in the civilisation of the society and the state. It is they who make people and politics inseparable aspects of collective lives of Nepalis and orient them towards the attainment of public goods from which no one is excluded.  People can change the condition of life in the pursuit of their knowledge and skills, interests and values and create social order for exchange and stability through the formulation of codes, norms and laws so that conduct becomes predictable and conflict manageable.

 The canon of rationality helps to understand the true knowledge about people which cannot be decoupled from interest, ideology and power, the logic of politics and also the source of socialisation and civilisation.  Language of peoplehood helps to shape communication structure and political culture. It presumes an awareness of one's identity as a member of a particular social and cultural group closely tied with collective nationhood. Nepalis deep sense of peoplehood provided them the courage to fight the difficult battles against natural disaster and human-induced misfortunes. Peoplehood is rooted in the general will of people, a collectively held strength of disposition that aims at the promotion of common good under the Nepali state and their ability to forge unity against internal trouble and external fear.

 The relentless struggle of Nepalis for substantive, participatory democracy affirming recognition of cultural and civic identity and equality remains an unfinished political struggle. Attentive Nepalis are no longer mere spectators of politics. The passionate side of their nature critically reflects on issues the nation is facing, seeking to influence its course and rectify its maladies.  As a rule, people have developed personal interests to set their views in social media, pass judgments and act in the public sphere. They have cultivated a spirit of resentments against the condition of living. To be sure, power without accountability to the people wears no mask of legitimacy. 

Surge of populism

The history of Nepal’s heroes and builders is filled with patriotic enthusiasm against internal and external predators that helped the formation of consciousness of their national-spiritedness. The dawn of politics into a public prominence has begun when leadership acquired the power through it and people too have begun to transcend their particular identities. They claim equality of status despite their unequal abilities and capacities and form a dense web of intermediary associations to aggregate and articulate their voices and interests and interact with others dissimilar to them. The surge of populism indicates that progressive politics with people’s power transcends institutional boundaries of political parties, parliament and the leadership's use of esoteric democratic principles thus espousing the classical philosophical ideas of emancipation. 

Idioms are either excavated from the nation’s history, society and culture or concocted by comedians, poets, literary figures and singers to stir the ordinary people in a very dramatic style to evoke their emotion.  The efficacy of public actions is judged by the cognition, character, resource, will of people, their leadership and their ability to create public spaces for cross-cultural and cross-party debate on problematic issues seeking their resolution. Leadership rooted in people’s needs, interests and priorities can get salience for the execution of their vision, convictions and programmes and provide the sustainable basis of democratic politics. 

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