National 2 (Spotlight Weekly)

Everlasting Agenda

For the centrist party like Nepali Congress, national reconciliation is the only ideology if it wants to retain its identity

By KESHAB POUDEL

“If Nepali Congress gives up its policy of national reconciliation, it would loose its own identity,” said visionary leader B.P. Koirala long time back explaining the importance of the notion for his party.

As the party is celebrating 29th national reconciliation day, the time has come to realize the mistakes and show courage to correct them as late B.P. Koirala did.

“If we talk of only one responsibility, we will be following the wrong track by being one-sided. And, if we emphasized only on the restoration of democracy, we will not be contributing to addressing this national crisis. Moreover, we may even fall into the trap of the foreigners by such one sided-action. Similarly, if we talk of nationalism only, we will be repeating the same 16 years old hollow slogans of nationalism and will be siding with the authoritarianism,” said B.P. Koirala in a statement he gave upon his return from eight-years-long exile from India in December 30, 1976.

Although there are many opponents in the extremist communist side and traditional side against B.P.’s national reconciliation, he still remains the political leader who is widely respected and highly regarded by both the groups.

Nepali Congress is now physically strong as it has its own buildings and commands a large number of nationwide followers. Congress, under the leadership of former prime minister and B.P’s brother Girija Prasad Koirala, is leading four party agitation pressing a single-point political cause. What it lacks is the ideological stand.

Despite adequate physical material and strength to demonstrate its power in the street, Congress does not have strong influence and moral guts it had 29 years ago when it was a ‘party in the wilderness’ but had strong ideological and political leadership.

Current Congress president Koirala, only remaining leader to have had a long ringside knowledge of B.P. Koirala’s national reconciliation - openly admitted that the party’s building alone is not enough to strengthen the party. “Just as a human body has no value without its soul, our party building does not have any meaning if it does not have political ideals,” said Koirala inaugurating the party central office a month ago in Balkhu.

Despite taking confrontational course, Koirala, who appears to be realizing the mistakes the party had committed in the past, is the only remaining hope in Nepali Congress to pursue national reconciliation.

B.P’s Courage

B.P. Koirala’s courage to realize the mistakes and correct them makes him a respected and widely regarded leader. He often corrected the mistakes as soon as he realized them.

“I don’t have the courage of Gandhi to disown this anarchist agitation,” said B.P. Koirala expressing dismay to the student agitation of 1979. In fact, that was skillful statement to disown that moment.

When his senior colleagues were fanning the agitations, he had to choose between his ideals as well as colleagues and followers. He said it several time, “I will prefer to go solo than to join destructive agitations.”

Twenty-nine years ago when the cold war divided the world in two poles and Nepal was facing a major crisis for its survival, B.P. Koirala, the first elected prime minister of Nepal, showed courage to return to Nepal calling for reconciliation between traditional and democratic forces. At the time of continual regional cold war in South Asia, B.P’s national reconciliation was highly relevant.

The country is today facing similar kind of national crisis and it needs similar kind of leader to pursue the ideals of national reconciliation. As extremists are in a decisive position in democratic as well as traditional side and the country’s centrist party seems to have lost courage to correct the mistakes, the nation continues to suffer. Even the monarchy seems to be losing its courage to take certain drastic step as it did in the past.

As Nepali Congress is celebrating national reconciliation day, the party is neither in a position to correct previous wrong step nor to disown anarchical street violence. Despite his inner commitment to national reconciliation and willingness to put back Nepali Congress in its centrist position, Congress leader Girija Prasad Koirala finds hardly any followers behind him in his party. But, strangely, he seems to have enough followers if he wants to take the confrontational course.

When King Gyanendra met Koirala recently, there emerged some hopes of bridging the gap between monarch and liberal democratic forces. As Nepali Congress is too much tilted to extremist communist ideology and monarchy is under the pressure of hardliners, they are still far away from reaching some kind of rapprochement in near future. “Tragedy of Nepali Congress is that there are leaders who realize the backdrop and mistakes but there is no one with courage to correct them,” said an analyst.

Following the meeting with King Gyanendra, Koirala expressed that King seemed to be in a mood to reinstate dissolved House of Representatives to solve the present political impasse. “King Gyanendra seemed to be convinced on my demand for the reinstatement the House of Representatives. After the restoration of dissolved House of Representatives, the process of national reconciliation will begin between the political forces and the monarchy,” said Koirala.

When Koirala has softened his stand towards King, a group of extremists in media, in his party and outside have already launched personal attack against him. His initiative to push his party towards centrist line receives more hostility within his own party.

Despite willingness of late King Birendra and late B.P. Koirala to reconcile with each other, they had never found such time. Following the announcement of national referendum, King Birendra and B.P were pushed to two extreme ends.

Some knowledgeable people say King Birendra and B.P Koirala were willing to cooperate and work together but extraneous machinations made it almost impossible and Koirala died with posture of opponent of monarchy whereas at the moment of acute crisis of 1979, he was the one politician to defend the institution of monarchy.

“I peeped into the heart of late King Birendra as I also had that opportunity with B.P. Koirala. Both of them, having same sincerity for the country and democracy, were not capable of undoing things around them,” said an analyst through his personal contact with King and Koirala.

If leader like B.P. Koirala found difficult to perform his role, it is virtually impossible for any other leader to fulfill the role. In his recent interview to SPOTLIGHT (December 10-16), Congress leader Koirala frankly admitted his strength and weakness. “A leader is made by certain circumstances. B.P. was a leader made for a particular situation. I cannot claim to be a leader like B.P. But I have been following the path shown by him,” said Girija Prasad Koirala.

By returning from exile, B.P. Koirala showed his moral guts to accept and realize the events. “Nepali Congress launched the resistance movement for democracy after the cruel and fatal blow to democracy in 1960. And, today we have taken this historic decision seeing the crisis the nation is facing. This is in accordance with the tradition of Nepali Congress,” said B.P. Koirala in his statement.

Centrist Congress

In its five decade long history, there always have been two different forces within Nepali Congress. It survived ideologically as a centrist party maintaining equi-distance with extreme rightists and extreme leftists. During the cold war, Nepali Congress ideology of socialism helped to maintain certain distance with the United States and its commitment to liberal democracy made it impossible to align with autocratic Soviet communism.

As long as B.P. Koirala was at the helms of affairs in Nepali Congress, the party was also able to internally manage this distance. When Subarna Sumsher was too close to traditional forces, Ganeshman Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai were too near to Communists. B.P. Koirala ran the party not allowing any group to dominate its ideology.

B.P. Koirala’s national reconciliation is also a part of Nepali Congress’ real identity as a centrist party. Till his death, traditionalists were the main contender of Nepali Congress and following the restoration of democracy in 1990, communists replaced them.

After the death of B.P. Koirala, the party’s leadership was at the hand of Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and Ganeshman Singh. At its own cost Nepali Congress promoted communist ideology during the political movement.

Following the restoration of democracy in 1990, Nepali Congress suffered humiliation at the hands of communist extremism and paid the price of giving up centrist ideology. Although some Congress leaders tried to show Nepali Congress as a cadre based party, actually it is a mass based liberal democratic party representing all ethnic groups and economic classes and, therefore, national reconciliation is essential for its survival.

Nepali Congress, under the leadership of B.P. Koirala, had never joined hands with any extremist party to launch any movement arguing that such movement would push the country into deeper political trouble. Besides, Nepali Congress could even lose its own identity once it joined hands with extremists, he believed.

A centrist party like Nepali Congress requires political stability and peaceful society to implement its program. Through the national reconciliation, B.P. had fought the forces of anarchy and instability, which he had said were playing into the external hands.

In the last 12 years, country’s political situation has drastically changed. Nepali Congress has itself formed government several times adopting more realistic economic policy as done by other socialist parties in Europe. Instead of harping socialist stand, Nepali Congress pursued global policy of market economy and privatization.

Although some Congress leaders are trying to confine Nepali Congress as a cadre based party, it has broad base representing the interest of different political and ideological forces. History has shown that Nepali Congress survives and thrives only in its centrist stand following the national reconciliation – the soul of the party.