Possibility of Democracy in Nepal

Jeevan Baniya
In my informal talks with my friends, some of them often argue (especially at the times when political parties get trapped in the net of power sharing) that Nepal needs a strong dictator-like leader so as to maintain rule of law and lead the country to development and prosperity; this always frequently leads me to wonder whether democracy is possible and feasible in Nepal. Despite such increasing pessimism among people, I always remain optimistic and positive towards the feasibility and prospects of democracy in Nepal.

A few days ago, following ‘The Decisive Debate on National Consensus for Peace and Constitution’ organised by FNCCI, people of Nepal clearly might have traced a gloomy picture of Nepal’s political environment and future prospect of successful constitution writing and peace process.

For me, it was however interesting to listen to how they define various concepts i.e. ‘citizens’, ‘democracy’, and ‘peace,’ – their definitional differences gives a clear indication about where root causes of current mistrust and political deadlock lie. The major problem of the present crisis has become more evident that every political party have major concerns on the form of governance to be established in the new constitution, which is fairly natural as they have different ideological orientation and practical obligation to some extents – this is what is closely related to how the definitions defer from one party to another.

To trace historically, there has been no universal consensus yet on what constitutes democracy: hence it has become the subject of wide contestation. Thus, the question of what form of democracy needs to be established in Nepal appears to be fundamental issue related to present political crisis in the country.

It is however necessary to acknowledge that even the constitutional guarantees of the system and people’s rights may not be sufficient to define what relationship there should be between citizens and democracy. It will be relevant here to note what an Indian scholar, Partha Chattarjee in his book ‘Politics of the Governed’ notes, - ‘even though everyone is a citizen with equal rights in terms of the constitution and laws and therefore to be regarded as a member of civil society, most inhabitants are only tenuously and even then ambiguously and contextually ‘rights bearing citizens’ in the sense imagined by constitutions – they are not, therefore, ‘proper’ members of civil society.’ Enough remains to be done even after the finest constitution is written as the societies are always in the process of change.

This statement of the aforementioned scholar is very relevant to the problems of governing system of Nepal as well, where larger section of the people is left out from the services of the governance - our past experiences also vividly tell us that the constitutional guarantee is not sufficient – and this characteristic parallels with those of many third-world countries as well. It does not mean however that it should be as it is; we need to persistently work towards creating a better governing system.

We people in Nepal struggled many times in the past for democracy against feudal and authoritarian regimes but we unfortunately never got the opportunity to claim that we were fighting for democracy for the very last time. And with the reestablishment of democratic multiparty system in 1990, we have experienced both the sweet and bitter taste of the system – it is better if we can learn from our past experiences and thereby develop the political system that serves the people of Nepal better.

There are obviously some positive norms and values of democracy (mostly liberal one) practiced all around the world; yes, we should include them in our constitution. However at the same time, we also need to contextualise democracy in Nepal and direct it as the mean to address various problems facing the people of Nepal. Therefore, parties and scholars arguing for or against the need of adopting a particular form of democracy practiced in a particular country is not an appropriate idea as our context, culture, history and experiences are different, thus, does not necessarily ensure the success if applied.

We have noticed that, in many historical junctures of Nepal’s political history, one question however has been consistently present, which is actually not an exception either – that is: whether democracy is possible in Nepal considering the fact that the country is diverse in many of its social, economic, cultural, and political and its geo-political aspects. This has also become a growing concern among people, as my friends often articulate, in Nepal even today.

The pessimism among people of Nepal resonates to what, one of the most critiqued and widely read anti-democratic works of a scholar, Bryan D. Kaplan in his book with the title ‘The Myth of the Rational Voter,’ argued ‘citizens are uneducated, ill-informed and irrational , thus, they should be discouraged to make decision.’ To some extend this argument is true as the people of Nepal had elected our leaders by themselves, thus, one might claim that people are also responsible for the worsening situation in the country.

Is it then really the people who are to be blamed for disfunctioning of democracy in Nepal? Of course, not. We will then have to dig into the question of why people are left uneducated rather than blaming them for voting for a particular party or leaders in the election and making a wrong choice.

It is actually the leaders who have contributed to defaming democracy in Nepal. The growing pessimism among people have significantly high this time when the political parties have been rather party-cantered and have not been able to develop consensus culture.
The statements in various media from premier leaders of major political parties indicates that they have differences on fundamental issues and there is a growing deficit of trust among themselves, thus more debate and discussions are necessary on the issue (which has not been as much as it requires).

Before deciding on any form of democratic system in Nepal, we will have to revisit our past experiences under democratic practices especially after 1990 and critically and honestly evaluate them.

The history tells us that we made some major achievements in some areas during last two decades. We focused on institution building and democratic governance promotion as most liberals advocated world widely after the fall of Soviet Union and some authoritarian regimes in many parts of the world. Obviously, some achievements made on human rights, rule of law, freedom and institution building are appreciable.

But, what we more experienced in our country was that people in power misused or mobilised state resources for building their personal dominance, maintaining their power in their respective areas and serving their family and clients’ interests. And the respective governments formed under democratic system largely failed to deliver services to the bulk of citizenry which created high cynicism among the people – as a result, the country had to experience war, killings, human atrocities, hunger and fears.

As well, the democracy got more resilient when corruption, lack of democratic accountability, exclusion, self-serving erratic leadership and elite domination marked the political culture of Nepal. These all left the people of Nepal highly disaffected from the political system and they had to experience a feckless democracy that led to defamation of democracy (it is still underway).

So, is it the same democratic system we have in our mind for our future? Or what better form of democratic system can we develop/introduce? If we want alternative forms of democracy, what possibilities do we have? The focus should be towards finding the answers to these questions before we decide on the form of the system in upcoming constitution – not much discourse have been done so far.

Despite the differences that have appeared among various political parties, the leaders however seem to be willing to work collectively to ending the present deadlock and thereby writing the new constitution and bringing the peace process to a logical conclusion; we wish them all the best to that end.

Is democracy possible in Nepal? People of Nepal have chosen many times in the past to be democratic; thus we can be very much optimistic that there will be continuous possibility of democracy despite the fact that there are enduring challenges ahead. So let’s realize that democracy is a continuously developing process. To answer this question, I borrow Bruce Gilley’s words, ‘Democracy is possible for the simple reason that it is the only form of government which evolves constantly to ensure that it is possible. It is self-correcting in a way that alternatives are not.’

(Baniya is a PhD candidate at the University of Oslo, Norway. He can be reached at: baniyajeevan@hotmail.com
This artical was originally published in www.nepalnews.com