A constitution per decade

By Raman Raj Misra

Dr Shastra Dutta Pant’s book "Comparative Constitutions of Nepal" (second edition), published this year, was thought-provoking. It was interesting to note that the Nepali brain somehow had managed to accept that a document called a Constitution was required only more than 169 years after the formation of present day Nepal. It was not that our polity did not have a guiding principle or a standard to conduct the affairs of state before that.

The Niti Shastras did exist since ancient times. The welfare and wellbeing of the people was central to the Niti Shastras. The Dibya Upadesh of Prithvi Narayan Shah did provide the guiding principle for conducting the affairs of state within the framework of the multi-ethnic and geopolitical condition of Nepal. And a set of rules in the Muluki Ain (Civil Code) did exist to guide our polity.

Yet, after the end of the British Raj to the south of the border and the birth of the Indian Republic in 1950, the Nepali brain had developed a tendency to be directed and driven by opinions and events in India. So, rather than undertake to develop our own system of polity in an evolutionary manner, we had begun to delve into imported concepts of a Constitution, as well as into an assortment of "isms".

As described by Dr Pant in his book, the first Constitution, promulgated by Padma Shamsher in 1947 and which was to become effective in 1948, was intended "to check the growth of anti-Rana opposition." So it can be inferred that the intention of our first Constitution, called Baidhanik Kanoon was to thwart the opposition and not really to guide the polity. But it did contribute to entertaining concepts which originated in the West, such as fundamental rights, representation through gram Panchayats (Village Councils) independence of the judiciary, a Public Service Commission, and Audit of Accounts, etc. The second Constitution called the "Interim Constitution of Nepal of 1950" was intended to guide our polity until a more comprehensive Constitution was framed by a Constituent Assembly.

This Constitution had emulated many features of the Indian Constitution. It entertained a set of Directive Principles and the notion of division of powers and had provisions for a General Advisory Assembly, in additions to some of the features of the first Constitution of 1947. Here again it is very doubtful that this Constitution was made to address the realities of the Nepali polity. It was just a preparatory arrangement. Anyway, a more comprehensive Constitution was framed, with reference to the (unwritten) British Constitution and with the advice of Sir Iver Jennings, in 1958.

Following the advice of those who do not have to suffer the consequences of their advice was considered normal by Nepalis then as today. After all, it saves the trouble of studying one’s own realities and thinking of our own country to develop one’s own feasible vision for one’s own country. Given the utterances and writings of Nepali intellectuals since the late forties, it would seem that it is unrealistic to expect the Nepali mind to think on its own and generate thoughts based on our own realities. Anyway, the Constitution of 1958 also did not reflect the realities of the Nepali situation. The prevalent forces that actually existed naturally asserted themselves. This Constitution therefore, was discarded to be replaced by another Constitution in 1962.

This Constitution, simply called "The Constitution of Nepal 1962", was drafted on the basis of the belief that we were actually capable of devising our own system of polity based on our own reality and environment. Yet it also had some borrowed elements. However, in spite of this Constitution later being endorsed by (in a modified form) the people through a referendum, it had to go. Primarily, because the majority of Nepali minds were still inclined towards imitation and susceptible to the onslaught of geopolitical overtures and foreign propaganda. So once again we have adopted another Constitution called "the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990".

The prime intention of this Constitution with most of its provisions adapted from the constitutions of foreign countries, was to render the institution of Monarchy as powerless as in the Rana period. The only institution that needs and therefore has as its overt interest the preservation of national independence and sovereignty did not have any say in the affairs of this Kingdom! Geopolitics dictated that this should be so and we did succumb to the onslaught of geopolitics.

Today, in the year 2002, our attentions have once again been drawn towards changing our Constitution. If the radicals will have their way, we may have yet another Constitution to replace the current one. Even after half a century and with five Constitutions we are still wrangling among ourselves about what constitutes is a desirable Constitution! This is natural, because an imitation will never be real. Any imitative Constitution will never be able to address the reality of the Nepali situation.

As long as the Nepali mind is bent on blindly imitating alien concepts and forms and is incapable of inductively addressing its own reality, such wranglings will continue. To assess the situation to date, we have had five Constitutions since 1947. The fifth Constitution came in 1990. As of the completion of the year 2001, we have had one Constitution for every 10.8 years on average. That would roughly be a Constitution per decade.

We, the Nepalis, may be the only odd creatures on earth to have a new Constitution for every decade! And yet we are not satisfied with the present Constitution. A revolt, to throw away this Constitution has been in full swing for the past six years or so. At the same time, another historical tendency discerned since 1950 is that we have been absolutely incapable of maintaining a Prime Minister for five years continuously. Since the advent of this democracy in 1990, we have had eleven Prime Ministers in eleven years. This would make on average one Prime Minister per year! Given this reality, why do we still think that a government under a Prime Minister should last for five years as envisaged by our Constitution?

Most likely, ignorant of our own reality we are still unthinkingly hell bent on imitating the provisions enshrined in foreign Constitutions. And yet we are oblivious to our incapacity of implementing what we seek to imitate. Given the squabble endemic within our political parties, if an emergency was not declared in Nepal at this time, we would certainly have had a twelfth Prime Minister in the twelfth year of our democracy.

This emergency has at least restricted the general tendency to have a new Prime Minister for each year of our democracy. But it is clear that the trend existing in the country will, after the end of this emergency, continue. Our Prime Ministers will continue to be replaced every year on average. It is also clear that we Nepalis, totally ignorant of our own experiential reality, will continue to imitate provisions from other Constitutions, which envisage a Prime Minister being retained in office for a duration of five years. So the reality of our post-1947 political situation shows that the concept of a Constitution has not been properly grafted. We seem to be indoctrinated into thinking that a Constitution is required and that such a Constitution has to be an imitation of foreign Constitutions. And it must be completely detached from our own tradition and history. Presumably, or the post-1947 Nepali mind, it must seem futile to review the long historical tradition as indicated by the Niti Shastras, Dibya Upadesh, and the Mulki Ain. And also to consider the operational tradition established by the five Constitutions we have adopted since 1947.

Such reviews to identify the desirable and feasible elements in order to construct a suitable guiding document for our polity is perhaps beyond our capacity and understanding. So, for the past fifty-four years we have stumbled and replaced one type of Constitution by another. We have not been capable of retaining a Prime Minister for full five years as envisaged in our Constitution. This is just one example, out of many, indicating our incapacity to implement even the letter of the provisions made in our Constitution. So implementing the sprit of the Constitution is absolutely unthinkable in Nepal.

Violations of Constitutional provisions also abound. The general attitude towards such violations is that it is justified if one’s own party does it, but it is wrong if others do it! And to top it all, the interpretations of the Constitution are so varied that there is no general consensus. So naturally, issues will always be raised in this respect. Our present wranglings on the issue of the Constitution will not settle the matter once and for all. As in the past, we will continue to change our Constitution every decade and replace our Prime Minister every year!

Plooshun slooshun

By JUG suraiya

Like the 12 million other inhabitants of the Capital, I have been caught in the dark ages of the great Delhi Fug Out. When I shifted here several years ago, plooshun was a word yet to be mispronounced in the Dilliwalla’s vocabulary. Like life, plooshun was elsewhere. Kolkata, where I came from, had oodles of the stuff, what with all those Bongs getting fired up about the price of fresh ilish maach and left-over Marxism. Mumbai was said to have it as well, which probably accounted for the unique architecture of the Parsi nose, designed for maximum filtration of apro atmosphere up apro nostrils. But plooshun in Dilli? Never, ji. G.O.I., if not G.O.D., wouldn’t permit it.

So I came to the clean green Capital where it was said that on a clear day you could see forever your next-door neighbourer, as they call them in these parts, zoom away in his brand new M’ruti even as you whizzed off in yours. True, Delhi had its andhis, those obstreperous duststorms in which half the topsoil of adjoining Rajasthan, UP and Haryana upped and slipped its moorings to dump itself on the Capital.

But andhis were deemed to be a politically correct, though inconvenient, phenomenon, rather like the kisan rallies and other bucolic incursions the charmed precincts of the city were periodically subject to. After all, if sons of the soil were allowed occasional visiting rights, shouldn’t the soil itself be accorded a similar latitude? Moreover, these affairs were well regulated. Having done their number (generally two) on the Boat Club grounds, the sons of the soil were trucked off to whence they came, and an obliging tail wind blew the andhi dust back to its origins, enabling Delhi to revert to its aseptic status quo ante, barring the extra manure on the Boat Club lawns which they said was good for the grass anyway.

Then one day I woke up, at least I think it was day because I couldn’t see the sun, and found I couldn’t find my neighbourer, who couldn’t find his M’ruti, which couldn’t find the road, which couldn’t find itself under all those two-wheelers, three-wheelers, four-wheelers and other would-be-free-wheelers gridlocked under the vapour shroud of their own emissions. The air, what was left of it, smelt, tasted and felt like fuel-soaked steel wool. Nuclear fall-out? I croaked. Plooshun, corrected my neighbourer, snapping on a breathing mask and switching on his ignition.

Plooshun had caught up with Delhi. And Delhi devised its own slooshun to plooshun: If you crammed even more vehicles on the roads there wouldn’t be space left for plooshun, right? But that didn’t work, and in the smother of all smogs that now envelopes the Capital, everyone blames everyone else. The environmentalists blame the car lobby; the car lobby blames the media for making chatter of particulate matter; the media blames the administration; the dministration blames the system.

Stern measures have been taken to counter Delhi’s plooshun. Fitting catalytic converters on motorised vehicles was only the first step. Then came the introduction of CNG (Compressed Natural Gas) to power buses and three-wheelers. Much more was to follow, as this preview of further preventive regulations shows:

The recently implemented decision to fit catalytic converters on all new model politicians has had some unexpected fall-outs. It may be recalled that the controversial decision was taken following the growing alarm voiced by environmentalists and others that political emissions had emerged as the single largest source of atmospheric pollution in the country. A sample of the atmosphere collected from the vicinity of Raisina Hill in the Capital — said to be among the worst affected areas — and analysed by the Semantic Research Laboratory, New Delhi, revealed an unacceptably high level of toxic vapour and suspended inarticulate matter now deemed to be harmful to the health of the body politic. The sample showed a dangerously high incidence of the trace element ‘liberalisation’ (98 percent), closely followed by the almost equally noxious ‘globalisation’, ‘market forces’ and ‘privatisation’ 89 percent, 78 percent and 65 percent respectively).

The carbon-monotony build-up had reached such hazardous proportions that traffic policemen on duty at nearby Vijay Chowk had to wear protective ear-muffs to safeguard themselves from being rendered comatose on the job. It was estimated that the effect on the constitution of the average citizen was the equivalent of imbibing nine editorials of The Economist every day. Alarmed at the prospect, the apex body which regulates the manufacture and distribution of all politicians in the country, Hindustan Mutters, convened an extraordinary general meeting where it was decided to instal catalytic converters on all models coming off the assembly lines after the cut-off date of April 1.

As a spokesperson for the organisation explained, the catalytic converter was a simple device which took gas of one sort and automatically converted it to another kind of gas which essentially was identical to the first gas but had the advantage of sounding different. Thus political emission fumes containing liberalisation, economic reforms, market forces, etc, would automatically be converted into emissions containing social justice, welfare, pro-poor policies, etc., much to the satisfaction of all concerned.