Ubiquity Of Power Brokers Imperils Democracy

Power brokers or bichaulias are those individuals or groups who deliberately influence the distribution of political and economic resources in society by wielding unwarranted pressure tactics or behind the scene manoeuvre. Nepali leaders know that a disjuncture exists between them and public opinion. These power brokers are: special interest groups of society, rent-seeking bureaucrats, unethical businessmen, clients, commission agents, political spoilers, thieves of state, fake contractors, free-riders and a variety of middle men acting as comprador class. They often mount spirited steps beneficial to them at the costs of ordinary Nepalis, the true stakeholders of democracy aspiring good governance. Power brokers coordinate the interest of law, politics, administration and disciplinary institutions against people beyond the value of public morality.

Nepal’s claim for justice in international forums can be robustly justifiable if it provides justice at intra-class, caste and gender levels treating each person with inalienable constitutional rights, not as persons exiled from the benefits of human civilisation due to the ubiquity of power brokers. In democracy, power brokers are checked by laws, regulations and integrity of polity. Still, they utilise several means such as lobby, pressure, legal loopholes, kickback and shattered honesty of political circuits – legislature, executive and judiciary - by which they influence decision making about laws, policies and projects favourable to them.

Loftiest democratic goal

The loftiest democratic goal of Nepali leaders is to put themselves in the service of people in general, not just clients and fans, without which national unity and identification with civic culture do not prosper. Democratic leaders set the happiness and wellbeing of people above all else including eternal appetite for power and act as a national bridge to the future.  Their stand for self-control and toleration of critical voices in the public sphere helps to spot the signals of the atrophy of polity, anticipate popular anguish in advance and wrestle down the litany of problems Nepal is facing. Critical voices of the public intellectuals act as a safety valve of democracy. They provide truth and transparency of the lawful operation of authorities and bring the diversion of debate from the preferred terrain of democratic progress.  

Power brokers’ economic interests are divorced from democratic principles of fair distribution of public goods. The ability of Nepali leaders to confront the erosive force of democracy rests on their political awareness, skill to forge solidarity, organise collective action and control the operation of illicit actors. Yet if the nation is short of constitutional culture shared by all and politics of demonisation of each other's leader linger, power brokers find it easy to manoeuvre in democratic space leaving Nepalis facing the mood of murkiness and restlessness. Leadership, beset by their own contradictions, cannot acquire verve and elegance to regulate them. This has given various groups of Nepali society reasons to indulge in social struggles of diverse types and fight against the selective application of justice.

 One effect of this state of affairs is that historical loyalty to the ideological brand of Nepali politics is waning and voters find a huge split between the party's original creed and current process of de-ideologisation. It serves an entry point for power brokers to pierce politics. The role of cultural industries is vital to purify this, enhance the public sphere where public policies are debated, concepts are simplified and issues settled at the optimal level.   Nepali politics is deeply multi-polarised. It has robbed the meaning of democracy, its sparkling public purpose and turned party cadres into a cog of the party machine. 

The insulation of critical voices from the party crucial for inner-party democracy has reduced the stream of political consciousness into crass consumerism thus postponing the transformational forecast of change in Nepal. Daily social struggles have occurred in district headquarters and Kathmandu in response to growing rupture of democratic values, insidious corruption in cooperatives, manpower companies and land business, drain of brain, capital and youths and attrition of the state by the full play of power brokers. It has stirred up an existential crisis for the powerless. As parliamentary politics is disciplined by whip, not conscience of legislators, the messianic hope of Nepalis for its policy sovereignty is challenged by power brokers.

Public intellectuals of Nepal with full conscious of the spirit of the age have to reflect on the changing conditions of the nation and underline strategic pathways for transformative action so that root causes of injustice such as poverty, inequality, inequity, alienation, etc. do not serve as toxic agents of conflicts and upset its frail transition to peace.  Democracy opposes these stuffs and creates a bridge between law and politics. It is vital to mediate the ties between individuals and society and political parties and Nepali state so that power brokers do not endanger democracy. Political parties acting either against the context and experience of people, bureaucratised, alienated from the state and intelligentsia, face popular backlash as they inflict rationality deficits in governance. 

In Nepal, stabilising the constitution and polity is vital. It requires contextual and historical insights, not record forgetting the past insights or blaming it for all national ills and unlearning its lessons. Nepali politics habitually suffers from the leaders’ personification of power. It has subordinated the state imperative to serve public interest. Nepali leaders do not prefer the grimy image lodged in the public minds but they find it difficult to make them spotless and project wise personality unless they are less entangled with power brokers bichaulias. They cannot resist the temptation to be seen in the media even if their image is clearly deflated with the litany of problems. 

The media of communication, run by business tycoons and interest groups, have the habit to demonise their rivals rather than inform the public of what is happening around them and how they can shape public opinion for will formation and offer critical education and policy inputs useful to the general public where their legitimacy rests. It is here Nepali leaders need to democratise their speeches, not hurl scorn and indictment, turning it a part of political culture. This only exemplifies a lack of maturity in their thinking, judging and acting in a rational manner and unmindful of the Hippocratic Oath, sworn after being elected or selected for higher positions.   

Moral value of any action is measured by its positive effects on people’s lives. In this sense, harnessing the capabilities of Nepali polity is vital to improve its responsive capacity in matters of making politics not a vocation and privilege, but a public service.  Building the state capacity for rights realisation, people’s capacity for needs satisfaction, productive capacity of economy for the fulfilment of material interests and considerable investment in social infrastructures including health and education to enhance healthy rational faculties is vital. It renews better cooperation among political actors and reduces the amount of play of power brokers. 

 Neither Nepali leader’s amusing or overpromising tone of speeches has offered better choices for the people. They only give brief joy and blurred the boundary between idealism they preach and mutilated realism they practice. The basic reason is that Nepali political classes have reduced the state authority to governmental power controlled by top party leaders, not an impartial bodypolitik. The disciplinary experts, skilled in rationalisation of power, have replaced the nation’s intellectual culture of relishing historical sovereignty of knowledge over muscle power. Now they stand accused of laying the trap of infinite regress which Nepalis can ill-afford. 

The role of public intellectuals is vital to speak truth to the hegemony of knowledge, power, wealth and organisational control so that leaders are not governed by the craze of flocks of fans, fads and fashion and endure the flawed advice of post-modern players. Power brokers habitually crush the democratic virtue of egalitarianism, emancipatory practice of modernity and progressive engagement of people in social change. The display of political stunt in Nepal saps the élan of substantive democracy and makes power brokers stronger. The transformation of neo-liberal political classes in support of the welfare state has become hard as power brokers relish freedom provided by it without accountability.

As a result, decision making through deliberative practice is feeble. Only a well-ordered Nepali polity governed by formal democratic ethos of constitutional rules can embody the values of social justice, both corrective and distributive, and takes into account many perspectives of people beyond power brokers’ clout which thrives on informal society, economy and polity. They also thrive when the rule of law is dissolved into personalised politics, impunity is tolerated for powerful elites and selective justice is maintained by political classes, admin and disciplinary institutions.

Welfare condition

Democracy expands under the welfare condition of the state. If welfare conditions for Nepalis are slanted, it only portents that enforcement of law does not take feedback from the affected people. The source of legitimacy of political power rests not only on periodic elections but also on rational will formation of Nepalis and their participation in law and policy making process through deliberative practice affirming popular sovereignty.  In contrast, patrimonial authority blurs the boundaries of legislative, administration and adjudicative branches of the polity, feudalises the public sphere and weakens the relationship of law, leadership and people. 

In this sense, defining the domain of legitimate actors separates Nepali polity from informal power brokers, pressure groups, caucuses, interest groups and lobbying institutions acting for certain group privileges, not the general welfare of Nepalis. Because they seek to influence the power distribution, leadership and resources related decisions of the government in their favour. Social learning of leaders is, therefore, essential to tie the top with the bottom of society, remove structural barriers and undertake peaceful social transformation so as to reduce the clout of power brokers straining democracy. 

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