The Verve Of Political Change

The value of democracy grows with the rational political change in the life of people. It sets them into the stream of good living by levelling them with leaders. Coherent political change helps leadership create an equal stake of all Nepalis in the polity. It shuns their drift to insular vision and interpretations of the constitution and gives an impetus to a demand for rational change of social and economic order. The Nepali constitution as a self-binding deed has, however, failed to resolve the dualism of leadership between flashy facade and unfulfilled essence. Improving their credibility requires bridging this chasm, cultivating social learning habits and placing equal interests to even those who are not the members of their political parties. 

The linear change of Nepali politics has favoured only the circulation of power elite.  It has now lured the establishment to alter vital provisions of the constitution including election and party laws aiming to achieve political stability. Timely change of laws based on public opinion, democratic will formation and the quality of civic engagement of critical masses of society reduces the sources of popular anguish and opens opportunities for every generation of Nepalis to deeply and actively participate in the political process.

Living ideals

Democracy embellishes with its living ideals and people’s dearest desire for a good life. As catalysts of change, political leaders are not only rational actors who attempt to maximise their interests. They are the bearers of human values and national culture which sets them apart from those driven by what Albert Camus calls “the crime of passion and the crime of logic,” an obvious collusion of crafty politicians and pedantry lawyers. Nepal’s decadal political change shows its cyclical pattern circulating the same leaders again and again devoid of their ability to formulate and distribute apt values and visions in society to liberate the future of Nepalis from existential fear and necessities and avoid the risk of as usual extra-constitutional change.

Leaders’ authority rests on the positive review of people whether their policies have reforming, unruly or cathartic impact on their lives. The forces of change in Nepal spring from people’s hope for a life of dignity. The perseverance of the leadership status quo in an information-driven world degrades the quality of politics, turns social contract inapt and stokes dreary anomie now simmering in streets. It spikes populist, radical and conservative disgust thus cutting the constitutional choice of reformist political change. The satisfaction of the multitudes through policy optimisation is the right way to reduce the cleavages of Nepali society. This turns Nepali constitution into a deed of national unity, stamps out injustice and fulfils the multi-cultural quest for social inclusion, balanced representation, quota, affirmative action and positive discrimination for the weaker section of society.

 In a nation of huge diversity, only an optimisation of their interests in the constitution can stabilise democracy and provide a pull to Nepal’s civic culture. The reforms in legal system are essential but not enough unless the condition of living is transformed by concrete distributional outcomes and structural change. Ordinary people seek empowerment, ownership and participation in every aspect of policy, law and development process. This shores up their shared pledge to democracy’s dogmas for political change through peaceful elections. Democratic polity is based on the ownership of rights to work, property, justice and dignity. Public institutions are deemed to link them to public policies and their fair execution.

Thomas Picketty echoes a deep wisdom, “When you own nothing, you have to accept everything” even something unjust. This is why democracy circulates power, wealth and opportunity in the polity in each generation to promote equality of rights and duties and reduces their addicted dependence. Yet a sense of common purpose among top leaders is vital to make Nepali polity fully efficient. It retreats when economic insecurity mounts.  A paradox pervades Nepali leadership between their ambition for uncontested position and growing factionalism within parties challenging them. It sets an imbalance to their passion and means at disposal other than muddle around strident coalition politics.

Nepal’s history of series of political struggles and resultant substitution of constitutions marks the flaw of leaders not to institutionalise polity attuned to the changing spirit of people and the zeitgeist. Four trends mark Nepali politics: inability of the polity to meet the legitimate needs and rights of people, thinning of political party loyalties, defiant constitutional behaviour of interest groups and boom in issue-oriented voters. The failure of political leaders to absorb dynamic youths in their institutional frame infuses contradiction thus driving inclusive political change an uphill mission.

A fundamental lack of specialised experts in political parties capable of endowing solutions of problems in Nepal has weakened them to offer competing policy choices for people and update both curriculum for democratic education and formulation of related public policies. Building a civic culture of democracy spawns the ability, autonomy and integrity of constitutional bodies and public institutions so that they act impersonally in the interests of all Nepalis. Excessive party-mindedness of these bodies has opened a hiatus between their institutional mandate and skewed outcomes. Nepali leaders’ lure for constituency-oriented funds indicates their fear of the erosion of the feudal sphere.  Patronage politics inhibits the growth of alternative leadership from the bottom up as a locomotive of political change.   

Unrealised rights propels Nepalis anomic participation, social movements, formation of partial solidarity associations and incubation of caucus groups across party lines and even indulging in pressure group politics bristling and boiling their fury. These activities outside the constitution’s institutional domain have diluted oppositional channels of interest aggregation and articulation. A virtuous cycle of politics depends on smooth leadership succession, policy uniformity, inter and intraparty trust and positive public action to steer the course of political progress and manage demands of people for public goods. This attunes the evolution of life and evolution of civic culture and reels the energy for sublime political change.

A constructive political change does not occur when a new generation of leaders and people lack the opportunity to acquire apt cognition, habits, disposition and qualities which set them different from their predecessors. The practices of old political culture of hierarchy and patriarchy contravene the constitutional spirit of the creation of an egalitarian society. It skews politics a level playing field for all. Uncompetitive nature of political processes in matters of leadership, organisations and policy preferences twists the institutionalisation of rational political change in Nepal, its consolidation and deepening where people become its sovereign masters. This strains the polity to keep power separation and decentralisation for self-rule. 

Political cadres’ narrow dependence on factional leaders rather than to the party has spawned the paternalistic base of politics thus posing challenges to social modernisation whereby people do not cluster around their primordial bonds with leaders and render unflinching loyalty to them, keep apathy or migrate abroad rather than develop emotional affinity to the institutional kits of parties, polity and the state. Democracy is based on a politics of shared culture among the government, opposition and the public, not the domination of the powerful. The pact of domination infuses authoritarian political culture.

In Nepal, this tendency has stoked the extra-parliamentary dissent and defiant constitutional behaviour of special interest groups. Similarly, the adversarial mode of politics poses difficulty to attain sustainable development goals thereby lingering the promise of social justice. In this model, change of government becomes recurrent. It impedes the process of progress and peace which require a certain level of accord and stability at governmental and political levels.  In no way stability amounts to status quo as Nepali people have expressed mandate for change in each electoral turn and a just political order that delivers as per the constitutional provisions. This enables Nepalis to join the rhythm of political change adding vigour to human rights and social emancipation. 

People have also developed solidarity-based associations as a deterrent against executive authority, control spoilers and free-riders and organise legitimate collective action for the promotion of their shared interests.  Even community, private sector and local civil society are playing critical roles to enhance the quality of political change without flagging the sanity of order created by the plurality of social, cultural and spiritual norms. Enduring political change requires Nepali government to boost productivity growth in the real economy and technology and increase the power of people to invest in education, health, quality food, safe drinking water, housing,  income-generating activities and infrastructures.

 Civic space

Their ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange are the main levers of power that enables them to foster democratic management and control and promotes their civic competence, by which people feel self-confident of their power to shape worthy programme and policies supportive of their healthy life, liberty and opportunity. This competence also arises out of critical education, training, political socialisation, communication and forming their own groups for taking creditable initiatives in community and society. Engagement of people in the civic space enhances their cognitive dimension in deliberation, participation, planning, resource generation and assume leadership position for positive, rational change, aiming to detribalise society, abolish fatalism entrenched in feudal order and relish equality of citizenship. 

The socialisation aspect in Nepal is, however, weak in public institutions, media and party schools, civil society and community organizations. They need to be made capable of fostering social and national integration potential and enlarging the scale of justice and morality, the central bases of Nepalis aspiration for democracy and leadership selection in the future able to emancipate themselves from uncertainty and scarcity through timely rational political change.

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