Dev Raj Dahal

The intense flash of Nepal’s comprehensive peace accord is sputtering into its sixteenth year. During this juncture, each political party of the nation has shared power with the other irrespective of size, ideologies and identities. Yet they also bear shared amnesia about managing conflict residues. As a result, the site of transitional politics does not dot an end. The loftier spirits and zeal in the peace process are wrecked by a dilemma caught in a short of right guide to address the causes of conflicts and the survival imperative of leaders in each shift of power equation. Political transition is a process of change from a less democratic regime to a more democratic one, including substantive adjustment to fresh values, attitudes, institutions and procedures of rule, power and authority as agreed in peace accord and reconstructing civic culture. 

In many post-conflict nations, political transition embraced reformist ideas, rules and institutions without dismantling the distinctive past spirit. Others, unmindful of the past, have replaced the actors, institutions and political culture. Nepal’s transition to super structural change has, however, remained a hybrid one. It increased the rights of people, replaced the constitution, election system, state structures and created new political functionaries. But, it did not change either the basic structural context or the political culture of the nation. As a result, ending the transitional politics in Nepal is wearing a veil of strangling burden.

Positive peace
New class of elites have not been able to expand the productive base of the economy and make public institutions impersonal and robust so that they are capacitated to fulfil all rights, increase their outreach in regulating, disciplining and service delivering efficiency, empowering ordinary Nepalis by virtue of their constitutional and human rights and linking each individual to participatory units of self-governance. The end of transitional politics requires not only satisfaction of the cadres and followers of parties addicted to power games and getting to determine how sedative peace is retained but also the ordinary Nepalis desire for justice which is the basis of sublime, positive peace.

Transitional politics seeking a drastic break from the past’s wisdom can be destabilising because it is concretely allied with the informal practices, culture, history, spirituality and norms of everyday life of people. The context of life in Nepal is largely anchored in the pre-political web of family, community, social institutions and several formal and informal economic functions, not just the preference and strategies of political parties and the polity, which are not easy to decipher.  This is why political culture shaped by leaders hovers around their own infantile deeds despite their boldness in super structural transformation of the public sphere.
Without changing self and converting their paternalistic political agencies into deliberative and impartial instruments of democratic culture whereby people engage into competing conceptions of good life and choose the best means of resolving problems, the transitional politics will continue to gnaw at the rule of law. Democratic process requires ethical responsibility of Nepali leaders on continuous cultivation of habits on the spirit of civility and constitution couched in the progressive ideals of freedom, justice and peace, reciprocal respect to each other, good communication with the people, shared democratic orientation and improvement in the standards of life for creating an egalitarian society.

The drawn out transitional politics in Nepal, driven by what leaders have inherited and what people have aspired to, is trapped in a state of catch. It is lacking a modicum of political order in the varied society, an order based on non-alienation of the other. The distributive solution of conflict in Nepal added more rights -- social inclusion, proportional representation, quota, positive discrimination and justice for the wretched of society. It has opened up Nepali state’s institutions to society but leadership failed to perform basic state functions to realise stable security, protection and public goods for reasons of political instability, institutional deficiency, fiscal indiscipline and patronage-based fractured polity.

In spite of successful elections for multi-level governance in the nation and massive public participation, their functional self-determination in these scales has not animated the expected hope to conclude transitional politics and reduce the utility of violence in politics.

The organisation of multi-level elections can rear up legitimate authority in governance for peaceful change but the other areas of administration and justice require integrity, efficiency and continuity of the functions of public institutions. They are not autonomous of the past practices where they are bound up with institutional memory, responsibility and expertise in specialised roles which have a great significance for political stability, if not ending the transitional politics in Nepal.

To drive administration and justice to the political mode of activism, deliberation and a fight for or against certain leaders weakens their impersonal functions the people require for the general satisfaction in their performance and get hold of institutional muscle. The responsibility of Nepali leaders lies in creating healthy political space where diverse Nepalis can participate on the basis of equality, inclusion and democracy, incubate civil society to represent the eloquence of peoples’ voice, learn for socialised conduct, renew moral realm, social discipline and brew public policies relevant to uplift the people waiting for freedom, equality, job and dignity. This is the way to conclude transitional politics, place checks on separate spheres of power, end impunity and set rule of law based on rational political consensus as guided by the constitution.

Ending political transition by due remedy holds hope for Nepali state’s ability to act autonomous of powerful interest groups of society and acquire legitimate power to end the spiral of latent aggression and regression of human life and improve the ground to do away with hostility constituting causes and effects. It is only a hope. The political classes, irrespective of political spectrum, are comforting a feeling that transitional politics in Nepal is over. Human rights bodies and the international community, however, often selectively remind the repressed stirrings of exhausted peoples-conflict residues, disappeared, victims’ families and disqualified child soldiers and make harsh notes on leadership's lack of interest in settling these matters.

They occasionally question the slumbering passion of two national commissions for missing and truth and reconciliation which have clenched less the perspectives of all sides, even for an incremental start for justice, atonement and redemption except perfunctorily generating data. Their mandates oblige them to suggest remedial measures so that future sources of conflicts are addressed now. This allows the desolate to hone their virtues and self-discovery. A number of factors are relevant for worthy peace: ethical accountability of the conduct and action of all political actors to commit to peace accord, eschewing from burly sensation to violence and foil certain tendency of leaders to continue to become leaders for life, for fear of either revenge politics, cunning of reason or a pretext to stay in power without fulfilling the promises made in both perfecting peace and good governance.

In no way legal immunity to perpetrators of violence or corruption transform them into humanity unless systemic measures are adopted to remove the disjuncture between shifting structural condition of the nation and unchanged habit of political leaders to prolong the transitional issues, not seeking their final solutions to facilitate peaceful coexistence of diverse Nepali societies. So long as those indulged in grand corruption are not stripped of their impunity and money thus generated is deployed in justice and progress neither democratisation of Nepali politics nor the cause of transition comes to a halt, not even the assertion of pre-modern claims come to an end to make peace an integrated framework of democracy and justice.

The engineering of political consensus across parties for power-sharing without any concern for public good only marks the delay in self-transformation along constitutional values and deflect any hope of the conflict victims and oppressed to raise their heads conversation and recognition bound to one another by national affinity, constitutional imperative and a hope for fairness on distributive justice. Current Nepali leaders’ duties lie in removing the gap between constitutional ideals and their compromises and improving their credibility so that people pin hope and trust in their ability and performance.

Middle path
Several steps are required to end transitional politics: First, completion of the remaining tasks of the peace process, especially settling the issues of truth, justice and positive peace. Second, enforcement of the rule of law to keep the national integrity of its officials and political leaders. It helps to acquire the moral strength of the nation at home and abroad and the ability to improve human condition. Third, setting national politics in the middle path against both extremes of radicalism and reaction. The current effort of the coalition government to find a middle path in the whirling flow of foreign and domestic politics can overcome the abyss of distrust and engage in local elections. It can offer grit to local self-governing bodies which are automatically easing the reconciliation of conflict divides of society by local rituals and means.

What they need is to become visible and audible in promoting human rights, poverty alleviation and job-creating and peace building activities so that conflict-affected people renew lives through the economy of peace and harbour a sense of feeling of freedom, justice and public order. The role of local mediation committee is necessary but by no means sufficient like previous peace committees as the later had some knowledge, skills and resources at their disposal. These are vital preconditions. Political stability can only be founded on the rule of law and framework of justice so that no one has to resort to the options of strike, agitation or movements with brutal unintended consequences. Fourth, crude materialism of politics and market must complement the bridge-building social functions of intermediary associations, charity based organisations, local government and civil society so that rationality, morality and constitutionality are not lost in transitional politics. 

(Former Reader at the Department of Political Science, TU, Dahal writes on political and social issues.)