De-coupling of Nepalese ‘demos’ from ‘kratia’

N.P.Upadhyaya

For political democracy to survive, write Bernard Berleson, Paul Lazarsfeld and William Mcphee, in their joint article "Voting", some essential features are required, for example: the intensity of conflict must be limited, the rate of change must be restrained, stability in the social and economic structure must be maintained, a pluralistic social organization must exist, and a basic consensus must bind together the contending parties".

Translating the scholars’ saying in Nepal’s context what is horrifyingly clear is that the conflict inside the ruling party itself were at the peak which possesses the potential of a vertical split; the rate of change, read the unpredictable and intermittent change in the Premiership, remains prone all the time; and lastly the basic consensus that should bind together the leaders of the various factions in the congress remains totally absent. In my opinion, the authors have pointed out that there should be a consensus in and among the contending parties in the smooth functioning of the democratic order, however, in Nepal’s case, the opposition forces appear less inclined for a change in the government leadership. But instead, the ruling party factions themselves prefer a change in the leadership for obvious political reasons. Thus what the authors missed to advise the new leaders of a democratic order is that "a consensus firstly among the ruling party leaders’ were a must for the survival of political democracy like ours".

Similarly, Robert A Dahl in his famous article, "Democracy and its Critics" at one point says that "the demos must have the exclusive opportunity to decide how matters are to be placed on the agenda of matters that are to be decided by means of the democratic process".

Again, recollecting Nepali demos’ experience of the past ten years of the functioning of this new order, perhaps never had the establishment asked from them on what were their issues in priority which they wish to get it done from the establishment. In essence, the political leaders never cared about the demos’ pressing issues rather used the demos as an effective tool for securing a seat in the political hierarchy at time of the general elections. My own contention is that Dahl’s theory needs a change. He should have written the demos must rely on the political leaders’ whim and it should be they not the demos who should decide what should be done for the innocent demos and when. If Dahl’s demos were from the ruling party and the opposition, his statement apparently is correct for it is this group of a very selected few who have been bestowed with what Dahl writes "exclusive opportunity" to decide.

However, there is nothing to panic. For the hapless Nepalese demos Robert Michels has some words of consolation. This outstanding scholar in his famous article entitled "Political Parties" writes, "democracy is a treasure, which no one will ever discover by deliberate search. But in continuing our search, in laboring indefatigably to discover the undiscoverable, we shall perform a work which will have fertile results in the democratic sense".

So according to the writer, what is left for the Nepalese demos is the act of ‘searching". Go on searching till you are finished. Instead the writer should have told the political leaders to value the findings of the search and apply it into the well being of the demos. In my opinion, if the demos are given their due from whatever is with us perhaps there will be no room left for the demos to question the credibility and the very suitability of the system what we have today.

This is not all, what Robert Michels adds in his article is more than reassuring and consoling for the lay Nepali demos. What he says is that "when democracies have gained a certain stage of development, they undergo a gradual transformation, adopting the aristocratic spirit, and in many cases also the aristocratic forms, against which at the out set they struggled fiercely".

This perhaps exactly fits into our case. Beginning Pajero/Prado vehicles down to their preference for a permanent "pension" from the legislature were perhaps few examples, which only support Robert Michels theory. I’m told that late B.P.Koirala too had said to his intimate colleagues that "after the advent of new order, a set of white colored people will inevitably emerge and instantly encircle the powers that be in their bid to influence the plans and the policies of the democratic government(s) to meet their personal ends. Late Koirala was correct. Robert Michels is also correct.

The bare footed political animals of the recent past all have become aristocrats.

The latter however predicts that "if the parties give no clear guidance, citizens’ may look to particular leaders or institutions". In our case, who could be that leader or for that matter the institution will take some more time to emerge who would keeping the system intact perform and deliver good governance. That’s all.

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