Politics, democracy and constitution

By NAGENDRA PRASAD SHRESTHA

Politics, which is popularly known as a science of the statecraft, means rajniti is necessary for the maintenance of moral order in the state. Moral order is the very essence of our dharma (religion). In the absence of moral order there will be no peace, justice, prosperity and happiness in any country. That is why, we have so many incarnations of God at different times in the history of men as examples in our scriptures for purifying unrighteousness of rulers and politicians and relieving people from their injustices. Thus, we see that our dharma shastras treat dharma not only the centrality as a life force in people’s life but also make it a strong foundation in creating and establishing monarchy. There are numerous references and several examples of great kings including Lord Rama, setting practical examples to the rulers and politicians about moral character in life and moral orders in the state.

Truly speaking, politics without moral order and politicians without moral character are like stinking dead corpses, which are fit for only to be burnt. Of course, the route to the power of governance is difficult. Because, it is an accountability of responsibilities to the people and country rather than personal gratification. Naturally, to have a responsible government, which is known as good governance, the county needs men of moral character showing purity in their lives. Such persons are free from vices and become virtuous, honest and patriotic. Otherwise, power is what men seek and any political party or group that gets it will ultimately abuse it. Hence, the same old dirty story of politicking and game of cheating and lying to the people will be repeated.

Obviously, dharma is the soul of politics in our oriental culture. Whereas in the west, during its medieval European history, resentment against the domination of Pope in all the Christian countries on education, taxation and deciding issues on war and peace gave birth to the concept of secularism, separating religion and the state. Nevertheless, the West developed the practice of civil religion for ordering public life to mitigate the difficulties of secularism. No such situation exists in Hinduism or Islam. All religions are equally respected in the philosophy of the East. Therefore, in a cultural sense, our politicians and their politics have miserably failed to qualify themselves on those values and their politics are without moral foundation and dharma.

Our politicians are still shamelessly continuing their disgusting political scenario in the name of democracy continuing the misrule in the country, politicising vital institutions and causing economic mess, rampant political and bureaucratic corruptions and anarchy including Maoist violences, destructions and terrorism. The nation is bleeding with all these unrighteousness with mountains of national crisis upon crisis and instabilities. Perhaps, leaving no alternatives to resolve them. Perhaps the only hope, now left to the people is to look again, after 12 years of the restoration of democracy, to their own historical monarchical institution which is the keeper of national conscience based on the foundation of dharma.

Democracy places man at the centre of its philosophy. Therefore, sovereignty lies with the people. Hence, the government of the people, by the people and for the people clearly indicates the purpose and legitimacy of the people to form the government. The fundamental principles, values and conditions of democracy are liberty, equality, co-existence and non-violence. Democracy believes that every man’s soul is a part of God in substance and all men are created equal. So man must get freedom and no one should be subjected to destruction, discrimination, exploitation, torment or enslavement. It means, putting an end to all inequalities, giving equal opportunities of voices and considerations on political, religious, economical, social, human and other rights granted by the constitution and so forth. The right of co-existence means respecting the life and rights of others. Non-violence is the essence of democracy. Because, truth is a multifaceted element. One should not force others to accept his own thoughts or belief. We should be tolerant and must be able to try to listen to other’s views. In a broad sense, the multifaceted truth, tolerance, liberty, equality and co-existence are all expressions of non-violence. To implement all these promises, hopes and dreams of democracy in developing countries are tremendous challenges and difficult tasks even to the true democrats and politicians. So is precisely the case with Nepal.

The social structure of Nepal is composed of four varnas of Hindu, Buddhists, Muslims, Christians and more than 61 ethic communities with their distinctive characteristics of ethnicity, language, culture and race making a strong heterogeneous society. Most of the backward communities, including Dalits, suffer from illiteracy, poverty and backwardness in many respects. Decades of exploitations, abuses, deprivations and denials of equal rights and opportunities have virtually impaired their capacities to compete with historically privileged communities to utilize the opportunities of democracy. Government policies, planning, programmes and projects including legislations and rights granted by the constitution are almost beyond their reach.

In such circumstances, injustice results not only when equals are treated unequally but also when un-equals are treated equally. Hence, the principle of reciprocity always breaks down. And, these poor people although having their sovereign rights to represent themselves can never avail this opportunity in constitution assembly, parliament and local bodies which are also meant for them as promised by our democracy. How are we going to resolve these inherent difficulties of least developing country like Nepal to stabilise the democracy? What are the alternatives? What are the ways to correct these injustices? What are the equitable mechanism to provide basic necessities of life to our poor citizens like food, clothing, shelter, health, education, public transportation, employment and other essentials. It demands strong national commitments, visions and imaginative skills from our politicians and bureaucrats. As morning shows the day, where is the silver lining or trend? Where is the national approach in relieving sufferings and developing the life of backward communities living in mountains, hills and villages? Where are the massive structures and measures of employments and austerities?

No country in the world has ever developed only with foreign aids or loans. We need to labour ourselves. We must learn to honour the labour. Man is great by his action and not by birth. It is the saying of our holy shruti. We belong to the nation and nation belongs to us. Therefore, it is our common responsibilities from where we cannot escape without resolving them. We must reflect and ponder over where we have gone wrong before it becomes too late. We must search within ourselves so that we may be enlightened. We may find our conscience to guide us. We need national conscience and national consensus to cure our national and democratic ills. We must save our nation, monarchy, democracy and people as our common heritage.

There is definitely a solution to stop bleeding the nation and settle the political storms. If we accept democracy and sovereignty of the people, then how can we deny their ipso facto sovereign right to make their own constitution? In fact, we never have had a people’s constitution promulgated by the monarch. It is, now, the time. Democracy demands it. Late King Tribhuvan proclaimed it. And, it is absolutely necessary to have Constitutional Assembly to do justice to our people. The present constitution has no legitimacy of the people. It is completely a bi-product sponsored by the Nepali Congress, the UML and the monarch with a lot of squabbles among them. Even if we deny forcibly the right of Constitutional Assembly, the question is bound to rise time and again opening painful national wounds repeatedly.

With all the fairness, we must honour people and their sovereign right to have the constitutional assembly within the framework of our common heritage; Fair election systems to our heterogeneous society removing the current plurality of electoral system which is absolutely absurd and allows to capture majority seats by minority votes in the Lower House of Parliament and in the constituencies; constitutional safeguards to backward communities including Dalits to represent in constitution assembly, parliament and local bodies; binding provisions for checking political and bureaucratic corruption having no nexus with foreign hands and criminals; provisions for national governments on specified national crisis including general elections of constitutional assembly and of parliament; and constitutional power to the monarch to exercise upon government and political scandals to probe and decide by the Supreme Court on the recommendation of privileged committee of parliament, if one-fourth members of both the houses request it.

The present constitution could be utilized as an interim constitution to achieve and facilitate all these above mentioned requirements and others including Maoist violences to resolve peacefully having suitable amendments in it. For this, we need sincere national dialogues to move forward with national conscience, understanding and tolerance with the current major political parties under the guidance of monarch. Shall our government initiate and facilitate this? Otherwise, the nation and people are not safe if they are left only in the hands of our politicians and to their politics.

Pride of ignorance

I was utterly disappointed with the mid term results of Aakash. It’s not his overall position in the class that bothered me but the marks he got in Nepali. He had just managed to pass the subject.

Instead of feeling guilty, I found, he was pretty much happy that he got such low marks in Nepali. I tried, but not an easy job these days, scolding him only to be confronted by his firebrand impromptu reply: ‘What’s the use of learning Nepali? So what? I got such poor marks, its nothing but a redundant subject that one needs to learn not to acquire any knowledge or something like that but for the sake of passing SLC! And secondly I converse more in English than Nepali. Why take the risk of paying fines at the school for speaking in Nepali anyway?’

The rate at which my convincing power that once reigned over his point of view had been gradually declining since. There was a time when my opinion would be the guiding line for him. The list of "Do’s and don’ts" were all but slowly switching sides.

On second thought, I don’t think this is the case with just one Aakaash but all of them falling into that particular generation bracket. The lesser they know more the pride in not knowing the facts, especially when the topic pertained to Nepal. For instance, recently he came home one day feeling quite disgusted, wearing a long face. Reason: He couldn’t name the Defence Minister of our country and was very much annoyed as to why the people didn’t ask him the name of the American Defence Secretary instead! Had he been asked that, he could have easily answered and hence didn’t have to face the defeat against a lowly" "Nepali Medium School" in an inter school quiz competition. His verdict was that the whole contest was a farce.

Movies can be deemed as exceptional for a simple reason that not only people like Aakaash but many others still don’t think that its worth watching one. For it takes almost a hundred to come out with one ‘Darpan Chhayan’ or ‘Basanti’ today. He still can’t figure out, so can’t I, or for that matter most of us, as to why all Nepalese movies look so much alike. He simply detests them and hence cannot even spell out names of more than five celluloid heros. But if one were to ask him about the Hollywood stars, he could simply go on and on and on! He has another pride in that as well.

Finally to put the icing on the cake of his ‘pride of ignorance’, a few weeks ago I was about to set off for a musical show at the Royal Nepal Academy. I knew that he wouldn’t be interested going with me since I had never heard any Nepali music coming out of his room, they were more of loud chaotic heavy metal noises. However when he insisted that he too would like to accompany me, I said fine and asked whether he would like to invite some friends of his as well. He promptly made a rapid-fire call to some of his friends.

The programme started with a very beautiful rendition of Narayan Gopal’s song. While the rest of the audiences were completely engrossed by the song I could hear them giggling ‘ what kind of song is this and who is Narayan Gopal by the way?’ There was no trace of shame in their voice. Instead another radiation of pride shone on their faces which seem to suggest "Not knowing about Nepal and Nepali people is definitely a matter of great pride".

Gender bender

"But we always thought you were a woman — and now it turns out you’re not!" people exclaim when they meet me." "Not for the past 50-odd years,"

I agree. Or "Not till the last time I looked." But such comebacks are becoming a drag, as is my epicene name, which goes to prove that what is source for the goose is often sauce for the gender.

I was visiting the Ranthambore tiger sanctuary and a message had been sent to the local representative of the Rajasthan Tourism Department Corporation to organise a vehicle to take me from Sawai Madhavpur railway station to the forest lodge. I got off the train to find not one but three jeeps waiting for me. I walked up to the RTDC rep and introduced myself as the chap from Delhi.

Giving me a perfunctory handshake he peered round expectantly. "Where are they?" he finally asked. "Where’re who?" I queried in turn. "The beautiful young ladies I’m meant to pick up", he expostulated, showing me a telegram in Hindi which contained instructions regarding transport for a "party of Suraiyas". "Suraiya means Sundari, beautiful young girl, no?" he asked hopefully. "No", I growled in reply. "Suraiya means a crabbity, middle-aged journalist with a pain in his whatsis from sitting half the night on a blasted railway bunk stuffed with rocks, so let’s cut this blather about la belle dames with or without merci and get on with this show, Raju."

So we left the station, with the summarily nominated Raju casting lingering looks backwards in forlorn hope of even now espying a stray sundari suraiya who hitherto had escaped his attention, and that we didn’t spot a single tiger during my three-day stay in Ranthambore I attribute to the man’s persistently agitated demeanour in my presence, shooting me wild-eyed looks as though in imminent expectation of witnessing my transformation into a beauteous wood nymph before his gaze. No self-respecting tiger — or tigress — would have come within snarling distance of such hormonal discombobulation.

Nemesis is my name, as I discovered years ago when Anit Mukherji asked if he could interview me on "What Would Be The State Of The World by AD 2000" for a magazine — now thankfully defunct — for which he was the Calcutta stringer. No one before had ever wanted to interview me about what would be the state of Apu the Dancing Elephant by AD 2000, let alone the world, so when Anit turned up, complete with tape-recorder, I launched into an impassioned spiel involving the looming menace of global extinction as posed by the thermonuclear mushroom-cloud, the tortured ecosphere of our endangered planet, the post-industrial proliferation of atavistic ethnic sub-cultures, the future of the sperm whale, and bunging in as a bonus Carl Sagan’s interpretation of the cosmic significance of dental floss.

Anit said that would do fine, he’d send me a copy of the interview when it was out. I never saw Anit again. But I did come across the magazine at a news-stand. And there, sure enough, was my interview, tortured ecophere and all. And right on top of it was a large photograph of this rather over-blown woman. The caption read: Suraiya, the siren songstress of the silver screen of the 1950s, shares with readers her thoughts on the fate of the world by AD 2000....

I looked for Anit for several months before I stopped carrying in my briefcase the blunt knife with which I was going to skin him alive.

I recall an evening Bunny and I spent with the Asif Currimbhoys. Asif is an avantgarde dramatist, author of plays like Goa and The Doldrummers which were considered highly controversial at the time. A man of resonant moral timbre and implacable earnestness, he was much given to discussing the inner integrity of the creative personality. Its inner integrity fortified by a couple of glasses, my personality got progressively creative, spurred on by periodic solicitations from my host: "Would you like another drink, Suraiya my dear?"

"Thanks, Mr Currimbhoy," I’d respond with alacrity, and pour myself a tot, gallantly proffering the bottle to Mrs Currimbhoy as well, a gracious lady of stately mien who seemed to speak less and less as the evening wore on. Probably wonderstruck by my trenchant observations, I told myself, ignoring the strange looks Bunny kept giving me.

We sat down to dinner. "Would you pass the meat, Suraiya darling?" my host would ask, and I’d go, "Righto, Mr Currimbhoy! Here you are then." I noticed that nobody spoke much at the table except me.

On our way home, I told Bunny what a nice chap Asif was. "Seems very affectionate," I said. "Kept calling me ‘darling’ and ‘my dear’. Didn’t realise he was so fond of me." Unable any longer to keep it bottled up, Bunny dissolved into helpless mirth. "Haven’t you twug on yet?" she gurgled. "Suraiya is Mrs Currimbhoy’s first name; he was `my dearing’ her, not you."

"Why didn’t you take me aside and tell me!" I protested. "Not for the world," disclaimed Bunny. "You were priceless." And I was left to ponder on how much sharper than a Suraiya’s truth is an unsympathetic spouse.

"And then when we got this telegram saying Jug Suraiya was coming, we were in a quandary. Jug we took to be a telegraphic error for Jack. Which suggested you might be Christian. On the other hand, Suraiya suggested you might be Muslim. On the third hand, if Jug was Jug, as in Jagmohan or Jagdish, except spelt with a ‘u’ instead of an ‘a’, you would be Hindu,"... The speaker was the then headmaster of St. Paul’s School, Darjeeling, where I’d gone to do an article on their 150th anniversary, way back in 1968.

The headmaster’s confusion had been cleared up when I’d entered, cold and dripping from the drizzly fog outside, and he’d asked if I’d like a hot cup of tea.

Over tea, I said, "At least you didn’t think that I might be a woman." He put his cup down thoughtfully and said, "No, I didn’t." Then he learned forward and asked solicitously, "Why, do you?"