Prospects for Nepali Politics

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information in the 1990 constitution, the Nepalese media have had a favorable environment to flourish and have had sufficient space to highlight the issues of the common people.

To some extent, the Nepali media have played a neutral role, but, in some cases, they have been the mouthpiece of political parties and have spread propaganda against the regime in power.

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ascending to the throne, King Mahendra suspended the elected government and banned all political parties, and this next juncture of Nepali politics gave unlimited political power to the king, which was a great setback in the development of Nepali politics. The revolt of CPN (Maoist) in 1996 was another crucial juncture that affected the entire country for a decade and resulted in the establishment of a republic and inclusive democracy.²³⁰

Nepal’s multiparty parliamentary democracy faced Maoist armed conflict in 1996 and, after the signing of the CPA in 2006, Nepal became a federal democratic republic. Einsiedel et al. assert that endemic poverty and group inequality caused the structural violence that fueled the outbreak of civil war.²³¹ Up to the present time, political change in Nepal has been within a specific time framework and leaders have failed to institutionalize democratic values within that time. After the post-democratic period of 1950, Nepali intellectuals probed political newness. Malla notes,

The post-1950 decade in Nepal is characterized, in the first place, by a sense of release and emancipation of the intellect from a century-old and priestly yoke, and in its place, by an unprecedented expansion of intellectual and cultural opportunities. The decade can aptly be called a decade of extroversion. For it was a decade of explosion of all manner of ideas, activities and organized efforts. … It thoroughly exposed the social attitude and political immaturity of the Nepalese intelligentsia, and the fluctuation—till the end of the decade—

seemed to be more and more to the left.²³²

Even after the popular People’s Movement of 1990, the country’s leaders could not address the sociopolitical agenda of the populace, driving the country towards further instability. The leaders lacked a vision for Nepal, and the country experienced one type of conflict after another in a very short period. According to Baral, “Nepali politicians have, in

230 The Constitution of Nepal-2015, 8.

http://www.nepalembassy-germany.com/pdfs/Constitution_full_english.pdf. Accessed on August 6, 2016.

231 Einsiedel, Malone, and Pradhan, “Introduction,” 8.

232 Malla, “The Intellectual in Nepalese Society,” 277.

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comparison with other countries’ leaders, failed to build institutions commensurate with their roles of waging movements for change.”²³³

Analyzing the political incidents shows that Nepal’s mainstream parties were autocratically structured with all major decisions being made by a small circle of largely male party

leaders.²³⁴ From 1950 to 2006, the traditional elite mindset dominated Nepali politics under different names, like parliamentary democracy and absolute power of king, for example.

Baral agrees with this and writes that “[the] mixture of the old and new values had

perennially played an obstructionist role in the post-1950 politics of Nepal.”²³⁵ Traditional values in terms of socioeconomic structure and use of power were under the invisible or visible hands, to some extent, of Nepal’s political elites, and this marginalized the majority of the people. Political parties introduced programs with short-term solutions to gain political power, while the people were deprived of individual rights, such as identity, well-being, and the capacity to exercise their own interests. Hangen states that transformation was a goal of the 1990 people’s uprising, but, unfortunately, the country never achieved political

stability,²³⁶ and no government completed tenure successfully. Between 1990 and 2006, three parliamentary elections were held – in 1991, 1994 (a mid-term poll), and 1999. From 1990 to 2006, the Nepali people were ruled by 15 different governments.²³⁷ There were only two times King Gyanendra ruled the country and exercised absolute power in Nepal. Even after the successful people’s uprising in 2006, six different governments were formed until 2013.²³⁸

Socio-politico-economic transformation was the main agenda of every political change.

Political leaders attempted to grasp the people’s agenda and sought temporary fixes, instead

233 Baral, Nation-State in the Wilderness, 8.

234 Einsiedel, Malone, and Pradhan, “Introduction,” 17.

235 Baral, Nation-State in the Wilderness, Managing State, Democracy and Geopolitics, 10.

236 Hangen, Rise of Ethnic Politics in Nepal, 23.

237 Ibid.

238 Maps of World, Name list of Prime Ministers of Nepal.

http://www.mapsofworld.com/list-of/prime-ministers-nepal/. Accessed on 21 April 2013.

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of finding a sustainable solution for political issues, which is why, within short time, the country faced frequent strikes and shutdowns.²³⁹ The political and economic agendas of political parties were not implemented, or they were not ready to make a change in the society.

After 2006, all political parties in Nepal, either democratic or leftist, began to give priority to the programs that would put them in power and failed to provide a stable

government. Despite fundamental ideological differences, which should have resulted in the formulation of different policies, parties have entered into non-ideological alliances in the interest of gaining – or remaining in – power.

Further, scholars have highlighted the fact that Nepal’s mass movement remained

successful and have argued that it was necessary for the Maoists to gain power through armed struggle. According to Muni, “[T]he Maoists were obviously the principal ‘game

changers’.”²⁴⁰ This point has been raised by several scholars in connection with Maoist activities, as long as they came to open politics. Critics have argued that in a country like Nepal, if we talk about the Maoist movement, frequent political programs like bandhs and chaka-jams are more significant issues to deal with, rather than the revolutionary path.

From 1996, when they started the political movement, following their own party doctrine to the recent political juncture, the Maoists have posed a continuous threat to the new

democratic republic. In the past, Maoist leaders categorically made political demands such as establishing a “people’s democracy” a minimum political agenda of their party. Unlike this, in 2003, it demanded, “to restructure the state in a progressive manner.”²⁴¹ This shows that they set the agenda of political transition as a “people’s republic through an elected CA,

239 The guardian, In Nepal,$ 1 bn impact of Strikes over constitution` worse than earthquakes`

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/oct/05/nepal-1bn-dollars-impact-economy-strikes-over-constitution-worse-than-earthquakes. Accessed on April, 2016.

240 Muni, “Bringing the Maoist Down from the Hills,” 313–4.

241 Thapa and Sijapati, A Kingdom under Siege, 219.

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through their decade-long armed struggle, the People’s War.”²⁴²

In addition to this, the new political system was once again set up in 2006 after the signing of the CPA between the SPA and the Maoists, and the CA elections in 2008. The common people had some hope that this would establish sustainable peace in the country, as the Maoist leaders “had sought to forge an alliance with the other parties”²⁴³ and had achieved a significant position in the CA, securing more than one-third of the majority. However, CA2008 was dissolved without promulgating a new constitution.

In Self Determination & Constitution Making in Nepal, CA, Inclusion, & Ethnic Federalism, Bhandari Surendra provides insight into constitution-making in Nepal. He provides a historical overview of the Nepal’s six decades of constitutional history, during which the country experienced six constitutions. Among these, the 1959 Constitution, known as the democratic constitution, is one of the shortest-lived constitutions in Nepal, having had a life span of less than one year.²⁴⁴ In his work, the author highlights both positive and negative factors of all constitutions and provides some recommendations for a new

constitution. In order to transform uncertainty into political stability, he proposes instating the directly elected prime minster with full executive authority, along with a president as the head of state, elected by the parliament, with nominal executive authority, among other

recommendations.²⁴⁵ However, at the time this article was reviewed as a part of this study, Nepal CA already passed the New Constitution, which will allow us to see how much of Bhandari’s recommendations were adopted after the promulgation of this constitution in 2015.

Nonetheless, this work is still highly relevant, as the author discusses issues, such as political interest versus system building, which will provide Nepal stability and peace in the long term.

Prashant Jha, in Battles of the New Republic, a Contemporary History of Nepal, illustrates

242 Muni, “Bringing the Maoist Down from the Hills,” 314.

243 Ibid.

244 Bhandari, Surendra, Self Determination & Constitution Making in Nepal, CA, Inclusion, & Ethnic Federalism, 1-2.

245 Bhandari, Self Determination, 26.

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the Nepal Maoist conflicts and how monarchy was abolished, through a work that is a diary of daily political incidents of contemporary Nepal. Jha’s work is particularly valuable for those unfamiliar with Nepalese political history. However, there is no significant theory or idea that can be utilized for developing the country in the future.

In Rightward Drift in Nepal, C. K. Lal comments on the November 2013 CA 2^nd election in Nepal, in which the winning party was given a fractured mandate but one that made the traditional upper caste and upper class groups dominant again.²⁴⁶ In comparison, in the first CA election, major rebellion parties, such as Maoist, gained prominence relative to regional parties, yet were sidelined during the 2013 second CA election. In regards to this political commentator and civil society activity, Shyam Shrestha asks, if Maoist political achievements were so remarkable, why did Maoists face such an embarrassing defeat in the second CA election? He says that Nepali Maoists could not properly explain their achievements and their remarkable and revolutionary nature.²⁴⁷ Further, he pointed out that, while the Maoists managed to lead the transformation of the Nepalese political system, they failed to bring about similar transformation in the economic, social and cultural spheres while they were in government during the first CA.²⁴⁸

In his work, M. Govinda Rao comments on Nepali federalism, highlighting the

socioeconomic interests and political motives and contrasting them to the key drivers in other economically developed nations or intra-state federations. According to the author, in some cases, different countries come together to form a confederation for a common interest to reap the gains from security and common market. In the case of Nepal, the motivation for

adopting a federal system of governance comes from the relatively slowly growing economy,

246 C. K. Lal, “Rightward Drift in Nepal,” Economic & Political Weekly, vol.49, no. 4 (2014): 10.

247 Shrestha, Shyam, “Maoist Defeat in Nepal; The Price of Missed opportunity,” Economic & Political Weekly, vol.49, no. 4 (2014): 13.

248 Shrestha, “Maoist Defeat in Nepal”, 14.

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where opportunities do not expand fast enough and groups experience exclusion.²⁴⁹ Therefore, he recommends that the political, economic and development aspects be considered during the creation of federalism.