Nepal's democratic order has failed to cross the barrier of caste, family and kinship

-Dr. Dilli Ram Dahal, CNAS,TU

He is Dr. Dilli Ram Dahal. Currently he is Professor at the Research Center for Nepal and Asian Studies ( CNAS), Kirtipur. Professor Dahal did his Bachelor in Science in 1968 from Gauhati University, India . He secured his Masters degree from the Karnataka University in the Anthropology discipline. He obtained yet another degree in Masters in the year 1980 from University of Hawaii, Manoa, Honolulu. In the year 1983, Dr. Dahal obtained his Doctoral degree in Anthropology from the same Hawaii University.

Dr. Dahal actively participates in the Kathmandu seminars where in he intervenes forcefully. His friends find in him a responsible citizen pretty concerned for the preservation of Nepal's genuine national interests.

Dr. Dahal has over five books to his credit. A prolific writer as he is, he has scores of articles based on research analyses which have got duly printed in prominent national and international journals. He has contributed a good number of articles to this newspaper as well.

Professor Dahal currently is engaged in areas such as ethnicity, national integration and development processes in Nepal.

Dr. Dahal served the Royal Nepal Academy as research officer during the early 70s; was assistant lecturer at the CNAS, TU in the mid 70s; and had served at the CNAS as lecturer in the early 80s.

Some of the renowned books authored by Professor Dahal are as follows: Forestry User Groups: A case Study of Forestry User Groups in Dhankuta"; Tamang Family Research Project: SummaryReport on Ethnographic and Survey Research, March 1998; An Ethnographic Study of Social Change among the Athpahariya Rais of Dhankuta;  Dhimal Lok Jivan Adhyan and Land and Migration in Far Western Nepal.

Last week, we approached this distinguished scholar of international standing for an exclusive interview. As a very close friend, he could not deny. Below are the results: chief editor.

TGQ1: How would you Dr. Dahal, characterize the existing state of   governance in Nepal? if it is not in the track as it should have been, tell us   as to why such situation occur?

Dr. Dahal: Everybody in Nepal can flatly tell that the existing state of governance is not satisfactory at all. As you know, the whole philosophy of good governance rests on two basic premises, democracy and decentralization and three things are cardinal for their effective functioning: accountability, legitimacy and transparency. As all of these basic elements for democracy have remained either in the writings of scholars or in the speech of political leaders, governance is not in the right tract track in Nepal today.

TGQ 2: Critics of governance claim that the way national situations are unfolding will apparently have far reaching consequences for the Nepali state and society. As an expert on elite, what measures would you prefer to suggest arresting the unrest drift and bringing the situation under control? Is not this worsening situation, a failure of the today's elite in governance? How would you portray the existing political culture of Nepali elite?

Dr.Dahal: Actually you know, the term "elite" itself is elastic with various meanings, depending upon the type of regime, society and culture. There is the ruling elite, political elite or elite of different kinds of social and economic strata in the society. Nepal is basically governed by the ' ruling elite" throughout history. Before the Rana regime (1870-1846), few bhardar families such as the Shaha, Thapa, Basnyat and Pandey ruled Nepal. In the Rana regime (1846-1950), Nepal was absolutely governed by the single Rana family and in the Panchayat system of government, few families who were very close to the palace ruled Nepal. No doubt, in the Panchayat regime, few Ph. Ds were recruited to hold key positions in the administrative structure, but these elites were also the protectors of the bureaucratic Panhayat regime and thus had strong motivation for self interest than sharing their power with ordinary people. The sad story here is that even after the formation of the democratic government in Nepal in 1990, the governance system is the reflection of the past legacy,  the old system elites still occupy key positions in every institution throughout the kingdom . In other words, the same oppressive elitist structure based on family and kinship operates and the bottom-up process of politics has yet to start even after democracy in Nepal.  The poor, women and backward communities are still marginal in the Nepali society.  The grass roots oriented democratic processes only can solve this kind of problem.

TGQ 3: Many independent thinkers argue that a vibrant civil society is key element to democracy. However, in Nepal, civil society is either captured by ex-bureaucrats, party politicians, elites of the society and donor-driven approaches which have failed to mediate, articulate and communicate the life situation of public. How would you respond to this? What is to be done to liberate the civil society from seen and unseen suppression?

Dr. Dahal: No doubt a vibrant civil society is key element to activate democratic system in Nepal. But the sad story here is that civil society is still in the incipient stage. Whether to talk the trade union, consumers' union, the students' union, human right organization, environment protection group, women organization or so on, all of these civil institutions have become a part of the existing political system or a donor- driven agenda group of people and thus are not functioning in the true sense to help the people at large. These so called " civil societies" have yet to come out as a force of public opinion for social change and economic development of Nepal. What is needed in Nepal is the strong commitment on the part of government and donors to help the ordinary people.

The NGOs of Nepal could play an effective role in strengthening the civil societies of Nepal. But most of these Nepali NGOs are not interested in doing this as they themselves want to see as stronger and richer and stronger institutions. The danger for the NGO here is that if the civil society becomes knowledgeable and stronger, they might start questioning the functioning of NGOs in Nepal.

TGQ 4 : Dr.Dahal, You have said that our society has produced a number of sociological models of development such as Thakali, Magar, Newar and so on? But our planners never studied these models to apply in the national scale. What are the reasons for this? Are they captive of outside models?

Dr. Dahal: Well, I have never said directly that there should be an ethnic/caste based model of development in Nepal. This is the opinion of one of my Colleagues-Dr. Krishna Bhattachan. But this point should be well taken, as people are not the beneficiaries in many development projects in Nepal. In other words, people in the bottom have always been tricked and a few those who have been living on the top have always remained the true beneficiaries of these developmental models. The issue here is that we have not even attempted to understand the basic social structure and economy of Nepali people in general, particularly the victims of these developmental programs in Nepal. It should not be forgotten here that Nepali culture, in essence, is strictly hierarchical and inherently built-in with the values of ambiguities and contradictions in everyday speech and work. Because of this kind of perpetuating cultural values, the Nepali democratic system has not been able to cross the barrier of caste, family and kinship and therefore leading towards 'inaction" in every kind of developmental activity.

I don't know whether our planners are the captives of the western models of development  but I sincerely urge them two things: i) they must understand the Nepali culture sincerely ; it should not be forgotten that Nepal is a pluralistic society and thus ; a homogenous model of development may or may not work and,  ii)  any development planning in Nepal should be based on the bottom-up approach and not the top-down approach.

TGQ 5: How you Dr. Dahal think the media could help improve the existing situation of the country?

A.5 : MDr. Dhal : The Media in general could play an effective role for the development of the country, particularly  writing on the poor, women and backward groups . They could inform people by making them aware of what is happening within Nepal and outside. In addition, they could appreciate/criticize government, NGOs and donors about their role in the development of Nepal. But the impact of media on development has remained slow in Nepal for several reasons: i) Some newspapers and electronic media are controlled by the government and thus they are not neutral in giving their opinions, ii) Many newspapers in Nepal are run by the particular political party and it is difficult to find out what a truth or reality of situation as they are biased politically. And iii) Finally, our media people are not well qualified to capture an issue of the subject matter as their writings, in many cases, are not based on scientific research( the sample chosen, informant, date of information, etc). So many Nepali people use the media information with caution.

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