A political culture of sorts in Nepal is steadily emerging though frustratingly slow

-Ram Pradhan, Journalist

Our interviewee of the week, Ram Pradhan, has been a career journalist. His professional media odyssey began with the now defunct Motherland in the early seventies. Prior to that, he had served as the headmaster of a high school in Athrai in the eastern hills. Holder of an MA degree in political science from Tribhuwan University, he worked in RSS for nineteen years, mostly as editor at the English desk, but with the dawn of democracy in the country he joined a team of his erstwhile colleagues in the official media to operate The

Independent which he later edited (1993-97). In 1997-98 he served as the member of the team that produced the Nepal Human Development Report 1988. His experience in international journalism include stints with Asiaweek (Hongkong), South Asia (Germany), Mountain World (UK) and the Times of India   (India), among others. He is also one of the founders of the Nepal Forum of Environmental Journalists (NEFEJ). Currently, he is associated with the Media Services International (MSI), a private agency dedicated to media study, research and development. He is its Executive Consultant.

TGQ1: As a senior journalist how would you describe the state of democracy in Nepal? Are you satisfied with the way the political system is performing in the country? If not, what measures do you suggest to correct the prevailing situation? Your exclusive comments please.

Ram Pradhan: In my capacity as a career journalist, I tend to agree with most of my countrymen that despite some negative trends which seem to impede the pace of smooth transition to a full-fledged democracy in Nepal, the present polity is certainly not doomed as some would like us to believe. The overall health of democracy does not give me any special reason to be overly pessimistic about the political system we have decided to go on with. There is no question the politicians who have taken turns in the seat of power the past decade must necessarily take the lion's share of the blame for non-development of important ingredients of a liberal dispensation such as a sound political culture that stresses vision, transparency and accountability in public life. But to hold the system itself responsible for all that may have gone wrong is neither fair nor it can be deemed desirable in the present national and global context. As for your question regarding measures to "correct this situation", let me just say enough has been said on what needs to be done. I would only like to add that I think there is not enough public pressure on the politicians, especially those in power, to act and behave in accordance with the fundamental law of the land. Awareness generation at the people's level is indispensable, so is some "direct" actions like the one sponsored by the mainline opposition a few weeks back. I mean docking of the official vehicles on the weekends.

TGQ2: What part did media play in the way governance of the country underwent in the previous years. What roles do you envisage for media in consolidating Nepalese democracy?

Ram Pradhan:  I think the media has a huge role in directing the course of governance in the country. The only area the media ought to be very alert as it seeks to strengthen the concept and practice of good governance is the area of fairness, impartiality and non-partisanship. Unfortunately today the media credibility is going over the hill and the level of public acceptance of what the media has lately been dishing out leaves a great lot to be desired. We the journalists have nobody but ourselves to blame for this decline in our social standing. Although it is not so difficult to grapple with the reasons why the media has been behaving in such a manner in the context of certain constraints it has been forced to live with, the fact still remains that our media has not able to realize its full potentials. As far as I am concerned the Nepali media must try and smash the impression that democracy (in Nepal) is not about people; it is about access to power.

TGQ3: You had contributed a paper, to recall on civic political culture in Nepal a few years back. Did you find any significant change or whatsoever in the political culture of the ruling elites then and now after the new elections? Or are you pessimist about their overall behavior?

Ram Pradhan: I think the paper I contributed to your seminar two years ago had to do with the part media plays in the evolution of a political culture. Looking at contemporary events, I am of the that view certain changes are fairly perceptible. I would like to call them "halting steps" in the right direction. Let me cite three recent examples. K.P. Bhattarai's decision to throw in the towel rather than force the issue at the Nepali Congress parliamentary party meeting ostensibly to "shield the party from a virtual, vertical split", CPN-UML's decision not to fish in the troubled waters during Bhattarai-Koirala stand-off, and Sher Bahadur Deuba's decision to fight G.P. Koirala for parliamentary party leadership and subsequently premiership. If the former two may have spared the country yet another unproductive spell of political instability, the latter was a welcome exercise in democracy however personal the challenger's motive may have been. Based on these three developments, I am inclined to believe a political culture of sorts is steadily emerging. The pace is of course frustratingly slow, but I see no reason why on earth should I be pessimistic.

TGQ4: Critics of media claim that the political culture of mainstream media is captured either by the mainstream political parties or the government, or even by the business tycoons and therefore the information and consciousness they should have generated in essence is a false one. The information generated is not critical enough to enable the reader to judge the event. How you react to this?

Ram Pradhan:  Media critics are well within their rights to take us to task whenever they think we are being used by political parties or government or business houses. My only problem with my celebrated critics is that they often commit the crime (not unforgivable, though) of painting every mediaman with the same brush. The Editors' Society of Nepal last week honored an old journalist from Jhapa, S.L.Sharma, for his long-standing contribution to information dissemination in "trying times". To me, the 70-plus alert and agile senior colleague is a trail blazer and still "unused" by the agencies mentioned above. There are others who fit into the same category. In regard to the insinuation that because the media is "captured" by the aforesaid big guns, the information it releases is at best unreliable and at worse is false, thereby making it extremely tough for the readers to judge events in the right perspectives, all I can say is that it all depends on which portion of the media you have been exposed to. Here I am not defending the media unreservedly. Yes, there are flaws aplenty, but they are not irreversible. I think the idea of enough public pressure brought to ear on the media organisations and personnel is quite relevant over here too.

Don't they read the papers you don't trust, don't tune  in to radio or television which you think indulges, as a matter of rule, in dis- or mis-information.

TGQ5: What roles private media like the Telegraph Weekly should play in a democracy ?

 Ram Pradhan: Though I devoted a pretty big chunk of my career in official news agency, I always held the view that the government should have nothing, nothing at all, to do with the media. By this I mean the media should be privately owned and managed, with the notion of fair and open competition receiving the priority attention. Private papers (media) like yours do have a definite role in a democracy. I think the freedom of

Press is not the freedom of individual journalists to write and say whatever they like. It is the freedom of the people to be told the truth. A paper like The Telegraph will do itself a mountain of good if it abided by the dictum: the role of media is to empower people with accurate information and pluralistic views.

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