Democracy and development

By PRATIVA SUBEDI

After the restoration of democracy in 1990, the Nepalese people had high expectations for the benefit the country would derive from democracy. Democracy gave people freedom of speech and the right to be politically active, but it did not change people’s lives as they had expected. People wanted roads, electricity, employment, education and clean drinking water in the remote areas, but this did not happen. Political instability affected not only the general public, but businessmen and professionals as well.

Consequently, today people are blaming the multiparty system. In actuality, it is not the multiparty system that is bad, but it is the leaders who are handling it incorrectly that are the problem. Some people are looking for a change and they think that the alternative lies in what the Maoist rebels are offering. But the Maoists are not a reasonable alternative because of their inhuman activities.

Communism came into existence because of economic injustices. Some people still believe that communism is a panacea to alleviate poverty, but this has not happened in practice.

In 1991, the failure of communism in Russia was the result of dictatorship, production of weapons, and a centralised system. Market and private ownership of property were prohibited. Communism as an ideology has not worked in many parts of the world, and it will not work in Nepal either. In China and Vietnam, communism has adopted a more open-style economy that is more in line with the current western democratic model.

In a capitalist economy, money and market are highly focused. An economic system can only be sustained when natural, social, and capital property can be preserved. The western model of development puts heavy emphasis on money and economic power. The western development strategy is not ideal for a developing country like Nepal because it does not preserve the life support system.

Democracy is not the reason why development is failing in this country. It is how the present government and its political parties have administered democracy, which is the root of Nepal’s problems. Ideologically, democracy is essential to development. Development is a process by which people increase their capacity to produce essential goods and services and meet their demands.

In our country, development should benefit all the people equally. It should be environmentally and economically sustainable in all sectors of the community. Women especially, should have a say in the development process. Development is not just about economic growth, it is about improving the lives of every woman, man and child.

The key part of democracy is that it allows the public to freely discuss and make an informed, well thought out approach to improving their own and their country’s future. Democracy enables the distribution of a wide variety of information about development, Nepal, and the government. In this way, democracy should reduce corruption.

The government’s policies, however, have not worked towards this model of development. Although the Nepali Congress and the UML claim that they believe in social democracy, they have not put their claims into practice. The government introduced a liberal economic policy following the restoration of democracy in 1990. This western-style model of extreme capitalism did not benefit the common citizens of Nepal. Although Nepal’s economy has grown, the benefits have not been distributed fairly among the population. In fact, Nepal’s liberal economic system has made the rich richer and the poor poorer. A liberal economic policy should be reviewed as to how it could be benefit all.

Responsible and healthy journalism is another important factor that helps to sustain democracy. Since the restoration of democracy, newspapers and other sources of media have been informative. A lot of information is available.

Nepal’s education system is also not adequate. The government should enforce free education until students complete high school. The education system in Nepal should teach people to think for themselves and their country. Education plays a major role for the success of a democratic system.

Nepal’s land reform system also hinders democracy as it does not adequately give the citizens an opportunity to be independent and to look after themselves. It does not give women the right to own property - even though they carry out most of their works on the farm. The government’s distribution of land is also poorly planned, for it does not take into account the important issues associated with land management such as soil erosion and water pollution.

The above-mentioned problems are not the fault of democracy, but they have arisen out of the faulty approach and policy of the party leaders have chosen to follow. The government could easily have implemented a democratic, socialist, and people-oriented approach to development.

Even in Japan, they have carried out effective land reform that has given the people control of their own means of income, hence, their own lives. Japan did not open up its economy to the cut-throat world of international competition immediately. They waited until the country’s industries had grown enough so that they could meet internal demand. Only then did they begin importing and exporting products on a global scale.

Democracy has provided its people with freedom of speech and liberty. People are free to express their opinions to the public. Many people are organised in social and political institutions such as NC, UML and underground Maoists. However, tolerance and trust between the parties are lacking.

Political parties blame each other for corruption and mismanagement. No one respects each other’s ideologies or professions. Civil society, politicians, and bureaucrats do not work in co-ordination in favour of our national interest. The key to development in Nepal lies with the implementation of a social democratic system.

Thus, in Nepal, we need to think about building our own society in creating a healthy balance and ensuring interaction among the civic, governmental and economic sectors. This is possible in a democratic system. Sadly, for the moment, many of the significant development issues within our country seem to be sidelined because of the problems created by the Maoist insurgency. This is clearly the first problem that must be addressed. Democracy without the rule of law is quite terrible. In a true democracy, economic and social justice should go side by side.

Conventions and me

By KARISHMA AMATYA

I’m not preaching pragmatism. Conventions are misconceptions. Our conventional mind betrays the idea of today. They talk of designer babies in the 21st Century. Here, is our soil, these so-called designer babies have been delivered since god knows when. Here, when a child is born, he is automatically conventionalised. I guess he overheard the social ‘conservation’ on codes of conventions inside the protected walls of his mother’s womb.

Conventions are like the faint nausea felt towards the aroma of the loaf of bread freshly baked by a baker in a bread factory. Yet, it’s like the ever increasing addiction of alcohol on "pills", often resulting is paranoia. We are conventionalised about each and every thing. We live in the present and think like those of the past. We fear to think like we really want to, least we betray our conventions.

I remember my literature professor’s lecture on conventions in high school.

"We are blind, we’re prejudiced, what you laugh at today becomes a convention tomorrow". Indeed, we are the creatures governed by conventions. It’s high time we change our biased outlook. We are simply furbishing the already sharp horns of conventions.

Whenever I think of conventions, gender issue strikes me outright. It is conventional for a daughter to juggle between pots n’ pan and pen n’ paper, but even more so for a daughter-in-law. This is the melting point of the old, worn out conventions regarding gender, on more precisely the biological being of male or female, and the more recent, slightly modernised vision of the same word. Not more than a few decades ago, we, the supposed ‘weaker sex’ had to take charge of pots and pans whereas now, our tasks have been doubled or rather multiplied. We are both the bread winners and the makers. I wonder why the same theory, does not apply to men.

Coming back to my theory of conventions, a recent article on ‘pride of ignorance’ strikes me. It is indeed a shame to be proud of our own ignorance concerning anything and everything remotely ‘Nepali’. After reading it twice, I realised that I, myself, happen to fall into "that particular generation bracket". This is an example of convention this particular generation has developed all on it’s own. Nevertheless, the writer reminded me that I’m not spared either. Well, who is?

Anyway, I think I’ve succeeded, to my own satisfaction, in adding up a couple of points to the already pilling up havoc of conventions. We are the designer babies born and brought up amidst the concrete forest of conventions. And when we die, we mix with the earth that shelters and gives rise to yet another set of conventions. There is, as yet, no light at the end of the tunnel.

Musharraf continues to rule

By BASANTA LOHANI

When Pakistan’s strong man General Parvez Musharraf had not even appointed himself as the country’s Chief Executive after a bloodless coup on October 11, 1999, he rebuked the American insistence of a time frame to return to democracy by talking of a ‘legitimacy referendum.’ That was when Nawab Sherrif had dismissed him from the position of the chief of the army and he, in a military reflex, had thrown his prime minister to jail after dismissing his government. Sheriff is very much around to vouch how the massive American support that he enjoyed could not save his two third parliamentary mandate to rule after his confrontation with Musharraf who had engineered a Mujahadeen led infiltration to change the 50-year-old line of control (LoC) in Kargil that blew up into a full-scale war between India and Pakistan. Finally, Sherrif managed to pull back his army on the US insistence but lost his balance with Musharraf. The general then talked of ‘legitimacy referendum’; something that Ayub Khan did in 1960 to find legitimacy to his rule because the people who wanted liberation from Sheriff’s awfully bad governance and parliamentary authoritarian rule had spontaneously welcomed the change and rallied around him as the saviour of the nation.

That was the kind of legitimacy he enjoyed then at home. However, legitimacy from outside was a complete void. He, thus, staggered in groping the initial situation. The reason was the massive international resistance spearheaded by the US. He had to withstand in the face of total void of legitimacy in him when viewed from the process of acquiring it. The US was as quick to realise as much as the General who knew very well that America will stick to their interest more than anything else and his crusade against corruption will give him enough time to tide over the compulsive economic pressure, requiring abundant American assistance. Once the Saudis decided to go along with the army brass, aggressive US attitude towards the change softened. Funds from US influenced multilateral agencies started flowing in. It was around the time the US had forged an alliance with India after the then President Bill Clinton’s official visit (March 21-25, 2000). American perception in the region changed requiring India as its ally both for economic and strategic reasons, thus, endorsing India’s aspiration to emerge as the regional leader.

It became necessary for the Americans to stop Pakistan drifting to the point of no return. So they counselled their new ally India, having China in mind, to open out the vent that was blocked for two and half years. India, thus, called off the six-month-old cease-fire in Kashmir on May 23 and also invited General Musharraf who made a three-day visit (14-16 July 2001) to India. The general appointed himself the president just before his visit to India and hogged a wholesome diplomatic and media glare. He outwitted in the talks with Prime Minister Atal Behari Bajpayee, who had vowed after the Kargil war, never to talk to him as the prime minister. Musharraf, thus, emerged taller partly because of media mismanagement by India. Since July 16, his legitimacy from outside thus became complete. He dramatised it while encountering Bajpayee in the 11th SAARC summit held in the first week of January in Kathmandu. Now he is back in business where he had set in two and half years ago. That is to perpetuate his rule through a referendum now on April 30 to manoeuvre constitutionally the parliamentary election due on October. This is a legitimacy gaining exercise not of a dismissed general heading the country but for a self appointed president to rule until 2007. This is exactly the rule of the game that has always been in Pakistan’s military take over. President Musharraf decided to go as per the script set by Zia-ul Haq

Let us further see it in a sequential order. The US pressure to return to democracy and the Supreme Court’s judgement to hold general election by October 2002 forced him to concede it reluctantly. In the mean time, the September 11 incident made everything topsy-turvy. Priority changed. Both Musharraf and Bush made a U-turn to assist each other. Had Osama bin Laden been in Sudan instead of Afghanistan, the rule of the game would have been entirely different and this region would not have been in US high priority. In America’s war against terrorism, Musharraf, at last, boarded the US bandwagon in its crusade against the Taliban regime that Pakistan had reared for five years. This brought him laurels reinforcing his legitimacy from outside but alienated the fundamentalists inside. This was clearly anticipated. But it has now become tough because he has to reach his destination through one way road, which is turning out to be increasingly rough.

This alienation, even if not its intensity, is surely going beyond the group of religious extremists and their politically affiliated organisations because of its contagious nature. The present situation in Pakistan is very conducive for its transmission.When a civilian government destroys democracy through bad governance, the army becomes the only hope and, thus, people treat the army chief as the saviour of the nation the way it happened two and half years ago. The initial euphoria ebbs out with the passing of time as people have to face increasing hardship. This is so because of the non-delivery of the system and emerging contradictions. The rhetoric of eulogising people to the seventh heaven can sustain no more. Then people’s anger starts spilling on the streets to change the ruler for a better day that has always been elusive.

This is the pattern of hide and seek between the army and the civilian rule in Pakistan in its 55-year-old history. It is primarily because its great leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, died on September 11, 1948, a year after Pakistan was carved out of British India, before completing a difficult transition, a transition that was all the more difficult because of Pakistan’s complex interlude between theocratic tradition and emerging modernity. This caused a complete political void. And, this became the perfect ground for a feud between the politician about using their authority for promoting their greed that brought bureaucrats into the forefront and finally the army in state management. On October 7, 1958, Iskander Mirza, a civil servant turned president, when he saw no prospect of his second term as president, invited army, dismissed the Constituent Assembly and, president, as he himself was, appointed army chief Ayub Khan as the Chief Martial Law Administrator. After sixteen days, General Ayub forced Mirza to resign and declared himself as the president.

This is how the politicians invited the army to rule. Ayub was the most successful of all who gave both stability and economic development to his country. The problem then came from a different front, that is, not from failed development but from distribution of income and wealth of the nation. The size of the cake did increase but a handful few devoured the major portion of this increment in line with what they have been devouring under the feudal ‘property relationship’. This relation became all the more parasitic with increased national income. Thirty families controlled half the gross domestic product of Pakistan, thus, not allowing the common lot to enjoy the added benefit of the nation. It became a case of dangerously increasing inequality amidst increased income of the nation. Finally, people power packed him out in 1966.

This is the paradigm of governance in Pakistan. Musharraf is at odds. He completed the US led mission in Afghanistan by dismantling the apparatus of the fundamentalists turned terrorists. They were organised by General Zia-ul Haq, having similar background as his, for the American mission to combat the Soviets in Afghanistan in 1979. Zia then was in an advantageous position both in terms of no resistance if not support of the fundamentalist or religious groups and reduced Indian hostility. Still, the turn out of the people in his referendum in 1984 was low. And, out of it, as expected, he secured 97 percent ‘yes’ votes. In case of Musharraf now, the fundamentalists are all out after his scalp. A fifteen party alliance for the restoration of democracy that includes Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party and Nawab Sheriff’s Pakistan Muslim League is out in the street calling people to boycott the unconstitutional election. The alienation is percolating down to the people. However, the immediate relief has come from the Supreme Court that has given him a full go ahead over the anti referendum petitions. And, one major advantage he has, like in Zia’s case, is the oozing US enthusiasm to reward him for his services. Therefore, democracy and human rights have withered away until an auspicious occasion. He, thus, has a complete outside legitimacy. Perhaps rulers in history have never lost a referendum irrespective of their odds. Musharraf will be no exception to this rule even if the turn out drops significantly low. And, he may surely secure over 90 percent ‘yes’ votes. But ‘yes’ legitimacy in his bid for a five year term, despite the October election, is no match to the overwhelming people’s support that he enjoyed two and half years ago without legitimacy. At best, it could now be an eroded legitimacy after his victory in referendum with a declining indigenous strength. But he surely will continue to rule.