Nepal- Failure of democracy that keeps the country one of the poorest and least developed in the world
Nepal- Failure of democracy that keeps the country one of the poorest and least developed in the world
It was a nice opportunity for me to give vent to my anger as well as to tell whoever in the government cared to listen that the disaster after all is also an opportunity for Nepal to earn some dignity too around the world by accomplishing accelerated reconstruction and rehabilitation of the earthquake victims. Basically, in the 25 minute interview programme in the Sagarmatha TV at 5:30 PM (and 9:30 PM-this turned out to be a little abridged version) I told the following:
• The fact that most people who were killed and maimed came from rural hinterlands. After 26 years of representative democracy, they should not have been there in the first place. It basically meant failure of Nepalese democracy that keeps the country one of the poorest and least developed in the world.
• While one of the major factors in China's dramatic development has been her youthful population , the "demographic dividend" in social science parlance, India is even poised to overtake China for the same reason. While Nepal's too is a youthful population, her demographic dividend is being appropriated by the Gulf countries and others like Malaysia, S Korea and so on. Nepal is destined to bear with ageing population without ever benefiting from her demographic dividend. The country has been reduced to being a "residential area" with people living on remittances.
• The failure of democracy in Nepal results from the incompatibilities that inhere in the fact that the Westminster style democratic polity was taken from a very rational context of the west and transplanted in the stubbornly persistent feudal context of Nepal. While just about every single leader in Nepal at all levels is a feudal elite, and extraction of resources without accountability is the mode of their sustenance, a successful politician in Nepal is necessarily a corrupt man.
• Given such a situation patronizing the voters is the mode of vote getting and bhagbanda approach to resource allocation is the logical outcome. What has been reported by Kantipur daily recently about the inter-party squabbles due to their failure to sort out the new rules of bhagbanda is only the tip of the iceberg of the potential for gross misappropriation of EQ rehabilitation resources nationwide. Therefore, the earthquake relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation must steer clear of the politicians at all levels.
• Despite her overall failures, Nepal has distinguished in two areas in which she remains highly respected around the world. The first is the restoration of our forest wealth. While the unbridled run on our forest after its nationalization in 1957 brought Nepal to the brink of desertification by mid-80s, the introduction of Forest User Groups in 1988 changed the scenario entirely. As things stood, it took Nepal three decades to wreck its forest and only one to rebuild it. Same thing with the health sector. With the introduction of Mothers' groups in 1988, Nepal came up from the bottom of the pile to take its seat at the top of the table in world ranking in meeting the MDGs in child survival and maternal mortality reduction. While China is the country that developed fastest in the world, in these two areas, Nepal even surpassed China. That is the power of participation of the users themselves at the grassroots.
• While the long-term solution to Nepal's problem lies in redefining its democracy that assures transparency and accountability at all levels of governance, it would be inappropriate to try to make it the central at the time of this national crisis. However, given the impending monsoon after about a month and the need for quick reconstruction and rehabilitation, there is no alternative to
involving the victims themselves in that task.
• My end suggestions were:
De-politicise the whole process of relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation. In order to do that, the Presidentof the Republic should step in, like he has done in the case of Churia Forests, and take over the task in the affected district. The President should set up an independent expert committee to guide him.
Secondly, use the Nepal Army that has been doing a fantastic job so far to carry on the relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation
programme in the communities.
Thirdly, and most importantly, form user groups of the victims themselves in the communities to carry out their own relief, reconstruction and rehabilitation. There are sufficient number of engineers in the country and with the goodwill of the international community, arranging and transporting the materials should not pose a problem. This would be surest and quickest way to help EQ victims recover from the disaster.
At the very end, I further added that there has been some important foreign nudging for some important decisions by the President. In order to ensure effectiveness and pace to the EQ recovery programme, external powers should make it be known that the Presidential takeover may be a good idea too.
Bihari Krishna Shrestha
