Make way to 2nd generation

The petition filed at the Nepali Congress parliamentary party office bearing the signatures of 58 NC MPs seeking Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai’s removal has once again brought on a crisis for the government. Two reasons justifying this move are the government’s inefficiency and corruption but one more reason, namely, the prime minister’s poor health, could also be added to the list. Truly, on all counts the government has failed, but if Bhattarai is to be ousted, then it should not be to make way for his long time rival Girija Prasad Koirala, the NC party president because such a development would defeat the oft reiterated promise—made by the two septuagenarian leaders—to effect transition of leadership to the next generation of NC leaders.

It ought to be recalled here that a little over two months ago, a similar crisis had erupted. However, an agreement between Bhattarai and Koirala had averted the crisis. At that time the former had agreed to step down after the winter session of parliament scheduled for March 1 citing reasons of failing health. However, Ram Chandra Poudel’s appointment as Deputy Prime Minister was seen as an attempt on the part of Bhattarai to consolidate his position. This explains the present rebellion within the NC just two weeks before the winter session. Though at this stage, there is no telling whether the petition will lead to Bhattarai’s removal, it will certainly be interesting to see whether Bhattarai resigns as he should, or goes down fighting or survives the revolt. But this is not the point being made here.

It is indeed unfortunate that NC politics has largely been determined by the longstanding rivalry between the Bhattarai and Koirala factions because the resulting instability has had profound adverse impacts on the country’s governance and development. Both the ageing leaders must therefore quit in the greater interest of the country. Since a long time, there have been calls to hand over power to second generation party leaders, and there is no dearth of them waiting in the wings. Yet, both Bhattarai and Koirala cling on to their positions. The former’s position is as insecure as ever while the latter enjoys a vice-like grip over party affairs. As a result of this situation, the party is losing its dynamism, and the government has virtually lost its capacity to govern and deliver.

The only solution in this situation appears to be a graceful exit for both leaders. There must be a consensus second generation candidate for the post of prime minister who is honest, dynamic, who can end the divide within the NC and also fight corruption. The same criteria should also apply for the post of NC president. Unless this happens the Nepali Congress as a ruling party will never be able to deliver.

Globalise but also prioritise

By Rajat Sharma

As Nepal globalises itself, it must also simultaneously learn to prioritise. We must give up our penchant for making everything from pins to planes and screws to submarines. Much the same way companies learn to rationalise their products and services through the SWOT analysis. There is a severe competition for the resources, and unless there is selectivity of approach in resource allocation, we will continue to be a nation of foundation stones.

The first priority that occurs is tourism. Singapore, a Odeon block of concrete, earns much more through tourism than Nepal. It is easier to catalogue what we do not have for tourists than what we have. Hills and plains, temples and palaces, natural beauties and jungles, etc. But what a tourist realises the moment he lands here is the infrastructure, a major stumbling block. This must be tackled urgently. Tourism must be given a top priority.

A cursory look at the history indicates that the country practised controlled economy in last four decades. As a result, businesses were never encouraged to compete the global market. Most of Nepal’s enterprises had a limited capacity, operating with low levels of technology. They were inefficient and incompetent. When in the 90s the country introduced "economic liberalisation", many business houses could not grow up due to the sudden change in the environment they worked in. Initial year, when entry and expansion were deregulated, was an euphoric reaction to the changes. But after a year, business houses realised their limitations. Since they were incompetent to meet the global challenges, they faced disadvantages.

Globalization in Nepal has, however, not meant liberalization in totality. Many laws and rules, as well as working tradition and practices still come from the past. Doing business today means trying to compete in the world market, but saddled with procedures and practices of yesterday. Companies in Nepal compete in a global environment without the same facilities and infrastructure enjoyed by leading global players (such as cheap credit, efficient technology, efficient communication and information access, etc). In such a situation, it is obvious that they have little or no opportunities to compete in the global market.

Globalization has meant opening up new avenues for imports. This has led many Nepalese enterprises to be established to meet internal demands. A businessman who made his investment in the belief that the government will continue its policies in accordance with globalization and free market, is today in a dilemma because government policies keep changing with little respect for firm commitment to the business sector.

The technology, both hardware (machines) as well as software (knowledge) being used by Nepalese business, in most cases is outdated. Today, this has become a problem. With the advancement of technology, there is a shortage or lack of professional skills to enable the country to compete in the global market.

The state of human resource development has been a prime area of concern for business leaders and the country following economic liberalization. Universities in the country have not been able to produce the desired manpower to meet the demands of time. The graduates produced by the universities have not been able to meet the requirements of modern economy. The Nepalese work force still lack understanding and skills necessary to compete in modern day professions in any field. Success in globalisation needs the work force to be competitive. Politicians emphasize the low cost of labour as something offering a competitive edge, but discount the fact that "labour cost" needs to be looked at along with "labour productivity."

It has become very difficult, almost impossible, to keep pace with the changing global trends. New technologies are being developed with changing time, but Nepalese companies are handicapped due to the lack of access to information and know-how. Globalization and the astonishing development of information technology has given rise to an explosion of expectations. However, the imitation effect is so great that nobody is willing to wait. This explosion of expectations has given rise to many social conflicts and problems. These social problems have their own effects in the business environment too.

Globalization has provided challenges as well as opportunities to businesses in the country. Old traditional business face bankruptcy whereas new ones have the capacity to be competitive. As an optimist, one can believe that a new breed of businessmen are going to emerge. They will be competitive in the global market. Perhaps, this is the way of life. The government and politicians need to support and facilitate the emergence of new potential ventures in the country. These ventures need to be competitive not by Nepalese and South Asian standards, but must be measured by the global yardstick.

As Nepal’s Gross Domestic Products’ (GDP) growth rates for the current fiscal year is estimated to grow almost at par with the average growth rates of developing countries’, given the small base of Nepalese economy, average Nepali will become relatively poorer than their counterparts in the developing countries.

Economic survey for the fiscal year 1998/99 in the first nine month of the current fiscal year, estimates Nepalese economy to grow at 3.4 percent against developing nations’ average of 3.1 percent in 1999. The estimated growth rate is normally higher than last year’s growth rate of 2.7 percent. However, the figure is almost half of the 6 percent growth rate as targeted by the Ninth Plan. Breakdown of the estimated growth rate shows that agriculture sector will grow by 2.4 percent and non-agricultural sector will grow by 4.1 percent. Though the agriculture sector growth rates has improved from last year’s revised estimates of 1 percent, it is still only at par with a population growth rates that is assumed to be at 2.36 percent. It suggests that income growth from the agriculture sector will hardly off-set the burden of ballooning rural population, leaving a majority of Nepalese in abject poverty.

Industry, long considered the engine of growth, has been the darling of development. Agriculture, by contrast, was believed to be unresponsive to economic incentives and did not lend itself to technical change. Thus, policy makers in the past believed that promoting industry at the expense of agriculture would sacrifice little in output -- or so went the conventional wisdom in the 1960s and 1970s -- that if a country like Nepal wants to achieve faster agricultural growth, faster economic growth and fewer poor people, it should stop taxing agriculture relative to other sectors.

There has long been a presumption that the production of individual agricultural products responds significantly to higher prices -- because of shifts between products -- but that total agricultural production is unresponsive to incentives. The presumption is wrong. Experience shows that in the long run, the aggregate response can be sizable, though it may require some years to materialize. This highlights the importance of having a stable and persistent policy.

If a country wants to prosper, it should not bias incentives against agriculture relative to other sectors or, what amounts to the same thing, it should not use policies to depress agriculture’s domestic terms of trade. But to stop this practice, the country must do more than dismantle the sectoral or direct interventions in agricultural prices -- it must, in addition, eliminate the indirect bias against agriculture (about three quarters of the total bias against agriculture in 1960-85), including removing industrial protection and getting the exchange rate in line with its long-run equilibrium.

Nepal’s Agricultural Perspective Plan (APP) is based on the assumption that it is time for Nepal to commence accelerating growth, and it lays down the basic priorities for doing so. The minimum foundation of physical infrastructure, human capital and institutions has been laid.

The place to start accelerated growth is where the masses of people are -- rural Nepal; in the sector already commanding the largest share of Nepal’s resources -- agriculture; and, with investments to raise the productivity of those people and their resources -- agricultural technology generation and rural infrastructure.

The need for good governance is extremely important, particularly in the present democratic atmosphere of Nepal. The main components of good governance in any democratic system include legitimacy, public participation, access to information, transparency, creation of a legal framework, and government accountability. Somehow, these components seem to be absent in the present socio-political processes of the country.

Few words to all Maoists

By Subash Atreya

On seeing the filthy smoke of corruption eclipsing the future of Nepal, you staked your life and vowed to purge the nation in order to emancipate us from the darkness and the pernicious hands of "Daura Suruwal" monsters & to fortify our hope for survival.

This was really an imperative but you were carried too far by your ambition and you did not see anything else other than your goal. You were determined to achieve your goal by any means. So you did not bother about the costs. You were blind to the implications of your actions. You adopted terrorism as your weapon to help you achieve your aim, and in dong so you engendered hatred for yourself in the hearts of many Nepalese. With every drop of blood you shed you lost the faith of people. Though your motive was to sanctify society, your method exasperated the condition of our country.

You have now become a menace to society. Killing innocent people has turned you has made every one resent you. Anyone will shake with nervous apprehension whenever they smell your presence. You are seen as a threat to mankind and society.

You have profaned the belief of people and implanted contempt in their hearts and brains.

Worst of all, you are now used as a weapon, more correctly speaking, you have become a camouflage for some opportunists who fulfil their heinous desires. These people commit crimes actions and you are blamed for it. People are using you as an excuse, as someone on whom they can dump their accusations. I cannot confirm that it was you who killed the doctor in such a grotesque manner but you are certainly responsible for it since it was in your name that the crime was committed.

You are mow accused and condemned for every crime committed in the nation. In this way, you are inspiring crimes in the country which is definitely not the objective behind your inception.

You really need to work hard now if you want to prevent any further digression from your original motives. You need to have strong control over your actions and correct insight for viewing its implications together with its consequences. Let loyalty to the nation be your path and people's support your weapon in this battle of freedom from political depravity. Remember that king Tribhuwan also succeeded in his aim because he had won the support of his fellow citizens. Anyone who wants to bring a revolution necessarily needs to gain the confidence of citizens and their support.

Therefore, you have to stop this violence though you are free to scare the hearts out of corrupt politicians. My advice to all Maoists is: be more scrupulous in your actions. Let not anyone defame you by committing crimes in your name. End the corruption and liberate everyone from this filthy environment. Then mother Nepal will certainly be proud of you.

Reservation policy and myth of merit

By Mahendra Lawoti

Opponents of reservation policy claim reservation disregards merit and will create inefficiency. The moral claim of merit rests on the idea that it can be judged by certain standards that are impartial. Detachment and dispassion supposedly can produce impartiality. Detachment and dispassion means abstracting from particularities of situation, feeling, affiliation and point of view. However, in the actual context of action, these particularities still operate. Despite that many states and organizations have adopted the dominant norms as the standards for everyone. In such a context, the ideal of impartiality masks the way in which the particular perspectives of dominant groups claim universality, and helps justify perpetuation of dominance.

Even though the merit principle requires impartial technical definition of qualifications, the criteria actually used to determine qualifications tend to embody or include particular values, norms, and cultural attributes. These criteria often carry assumptions about way of life, styles of behaviour, and values that derive from and reflect the experience of the privileged groups. Iris Marion Young, in her Justice and the Politics of Difference (1990), exposes the impossibility of impartiality: "since the ideology of impartiality leads evaluators to deny the particularity of these standards, groups with different experiences, values, and way of life are evaluated as falling short... Thus evaluators, especially those belonging to groups defined as neutral, often carry unconscious biases and prejudices against specially marked groups." Additionally some groups suffer as consequences of unconscious assumptions and reactions of well-meaning people in ordinary interactions, media, and cultural stereotypes, and other normal processes of everyday life.

Young gives four reasons why normatively and culturally neutral measures of individual performance do not exist for most jobs. First, most jobs are too complex and multifaceted to allow for a precise identification of their tasks. Secondly, it is often not possible to identify the contribution that each individual makes in complex organizations because workers cooperate in the production process. Third, wide discretion is required in many jobs, making any evaluation measure inadequate. Finally, those evaluating a worker’s performance often are not familiar with the work process, especially in professional and managerial jobs. Hence, in actual practice "impartial, value neutral, scientific measures of merit do not exist." When we accept that evaluation standards are neutral, we are endorsing those who are in control of the process to run the process according to their cultural values and norms and individual predilection. In a country like Nepal where professionalism is very weak, and chakari, chukli, nepotism, corruption and clientelism are rampant, the "merit" system has facilitated filling up of the positions with members a few groups who control the state and society.

We can cite the civil service exam in Nepal as an example of partial norms and standards. Non-Nepali mother tongue speakers are disadvantaged outright because it is difficult for them to compete with native Nepali speakers. Questions imbuing with the norms convenient mainly to certain ethnic groups and gender put a not-small chunk of other groups in a disadvantageous position. As a result, a significant number of women, minority religion groups and even the downtrodden class suffer most. For example, recently, the exam instructed to write an essay on the fun of swinging through Ping in Dashain. A Nepali citizen from the Terai was disgusted because people from terai generally sway through the Ping in the summer, not in Dashain. How could a student from non-Hindu background describe well an activity and festivities that she has never experienced? Some may claim that as citizens, all Nepali people should be informed about other cultures of Nepal. How will members of the dominant group feel if they have to write an essay on Loshar? No wonder that the marginalized groups lack representation in the civil service and other mainstream institutions. This is not only due to historic discrimination and exploitation, but current practices also favour the traditional social elite groups.

Efficiency: The concern in the meritocracy argument in Nepal is quite often couched in the developmental discourse. It is argued that reservation will falter the process. It is difficult to understand how involvement of only a small and privileged group will develop a country. In fact, those few who are in the workforce will be burdened because of high dependency ratio upon them. Reservation, on the other hand, will bring more groups into mainstream development process and will usher in development to all segments of the society, with better-qualified persons emerging from the widened selection pool.

People from different groups often bring unique perspectives to a collective endeavour, supplementing those of others, because of their differing experiences, cultures, values, and interactive styles. Charles Willie, a Harvard sociologist, claims that diversity in a multicultural society is essential for the development of society. The tension between stability, preferred by dominant groups and change aspired by the dominated groups, heralds improvement and development. It is clearly evident in India that the change demanded by the oppressed groups have extended equality and social justice.

Reflections of societal composition in important collective decision-making and service providing agencies, such as administration, are essential for such bodies to be efficient in their services. For instance, only women can empathize with certain specific experiences felt by women. Likewise, an administrator well versed in local culture and language can serve the people of that region better. An administration that does not represent the social composition of the society is inefficient because it cannot serve well diverse people of the country.

Conclusion: The aim of this article is not to deny altogether usefulness of evaluation and measurement criteria. The thrust is to acknowledge limitations of such standards so that avenue will open for making the processes more judicious and equitable. In Nepal, first explicit discriminatory norms and standards towards women, minority groups, the poor and other oppressed groups should be removed. Then the evaluation and measurement process should operate in an environment of flexibility where assets of the marginalized groups are evaluated positively. Lack of characteristic cultural dysfunction, like chakari, chukli and nepotism, in members of these groups, then, may contribute in the reform of the bureaucracy and other organizations. We will, then, be closer to meritocracy.