The Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde of Nepali Media

(Courtesy: Mr. Ripley)

For every two pieces of cogent commentary, C.K. Lal seems compelled to produce a bile-laced piece that leaves once wondering if he is the media equivalent of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Railing from Jakarta in his latest piece for the Nepali Timeshttp (nepalitimes.com/issue/375/StateoftheState/14198), he rolls-up the entire Asian experience into a pat conclusion, declaring with typical condescending certainty:

“The pathologies of Indonesian politics can all be traced to a naïve belief in the doctrine that mixing political passivity and technocratic excellence will foster economic growth. It may have done so for a brief period and it may work in a test-tube experiment like Singapore, but in Indonesia the resulting prosperity failed to lift all boats.”

He later feels compelled to then point fingers at some of the best men Nepal has produced:

We too had our version of the Berkley Mafia when graduates of western universities were brought back to Nepal by King Mahendra and King Birendra in the sixties through the seventies: Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, Pashupati Shamsher, Prakash Chandra Lohani, Mohammed Mohsin, Mohan Man Sainju, Harka Gurung. Former Finance Minister Yadav Prasad Pant who died this week was also one of them.

Lal couldn’t hold a candle to any of these men. What we can tell about Mr. C.K. Lal from both his writings in the Nepali Times or his longer (and unreadably boring) pieces in the leftist elite-masturbation-fest, Himal South Asian Magazine is that he is virulently anti-Western (read anti-American), anti-capitalist, and an anti-globalist. So what we get from him is a characteristic petty meanness and condescension of the lefist elite. No need to explain or make a very persuasive case when one simply evokes the typical leftist dogma.

The point Mr. C.K. Lal appears to be trying make in his latest piece is that countries that have opted to pursue a policy limiting political freedom while improving the quality of various institutions have failed to foster economic growth. It failed in Indonesia and this policy evidently failed in Nepal – under what he describes as Western-educated individuals (The Berkeley Mafia).

This certainly is not the case in China. A country of severely limited political freedoms but increasingly capitalist behaviour, economic growth has been astounding. But then what explains India’s lackluster economic growth under Lal’s simplistic template? Despite being a politically active country, India was an economic basket-case under socialist policies until the reforms of 1992 and continues to lag behind China.

Then let’s put the men characterized as the Berkeley Mafia in proper historic context.

First, they appear to represent a remarkable cross-section of Nepali Society. Indeed, that generation, despite coming from the dark ages of the Ranas achieved remarkable benchmarks in each of their respective fields. They were all meaningfully employed or could have had careers completely outside of politics if they chose. All were idealistic in their youth and believed they were doing the right thing for Nepal.

Second, they led during a time when there were few democracies and capitalism still had not figured as the leading model of economic growth. The Cold War was raging and the Soviet Union’s economic model had not yet been exposed for the farce it had become. They can be forgiven if they followed policies that did not yield the desired results.

Third, being well-educated and sober men who believed more in working within the system, they did not follow the same paths as Madhab Kumar Nepal, Girija Koirala, or Sher Bahadur Deuba. Unlike the “Berkeley Mafia”, our politicians are boobies who have contributed little to Nepali politics beyond their ability to agitate . It would be hard to find a cogent paper, speech, actions or other evidence of contributions to economic growth by our political leaders.

Perhaps Mr. C.K. Lal believes that Nepal’s economic growth rests on wild political activism and little else. Hopefully, the next several commentaries from Mr. C.K. Lal will come from the Dr. Jekyll in him and that Mr. Hyde takes a long break in Indonesia.

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http://nepaliperspectives.blogspot.com/2007/10/problem-with-nepali-political-civil.html

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