Decency, How Distant Hast Thou Becomest!

It turns out distance does make the political heart grow fonder.
Bereft of allies, disgraced former communications minister Gokul Banskota has reached back to two luminaries of the much-maligned partyless Panchayat system in order to build an image of morality and rectitude.
Claiming that he had resigned on the basis of corruption allegations made by one individual, Banskota insisted he had done so to facilitate the official investigation. In doing so, he compared himself to former prime minister Kirti Nidhi Bista and education minister Kesar Bahadur Bista.
To recapitulate, Kirti Nidhi Bista had resigned after a massive fire engulfed Singha Durbar in 1973, laying waste to the government secretariat. Keshar Bahadur Bista of sports had quit his post in 1988 after a hailstorm triggered a stampede during a football match at Dasharath Stadium, claiming dozens of lives. “Has anyone else set such an example,” Banskota asked in a tweet the other day.
Kirti Nidhi Bista wasn’t caught on tape conspiring to set the secretariat on fire. Nor was Keshar Bista ever heard imploring Mother Nature to invoke her fury on football fans. But that’s not the point.
Insulted and humiliated, Banskota has recovered enough to seek retribution. He probably realizes that what he’s been accused of doing is unprecedented in its boldness and biliousness. But he also knows that he’s not the only one who’s been doing it.
With unfeigned acerbity and straight-faced misrepresentations – if not outright fabrications – Banskota quickly established himself as Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli’s attack dog. Unlike other members of the Oli coterie, Banskota didn’t feel he had been catapulted to that place. He won the election with a respectable margin and undertook his government responsibilities with loyalty and vigor. More importantly, from his perspective, he did so in the full public glare as the official government spokesperson, not from an obscure advisory perch.
The allegation that Banskota demanded a commission of Rs.700 million in the procurement of security printing press has several shades of gray. The audio leaked concerned an old meeting about a deal that did not go through. It may have been a conspiracy to commit a crime, but it certainly wasn’t one.
Moreover, the ‘we’ that was heard repeatedly suggests a wider cast of characters. If corruption has been institutionalized as the lifeblood of a moribund political system – something more and more people do feel these days – why should Banskota take the fall?
And what about the proximity of the case to the exoneration of former speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara of rape allegations the alleged victim subsequently recanted but no one was ready to entertain? Establishing allegations of moral turpitude as a regular component of politics risks diverting attention from real crimes. Banskota isn’t a credible messenger of these legitimate concerns. But Twitter does tend to work in marvelous ways.
Banskota probably feels Oli has tried to reciprocate loyalty – as much as a beleaguered prime minister could. Oli stood by his communication minister as long as he could and has let him use his private residence. So, it’s not the prime minister who’s in his crosshairs.
Yet the weird thing is that Banskota felt compelled to reach back to a political era he personally has spent much ink denigrating for its depravity and dissoluteness. Could he really not find more recent examples, or was he just lazy? Keep thinking.

COVID-19 Narratives, Callous And Calculated

Would members of a government enjoying a massive popular mandate really try to profit off of a people crushed by one of the cruelest global challenges? Could those in power actually be so callous? The question may be icy enough to send chills down the spine, but we need an answer to know who and what the collective ‘we’ are.
Deputy Prime Minister Ishwar Pokharel and Health Minister Bhanubhakta Dhakal may be many things, but they certainly don’t look like coldhearted crooks. Let’s hope that these alleged emblems of the downright degeneration of our shared existence are guilty of – if they are of anything at all – mere acts of omission.
True, the whole controversy surrounding the deal over the procurement of medical supplies from China reeks of the crony capitalism our communists have excelled in. It’s easy to believe a business entity enjoying proximity with the people around the prime minister got the contract for unspecified considerations. If anything, the sordidness is matched by its routineness, which enhances the plausibility of the storyline.
Once the sleaziness of that deal became apparent, the government annulled the deal. As the relevant agencies of the bureaucracy were preparing to invite fresh bids, the Nepal Army ended up with responsibility for the procurement of the medical supplies. A few cabinet members attending the pertinent meeting have expressed their cluelessness. Before we got to know if and how the meeting minutes were corrected, the storyline changed from the government’s greed to its weakness. Why not surrender executive power to the military, then?
Perhaps it’s a sign of our times. After all, the world’s sole superpower, facing the brunt of the pandemic, is reduced to blaming the tardiness of its response to an officially communist state’s concealment of the origin, extent and impact of the outbreak. (This, let’s not forget, after complaining for years about how the US’s former Cold War adversary has been seeking to interfere in American elections.) Demands to sue China for the pandemic are being made with little regard to the ghosts that might revive (Iraq, Hiroshima/Nagasaki, the Opium Wars, imperialism being the tamer ones).
Together with best and worst, the pandemic has brought out the inane in us. It is easy to get entangled in all kinds of narratives, motivated and otherwise. Regardless of whether the government – and the system it represents – was about to collapse under its contradictions before COVID-19, the outbreak has certainly given it a new lease on life. Thus, the temptation to use a controversy of this scale is to undermine the status quo becomes quite irresistible.
Still, what do we know about what really happened? If people were actually involved in fleecing the country, let must face the consequences, but only after the facts are established. If other people are focused on fishing in troubled waters, we must show our ability to tell the difference.
We are already paying the price of having acquired an alternative based on a predetermined narrative that turned out to be far removed from the reality prevailing in the spring of 2006. An international emergency may be the time for many things, but it certainly isn’t one to lose our national cool.

Never Let A Crisis Go To Waste

Not one to squander an opportunity, Comrade Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ sent a letter congratulating Chinese President Xi Jinping for the swiftness with which his country controlled the deadly coronavirus outbreak. Locally, however, the missive seems to have boomeranged big time on the co-chair of the Nepal Communist Party (NCP).
Social media posts and comments have ranged from the merciless mockery of Dahal’s English prose to a relentless questioning of his standing to write such a letter in the first place. Admittedly, Dahal could have used the definite article properly in more places. A Grammarly or ProWritingAid add-in to his document toolbar might have suggested more appropriate synonyms.
As to protocol, Dahal did address Xi as general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) before president, didn’t he? Moreover, as executive co-chair of the NCP and (our one-time Maoist supremo to boot), Dahal must have felt competent enough to string along a few sentences.
Amid the languidness of the lockdown, Dahal probably couldn’t run the final document by the party’s official copy editor and chose instead to defer to the earnestness of his purpose. Even then, he should have known he wasn’t going to get a pass. Dahal may have his reasons for retaining his war-era nom de guerre as part of his formal name, but it no longer evokes the ferocity and sternness it once did.
On the face of it, you could say Dahal took the initiative to reaffirm party-to-party relations by writing to the head of the CCP who also happens to be the head of state. At the same time, he sought to mobilize Chinese assistance to Nepal during these trying times. For someone accused of undermining a government led by his own party, Dahal could also have been seen taking some pressure off Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli and Foreign Minister Pradip Gyawali so they could focus their energies better on other pressing areas.
Granted, it’s difficult not to ascribe more self-interested motives to any politician, not to speak of one with a surfeit of chameleon-like qualities. Dahal, after all, had to put off a visit to China recently for reasons that are still largely unexplained. Subsequent weeks saw him blowing hot and cold on the controversial American Millennium Challenge Corporation grant, with his position ultimately veering toward legislative endorsement of the agreement “in the nation’s interest”. Such gyrations couldn’t have gone down well up north.
Still, if the global pandemic could step in to give a respite to Prime Minister Oli’s government, put off a widely expected split in the ruling party and cushion the political system from all-round attacks, surely it could help Dahal repair his relations with Beijing. Yet here we are laughing him off.
Does that matter? The letter wasn’t primarily intended for us. And the Chinese are the only ones so far that have emerged more confident out of this experience. If Xi can be magnanimous enough to win over US President Donald J. Trump over one phone conversation, you surely can’t say Dahal’s written words – regardless of their clumsiness – don’t stand a chance, can you now?

Why The System Seems Stronger Than It Is

It’s simultaneously amusing and appalling to witness the political establishment and its opponents wallow in the almost same aimless self-assurance.
At least some elements in the power structure are candid enough to acknowledge their malaise and drift. Not that discounting their inability to unwillingness to do anything about it does us much good, though.
The biliousness in the camp of campaigners and activists that have proliferated to proffer alternatives to the system is aggravating. Generally operating under the banner against corruption, these organizations, associations and individuals represent a broad swathe of expertise and opinion.
Former generals and administrators have joined academics and professionals in calling for a radical overhaul of institutions and ideas to prepare Nepal for its real challenges and opportunities. The fact that this motley community includes many people who were at the forefront of the April 2006 Uprising perhaps enhances its general credibility. Largely shunned by mainstream news outlets, their declarations, entreaties and remedies dominate the new media in the full robustness, instantaneity and – yes insolence – that technology provides.
A popular assertion emerging from that quarter is that the existing system perforce lives on institutionalized corruption. Might a directly elected president or prime minister work better? With federalism having done little else beyond adding to the public tax burden, do we need tweaks or a complete reversal?
If republicanism has only raised political partisanship to the highest level of the state in addition to retaining the pomp and ostentation of the royalist past, shouldn’t we be rethinking things? Secularism having become so socio-culturally shattering, isn’t an honest reconsideration of the religious identity of the state be in order?
The state, in contrast, sees change in terms of amending the constitution to allow a politician defeated in elections to the lower house of parliament catapulted to the upper chamber and made eligible for the premiership just to maintain the balance of power in the ruling party. No wonder the incumbent premier, otherwise generous with patronage, can’t name a caretaker even while undergoing high-risk organ transplant.
Ordinarily, you would think our campaigners and activists shared enough commitment and purpose to unite under a broader alliance for change to gain credibility and effectiveness and eventually results. Instead, in recent months, many prominent ones have seen it fit to squander much time and energy undercutting one another’s motives and intentions.
Rather than weigh the feasibility and integrity of much-needed alternative solutions, the general public is left wondering whether and how much foreign money is at play here. Are ex-officials merely trying to cover up their own past complicity in our growing malady? Are ambitious individuals only to trying to circumvent the political process to gain power and privilege? Have people shunned by political parties found a platform to hit back at former allies?
Where discussions have tried to focus on substance, we have been sidetracked by doubts over whether the change being proposed is really forward looking or just an attempt to revive the past. Maybe that’s why the political establishment is stronger than it seems.

What Will It Be? Let’s Wait And See

Why did Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli choose to undergo such a risky kidney transplant in Nepal considering that he flew abroad for the most innocuous follow-up medical consultations? Why didn’t he designate a caretaker while absenting himself for days? It’s hard to figure out which question is harder.
Maybe our collective circumstances have desensitized us to painful probing. After all, those most strongly ridiculing the idea that our former monarch met the Indian premier and US president in New Delhi either individually or jointly seem to be the ones strongest in their conviction that something is on the so-called regressive right.
Moreover, the otherwise amiable Chinese ambassador in Kathmandu is accused of exceeding diplomatic propriety in her dealings with the Nepali media, but it’s our bloke in Beijing who is recalled for reasons unknown. The new Indian ambassador, minutes into his official tenure, begins hectic political parleys.
Our inability to form something even remotely resembling common opinion on anything these days leaves us individually flustered. We have long rested in the comforting knowledge of the futility of worrying about our political fate. The upside of having external drivers of change lies in knowing that it’s their job to validate, legitimize and sustain the transformation.
Do we still have that luxury? Despite the accepted wisdom of the existence of cross-party consensus and continuity in Indian foreign and security policy, the incumbent government in New Delhi is not an all-embracing stakeholder of the transformation of April 2006. For one thing, it saw the discarding of Hindu statehood along with the monarchy as the proverbial throwing of the baby with the bathwater. And that vision, moreover, tends to define pretty much everything.
Today’s Chinese leadership, too, is a far cry from the one that existed 14 years ago. Then, a president schooled in the geopolitics of our fringe during his earlier tenure as party chief of Tibet, sought to organize a flawless Beijing Olympics as evidence of his country’s integration into the global order. Today’s president is neo-Maoist whose visions of grandeur approximate those of the Great Helmsman. And he has far greater resources at his disposal than did the earthy moon-faced titan from Hunan in his shared quest to redefine the global order.
Then there’s our sole superpower. A neo-conservative US administration in 2006 initially couldn’t countenance the anointment of a Maoist takeover in Nepal but was sufficiently allured by the prospect of a civil nuclear deal with India to speak of a ‘messy abdication’ at Narayanhity. The current White House occupant loves to shock and awe far more – but in his own way.
Wars are still being wage and bombs are still falling, but paleo-conservatives wedded to American national interest rule the roost. As the international dimensions of ‘America First’ are still taking shape, there are possibilities galore that we can ignore at our own peril.
Among the other players, the Europeans have pretty much exhausted their narrowly defined options. The Russians still want to keep everyone guessing about their intentions. Amid all this, it is natural for our political players to wait and see. As the highly evolved political animals they are, their antics are but an expression of their inability to stand still. Their real trick is to stop us from finding out what they are waiting for and seeing.