CA Poll 2008: Candlelight dinner in Kathmandu , burning haystacks in the Terai

If anyone is to take a guess on what will unfold in Nepal counting down to the CA Poll date line of 10 April 2008, to which the Terai region, has not responded kindly, Lady Fate might have the right answer: There will still be lot of time for candlelight dinners in Kathmandu while the haystacks burn in the Terai.

By Surya B. Prasai

The basis of any functioning democracy, such as the United States , the United Kingdom or our closest example, India , obviously is the rule of the demos, the rule of all than of the few as Thomas Jefferson once put it. Much more needs to happen to successfully entrench a democratic culture in the national leadership and the institutions outstretched to cater to people. However, in the case of the Terai, the Seven Party leadership eager for the CA Poll to happen soon, has failed once again to debate an all important issue which is precisely, the need for inclusive and democratic discussions on their own pre-Poll demands.

What is clear from the irony of the current situation is that nothing seems to be working in Nepal despite JA-2. If a majority party like NC cannot campaign in the Terai, how is it feasible that the CA Poll will be held on time?

The current weakness of the seven party interim leadership berth seems to be various leaders have formed their own fraternity club and are reorganizing themselves in a Mary Antoinette musical chair competition to Baluwatar while the Nepali people are left with 11 hour power cuts, no cooking gas, sporadic kerosene and petroleum supplies, all resulting in uncontrolled misery. “A poor country like Nepal cannot afford to shelve out Rs. 2.5 billion in the guise of a CA poll every few months,” Dr. Ram SharanMahat as Finance Minister has stated this for the umpteenth time. Neither can the donors afford the huge amount which might be better channeled to poverty alleviation, education or HIV/AIDS impact mitigation programs. Since the NUMBER FIVE also represents the titular head of the King of Nepal SHREE PANCH, and is equally symbolic of power in the West (such as the Pentagon in the US!), one can easily bet, should the CA Poll not be held for the fourth time, the power will go back to the King on the fifth attempt. This might be through a people led Third Revolution(JA-3) that might establish true Nepali democracy with direct balanced power sharing between the King and the Nepali people, with no political intermediaries in between, or alternatively in Prachanda’s stated belief, through a democratic coup through a people’s revolution supported by the disciplined forces. In fact, the majority of Kathmandu stationed diplomats are known to be avidly whispering to each other these days that a democratic coup is bound to happen any time in Nepal given the current political intransigence, continuous sidelining of their own important political advice and the non-inclusive nature of on-going Madhes rights incorporation in Kathmandu .

Nepali media has been frank in recent days expressing the feeling that the people really require a government led by a leader who can guarantee both the responsiveness of functioning democracy and the imperative of stability in this small geo-strategically sandwiched Himalayan country. Prachanda has described this required leadership brand as a mix between the Buddha to maintain national peace and provide salvation and a wily Janga Bahadur to punish the oppressors of the Nepali people. This ONE FIGURE will be able to control the tyranny of the few and deliver in kindness to the many consisting mostly of hungry Nepalis who find eating one meal a day extraordinarily difficult in 2008. This is in a country which had little rural poverty in the fifties and sixties and spurting growth in the seventies and eighties. The situation is, thus, quite akin to when ex-Ghanian President Jerry Rawlings forcibly took power in Ghana paving the way for the country’s first truly democratic election before he stepped down to let others rule in turn.

In the past few weeks, the recent build up in activism of the United Madhes Front (UMF), based on their own declared “scheduled program of protests”, has not only resulted in padlocking of crucial administrative offices of various Terai districts, it has given more free time for the fun loving children in the Madhes to light evening haystacks as their parents also join them on a cold winter’s night. Meanwhile in Kathmandu , the diplomats, politicians and the powerbrokers are equally enjoying a different kind of winter warmth hanging out in five star hotels munching on fresh Tandoor barbecues. With increasing hours of load shedding and more of such negativities anticipated in every other sector under the seven party alliances, there could be no better activity or past time in gossipy Kathmandu .

Most developing countries constitutions, including what Nepalese experts such as Laxman Aryal and Shambu Thapa tried after the Jan Andolan-2 were, without any doubt, based on the liberal tradition of Mill and Locke, the Fabian Socialists of LSE, the inclusion of Jeffersonian checks and balances, Madison’s indisputable wisdom, and a little bit of BPist Socialist dabbling with the idea of localizing our own new born Nepali Democratic Baby No. 2. Thus, with JA-2, we adopted or tried to adopt various arguments for the sake of arguing, felt Nepal should be made a Secular Thinking Modern State, overlaying it with our desire to do better than India’s or Sri Lanka’s rich constitution, and without borrowing on our previous Hindutva. But here is where things started going awry, the point of constitutional overlay, the issue of ignoring Monarchy which is still respected in the villages and towns, and in trying to portray the 1990 Constitution as a shapeless Tandoori Roti. Thus, all efforts were made deliberately or with some pretence involved in not clearly defining the Madhes card, and that all Nepalis were not equal despite sharing the same national soul and heart. Only the ‘007’ parties were the true representatives of the people, they said, others could be dismissed at will. In essence JA-2 allowed those advocating Animal Farm politics in neo-Orwellian terms to practice their principles in the guise of superficial seven party unity. Now many global thinkers brood over Nepal questioning whether Western liberalism and Kautalya’s own thinking both are at stake in the foothills of the Himalayas, should the 1990 Nepali Constitution be thrown into the Bagmati River and allowed to float away into the Bay of Bengal with no attempt to retrieve it? India too has now seen the hidden nature of the argument recognizing the inner tricks of the SPAM finally. Rights after all need to be practiced, not read out from a Constitutional Charter as Jan Andolan 2 seemed to portray. And rights issues unmistakably stretch to the wider realm of political space from the King down to the Madhes. No one is happy due the seven party politicians putting everyone else in a political quandary on the Way Forward for Nepal , constantly ignoring civil liberties and rights.

However, no one is questioning the expressed commitment of Dr. Bhoj Raj Pokhrel or the National Election Commission which has the onerous job of developing a timeline only to be told on three past occasions that the politicians were not ready for a CA Poll. India ’s leading constitutional lawyer Nani Palkhivala, once identified the nine essential features he believed made up the basic structure of the Indian constitution, one of the most democratic ones in the world. They consisted of sovereignty, integrity, democratic way of life as distinguished from a mere adult franchise, judicial redress, no state religion for politicking, free and independent judiciary, dual structure of the Union and the States, and maintenance of a balance between among others the legislature, the executive and the judiciary. We too seemed to have most of it in the past, but why are we languishing behind in proving ourselves further? Maybe because even with a CA Poll, the democratic evidence might still be an incomplete picture!

Seriously, is the CA Poll going to be held on time then? On the surface, everyone is saying yes, but on second guess, the Poll Skirting attempts by SPAM is once again on the minds of foreign diplomats and Nepal well wishers abroad. ‘This CA Poll should not happen and must not happen’, SPAM politicians whisper to each other, since the electoral results might lead to their permanent defeat. The current level of political comfort without an election naturally supersedes the perceived loss of face and discomfiture in being thrashed in the polls by Nepali voters. After all, Madhesi leaders have already gone hoarse shouting that their fellow brethren have been treated unfairly in other past democratic exercises, and the Koirala government needs to adhere to their own 22 point demand on scheduling their own election timeline to find a true meaning behind the planned polls. Nearly four of the Madhes parties who some call terrorist organizations, depending on one’s individual definition of terrorism, have gone on record as stating that they will not participate or let the polls happen in the current terms proposed by Minister Ram Chandra Poudel. But then, if a true demarcation of real Terai voting power is pursued, not only would they be happy to lay down their arms, they would even be the first to cast the Madhes ballot and make the CA Poll a grand success. Recently, outgoing UN Resident Coordinator for Humanitarian Affairs in Nepal Matthew Kahane made a verbal lambast against India in New York taking it that some of the Madhes groups were operating cross-border. But later on with the UN’s condescension, that statement was declared non-factual, having no truthful meaning, abstract and not worth further pondering by the Security Council chukker, given India ’s valid protestation, since there is no evidence of India supporting terrorism in any form globally. That was some quick UN diplomacy at work!

At the political level, going by the National Election Commission’s strict game plan, a fair and impartial election can only be feasible under the mandatory 90 day pre-preparation time frame if there is (1) semblance of national peace and (2) actual willingness of the parties to participate in a nationwide CA poll to include all Nepalis. The time period again might be too short.

In retrospect, Nobel laureate Octavio Paz precluded his work The Labryinth of Solitude with the argument,” At one time, I thought my preoccupation with the significance of my country’s individuality was pointless and even dangerous. Instead of asking ourselves questions, it would be better, I felt, to create, to work with the realities of our situation. We could not alter those realities, by contemplation, only by plunging ourselves into them”. Like Paz, are we ready to take a step towards studying our national quest first before taking the CA Poll test? After all, Paz went on to overcome his hesitation and wrote a compelling portrait of his countrymen, the essence of his seminal work on Mexico and Latin America at large, being that it is only the people who can call the country to action, and a country essentially defines itself, no one else can.

But the Terai disenchantment has now passed the boiling point in what is promising to be a tumultuous Nepali Spring. The outraged Madhes allied front led by Upendra Yadav from Madheshi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) and Rajendra Mahato ex-Sadbhavana, have not only padlocked more than a dozen District Administration Offices including Dhanusha, Siraha and Saptari but have applied pressure on the government to implement their 22-point deal. They have convinced quite a lot of Western diplomats in Kathmandu that Madhesi representation can no longer be made by a Brahmin or Pahadi leader. The benefit of these arguments is manifest in that they are being proposed in the context of the Terai rights movement, which interestingly is not within the UN’s mandate, since it is not a rights violation based argument. This might be one of the reasons why the Madhesi anger is boiling beyond the normal and the skirmishes continue unabated with the local administration always on guard. Nepal ’s democratic ascendancy, not surprisingly, with its emphasis on non-consensus and political polarization is being quickly perceived world wide as being ineffective in a country that desires much more than democratic efficiency going by the people’s unsolved daily woes.

In another perspective, by forcibly shutting down government offices, the UMF activists have symbolically expressed their wish to bow out from the current CA poll despite Madhav Kumar Nepal ’s assertion that a big conspiracy is being hatched by the Western democracies to thrash the communists out of the next elected parliament using different ruses. Prachanda too thinks in a different light that the Madhes imbroglio has been brewed by foreign powers to deny his party a complete victory in the upcoming CA poll. He definitely has been talking about a coup as an alternative solution. Although no such coalition effort for a “democratic coup” from within the seven party alliances seems feasible, one or two parties might try to seize the moment for a democratic coup in the end. At the moment, hypothetically, the UML too is feeling estranged from the seven party alliance, and Madhav Kumar Nepal who has never become Prime Minister till now, has once again failed in fully convincing the Maoist brethren, the Royalists and the NC that the Madhes activism is meant against him most. It is stopping him from the PM’s chair.

Recently, Madhes parties have been growing stronger from within. The Front and Mahantha-Thakur led Terai Madhesh Loktantrik Party (TMLP) have now forged a working group to push the Madhes agitation forward with some Pahade involvement. This decision was taken in Kathmandu forging a new 11-ponit demand campaign put forward by the TMLP.

A lot of string events have taken place meanwhile concerning the CA Poll timeline. Former two time PM Sher Bahadur Deuba recently tested his own anti-Madhes card through the sensitive Biratnagar-Dhankuta belt lambasting Madhesi leaders of acting taciturn, claiming that more than 50% of their demands were already met, the remaining would be met after the elections. US ambassador to Nepal, Nancy J. Powell, who is known to be a true champion of Nepali national reconciliation based on her extensive diplomatic experience in Nepal, Pakistan and Ghana, all testy waters for Third World democracy and American diplomacy, too made a quick India trip to coordinate a joint Indo-US position on the Terai and a host of other national issues. India ’s External Affairs Ministry has routinely denied anything to do with the Terai separatists, and it would be hard to see a fully democratic country like India actually dabbling in troubled waters across an open border that is already a susceptible cross-border headache for both countries. Ms. Powell also interacted with border management division officials of India’s Ministry of Home Affairs during her recent trip, thus not wholly allowing conspiracy theorists from South Asia’s investigative media quarter to question, whether to some extent, the tense situation is also a result of bulging pro-Monarchial support from India’s largely Hindu vote based Bharatiya Janta party which is not at all happy with the current Nepal situation, particularly the status of Monarchy.

As for the King, there is no point in denying that he is actually considered neutral to the current situation. The King in an informal chat with Hari Lamsal, Editor of Rastra Bani weekly, stated that he is remaining silent to make the peace process succeed. King Gyanendra, also a globally well known international nature conservationist and environmentalist stated,” Nepali people themselves should speak out on where the nation is heading, on the direction it is taking, and on why it is becoming chaotic.” King Gyanendra denied that monarchy had ever sought power, and questioned where Nepal would have been if King Prithavi Narayan Shah did not unify Nepal . Recent Indian media reports have added further credibility to Monarchy being irreplaceable for Nepal , some suggesting that the support was always there in South Block in bilateral relations upkeep even during the Panchayat system, effectively buttressing an active monarchy. Some such as Deuba loyalist Gopal Man Shrestha had even proposed from within NC last year that the King should be made Nepal’s first President, if he so chooses.

But for experienced Nepal analysts, King Gyanendra’s silence is an action in itself with two meanings. Either silence is magnanimous consent in being with the people first and foremost as in a Man for All Seasons, or it is the precursor to contemplation for a stronger counter action such as in the Mahabharata to build direct bonds between Monarchy, democracy and the people. Betty Heinman notes in Indian and Western Philosophy: Study in Contrast that Hindu Kings used to rule in ancient times through Dharma: “Dharma is total cosmic responsibility, including God’s universal justice far more inclusive, wider and profounder than any western equivalent such as Duty”. It is based on such confidence that India ’s own national motto is SATYAMEVA JAYATE or TRUTH ALWAYS TRIUMPHS. But in Nepal ’s case no one knows which truth will triumph until the King takes up his rightful role as Preserver of the Dharma. This is something that Western diplomats understand very little on Nepal , which they ought to. The King is still taken as the source of truthful salvation by the Nepali people, in the Nepali version of SATYAMEVA JAYATE, whether there is SPAM or NO SPAM. The Interim Parliament had recently amended the interim constitution declaring Nepal a federal republic, subject to endorsement by Constituent Assembly. But King Gyanendra has added a ephemeral counter to this through his recent interview that monarchy predates the unification of Nepal itself, hinting at existing Asian democratic models where monarchy or long term monarchial heads of state have existed to move forward powerful Asian economies to new global economic might. Also, he has made it clear that monarchy should never involve itself directly in politics in future.

All of the aforementioned facts are sure going to fuel in more speculation on what will await Nepal this Spring, particularly on the question of what will happen if CA Poll is not held? Certainly the Nepali people have lost patience to wait for a fourth round of CA Poll. If the people’s anger boils over before that, a lot of awry things could happen. The seven party alliance might brake up into two, democrats vs. the communists; the CPN-M could forge a new alliance with the royalists and nationalists against the democrats and moderate leftists overthrowing the temporary interim setup. The Terai leaders could lead their own revolt or else shift to aligning itself with nationalists, royalists and monarchists against the SPAM. The National Election Commission could legally declare all the political parties incompetent in not coming up to the voting booth for the fourth time and thus declare their status suspended, their deposits forfeited. The interim parliament could in the end self-dissolve, the PM left with no further mandate since Jan Andolan-2s spirit would have been completely lost, UNMIN’s terms would be finished, and the diplomats’ guesses would have missed another heart beat of Nepal being a UN protectorate state. The SPAM politicians would again be left huddling in exotic sounding Katmandu restaurants enjoying more candle light dinners and pondering what next until their party finances ran dry and it would be back to good old New Road days, pan chewing and hanging around in the Marwari samosa dhabas. This has been the routine political life for an average Nepali politician in any case. And finally, the foreign aid agencies, in turn might set new, stricter conditions for aid dispensation, where results will be tallied on the democratic returns and human rights adherence scale, not just limping progress on the Human Development Index. Also, some are also suggesting within Kathmandu ’s second generation SPAM following, the diplomats might just choose to pack up some of the SPAM bosses and ship them out to a Maldives island where they can spend the remaining days of their life enjoying fresh ocean catch and watching the sun dip below the velvet horizon. Nothing is improbable in Nepal where actual superstition and astrological events have preceded historic events including the devastating hail stone torrent in Kathmandu Valley that came down on the protesting student crowds from nowhere during JA-2’s peak moment!

The only actual happenstance will be a non judgmental error should anyone still reckon that the CA Poll will be held even if the Terai problem were solved by Prime Minister GP Koirala. There are also other assimilative movements from the Limbuwan, Khumbuwan, Tharuwan, Tamsaling, Bhagyanath Gupta-led Madhesi Janadhikar Forum, Karnali Mukti Morcha, similar to the Madhesi that have not been entertained by the SPAM so far.

What is clear from the irony of the current situation is that nothing seems to be working in Nepal despite JA-2. If a majority party like NC cannot campaign in the Terai, how is it feasible that the CA Poll will be held on time? This is a serious dilemma for all political ball players within Nepal and outside to reckon in the days ahead. The evolution of Nepali democracy should not be a backlog of Nepali frustrations in denying the people a normal way of life. Other wise democracy loses its meaning and valued grassroots support.

The author is a communications and international development consultant based in Maryland, US. He can be reached at just_1_idea@hotmail.com

(Editor’s Note: Nepalis, wherever they live, as well as friends of Nepal around the globe are requested to contribute their views/opinions/recollections etc. on issues concerning present day Nepal to the Guest Column of Nepalnews. Length of the article should not be more than 1,000 words and may be edited for the purpose of clarity and space. Relevant photos as well as photo of the author may also be sent along with the article. Please send your write-ups to editors@mos.com.np)

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