That Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli and Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ have tugged their respective factions along on a race to the bottom of invectives demonstrates that this has never been a battle of ideas. The main opposition Nepali Congress, already on an interminable search for relevance, remains unsurprisingly divided on the House of Representatives’ dissolution. The smaller constituents of the post-2006 political establishment, drinking from the same trough, could not have escaped the general malaise.
The Supreme Court has the difficult task of ruling on the constitutionality of what is a purely political issue: the inexorable conclusion of the extended experiment spawned by the 12-Point Understanding. Arguments in favor or against the prime minister’s dissolution order are masquerading as constitutional ones. But they cannot address the reality that the current dispensation is collapsing under its own contradictions. Regardless of how it rules, the judiciary is simply incapable of preventing the dénouement.
Our dominant political forces continued to invest too heavily in the 12-point enterprise far too long after its principal architect began reappraising its viability and value. The internal and external power alignments of 2005-2006 could not have continued long enough to permit an open-ended transition where Nepali actors could pretend to be in control.
Nor were their external patrons really in charge. Domestic actors may have made themselves available to new permutations and combinations, but a decade and a half was more than enough to exhaust sponsors working at cross-purposes. The Chinese couldn’t keep intact the communist party they helped unify. The Americans couldn’t get their MCC compact endorsed by the legislature. The Indians couldn’t prevent the incorporation of a new Nepali political map into the country’s constitution. (How did we get the Soviets, American/British and Indians to build the East-West Highway, while disinviting the Chinese without upsetting them too much?)
To be sure, there is a danger inherent in today’s deepening popular apathy amid a palpable aimlessness. Nepalis recognize that every system of governance has been tried and tested. They also know that the principal national forces still have not mustered the will or wherewithal to join hands. Nepalis may not have acquired the audacity of attempting to lead their leaders. However, they are intent on ensuring those leaders act as Nepalis first.
Clearly, the dissolution of parliament was an inevitability. Its judicial reinstatement cannot restore the status quo ante. Nor can new elections address the systemic ailment. Dangerous as the unknown may be, enduring it may have become our only option. The internal and external churning processes are so intertwined that even a semblance of steadiness may be years away.
In retrospect, the political class did make a shrewd bet. Since the Nepali people went along with each compromise made to uphold the main – albeit tenuous – 12-point compact, they, too, were deemed stakeholders. When that turned out to be a faulty premise, the political class became anxious to hasten what it considered an inescapable breakdown. Since no one is prepared to take the fall individually, they seem intent on collective responsibility.
Political jabs and jokes can perhaps make life more bearable for the people in the interim, provided we’re not too fixated with afflictions and amusement.
