Chhaya Devi Syndrome & Uncivil Society

Chhaya Devi Parajuli, who many considered the epitome of Nepalis’ eternal quest for freedom during the recent democracy protests, is angered in the aftermath. Actually, it’s her relatives. They are criticizing the current leaders for not visiting the 88-year-old lady hospitalized with a fractured leg. (The motorcyclist who inflicted all this had no royal connections, so he’s out of the media spotlight.)
As someone who participated in every democracy movement since 1950, Chhaya Devi perhaps does deserve a little affection from those in power. The problem is that her relatives feel she is entitled to it. Barring a few members of the reinstated legislature, we are told, no one of any significant political stature has been at her bedside.
Now, it would have been a miracle if any SPA bigwig had found time between shredding King Gyanendra’s political ambitions and seeking to strip the Maoists of their guns to recall Chhaya Devi’s ebullience in the spring.
It’s useless to complain about the mindset of a handful of relatives when the Chhaya Devi Syndrome has gripped our civil society. From the tenor and thrust of this disparate group, they are determined to extract their ton of the democracy flesh. In their view, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala has betrayed the April Uprising because of his infatuation with a ceremonial monarchy. The SPA is a slothful bunch in power purely at civil society’s pleasure. For them, the Maoists are Nepal’s only hope, although it’s unclear whether this compliment resonates from their fear or faith. For now, the SPA and the Maoists are appeasing this section by apportioning a third of the seats in the interim assembly.
True, civil society’s participation built the size and momentum of the protests against King Gyanendra’s regime. It is equally true that this group was energized into action only by the royal regime’s effort to tighten rules governing local and international nongovernmental organizations. That would have meant tighter government scrutiny of foreign funds and local expenditures. When Koirala, UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal and the other mainstream politicians were shackled into silence, most of our captains of civil society were still blaming them for the king’s political ambitions.
The narcissism of some of these leaders is nauseating. Take this former finance secretary under the Panchayat system, who broke with the palace-led regime because he didn’t like the way then-prime minister Surya Bahadur Thapa was exploiting national resources to rig the referendum in the palace’s favor.
The act of defiance was undoubtedly courageous. But could it obscure the role this gentleman played to sustain the Panchayat system all those years before that? How many bureaucrats were fortunate to have spent almost all of their service in the lucrative Finance Ministry? More importantly, how many civil servants had worked their way up the ministry ladder, through the foreign aid unit, to reach the top? If the Panchayat system was an abomination, a portion of the responsibility surely must fall on this person.
The gentleman became finance minister in the interim government formed after the 1990 political change. A member of premier Krishna Prasad Bhattarai’s entourage, our minister was at the center of those crucial talks in New Delhi. When Bhattarai got into trouble because of his reference to “common rivers,” the finance minister was reminding everyone of the “non-political” nature of his status in the cabinet.
This time around, the SPA and Maoists had named him the head of the truce monitoring committee. He refused, saying he had neither the interest nor competence for the job. Was the rebuff necessary when the country was short of people both sides could trust? (Or maybe the gentleman was far too proficient in fanning flames for a role reversal.)
Then there are these two medical doctors representing two generations. The first, long known among patients for his harangues on Nepalis’ almost congenital inability to comprehend the virtues of personal hygiene, thought it was time to show some political astuteness. King Gyanendra’s dismissal of Nepal’s last elected prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, on October 4, 2002 was constitutionally correct, the doctor diagnosed; the monarch’s appointment of Lokendra Bahadur Chand a couple of days later wasn’t. The nuances were as nebulous as ever, but they didn’t matter. The tribe of non-political personages with political prescriptions had just proliferated. His advocacy of republicanism seems to be rooted more in his allegiance to a line of Ranas with whom the monarch does not share direct blood ties.
Another medical doctor, who was the personal physician of UML prime minister Manmohan Adhikary, traces his political antecedents to his days as a student in India. In newspaper columns, he would offer his two cents on almost everything he thought ailed the Nepalese polity. In his professional realm, he was known for his sharp memory. If you had ever been a patient and advised to seek medical treatment abroad, you had to be sure you called to say ‘thank you’ if you ever expected to schedule another appointment.
This doctor, too, is upset with Koirala’s emerging royal attachment. The Maoists, UML and others are entitled to prejudicing the constituent assembly elections by demanding the declaration of a republic right away, but Koirala is no longer a democrat because he roots for the royals.
What might have come of a civil society protest if, say, Koirala and the SPA hadn’t led the charge against the palace? Our three doctors would probably still be hollering themselves hoarse on the edges of the city. What do you say, Mrs. Parajuli?

The Crown In Koirala’s Space And Time

The more you hear him express it, the more assured you become that Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s admiration for a ceremonial monarchy comes with a utilitarian strain of adoration.
At one level, it’s hard to feel affection for someone – or an institution, in this case – that you feel has repeatedly beleaguered you. At another, the torment is the thrill. Having fought against three politically assertive kings, overseen as prime minister the funeral of two and witnessed the enthronement of one, royalty must have left an enduring impression on Koirala.
As someone castigated for a purported attempt to impose his own dynasty on the people in the garb of democracy, Koirala would be the least likely of today’s leaders to be rooting for the monarchy. Yet that’s what he is doing at every opportunity. Having firmly supported the royal takeover and awaiting the more dispassionate judgment of history on King Gyanendra’s motives, this writer fails to see the wisdom of keeping a monarch stripped of everything but his clothes.
But even the worst critics of Koirala must acknowledge the firmness of his convictions. In the three and a half years since King Gyanendra assumed a direct political role, Koirala was unsparing in his criticism of the monarch. Amid the vituperation, one often wondered what kind of conversation Koirala could have struck up with the king during the slew of individual and collective audiences before the Feb. 1, 2005 royal takeover.
Demonized by rivals as corrupt, dictatorial, haughty and adamant, Koirala remained consistent in demanding the reinstatement of the House of Representatives. What was brushed off as a constitutionally unviable demand eventually provided the sanest political outlet. For Koirala, vindication must have come in many hues. The Maoists, who once clubbed Koirala together with the newly crowned monarch and his yet-undeclared heir as the principal enemies of the state before pressuring him into resigning in 2001, sought the legitimacy of his leadership to challenge the palace through unarmed street protests.
Koirala’s incessant invocation of the term “grand design” at critical junctures left all scurrying for clues. Today, he stands alone on the national stage emphasizing the need for a nebulous ceremonial monarchy.
To be fair, Koirala has been consistent on this count. During the apogee of royal rule, Koirala insisted the conduct of the monarch, above all, would determine whether Nepal became a republic. In dropping the traditional reference to the monarchy from the statute of his Nepali Congress, Koirala must have merely raised the stakes.
The consummate politician in him always saw the “republic card” as a bargaining chip – and he wasn’t ashamed to acknowledge that. Amid Nepal’s geopolitical realities, abolishing the monarchy without creating something to fill the vacuum was not prudent politics. (For clarity’s sake, he could have said Nepal needed the king more than the other way around, but that wouldn’t have been politically prudent either.)
As Nepal’s pre-eminent democrat, Koirala couldn’t think of pre-empting the Nepalese people’s right to determine their destiny. In the crucial transition phase, however, the leader owed it to his people to help them separate emotion and essence.
If the Maoists could insist on abolishing the monarchy through the interim constitution, then surely Koirala had the right to advocate the virtues of a ceremonial monarchy as he saw it.
The exigencies of statecraft must have intervened, too. Having deleted the royal prefix from the Nepalese Army, Koirala could have reprimanded Chief of the Army Staff Gen. Pyar Jung Thapa for going to the palace to extend birthday greetings to a man who was no longer his commander. As prime minister, Koirala recognized the more urgent imperative of maintaining morale in a force that still retains institutional loyalty to the crown. A legislature drawing sustenance from the political passions of the moment could not even pretend to sever by decree ties that began with the creation of the modern Nepalese state.
Koirala, for his part, has had a front-row view of the fickleness of the political moment. After mass protests forced King Birendra to abolish the Panchayat 16 years ago, Koirala was heckled for suggesting that the restoration of multiparty democracy represented a victory for the palace as well. King Birendra’s strained relations with Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had undoubtedly galvanized the democracy movement in Nepal. But by the middle of Koirala’s first term as premier, his visiting Indian counterpart P.V. Narasimha Rao chose to keep much of the substantive bilateral discussions for the quiet dinner at the royal palace.
A few years ago, Koirala had assured King Gyanendra that he could get the Maoists to accept the monarchy if the palace agreed to constituent assembly elections. Having preempted the palace through street protests, Koirala has begun cracking the whips on the Maoists. His Nepali Congress colleagues like Ram Chandra Poudel and Narahari Acharya can believe all they want that their brand of republicanism can thrive with the Maoists in the driver’s seat. Koirala certainly has the right to articulate his views in support of a ceremonial monarchy.
More important, in the marketplace of ideas he envisions for all of us, Koirala’s critics can mount a reasoned challenge or garner enough votes against him. But they certainly can’t expect to silence Nepal’s most prominent democrat.

Beginning Of The Betrayal Backlash?

“The CPN [Maoist] has thrown away an historic opportunity for Nepal’s workers and peasants. They have allowed themselves to become part of a slapdash coalition of the parties of Nepal’s ruling class.
“Instead of relying on the support that they were able to mobilize in the cities they are now making secret deals with an incompetent bourgeois crook.”

WITH much of the world still questioning the Maoists’ sincerity to the peace process, the preceding excerpts provide a timely summation of the anxieties emanating from the other end of the spectrum.
These paragraphs, quoted from the summer 2006 issue of the British newspaper Socialist Resistance, serve to underscore the sense of betrayal precipitated by the Maoists’ desire to wage peace.
Castigating the deals the Maoists have made with the Seven Party Alliance, Liam MacUaid, in his article “Nepalese revolution hits the buffers,” states the rebels are no longer accountable to the workers, peasants and urban poor whose pressure forced King Gyanendra to make concessions to democracy in April.
“Maoist organizations have always swung between murderous political gangsterism toward other socialists and a willingness to make deals with the ‘patriotic bourgeoisie,’ MacUaid writes. “The CPN is no different in this respect.”
Prachanda and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai probably won’t be too concerned by such criticism. After all, the International Socialist Group (ISG), which publishes the monthly together with the Socialist Solidarity Network and some like-minded individuals, is the British Section of the Fourth International.
How could it understand the objective conditions and ground realities of Nepal from the ivory towers of London? (And which mindless layout editor placed the story on the Afghanistan page and got away with it?)
A Trotskyite revolutionary organization committed to the overthrow of the “barbaric” capitalist system, the ISG is appreciative of the Maoists’ many progressive demands. It is infuriated by the way the Nepalese state and the Bush administration have clubbed the anti-Maoist fight into the global war on terror.
The ISG might have played a major part in boosting the Maoists’ PR in Europe, especially within the broad umbrella of the anti-globalization campaign. However, as a Marxist organization, it takes issue with the Maoists’ seeming indifference to the self-activity of the working class.
Admittedly, Nepal’s relatively undeveloped working class limits the kind of action the ISG and its soul mates would like the Nepalese rebels to pursue. But should that reality necessarily translate into what many consider a strategy to allow a different section of the Nepalese bourgeoisie to take power?
Faced with a choice of taking power themselves as representatives of Nepal’s peasants and workers, MacUaid writs, the Maoists opted to send their leader Prachanda to meet Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala to discuss a settlement. “The 84-year-old politician is a longstanding figure in the country’s politics and is accused by opponents of being utterly corrupt.” (Perhaps for added effect, the author notes that Koirala is the leader of Nepali Congress, a party that belongs to Tony Blair’s Socialist International.)
Instead of offering a real way forward, MacUaid states, the Maoists seem certain to fight the forthcoming elections as loyal defenders of the new ruling class constitution. “In doing so they will have betrayed the Nepalese peasants and workers who brought the country to the edge of revolution.”
Hey, it’s not as if the Revolutionary International Movement (or whatever incarnation Global Maoists have assumed today) has mounted a blistering denunciation of a lost decade. Nor is MacUaid someone in the league of Li Onesto.
Yet one question must be nagging Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai: Could such candor embolden Ganapathy and other Indian Maoists to speak out?

Responsibility Absurdity

Now that the military component of the royal regime has deposed before the commission probing into the state’s “suppression” of the democracy protests in April, it’s safe to reach that conclusion which was obvious from the outset.
Nobody is prepared to take responsibility for the 19 deaths (or 22 depending on who’s counting) because nobody can be expected to. Some members of the royal government have implied, in varying hues of candor, that King Gyanendra should take responsibility as the chief executive. The monarch, in his proclamation reinstating the House of Representatives, has already expressed his deep sorrow at the loss of life. If the commission wants King Gyanendra to make a more forceful acknowledgement, then it should have the gallantry to issue a summons to the monarch. The HoR Proclamation has cleared the way for that course; the commission members should summon their collective will.
If they cannot, then they should collectively acknowledge the obvious. The royal regime, in the normal course of discharging its duties, had imposed curfews in designated areas. Notification was made well in advance. Those who chose to defy the curfew understood they were in violation of those laws. Politically, they may have considered that very defiance as a potent symbol of protest. But, then, that was a matter concerning the protesters and their sponsors. Ministers, bureaucrats, military officials, police chiefs and everyone else acted within the general purview of their obligation to maintain law and order.
The commission and the theatrics surrounding it evidently helped the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) government to consolidate power in its early days and weeks. The show has now become a distraction.
The Mallik Commission that probed the “excesses” of the Panchayat government during the 1990 democracy protests named names and apportioned blame precisely for political purposes. Revisionists continue to attribute the failure of successive elected governments to take action to their magnanimity.
What they don’t tell us is that the attorney-general of the government that had accepted the panel’s recommendations had asserted they were not actionable on legal and constitutional grounds. None of his successors chose to reverse that affirmation.
Clearly, we don’t need to waste another day to know what we already know.

Monarchy Makeover?

PRIME Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s cabinet amends the royal succession laws to, in effect, allow women to ascend the throne. The Unified Marxist Leninist (UML), the second ranking partner in the coalition government, wants the interim constitution to include a provision for a referendum on the monarchy. The Maoists want the interim charter to abolish the monarchy.
It’s not pleasant having to see all those cart tracks before the horse dung, especially when most of us were led to believe that the constituent assembly would determine the future of the monarchy. Moreover, wouldn’t such behavior impede those who want to go into the process of writing a new constitution on a platform of a constructive monarchy? (Audacious as it might sound now, it still could happen, but first things first.)
Placing the first-born of the monarch in the line of succession would do much to modernize the institution. It’s the traditional side of the crown that’s more of a concern. The Japanese, far ahead of us in espousing modernity as well as in adhering to tradition, are still debating the wisdom of putting a female on the throne when many royal functions appear exclusively male-driven. Our democrats have decided to gender-neutralize the crown by decree.
The Koirala cabinet seems to have looked past the complications because, well, they are complicated. Can a queen caught in a biologically unpropitious phase of the month enter Hanuman Dhoka to welcome the advent of spring and still maintain the sanctity of the event?
And the Dasain tika? Surely, a ceremonial monarch need not abandon the practice of blessing commoners on one of the most important festivals of the calendar. Even if all the other elements of sacredness were met, what of the full implications of a queenly touch on a succession of male foreheads? What about the wider effects? Wouldn’t the Kumari feel less encumbered to claim life tenure as the Living Goddess? Where will all this stop?
Clearly, it’s all politics, for now. Koirala seem wedded to a campaign to retain a ceremonial monarchy. By stripping the monarch of everything except his clothes, the government will sooner or later create enough sympathy to remake the crown. The longer the charade enacted in the name of democratic politics continues, the brighter King Gyanendra’s 15-month direct rule may shine as a model of constitutionalism.
Evidently, the UML thinks it can checkmate Koirala with the referendum call. The demand comes at a sensitive time for the party. Onetime allies of general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal are now trying to oust him as leader. Could this be the beginning of another split that might see the more hard-line UML faction merge with the Maoists?
Let’s delve deeper. Is the UML’s referendum call really aimed at the palace or the Maoists? After all, forerunners of today UML’s are credited with ensuring the victory of the Panchayat system in the 1980 referendum. Many still believe the comrades’ call for an active boycott of that plebiscite transformed into votes against a multiparty system dominated by that rabid anti-communist, B.P. Koirala.
A UML-driven vote in favor of a monarchy would be far more significant than Koirala’s public support, without the obvious political costs. No wonder the Maoists want the monarchy abolished right away.
But isn’t that also a nice way of demanding a place in an interim government without having to disarm? Technically speaking, the Nepali Congress and the Jhapali comrades haven’t accounted for the weapons they wielded in pursuit of their political objectives.
Could there be more to the Maoists’ stepped-up anti-monarchy offensive, like, say, a desire to precipitate a palace intervention on behalf of armed rebels joining a government of national reconciliation? All political roads still seem to lead to palace, don’t they?