Beating Tragic Misconception Of Politics

Politics becomes tragic if it widens a gap between the ideals of the constitution for a good life and the grim reality people face daily. In Nepal, this gap has generated internal contradictions with the vision. It has enabled leaders to howl conflicting ideas of politics gyrating a cacophonous public sphere and corresponding policy options.  One irony is that they have pulled the centrifugal tendencies of the nation that hit both social and national cohesion. Politics without rules and without its justification of purpose breeds misconception. The mounting rage of information-driven Nepali youths for freedom and justice defines the spirit of the present time. But its inheritance of negation and disconnection from grassroots in no way presents a glimpse of the collective future.  

Patriarchs, therefore, stick to holding on to power by any means, leaving the nation in an emotional state. Counter revolution of old parties might tip the revolt aiming for a change into a self-parody difficult to distinguish from its ending into compromise like all previous ones while leaving the revolutionary exuberance tormenting. The gap between where the nation is and what Nepalis desire is growing.  Impatience of youth for good governance is ablaze. Nepali political parties are offering the people no concrete plan parallel to systemic crisis. The looming March election can only defuse the crises and pep up the constitutional status quo. In no way it enhances the capacity of elected leaders to solve structural crises and vault the nation forward without crafting civic culture. The tragic appetite of power politics in Nepal only presents a misfit with freedom, justice and peace.

Power checks 

Nepali political parties of all hues project themselves as distinct from one another in terms of identity and goals. Still, people find no fundamental variation in their passion, interests, and political culture. Erosion of their ideologies has emptied their belief system and disposed them to turn into catch-all forces. Political power is public power meant to serve public interests. If political power is personalised by leaders, centralised and client-bound, it does not serve institutional goals of political parties, public goods and national interests. Such a tendency makes Nepali polity irrelevant to the people unable to imbibe the zeitgeist. Power checks are vital to make democratic principles operative in the life of the polity, constitutional bodies and public institutions such as education, health, infrastructures, security, justice, public utilities, etc., and autonomous of partisan distribution of state goods.

The Tragedy of Politics: The deepest tragedy of Nepali politics is that it has not been able to satisfy the basic needs of people, stabilise the polity, constitutionalise diverse actors, and peacefully change the society without any recourse to violence and guilt of unashamed deceit and scam.  Violence marks the end of politics in the infinite chain of cause and effect. It is a wild sign of human instinct and a retreat to solipsism, withdrawal from the life-world of Nepalis. Unravelling of each government without its full tenure portrays that a model of politics based on political equations, not basic values, in no way ensures political stability and improves civic virtues of people and their representation and participation in political life. 

It is vital to create constitutional constraints to prevent reckless agitation of organised groups of society against the unorganised, poor and weak and capture the capacity of the state to dispense justice through the power of its duties. When political activists, long socialised and acculturated in party ideologies and programmes, control constitutional bodies, their performance definitely becomes partisan and suffers from the corrosion of integrity and accountability. Nepal has witnessed how public authorities have irrationally compromised public offices for personal and partisan advantages. Freedom of Nepalis cannot flourish when they face the scarcity of means appropriate for their livelihood, dignity and to feed all organic life.

Breakup of Political Site: The heterogeneity of Nepal’s social, linguistic and cultural sites is favourable to democracy as it fosters pluralism and multiple perspectives on life. A zero-sum game of politics where opposition and critical voices are negated kills the dynamism of democracy and its self-corrective apparatus through the projection of alternative voices. The challenge in Nepal is how to coordinate them and create common ground for the management of differences and resolve the asymmetry of power and resources into a level playing field in the electoral race. Reduction of money in politics can separate the public from the private spheres. 

Diversity of political parties in Nepal does not mean Nepalis have enough choices in the selection of leadership, organisations, ideologies and programmes when leaders' lure to perpetual power lust makes both electoral alliance and coalition government possible despite the creepy gravity of the mandate. The dire conformity of party leaders, legislative, executive and judiciary can easily flag their authority in the eyes of the public and erode their legitimacy. 

One of the tragic misconceptions of politics in Nepal is "ends justify the means," while democracy demands the harmony of the two because means is crucial to shape the nation’s civic culture. Political change in Nepal outside the lawful means has legitimized violence and muscular methods to keep politics of negation a recurring historical pattern, even in a democracy. One tragic path of Nepali politics is the lingering fight for leadership succession. It has bred fission, fusion, split and closure of parties, not their management through reflection and inventing formulas in the common ground.  

Polity’s Tangled Knot: Nepal for long witnessed the collusion of the parties, legislature, executive and judiciary branches of the polity and followed the instructions of top party bosses who recruited them. This has weakened the rule of law despite the leaders' lucid remarks about democracy while offering no equal opportunity and equal welfare for all people. The frame of Nepali democracy is couched in the dialectic of market principles based on competition of the fittest, not civic ideals and virtues of social cooperation and solidarity. 

The tangled nexus of vital organs of the polity has lost interest to uplift the standard of living of people. Rule-based order balances crude materialism and individual conscience, the web of organic life and apt use of science and technology. Nepalis’ desire for freedom acts against the Darwinian reflex of the survival of the fittest and fighting ability or domination of the weak and powerless. Democratic doctrines allow the scope for cooperation at the various scales of institutions of governance and political means of compromise and meaningful battle against the deficiencies of democracy.  

Disloyal Opposition: Opposition is the soul of democracy. But its infidelity in Nepal has created a crisis of governance.  On the contrary, if the government limits opposition’s lawful freedom and overcomes its rights it habitually takes recourse to unlawful means and weakens the efficacy of governance to keep order and discipline in society. Nepali leaders of all hues tolerated agitation, anomie and revolt and found no means to manage them within the constitutional frame. Disloyal oppositions are those who question the legitimacy of electoral outcome, public policies adopted by it and the political culture of privilege, nepotism, favouritism and clientalism which block the entrenchment of democratic principles in society. 

Opposition in Nepal has turned disloyal when it found an antinomy between the principles of constitutionalism and the unconstitutional spirit in conduct and performance. Nepali politics has become a devious tool as leaders often used empirical tools of class, caste, gender, market, ethnicity, region, etc., for vote-catching and constituency-expanding strategy rather than promoting the concept of citizenship and mobilising connectors of society for nation building.  This bent has emotionally divided the government from the opposition, public authorities from the public and leaders from the masses. The life of anguish, frustration and ire riles democratic stability. This general ignorance of leaders can be abolished through the light of education, insights from history and modern societies and discipline the ruthless impulse to gain power beyond law, procedure and policies.

Information revolution

Civic Competence: Driven by the information revolution, Nepalis have developed capacity to reason, claim their rights and evaluate their own condition of existence, utility of civil society, political parties and polity for them, performance of public administration and their representatives, pass comments and organize collective action. The Nepali youths from all political parties are less satisfied with the status of leaders elevated by electoral legitimacy and political connections, evaluate what is best for them and demand output legitimacy. 

They experience the challenges and question the ability of leadership to solve them. Their shifting role from spectator to engaged citizenry calls for change in the political culture that is responsive to their needs, rights, aspirations and choices. This awakening can make local government and legislature responsive to the electorate beyond partisan manoeuvring, manipulation and deceptive advertisement. People’s initiative is equally vital, which can reform the tragic misconception of politics that tolerates impunity and rewards free riders for whom national sovereignty and popular sovereignty are enemies.

So long as politics of Nepal does not create optimal conditions for Nepalis trapped in the asymmetry of power and enables them to pursue their legitimate interests, the theory of trickle-down economy will continue to subvert democratic hope, batter the life of dignity and intergenerational justice. To overcome the tragic misconception of politics, it is vital to tone the ideals and practice of democracy and create the congruity between law and politics, institution and aspiration, duties and rights and the imperatives of Nepali state for security and order and people’s aspiration of justice and peace.

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