April’s Sizzle and February’s Chill in Kathmandu

(Courtesy: Dr. Saubhagya Shah)

There must be something in our national psyche that makes the Nepali mood swing so swiftly between irrational exuberance and incorrigible pessimism. The present moment is no different. Those who joined the April 2006 uprising to overthrow the royal regime and those who subsequently assumed the reigns of power exuded irrepressible confidence and spoke of nothing short of righting all the wrongs and writing up a brave New Nepal. Meanwhile, the ordinary citizenry, having suffered through such promises in the past, was always somewhat wary while those who had lost out in the royal debacle were understandably forlorn. Come February 2007, the national mood was back to self-doubts and despondency, a far cry from April’s giddy height. There was more to this year’s St. Valentine’s Day chill in the Valley than just the freak snowfall in sixty-two years.

Although not much water has flowed past Bagmati bridge at Thapathali, much has happened politically since the April upheaval. Standing upon the royal ruins, the third parliament was reinstated, Hindu Nepal was declared secular, the victors of the April uprising formed a coalition government, the Maoists signed a much awaited shanti samjhauta with the new government, an interim constitution was promulgated and an enlarged interim legislature assembled that included the Maoist rebels. These were not insignificant developments and generated immense enthusiasm for the future. The whole state machinery, the political parties, civil society, and the regional and ethnic forums were beginning to focus their collective energies to the task of holding the elections to the constituent assembly. For a moment it seemed as if paradise was within our grasp and we could all live together happily ever after.

Alas, except for the small matter of the South that had somehow been forgotten during the celebrations. The sudden passion, mayhem, and violence that engulfed the eastern Terai not only drove away the January sheetlahar but also left April’s triumphant paradigm in tatters. There was the pitiful sight of mighty leaders and their auxiliary intelligentsia first dismissing the Madhesi uprising as the handiwork of a handful of miscreants; then threatening to use the force of arms to suppress the raging inferno supposedly instigated by the fundamentalists and reactionaries; and, finally making a 180-degree turn to embrace the same revolt as their own, all within the span of a week! Hubris had met its match, and is now groping for a rationale, a cohering narrative to piece together the impossible pieces of thought and action, rhetoric and reality suddenly unhinged and exposed by the Southern salvo.

While it is only understandable that the eight-party ruling coalition should differ on their ideological intonation and policy grammar, they have displayed an overwhelming consensus on the nature of the malaise that has been afflicting the Nepali nation. Over the years, especially during the past year, the “238-year old monarchy” has been identified as the single most unremitting evil that has plagued the country politically, economically, and culturally. According to this explanatory matrix, subscribed not only by the political parties and civil society formations but also endorsed by the Indian establishment and the West, this country can not hope for salvation as long as the author of the unitary state and the “feudal” Hindu culture - the House of Gorkha - is not done away with.

If this is the considered and principled conclusion of the victors of the April uprising, what is delaying the declaration of a Nepali republic? What the King offered on April 24 after 19-days of urban uprising was an unconditional surrender: the crown has already put its head on the chopping block. It is now up to the victors to carry their conviction to its logical conclusion and swing the axe to clear the last hurdle and then get off the high horse, roll up their sleeves, and get on with the real task of creating jobs, health care, and education for the masses. Enough pulpit pyrotechnics: people need bread, not just circuses.

As the Speaker of the legislature has reminded the parties on several occasions, the parliament that has been resurrected on the strength of the revolt has unlimited powers, including the one to terminate monarchy permanently. If this is the political reality, the constituent assembly might turn out to be another dogmatic fetish that serves no practical purpose. When the interim parliament can write any constitution or law, the proposed constituent assembly election is likely to turn out to be nothing more than the proverbial cat - an expensive one at that - tied to the shradda post. What can it possibly accomplish which the existing legislature cannot do?

Since the communist and the liberal parties that have passionately espoused the anti-monarchy line have a complete control over the 330-member interim parliament, a proposal for a federal republic or any other restructuring that is deemed fit will sail through with an absolute majority...unless of course if the money is not really where the mouth has been.

After all the republican fire and brimstone on the streets, it was rather uncharacteristic of the new regime to defer monarchy’s fate to the rather nebulous “first meeting of the Constituent Assembly.” Even more redundant is the recent amendment to the Interim Constitution that allows the interim legislative parliament to declare a republic if the King is found to be “seriously” engaged in obstructing the yet to be announced Constituent Assembly elections. If the main crime is already established, what kind of a system waits for a potential misdemeanor in the future to proceed with the prosecution?

The ambivalence and ambiguities are encoded, perhaps unwittingly, in the 2006 accord itself that was signed between the seven party government and the Maoists. The historic deal was not christened shanti sahamati - peace agreement or shanti sandhi (peace treaty) but as shanti samjhauta, meaning peace compromise or compromised peace. Does the choice of words convey that the deal was a negative convenience for both parties rather than a positive consensus? The interpretive slippage between compromise and agreement perhaps reveals something about the quality of the new peace. Interestingly, all the English renderings continue to mask this compromise as an agreement, even though that is not samjhauta’s meaning, nor intention.

Thus, within a year of the great janaandolan II, the national mood is back to self-doubts and despondency. The sense of victory and epochal accomplishment has been overshadowed by anger and accusation, suspicion and cynicism in every quarter. Interestingly, nowhere is this sense of foreboding shriller than among the main actors who coalesced to defeat the old regime and institute the New Nepal.