VISION OF GOOD GOVERNANCE IN NEPAL: The Role of State

Dev Raj Dahal

Does the Nepali state articulate the public life of society? Or is it separated from the society at large, thereby constituting what Gunnar Myrdal calls the ‘soft-state’ syndrome where powerful persons have a tendency to disobey the laws of the land? Whatever its nature, the successive governments of Nepal have succeeded in turning the rich into the powerful and the country and its people increasingly poor and powerless. The governance logic of the Nepali state has remained patrimonial for long, serving the dominant interest groups of the society, especially the aristocracy and bureaucracy, rather than of the peasants and workers. Political institutions of the state used to define a framework within which politics of decision-making, rationality and exchange took place.

Until 1950, the status of the people was defined according to different categories of land grants given to them through which control was exercised from the commanding heights of the political economy on land, labor and capital. What seemed the primacy of state planning -centralization, rationalization and nationalization- until 1990 is now being labeled as government meddling. The state has earned a bad name in the neo-liberal discourse of post-1991 governments, political parties and intellectuals. The effects of liberalization and globalization have weakened the capacity of the state in managing its autonomy against social classes and castes. There is a perceived erosion of sovereignty against other states, the base of nationalism, and the integration of citizens into the polity. As a result, major social tasks have become less elemental.

Institutional modernization in Nepal cannot simply be a matter of utopian revolutionary change, but a matter of setting a positive direction to the change already underway and which is apparent in local dynamics at the sub-cultural level. The dynamics was triggered by the formation of associations, societies and federations. Consequently, different sections of the society have been looking for their social roots, the roots of community. If not managed well, this could prove to be divisive. A governance grounded in normative values, criteria and social needs can overcome the amazing recrudescence of primordial aspirations at the fault lines and resort to modernity - reason, science and wisdom.

Only such an approach can cope with the emergence of a permanent underclass, Dalits, the poor and the marginalized and build their access to the institutional resources of the state. Obsessed with macro-politics (free market, executive, parliament, judiciary, political parties, interest groups, etc), the government seems to have ignored micro-processes (family, ethnic people, social values, gender, religion, culture, etc) which are the actual shapers of the social capital for development. As a result, movements for equality of these units have become obvious in public life. Their demands for quality of policy-making have become the wellspring of minority politics evoking their basic constitutional and human rights.

Micro-processes can serve as the lifeblood of politics if properly managed, otherwise, weirder aspects of human life serve as the fault lines promoting a desire to play on the national weakness and social dis-integration. Institutions of governance must try to constantly mediate between the state and the citizens as a transmission belt to prevent alienation (politcal alienation of the Maoists, ethnic alienation of the people of Mongolian recial origin, social alienation of untouchables, Dalits and disabled, regional alienation of the people of the Terai origin and cultural alienation of non-Hindus owing to the Hindu character of the state), rebellion and resignation of people from politics leading them to harbour anti-politics sentiments. These microprocesses existed before, rather than after, the creation of the state and the market and, therefore, continue to influence the development paradigm as historical agents. This means there are better lessons of history to be learned to evolve the society cohesively and use its synergy for development. An agonizing question is: how can the demands for justice of these alienated groups be reconciled with a policy of rapprochement? An effort towards rapprochement without justice simply cannot endure.

The tenacity of the leadership in defying the. political odds and tensions arising from this is crucial to ensure the correct functioning of each branch of governance including the bureaucracy. Nepal as a whole has more than its fair share of problems: Maosit insurgency, Bhutanese refugees, poverty, tribalism, partisan and weak administration, shortage of skills, low saving rates, large physical distances, poor infrastructure, weak entrepreneurial tradition, etc. The conscious or unconscious attempts of the leaders to avoid facing these issues cast a grave doubt on the country’s readiness to meet the economic challenges for the 21st century. There is a huge unmet demand for good education, especially civic education, the purposes of which are to help men and women equip themselves for life in the public realm, help them think of public good and overcome the popular cynicism about the conditions of remoteness of the existing institutional arrangements of governance. At present, the discourses on democracy have been clouded by utilitarian motives of political parties and personalities evoking a sort of zero-sum game. If all the parties seek a position of tolerance, the no-win game can become a win-win one.

More than a decade of parliamentary politics has shown itself to be a symbol of collective failure of the elected representatives. They appear ignorant of the impact of what they have done to the nation and the future. A polity, no matter how democratic its constitution is, cannot operate if each political party wants to come to power and no one is interested in playing the role of the opposition. The anti-defection act failed to discipline the elected representatives. The absence of party acts, ensuring their transparency and accountability in finance and operations continue to erode public faith in the governing process. Calls for the democratization of the party structure will surely mount in the future. Their financial transparency and generational representation are bound to attract more attention. The extraordinary web of influence of parties in every aspect of public life is bound to unravel and their control and authority slip away as the democratization process gives the people a chance to break the monopoly of a few classes.

An inclination to shape every social controversy in terms of clash of rights (prescriptive tradition versus social justice, men versus women, trade union versus management, press union versus establishment. etc) prevents the discovery of a common ground and a sense of obligation embedded in the native tradition of drama- a tradition based not on the calculation of rational choice, but on sincere and impartial execution of institutional duties by the holders of power. Yet, when political struggles are ideologized, it is rationalized by their adherents even if it disregards the complexity of the relationship between popular opinion and democratic theory.

The weight of the media and public opinion has steadily weakened the image of the parliament as a maker of sound public policies. Major political parties have become more and more obsessed with the race for power and less and less concerned about the reform of political processes. The successive governments too lacked effective governance-formulating public policies and properly executing them. lf these failings had always been present contributing to low economic growth, then it needs no explanation why they provoked serious economic jitters, tyranny of the majority and, consequently, impediments to good governance. lt is that kind of uncertainty that the Maoists and conservatives are seizing upon, and in the process, moving quickly into the scene.

Anticipating fear and uncertainty, the poorest of the poor are looking for a kind of economic emancipation. While the romance of politics is that leaders sell day dreams of emancipation to the electorates majority of whom are illiterate. They will continue to sell, so long as people have full faith in them and participate in their appeal and activities. The idea that decisions are better when more people are involved in a decision needs encouragement of a wider participation of people in public institutions. Social integration and nation-building in Nepal require a cultural component capable of responding to the demands of the society’s diverse groups. This helps the ways of conceptualizing self, group and national identity to be idealized properly.

Democracy is the equilibrium of the branches of power, their legitimacy, transparency, accountability and sustainability. People in the political community must consider that their system is fair and just. And, their competition for power for public office is a legitimate rule of the game. One fundamental prerequisite, however is this: political community building projects must precede multi-party competition. The doubts cast on the impartiality of the judicial system and the culture of impunity with which it treats the criminal and corrupt elite have left many Nepalese wondering whether they will have a sense of justice in the future. In several cases, it failed to hold the executive and the legislature accountable for their misdeeds. For, an unpunished crime tears at human civility. There are heinous crimes so black that they do not admit human forgiveness. The death penalty has been abolished from the Nepalese constitution, but more citizens are killed these days than at any other time in history. There are institutions that are supposed to test the accountability of political leaders, such as voters, the civil society, media, the parliamentary Public Account Committee (PAC), the Auditor-General, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), etc but all suffer from a sense of grasp and efficacy.

The authority of the prime minister inevitably suffered due to the political activism of the judiciary, which was instrumental in ushering in the political instability of today. It is no good to clock politics in the sanctity of a judicial decision and subordinate political imperatives to legal perspectives. And the results are here, for everyone to see. A new equilibrium requires a balance between individual and community assuming a reinvention of politics for intergenerational justice. Good governance combines economic growth with social concerns. As the neo-liberal economic reform agenda has fallen from grace, it has reinforced the belief of many that unconditional acceptance of the free market ideology has served the interests of only a powerful few and that the market operates more under the virtues of efficiency and competitiveness than the democratic principle of equality. The "soft power" of dreams, popular culture, compassion, craving for youth and modernity therefore must be balanced with the "hard power " of security, economy and politics. Two broad processes - expansion of the money economy and the growing privatization of the schooling health and communiation system-underway in Nepal are eroding the existing notion of self-reliance as well as its culture based on pastoral and peasant lives.

There are plenty of positive signs, however. The post- 1990 public life has provided a second time for the Nepalese people to feel free enough to discuss political affairs openly. The new freedom, however, is also pregnant with danger because of fault line actors seething with discontent and seeking to trespass the constitutional bounds. If citizens’ display of confidence to influence the government declines, if they discover that their right to equality is far removed from distributive justice and, consequently, their apathy to moderate politicians increases, it will surely affect the legitimacy of democratic institutions terribly in the future.

(Source: South Asia Partnership, Governance in the Doldrums: Who really govern Nepal? Kathmandu: 2000)

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