Wednesday, April 5, 2006

State Power and Social Control

Dev Raj Dahal, Nepal

The death of several courtiers at the hands of Jung Bahadur Rana in 1846 Kot massacre marked a turning point in Nepal's history. Jung eliminated all his opponents indulged into factional fighting, started the hereditary succession of prime ministership within his family (first brothers and then sons in order of seniority), destroyed the old aristocracy and reduced the king into mere figurehead. He refused to indulge in either territorial expansion or isolationism, as both did not serve the contemporary Nepal's national interest. Ten Rana Prime Ministers ruled the country for about 104 years by hukum (command) and Muluki Ain, (Civil Code) 1856. A system of caste-based justice introduced through Civil Code was cheaper means to control society and minimize the cost of domination. Ranarchy created a territorial state which exhibited centralized aristocratic-bureaucratic-military administration and expanded the base of national taxation and national conscription. Although Nepal signed a treaty with Tibet in 1856 Rana regime 'provided Nepalese army to British India to crush Sepoy Mutiny, restored western Tarai to Nepal and maintained that close relations with British India was important to enhance national and regime security and stability. Ranas later discontinued tributary relationship with China. But, Tibet paid annual tribute to Nepal until 1953 and continued trade relations. Nepalese people's exposure into the First and Second World Wars on behalf of British-India also helped them to compare the condition of natives.

The monopolization of the means of coercion tied the state-society relations to ruler's advantage. Rana rulers suppressed internal opposition and coaxed British India presuming that close cooperation with British was the best way to guarantee Nepal's independence. In contrast to Shaha rule, which remained largely introvert, Ranas were extrovert in orientation and promoted European culture, architecture, fashion and design among the aristocratic sections of society. Several self-strengthening reforms, such as judicial, administrative and military reorganization, revenue collection system and marriage relations brought about improved coercive capabilities of the state to penetrate the society and economy. But, several social and political histories of diverse ethnic, tribal and regional groups remained unrepresented into national history and weaved into the ideology of Nepali nationalism because history writers were preoccupied with the problem of modern political order.

Among the Ranas, Chandra Shumsher introduced modern education system and abolished Sati Pratha and slavery. Rana regime initiated the social engineering-Sanskritization of non-Sanskritic groups and communities and fostered the process of Nepalization of language and culture, applied modernity, executed social reforms and secured the sovereignty of the nation. Ranas, as a rule, inherited a system of governance based on the exclusion of Dalits (untouchable groups) from the public realm and subordination of women in society. The centralized state penetrated both the economy and society and harnessed them :o the needs of regime survival. In this context, the then civil society formed in Nepal and by the Nepalese in India constituted a mobilized associational arena to the political opposition of Rana rule and for the creation of a constitutional democratic regime.

The pluralistic Hindu-Buddhist society provided a fertile ground for the growth of duty­-based civic tradition. This tradition treats the nation-state as an organization for the realization of common good. Civic nationalism is essentially a middle class movement against feudal order prompted by idealism of democracy and peculiar middle class interest in self-rule. The spread of liberation movements were tied up with changes in the social division of labor creating receptivity for universalizing and legitimizing the identifications, demands and expectations. Madhav Raj Joshi founded Arya Samaj (civic , society) in 1909 to free the Nepalese from superstition, abolish discrimination against women, child labor, child marriage, legitimize widow marriage, initiate social reforms and lead the society to rational course. In 1918, Tulsi Mehar, Amar Raj and Bakpati Raj tried to revive this body but could not. On the initiative of Siddhi Charan Shrestha, a Malami Guthi was set up but that too suffered from Ranas iron hands. In 1920, Krishna Lal Adhikari wrote Makaiko Kheti (Farming of Maize) which satirically portrayed the Rana policy of adoration towards the British ruling the Indian sub-continent and suppression of native citizens, including the depressing conditions of peasants and workers of Nepal.

In 1926, the Kamadhenu Charkha Pracharak Mahaguthi emerged as a modern form of social organization. In 1937, Sukra Raj Shastri with Kedar Man Byathit, Ganga Lall Shrestha, etc. as members constituted Nepal Nagrik Adhikar Samiti (Committee on Citizens' Rights) to incubate free societies through the explanation of Hindu religious treatises and lift the veil of ignorance. When Sukra Raj was explaining the teaching of classical treatise, Bhagbad Geeta, in Kathmandu, he was hanged. All these activities were carrying forward the demand of constitutional state in which free citizens have the right to public office and participation in decisions about the public affairs. The springs of indigenous knowledge articulated dreams and visions and set the mass in the direction to achieve self-government as against special interests.

Prem Bahadur Kansakar and his friends established Prajatantra Sangh (Democratic Association), Daya Bir Singh Kansakar formed the Paropakar Sansthan (Charity Association) and a number of literary societies had been formed inside and outside the country for the renewal of the interest of the citizens in public life and liberate the oppressed. These societies were based on the indigenous knowledge of that period and, therefore, became an important device to rectify the deviant behavior of rulers and subjects. In a sense, they tried to vitalize the relationship of the public to dharma-mediated knowledge and knowledge for enlightened action. The Sanskrit school of Kathmandu launched Jayatu Sanskritam movement against the Ranas in 1947 and demanded the modernization of the syllabus of Sanskrit teaching, political education, nationalism and general human welfare. Many Nepalese who served during the First and Second World Wars abroad brought democratic consciousness in the country for political awakening and make the condition of the nation a reality to each individual.

In 1947, a workers' strike broke out in Biratnagar with professional demands. As political parties were banned in the nation, they were operating from India and cohering with the Indian nationalist movement to dislodge British rule from the region and build the institutions of the state from the bottom up. Greater demands for political freedom brought the downfall of more than a century old rule of Rana oligarchy in 1950 and multiparty polity was established in Nepal. The struggles of Nepalese people to supersede feudal and dynastic control opened the possibility for civic nationalism and exert their control over the government.

GROWTH AND CIVIC NATIONALISM

The political consciousness of the 1940s and democratic change of 1950s try to liberate people from the notion that the society is a part of the eternal, divinely ordered nature of things. Rather, it came to be seen as a human product created through the conscious choice and action of human being. In the democratic experiments of the 1950s, political parties tried to link nationalism to political modernization and attempted to redefine group boundaries on the basis of politics rather than ethnicity, religion and region. A faint vision of progress derived from the Enlightenment and occasionally figured in the writing and speeches of political leaders, poets and scholars helped them to understand the concept of modernity. An Interim Constitution was promulgated in 1951 reflecting the power sharing among King Tribhuvan, the Ranas and the representatives of political forces. The Constitution became a principal ingredient for the transformation of raitis (subjects) into nagrik, (citizens) and integration of several social groups into a nation-state through mobilization, territorialization and politicization. Yet, the cult of leadership and erosion of civic institutions, including the political parties to reach out to remote areas, owing to ferocious internal bickering, belittled the performance legitimacy of the system. The monarch's concerted public relation campaigns in anchoring nationalism internally and the geopolitical maneuvers externally set him at an advantageous position.

In February 1959, a new Constitution was introduced. Prime Minister Tank Prasad Acharya and the first elected Prime Minister B. P. Koirala followed a kind of neo-mercantilism-favoring national industry, national banking, national trade and nationalization of forestry and tried to organize societies around the modern state and establish legal political order. Yet, constitutional culture did not evolve to muster the allegiance of citizens toward democratic habits. Owing to feudal structural conditions, the leadership remained weak in developing democratic citizenship as they dissociated themselves from the ordinary populace and began to forge an alliance with the aristocratic, business and the technocratic sector of the political economy involving rationalization, centralization and nationalization of planning and organizational processes. Strong parochial orientation of political leadership relying on clientalism as a mode of citizens' loyalty rendered the social base of politics narrow and undermined the greater public expectation of the emergence of a re-distributive state. As leaders were more inclined to satisfy their own interests rather than the expectations of the citizens, in due course, it unfolded a series of political maneuvers prompting King Mahendra to invoke tradition, order and nationalism and stage a takeover in December 1960.

Subsequently, a monocratic Panchayat system was innovated under the Constitution of 1962 with the active rule of monarch. The Panchayat polity not only sought to impose the hegemony of a system without choice but also assumed control over the nation's political economy. With the strengthening of public sector and cooperatives, the state gained upper hand for influencing the market, investment, money circulation, foreign aid and development strategies. This was deliberately designed to resist local and foreign monopoly and assist the consolidation of statehood. During Panchayat regime, civic forces suffered discontinuity and the bureaucracy, police and aristocracy fortified their tentacles in the society to exercise social control. Panchayat polity banned political parties, but created organizations for youth, women, workers, ex-servicemen and peasants for the articulation of general societal interest and muster a clock of legitimacy. Unlike Rana regime, Panchayat expanded the sphere of government, enlarged the elite base of the system and initiated the process of social mobilization of citizens at the grassroots level through local government institutions and Back to Village National Campaign.

Panchayat system also tried to re-socialize the citizenry for mustering their absolute support for the polity, tried to remove ideological extremism, popularized the idea that the welfare state and mixed economy are best suited to the nation's geopolitics and set in motion the Nepalization process in order to neutralize the ideological currents of capitalism and communism in the neighborhood. After the referendum of 1980, King Birendra allowed the space for some opposition and direct involvement of citizens in macro-politics. The outcome of referendum especially uncovered the national power of political elites to democratic competition and opened a division within the supporters of Panchayat pitting the hard-core loyalists against soft-liners who were close to the banned political parties. Panchayat's command over ideological, educational and media institutions, however, remained relatively relaxed and, therefore, they provided a space for conversation.

The buoyancy of civic institutions and activities, such as literary societies, underground publications, student unions, teachers' unions, human rights organizations and social and cultural associations of citizens revived the power of public :o a rich associational life. Besides, the state had facilitated the participatory process at the local level. Especially due to the lack of coherence within the coalition of ruling class, the liberal Panchas were associated with the civic organizations, which provided positive incentives for horizontal solidarity for reform-minded forces. The growth of critical mass of change agents fostered by public education, economy, bureaucracy and mass communication and the global wave of democratization during Panchayat regime helped the Nepalese to confront the realities of the state power and after the success of democratic struggle in 1990 helped to establish multiparty democracy, constitutional monarchy, sovereignty of people and human rights-all being the source for the emergence of modern legal rational state. Democratization of the suffrage had broken the monopoly of feudalism, they nevertheless enabled to protect their interests through the control of media, foreign aid and political institutions.

Pluralistic social universe of Nepal (62 ethnic groups mainly Indo-Aryan and Mongolian and 82 languages, such as Nepali, Maithili, Bhojpuri, Awadhi, Newari, and other Tibeto-Burman dialects) acted as deterrence against extreme repression by one group to another. Yet, the power of the tradition of cronyism, family networks and organizations of elites, political factionalism, governmental instability, deadlock and politics of agitation have weakened the strength of impersonal modern state, subordinated citizens' rights to the clients' benefits in an uncivil manner and diffused the force of nationalism into tribe, class, caste, ethnicity, religion, etc. Civil societies have yet to bring popular interest in public policy transcending excessively individualistic, non­ political and non-historical rationality of human life favoring intellectual planning of society on rational grounds. Nepalese citizens need to gain the basic knowledge of how to participate in civic politics in a manner, which is conducive to building civil society from below.

GEO-POLITICS, NATION STATE AND NATIONAL IDENTITY

Landlocked Nepal has utilized its foreign policy to assert independent identity in the changing regional and international geopolitical constellation. P.N. Shaha adopted the policy of self-defense as he perceived that regional and international world is hostile to Nepalese national interests. His imagery of Nepal as a "yam between two boulders" still serves as a guiding constant to foreign policy formulation and execution. The relations of geo-strategy and power have not changed despite the change in political regimes. Ranarchy had adopted a policy of special relationship with British-India because the Chinese empire was relatively weak, distant and invisible. But Ranas were very much conscious of the sovereign position of the state and successfully negotiated with the British to get recognition from them under a Treaty of Friendship signed on 21 December 1923 about its sovereign independent status and sought trade concessions and import of military equipment. In March 1947, Nepal sent its representative to the Asian Relations Conference in Delhi and in April it signed a Treaty of Friendship and Commerce with the United States. After the restoration of democracy in the fifties, Nepal had finally opened itself to outside world and adopted non-alignment between India and China and the superpowers; pursued a policy of diversification in foreign aid, trade and international relations and took active part in conference diplomacy. The motive of diversification was to project its independent identity and reduce hyper-dependence on India. After the fifties Nepalese leaders continued to share social and cultural values with India but often tried to dilute the negative effects of Peace and Friendship Treaty signed with India in July 1950. Text courtesy: Readings on Governance and development edited by Mukti Rizal.

To be continued- ed.