When I think of Nepal’s history four names come to mind. They are Prithvi Narayan Shah, Jung Bahadur, King Mahendra and BP Koirala. The last consigned to history was BP on July 1982. In one of his many discussions with me, BP, thus described about monarchy published over twenty years ago in the vernacular Paristhiti that I edited.
“What makes you say that it is easier to draw water out of rock than to draw peoples’ rights out of monarchy?”
“Yes, I may have said that-may have said it in some situation. I have already told you that-this realization-I am for monarchy and for democracy too. And then, what people ask me is whether monarchy and democracy are compatible. I think monarchy has taken many forms in Nepal. One form, you see, is that of the conqueror, for example, His Majesty Prithvinarayan Shah. Another monarchy is like that of Jung Bahadur’s time. Then too there was monarchy, during the Rana Regime. And then, for a few months after 1951, there was a situation of double monarchy. An empty throne, a king in Delhi. That too was a form of monarchy. We saw another form of monarchy from 1951 to 1959 too. When there was a parliament, when I was the prime minister, that monarchy too was a monarchy. After that, from 1960 to the present, there is this monarchy. That is why whenever we speak of monarchy why should we only think of a dictatorial monarchy? If I am a staunch supporter of monarchy, a supporter of that type of monarchy which, I believe, is a very honourable and venerated institution among democratic institutions and democratic systems. Because, you see, monarchy needn’t be dictatorial. You realize what monarchy was during the Rana Regime, don’t you? Another thing is that, according to the experience of modern history, whenever we talk of democracy and dictatorship, what we see is that in the modern age there are greater numbers of dictatorial commoners than the dictatorial monarch.”
“True.”
When I remember this and relate to our land, I am all the more convinced that monarchy and democracy can have a wonderfully symbiotic relationship in evolving a Nepalese society that can withstand the new challenges of time. To this end, the way BP said monarchy has to remain very honourable and venerated is rightly the way King Birendra has donned himself in the role of a constitutional monarch. What BP perhaps did not visualize then was the extent of democratic values and attitudes needed in the leadership to sustain a social change immediately after the transfer of power that a political change would bring about.
In any evolving society, politics is always in relation to time. This is more so in our context because BP took democratic values and attitudes as given, for he was alive leading the popular force. But the present woes of Nepal stem out of the fact that BP could not remain alive to lead this country for the few years after the restoration of democracy. And, I do not know if he knew that his friends and comrades could stoop so low in devastating the same values for which he fought all his life. Could he have imagined that a democratic government of his Nepali Congress would use state machinery to smuggle out gold for amassing fortunes to run democracy and likewise, his own siblings, would be involved in all sorts of unscrupulous activities?
Unlike 1950’s revolution, the 1990’s movement that restored democracy was more indigenous in terms of active involvement of Nepal’s emerging educated middle class. This class, for all practical purposes, did not exist in 1950 and, therefore, few elites spearheaded the revolution then with Indian support that came primarily because of what India prioritized as its security interest after the Tibetan crisis. Tanka Prasad Acharya, who started the first organized revolt against the Rana rulers then, is on record saying that “the revolution was totally Indian and they forced Nepal to accept its demands.” Like the revolution, the Indian interference was total in all major economic and political decisions to the extent of choosing who should become the minister and what is to be decided in the cabinet meeting managed by the Indian advisor. This is how anti India slogans started because Indian activities came directly in collision with Nepal’s nationalism.
The 1990’s movement was born out of blatant contradictions of the Panchayat rule more than the fallout of the Indian blockade and its attitude of fishing in the troubled waters. It became decisive only when Nepal’s emerging educated middle class asserted itself by the second half of March culminating in the tripartite agreement between the King, Nepali congress and the Communists. This gave an historic opportunity for the leadership of the Nepali Congress to usher in an era of social change by practicing the values that it fought for and talked so much about.
The stage was all set for it; the new rulers enjoyed such a massive legitimacy as never before, the constitutional monarchy was well defined, the country had considerable infra- structural strength, the middle class was agile and buoyant and the Indian temptation of interference was much less as compared to 1950s. Despite all this, the leadership has failed miserably because of its incompetence, lack of vision, and weakness. The new political leadership has slaughtered the values necessary for sustaining social change through democratic pluralism. Being in politics was like adolescent romanticism that flowed along with the times into struggle for power seeking but has ended up in money seeking exercises in collusion with smugglers and criminals. This is how Nepal has now become a looter’s paradise.
Thus, the social values have degenerated to such an extent that to be corrupt has ceased to be something to be ashamed of in present-day Nepal as if it were part of the game. Corruption control agencies are made virtually defunct. Liberal economic policies, formulated by the multilateral agencies of the west for Nepal’s economic development without sensitivity to our structural peculiarities and that our government has implemented the same knowing very little about its ramification, have also escalated corrupt practices in building a consumerist culture with no sustaining economic activities. In this process, we have also lost the built-in mechanism of our society sustained by the traditional values of right behaviour. An overnight millionaire through corrupt practice can rub shoulders with the political dons of our country and can move in the society like a highly sought after person. This new culture that is spreading its wings and devouring the vitality of Nepalese society is like malignant tissues consuming the healthy ones in succession.
This is how leadership is at further peril. Human beings have both the ability to conflict and work for agreement. In our case, those who are at the leadership are conflicting and also working for agreement not for causes related to the nation, but for self seeking purposes. When we see the faces of leaders in waiting, the scenario is further disturbing. Like in the bordering Indian state, Bihar, what we have now in our country is ‘functional anarchy’ amidst increasing levels of violence, poverty and highly skewed distribution of the nation’s income and wealth. Thus is the common life sandwiched between Maoist and non-Maoist self-seekers. We have dismantled the old but could not build new structures. Nepali Congress leaders constantly talk about the threat to democracy. If there is indeed a threat to democracy, it is mostly because of incompetence, bad governance, plunder of the nation’s resources, greed and the ever growing contradictions inside Nepal Congress. The new brand of ‘uterine congress’ and its conglomerates, in occasions such as his birth anniversary, eulogize BP’s name and his democratic socialism in a parlance of unsurpassed ceremonial height to cover its greed and Mafia activities. Could there be a greater insult to him than this? This is where I remember him the most.
(Published on September 12, 2000 in Mr. Lohani’s op-ed page. Courtesy: ‘The Kathmandu Post’)
