Dev Raj Dahal

Social discipline is the hallmark of the idea of progress and civic culture. It enables organised, orderly and predictable social behaviour of people and a fully aware cultivated way of life. It also helps fulfill each other’s needs, rights, expectations and duties while equally encouraging decency, civility, civic order, welfare and social peace in society. Social discipline is the artefact of continuous political socialisation of people by family, cultural industries and the state’s educational institutions. Democratic political parties expect to instil the values and virtues of social modernisation in a coherent manner and spur the ability of people to learn the desired roles in society, economy, polity, business, civil society and a myriad of public and private institutions generating favourable feeling, emotion and outcome of progress.

Socialisation of Nepalis in each phase of life - infancy, childhood, youth and senior citizens - is essential for their stable habits of the mind, perfect discipline and coordinated conduct across generations. Each society whether under bands, tribes, chiefdom and nation-states has kept its own congenital versions of social discipline -- coercive, authoritarian, negotiated or consensual. Modern state seizes the lawful monopoly of power, policy, specialised division of labour, overarching and regulating professional administration and widening scope of international relations. It aims for a collective and orderly good life of people through a well-negotiated constitution, pursuit of mutuality and equal freedom as a basis of personal rights.

Value transmission
Socialisation as a praxis enables Nepalis to reasonably adapt to the transmission of national values, knowledge, historical memories and free-spirited character, acquire social intelligence through family affinity, cultural and religious belief, group solidarity and keep self-control over the manifestation of hidden selfish instinct, passion and desire spewing out at those who dare to challenge the social order. As Nepali society has moved from the simple to complex web with the application of technology, knowledge, production, mobility and organisational proliferation. It has transformed every aspect of national life.

In this transformed moment, it is essential to keep its dynamic equilibrium and adjudicate the different ideological and policy alternatives. It averts anomie and motivates them to become norm-governed, not only habit-driven lacking the capacity of both self-determination and self-confidence. Good manners stand to sustain reciprocal effects, create a large circle of friends and strengthen social trust, ties and cohesion necessary for large-scale collective action. In no way does social discipline amount to total conformity to prevailing values, institutions and culture. Certain amount of private incentives is essential for individual initiative, creativity and freedom.

In this sense, political socialisation needs to be morally uplifting capable of fostering responsibility, social integration and political efficacy for nation-building. Nepali society is layered into different positions, manners and interests. It is governed less by synchronic rationalisations. Therefore, the nation’s claims to the balance of opposites and the loyalty of people are vital to unfold a sense of social harmony.

The organisation of Nepali society is not possible without the rational functioning of different institutional structures interacting with the people in a complex way, certain hierarchy and trust with each other for cooperative action, ecologically resilient economy and a governance that balances top-down and bottom-up scales, policies and strategies of democracy, development and peace. Nepal’s evolutionary past shaped by its tradition, religious rituals, education, law, fear of punishment and incentive has enabled people to promote social discipline-maintaining elements. They aim to hone positive character -- honesty, sociablilty and trustworthiness and set the melody and pulse of social discipline.

On the contrary, rival ideologies of Nepali political leaders with opposing justifications by lawyers, intellectuals and ideologues each tending to undermine the other’s imperatives has generated the risks of resistance, rattling social discipline and adequacy of the coherence of various sub-systems with the nation’s body politik. Democratic discipline is based on conversation, tolerance of diversity, compromise of interests and constitutional rule. It is linked with the diffusion effects of modernity bearing rational orientation to the world. It is, however, unleashing the potential to uproot traditional notions of discipline defined by religion, rituals, hierarchy, patrimony, etc.

There is, however, a risk in the total deconstruction of the sanity of tradition by indoctrinated and whitewashed minds operating in a total conformity to the nihilism beyond the wisdom of national heritage of tolerance of diversity and good sense discipline. They need to be saved from themselves and control the seeds of hassles. The transitions of global values have occurred in a number of conceptual areas such as representative to inclusive and participatory democracy, customary law formation to discursive and human rights-based, ideological class-based to catch-all parties, in-group social solidarity to out-group one, inherited, faith-based customary society to self-chosen individualised modern society, tax-extracting and law-oriented to service-oriented bureaucracy, hegemonic nationalism to civic one and duty based, emancipatory to policy-oriented, rights based and projectised civil society, etc.

These shifts have certain unsettling effects on the social discipline of the nation as they unleash contradictory flow of policies, laws and political culture. The value transition in the mode of production from agriculture, industrial to informational have bred tension in the management of social discipline. It requires new adaptation measures of Nepalis in areas of skill, technology and institutions and a new civilisation processes rooted in rationalism, deliberative decision making and culture stirred by science, reason and enlightenment.

Lack of a systemic discipline in the political arrangements has bred certain dysfunctions and frequent bargaining of social, economic and political actors and interest groups for power and consequently eroding the authority and legitimacy of governance. This shows that the institutions and knowledge by which Nepalis lived and organised their lives so far are facing perturbation. Even the growth of nuclear families, divorce rate, education, migration and mobility from rural to urban areas and abroad are altering patrimonial social structures, caste and gender division of labour, the nature of work and social discipline based on vertical command of superiors and obedience of juniors.

The constitutional provision of elimination of discrimination on the basis of gender, caste, religious and regional distinctions continue to unshackle them from social determinism. Now it is the party leaders, not landed aristocrats, who exercise control over the population. Yet the legacy of despising manual labour has not fully abated and the gap between elite politicians and sullen masses continues to widen. Huge deforestation has altered Nepal’s beautiful landscape engulfing the nation into ecological descent and its inadvertent costs. Their mitigation needs another pattern. The state formation as a social institution precisely arose out of what David Graeber and David Wengrow call “three principles of sovereignty, administration and competitive politics.“

Obviously, the former two domains seek to establish discipline and order while the later seeks to establish rights, democratic freedom and justice. The purpose of competitive politics is not only a struggle of leadership for domination but also alternative policies about democracy, development and peace. In a highly stratified society like Nepal democratic aspiration of equality and condition of inequality often generate convulsive politics and hit social discipline. Gross inequality is an obstacle to political and economic progress and social dynamism while the imbalance in myriad constitutional rights and few duties fuel the energy of social movements of mini publics rooted in their rights. It does not make social discipline stable or bound by constitutional control.

Each political party and civil society has raised more rights of people beyond the ability of the state to satisfy thus unleashing emotional forces in favour of endless reforms, restructuring and institutional disorder. One solution lies in the stability of the government and its ability to formulate and enforce rules of the game. Building the state capacity is another. It limits the struggle of Nepali political parties for power regardless of constitutional mandate, imperative and rules, their ability to politicise constitutional bodies and constrain the autonomy and impersonality of its performance.

Nepal’s democracy has offered scope for the active participation of people within the normative, institutional and constitutional boundaries of the nation to articulate their demands, select representatives and fulfil their legitimate aspirations. Yet, it has not been able to avoid anomie, political disorganisation and conflict of interests as the nation’s political sphere is skewed while popular political participation and expectation are disproportional to institutions and resources to meet. The constitution has provided both prescription and proscription of certain rules of conduct for all actors of society, economy and polity, framed vision and policies and legal remedies for the defiant ones.

Shared responsibilities
Lack of enforcement of the constitution, its multiple interpretations and valuation, eschewing to place obligations on the authorities to carry out their duties and spiralling politics outside the institutional boundaries of state can easily cause institutional atrophy and loss of social discipline. The post-modern ideology upholds the fears of meta-narratives of macro institutions and rule. There are shared responsibilities of multi-level governance in Nepal to collectively foster wellbeing of people and diligently coordinate the behaviour of myriad of institutions created to perform specialised functions to generate a corporate synergy for good governance.

The success of social discipline lies in Nepalis’ ability to know the laws of the land, accept the policies and cooperate for the success of goals. Certain civic ethics are gradually evolving that seek to limit the personal ambition of powerful leaders lionised by their cadres and media and focusing on differentiation, not inclusion. Beneath the surface of Nepali politics one can see the simmering tensions among their members of different ethnic, social and political backgrounds who often move in and out, causing split, dissolution and rebirth of political parties and civil society.

Yet they are successful in cultivating several scales of ties and contact with heterogeneous solidarities abroad for ideas and resources, even some unadjustable to local realities. It cracks open the loop of geopolitics. It is, therefore, important to think through the problems Nepal is facing so that solutions can be indigenously evolved without any disrupting effects to social discipline which is expected to balance a sense of personal interests with common good and nourish the balance of society without being prejudiced to the catalysts of social change.

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