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In a governance regime, a sound mechanism of mutual accountability of internal and external stakeholders must be built
Dev Raj Dahal, Head, FES
 Civil society is self-chosen and self-constituted by the citizens themselves. It emerges from a process of rational contestation of ideas about good life. The April democratic upsurge in Nepal induced by the integration of the movements of political and civil society groups has set an example of how social capital is generated for larger national action. The outcome of this upsurge will be known in the future for its impetus to a peaceful transformation of Nepal’s political structure and political culture.
The vision of civil society groups rooted in the universal principles of freedom, social justice, solidarity and peace will continue to influence the work of civil society in Nepal. This vision will inspire them to work in improving the condition of Nepalese citizens majority of them are still caught in deep-rooted challenges of poverty, inequality, hierarchy and patriarchy and craft a shared future. The silent social revolution carried by them in thousands of villages and towns of Nepal has enabled the general citizens to speak, reclaim sovereignty, rationally reshape the power relationships in society and imagine a creative change. Mutuality of relationships is a precondition for peace-building.
Building Peace: The debate on Constituent Assembly (CA) has made Nepalese politics open-ended. It has fulfilled one of the preconditions set by CPN (Maoist) for talk. The central role of Nepalese civil society groups lies in transforming diverse people into equal citizens and help in shaping the vision of peaceful nation. Already, they have been performing a number of activities—early warning, humanitarian assistance, protection and rehabilitation of people, conflict analysis, monitoring of human rights, ceasefire code of conduct, talk observation, tension de-escalation, community mediation, advocacy, public communication, peace movements, uplifting of the marginalized, service delivery, etc. A permanent political settlement requires civil society to inspire confidence building measures to transform the negative peace now into positive peace.
The central challenge for Nepalese civil society group is to act as a unifying symbol of popular will and dissipate the fear of anti-democratic spiral in politics, economy, ecology and social life. Another challenge is to engage and transform the actors, drivers and stakeholders of conflict into a framework of peace defined by various understanding, agreements and dialogues. Building strong networks of association can enhance faith in the possibilities of value-based politics which is essential for peace building.
Democratization : Democratization requires the Nepalese political parties and civil society groups to overcome their columanized character, develop autonomy from the private interest groups, build coalitions across the various public-oriented institutions and enable socially legitimate collective action. Participatory democracy driven by information revolution does not become functional if civil society groups do not generate the habits of debate and offer political leadership effective competition on matters of public importance. But, there must be a balance between the capacity of civil society to generate demands and the ability of public institutions to fulfill them.
Inspired by the ideals of modernity, democracy and human rights, the Nepalese civil society groups have now begun to contest the relationship between popular sovereignty and representative government, between constitutional and human rights, and between inclusive and participatory democracy. Social movements of civil society are liberalizing the nature of traditional politics from status-bound to social contract, altering the functions of state and seeking to universalize the human rights of Nepalese citizens.
Development: Globalization has enabled the regional and global participation of Nepalese civil society groups. The universality of human rights has endorsed the legitimacy of the plurality of liberal values in the country. But, political sovereignty would be meaningless if there is no “policy sovereignty,” to enable the Nepalese decide the type of political, economic and social system they prefer for themselves and their children. It would also be meaningless if the basic needs deficit limits the freedom of citizens. Nepalese civil society groups can help the leadership to articulate the policy sovereignty of politics in economic matters and help to define national priorities for action, seek the support of international community and achieve the economy of scale through market efficiency and social integration. There is also an imperative to build trust and enable the already torn state to assume basic governance functions.
Conclusion : Democracy provides space for the peaceful resolution of conflict. Democracy and peace building are related. Both try to eliminate primitive reliance on violence. A broad national consensus on social contract and the legitimacy of the state action are crucial starting points for systemic response to conflict. But, without the democratization of political parties, NGOs, CBOs, public interest groups and the agencies of socialization it is difficult to rectify structural injustice and strengthen the social base of peace. Similarly, capturing the sovereignty of policy domain is another area to enforce the accountability of governance to public and push for conflict-sensitive, comprehensive development programs.
In a governance regime, a sound mechanism of mutual accountability of internal and external stakeholders must be built so that resources can be concerted into humanitarian action at multi-track levels. Similarly, broadening awareness of the citizens about the changing nature of the national and local environment for all the actors, their interest positioning and shift from hostile position to identifying enlightened interests for shared gains for democracy, peace, social justice and progress is crucial. A positive peace requires the framework of social justice where civil society groups with other stakeholders can enter into cooperative action. The discourse today and tomorrow, I hope will be able to generate new avenues of insights and understanding useful for peaceful resolution of macro and micro conflicts.
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