Political Analysis

Editorial

Since its inception, these columns have been editorializing Nepali public affairs and concerns. The emergence of republicanism, secularism and federalism in Nepali politics was no surprise to these columns. We were not alone, however, in foreseeing their pitfalls. The excesses of yesterday’s partisan politics and the manner with which extra-national forces goaded organized politics in these directions, we claimed, turned a blind eye to national realities and capabilities without any concern on Nepali society. Advocates of modernization supposedly leading national thought towards faster development were actually selling an expensive dream the costs of which have only had to be manifested in national affairs today. It has been a costly exercise and the country was and is very aware of it. Partisan interests, though, found cash in increasing caste-ism, racism, sectarianism and regionalism on the plea of modernization and deliberately imbibed these theories in the constitution. This is despite the many public warnings against these negative trends. These columns too were replete with analyses on the impact to the country of such politics. We are now bearing the costs in not just expenses.

The earthquake two years ago and now the Corona crisis have been two glaring cases where the local levels tampered with so grossly by politics have been unable to cope. A kleptocratic center has not only jumped in to monopolize the essential resources. This has taken relief away from the grassroots for the seeming purpose of benefiting the central government. The situation thus has gradually evolved to explosive extents. The crime lies not only in the action. It lies in making redundant reasonable analyses. It lies in self-defeating actions of deliberately centralizing decisions when so much was wasted in a decentralized constitution that was the reason behind the much-touted federalism. One reason why the analyses could not be off the mark was due to the very real logic that politicians forcing the new constitution upon the people were themselves able to do so because they were benefiting from the very centralized leadership of the country. We were saying on very real terms that our party politics were not only centralized but they were so individualized as to paralyze the state to the benefit of individuals.

That this has cost the state direly is so e evinced in today’s Nepal is an expensive symptom that we can only moan about. None have assessed the impact of our inability to conduct local elections for over two decades on the loss of territory due to the Mahakali treaty. We can merely report the excesses in the expenditure of local units as the inevitable cost of federalism. We can merely remind the population that the constitution leaves the naming and location of regional units to the units themselves. The drama enacted in a regional parliament on the use of the central party whip in naming a new regional headquarters was possible by the deliberate ignorance of the fact that the panchayat days saw a rare number of people killed when Dipayal was named the headquarters of the far western development region. We have for quite a while now seen a separate crop of development experts goading our politicians towards detrimental politics. This makes analysis redundant. It is this that encourages impudence.

People’s Review Print Edition