The Khukuri, Talwar Guns and Goons have unfortunately emerged as bizarre symbols in Nepalese politics and queer tools of ethnic mobilization in an atmosphere of highly competitive party and monarchy politics. Depending on one’s political convictions, the current situation in Nepal may be seen as liberation from tyranny.
From a more detached point of view, the current situation in Nepal looks like another example of state implosion, comparable to Iraq, Somalia, Colombia or Afghanistan, where the central political institutions have crumbled as a consequence of ethnic conflict. Violence is a common means used by people and governments around the world to achieve political goals. Many groups and individuals believe that their political systems will never respond to their political demands. As a result they believe that violence is not only justified but also necessary in order to achieve their political objectives. By the same token, many governments around the world believe they need to use violence in order to intimidate their populace into acquiescence.
The terror practiced at Rautahat with dread and disappointment and possibly will spread in other districts. Without a doubt, geopolitics was instrumental in motivating carnage in Rautahat to attack the innocents. The brutality and bloodshed, at the instance of the police force is now bulleting of humble humanity. The consequent bloodshed demands urgent attention and commands the arrest the frequency of bloodshed policy and barbarity to strengthen democracy and republican set up. The political power of ethnicity and religion is most probably going to be reinforced, not weakened when democratization takes on momentum in the coming months.
In a plural society such as Nepal the state generally faces demands from various caste, ethnic, religious and gender groups for social justice. Amongst such groups, the Madhises and indigenous are treated as deserving cases for historical reasons and on this, therefore, a national consensus has emerged. There is no agreement among the political parties as far as the ‘fair justices definition’ are concerned. Yet as the demands on their behalf for inclusion in the affirmative action categories have assumed serious political dimensions, the parties and the country are under pressure to respond politically as and when the demands become persistent.
Any democratic society faces the challenge of harmonising two essentially contradictory political concepts--one, equality before the law irrespective of religion, caste, creed, race, and gender, and the other, social justice at the cost of the same commitment for equality before the law.
The rhetoric of democracy (here referring to all players) amounts to little unless translated into concrete actions like institution building, reducing the huge existing socio-economic inequities, trying to resolve ethnic conflicts and showing a universal commitment to human rights and the rule of law. Socialism or communism or democratism or republicanism is not terrorism, but humanism; and misrule by gun and goons will not be the rule of this transition interim government or any other factions at any cost under any system.
In order to further reduce the risk of a return to autocracy (monarchism), federalism (or autonomy, decentralization, devolution) is seen by many as the “golden way” to reducing ethnic conflict in a sustainable way.
If the culture of politics by bloodshed except with some reservations in transition environment continues, federalism may also provide a platform for radical positions and corresponding counter-reactions and thus lead to a radicalization of ethnic politics in new forms, e.g. as an escalating fight between local bodies and federal entity over the distribution of resources keeping in view of examples like the collapse of leading federal structure of the federations of Yugoslavia or Czechoslovakia or the emerging ethnic violence in Iraqi federal structure other than the occupation. Therefore, there is doubt that the republican set up or structure (resources issue) itself is not the panacea for all problems as long as we carry the toxicated legacy and contaminated leadership for any system to form in coming days. We are witnessing that the majority of Nepalese are still lamenting for
‘Political Hurrah……’ even after eleven months of revolution-II.
By: Freedom Lover can be reached at email:iskillsdc@gmail.comfor comments.
