Nepal Political Diary -I

What are the reasons for the Maoist victory in the constitutional assembly elections in Nepal? What motivated the Nepali people to vote for such a decisive change? Having voted for the Maoists in such large numbers, endorsing their vision of a “naya Nepal”, what are the hopes and aspirations of the Nepali people? What are the main structural features of this most underdeveloped country in the world? To find out, the author, along with three friends, travelled through the hills and plains of Nepal over a fortnight in April-May after the CA elections. This is the first of a three-part diary of the visit.



Nepal is in the midst of a political revolution. After years of rule by the anachronistic institution of monarchy, a jan andolan in 1990-91 resulting in legal political parties, elections, and a parliament within the framework of constitutional monarchy, more than a decade long people's war, a second jan andolan and the restoration of parliament with the Maoists on board, the constituent assembly (CA) elections held recently marked a distinct break with the past, soon to usher in a republic [Nepal was declared a republic by the CA on May 28] and promising a “new Nepal”. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)'s [CPN(M)’s] emphatic victory in the CA elections marked a historic first: the election of an avowedly Maoist party to power, (soon to be) at the helm of a coalition government.



It is in these interesting times in Nepal when the country’s future is being crafted that I was motivated to commence a fortnight long visit to the hinterlands and urban areas of Nepal. I wanted to unravel the reasons for the Maoist victory, learn about what motivated the Nepali people to vote for such a decisive change, and be educated about the structural features of one of the most underdeveloped nations in the world. In hindsight after my return, all of these quests have been fulfilled and I bring back the immense hopes shared by the citizens of this new republic in the making, their aspirations for a truly sovereign, self-sustainable, just and respectable life for themselves.

This writer was accompanied by friends, Aparajay, Caesar Basu and Moggallan Bharti who were research scholars at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). All of us shared one common understanding: alleviation of the plight of the teeming masses of the third world is possible only by concerted people's agency and the experience of Nepal corroborated this view. We decided to travel the width of Nepal from west to east and follow the path of learning by interacting with the people first and their leaders/representatives later in Kathmandu and craft a political diary wrought out of these experiences.



Owing to reasons of logistics, we entered Nepal through different routes. While my friends from the JNU decided to enter Nepal from the west through Mahendranagar and reach Nepalgunj, I ventured to enter Nepal through the Rupaidiha border post in Uttar Pradesh leading to Nepalgunj, on April 28. From Rupaidiha, I used a cycle rickshaw to enter Nepalgunj through the main Surkhet road which seemed to be the arterial road in the town. My first impressions were that Nepalgunj was like any other town in India. On the trip in the rickshaw to the hotel, there were three chowks. Each of these had a statue right in the middle of the road; the first one was that of BP Koirala, the second was that of Pushpa Lal Shrestha (a prominent communist leader of the past) and the third one was a mere podium. A little asking and I was told that the king's statue had been broken off the podium during the days of the emergency. It was a nice introduction to the republic-in-the-making. Nepalgunj was home to four CA constituencies, two of which were won by the Madheshi Janadhikar Forum (MJF) and the rest were won by the Maoists.

The first of a series of meetings with various individuals was with a civil society representative and advocate, Shalikram Sapkota. From the look of the posters stuck on the walls of his office, one could gather that he was close to and somehow associated with the Maoists. Two posters dated in the early 2000s pointed out starkly that the Indian army's meddling in Nepal must be resisted. He explained that he had been a civil society activist against the royalty since the days of the emergency and had also been incarcerated and tortured by the police during the time. He was currently pleading a case for a bank manager, involving bad loans to rich individuals who had siphoned off the money and for which the bank employee was being blamed. The fact that both the bank manager and the advocate were supporters of the Maoists was important to me, as it explained that there indeed was a multi-class backing for the leftists.

Shalikram then led me to meet up with Narayan Jung 'Peter', a regional bureau member of the Maoists in Nepalgunj. Peter was having a talk with a Madhesi (dwellers of the Terai) activist, before we joined the conversation. The first question I asked Peter was how were they going to manage the Madhesi identity issue (Nepalgunj was very much part of the Terai) and implement radical economic reform (land reform, in particular) when the Madhesi elite has been elected in such large numbers through the MJF in the Terai? Peter asserted that political and other forms of representation for the Madhesi identities was ab initio a Maoist demand and that they were glad that this would be coming to fruition even if the leadership of many of the Madhesis in the constituent assembly were from the MJF and the Terai Madhesi Loktantrik Party (TMLP). He however was not forthcoming about the reform question and was also quite defensive about the clashes with Madhesi parties in the past (including in Nepalgunj), saying that there were some mistakes committed. Sensing that Peter perhaps was giving too many diplomatic answers on the Madhesi issue (due to the presence of the activist), I asked for a separate meeting the next day and he agreed to the same.



I then interacted with a member of the UN mission in Nepalgunj, Anuraj Jha. Anuraj had a degree in conflict management and had been deployed as a United Nations monitor during the elections (the roads in Nepalgunj were dotted with United National Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) and aid agency vehicles, suggesting the substantial presence of international organisations). The first question to him was about the reports of intimidation and malpractices by the Maoists during the elections. Anuraj however refused to accept that this was the primary reason for the Maoists' victory, saying that the sheer electoral dominance of the Maoists across the breadth of Nepal meant that there were other factors at play. The electoral strategy of alliances with different sections of the population, the reach of the electoral campaign machinery and the wide support of the poorest for the Maoists were the significant reasons for their victory, he emphasised. At the same time, he did not foresee the Maoists implementing “radical” policies and was convinced that they were sufficiently contained by the electoral process and by the game of power sharing in the mainstream polity. Anuraj himself had been touched by the experience of witnessing poverty in the remote areas during the few chopper trips he had made and was not surprised by the electoral result.

Confident Maoists

A free flowing conversation with Peter followed the next day, where he suggested in no uncertain terms that the Madhesi issue was being raked up by provocateurs from India and that the major challenge for the Maoists when in power would be the issue of federalism. He mentioned that it was not true that the Maoists did not enjoy support in the Terai, as a significant number of people in the mid-west (to which Nepalgunj belonged), including dalits and landless labourers had voted for the Maoists. The MJF's claim of a single Madhes federal state constituted of plain areas adjoining India (ek Madhes ek Prades) was not feasible as the tharu community preferred their own sub-federal unit as did others in the east. He also asserted that the Maoists will mobilise Madhesis not just on the basis of ethnic identity, but as communists and convince them on the necessity of a left ruled naya (new) Nepal. Peter's answers to every question were long drawn and drew a lot from history. When I suggested that the identity issue would be a hindrance to them in attempting radical land reform in the Madhesi areas, he emphatically said that such challenges were but to be expected and that the Maoists were committed to address them from within the system of multi-party democracy and federal republicanism. Peter asserted that the Maoists had seen bigger challenges during the people’s war and that their ideological commitment to multi-party democracy had evolved from a wide ranging discussion among themselves about the failures of other communist movements across the world. The Maoists therefore were better prepared to develop the correct praxis for the 21st century and would capably handle the identity issue by presenting their agenda to the people and mobilising them based on sound political consciousness, he said.

Madhesi Angst

After wrapping up my conversation with Peter, I sought to meet the local MJF leadership in the region. The MJF had won 2 out of the 4 seats in the area and one of the winners was Sarvadev Ojha, a former bureaucrat. On being asked about the agenda of the MJF, Ojha pointed out the disparity between the people of pahadi and madhesi origins. From politics to bureaucracy, the army and other institutions, madhesi representation was much lower in comparison to the overweening influence of people of pahadi origins, he said. It was therefore necessary to constitute a separate federal unit for the “long suffering” madhesis and hence the demand for a single Madhes, an autonomous state in a federal Nepal. To the question as to what kind of autonomous state and federal system was being demanded by the MJF, Ojha replied that the party had studied three different federal systems, the Swiss, US and the Indian models. They decided to demand a model on the lines of US federalism with external relations and defence as the only areas under central jurisdiction.

When asked as to how different their conception of autonomy was from that of Maoists, Ojha went on a tirade against communism and emphasised that the MJF wanted a liberal model of governance. On the question of welfare and land reform, Ojha was non-committal. Land reform was “not necessary”; the development of agriculture through scientific means and through investment was sufficient, he argued. He said that the MJF will not accept anything less than a “single autonomous unit for the Madhesis” and dismissed the Maoist claim that significant sections of people within the Terai (such as the tharus) were opposed to the MJF's version of federalism.

It was quite clear that the confrontation between the MJF and the Maoists in the constituent assembly will be on the appropriate model of federalism, and on the question of land refrom. It would require a complicated struggle to win over sections among Madhesis to implement basic land reform measures, let alone “land to the tiller”, considering that the MJF represented the interests of the big landowners.

Mainstream Parties Sidelined

As I strolled around the streets of Nepalgunj, one thing was palpably clear. The underclass and blue collar working sections of the city had more or less voted for the Maoists. From rickshaw pullers to street vendors, the Maobadi triumph was the common refrain. The striking aspect of this refrain was the enormous expectations of the Maoists by these people. Voters from these sections clearly had aspirations of education for their children, jobs that provide a decent living, and dignity. They had voted for decisive change as they were unimpressed with the mainstream parties, the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) [UML]. How was it that the NC, an established party that had virtually decided the course of Nepali democracy and had acted as a stabilising and guiding force, performed so poorly in these areas? This was the question that I had to put to the NC leadership in Nepalgunj.

The NC office was right adjacent to the branch office of the Nepali Chambers of Commerce in Nepalgunj. Krishna Man Shrestha was their district chief, but I got to talk more to other local leaders of the party at the party office. A senior leader of the party in Nepalgunj explained, in flawless English, the reasons for the NC's defeat. They were indeed defeated, but their role as the “premier” party in Nepal will not change, he emphasised. When prodded to explain the reasons for their local defeat, he mentioned that the Maoists had used extra-legal means and that the choice of candidates by the NC was incorrect. I asked about the NC's stance on the monarchy and the leader was evasive, as were others in the office. They emphasised that they merely wanted a ceremonial role for the monarch similar to the position held by the Indian president, but were non-committal about the future role of the discredited king. It was obvious that this pro-king stance of theirs had gone against them at the hustings. The NC would also ensure that no section is discriminated against in the new constitution. When asked as to how they would counter the radical policies of the Maoists and leftists (the UML), the leaders mentioned that the NC itself was a “democratic socialist” party but would want to manage industry-labour and landowner-land tiller relations rather than take sides. Sensing that the leader's answers betrayed a reformist, conservative orientation, one of the party members sitting close by asserted that the NC was also part of militant struggles for democracy in the past and its legacy as a party for democracy would endure no matter who was the ruling party in Nepal. It was a fair comment that underlined the seeping in of democratic consciousness among Nepal's political parties even at the local level.

No “left” love lost

The next stop was at the UML party office. This party was touted as the winner in the elections, but did poorly, coming third. I met a losing candidate, Shamsuddin Siddiqui, at the party's sprawling office (it was the most posh of all the party offices in the town). I expected Siddiqui to be optimistic of a leftist consolidation of power in Nepal and my first question was related to this. Siddiqui on the contrary turned out to be the most virulent critic of the Maoists among all political figures whom I met in Nepalgunj. He went on and on about the “unruly lumpens” of the Young Communist League (YCL) and how the election victory was “robbed” by the Maoists. He had nothing but scorn for the Maoists and ruled out any understanding between the UML and the Maoists. As regards local level politics in Nepalgunj, he affirmed that the loss that he had suffered was due to extra-legal tactics used by the Maoists and unscrupulous campaigning by the Madhesi parties. He rejected both the Maoist and the Madhesi version of federalism suggesting that the Maoists were playing identity politics despite being leftists and that it was impossible to accept the one Madhes demand, for there was nothing much in common between groups such as the Muslims in Nepalgunj and other plains dwellers, say in Birgunj. There was such bitterness in the UML leaders in Nepalgunj that it was indeed going to be difficult for any leftist consolidation in the country, I surmised.

Roaming Around Nepalgunj

On the streets of Nepalgunj, it is difficult to find many motorised vehicles and any kind of efficient public transport. Indian currency, as in other parts of Nepal, is used widely and the shopkeepers could instantly convert any amount of Nepali currency into Indian rupees and vice versa. Despite being part of the Terai, Nepalgunj was home to a diverse population with significant numbers of Muslims, tharus and other national minorities. Symbols of royalty were seen only on the currency notes; even better off hotels and restaurants were not displaying any kind of royal insignia (either of the deceased former monarch or the current one).

In the meantime, my friends had arrived after an arduous journey through Mahendranagar in the far west. Mid-way through their bus trip, they were asked to board another vehicle, because the bus operators felt that there were not many people to make the trip viable. From somewhere in the far-west region to Nepalgunj, they had to travel in a make-shift transport vehicle, with goats for company. What struck them about the far-west region alongside the east-west highway (an arterial highway built by the Indian government that connects the western and eastern parts of Nepal and runs parallel to the Terai region) was the stark nature of underdevelopment in these areas. We had read somewhere that the major political strongholds of the Maoists were in the hilly western areas of Nepal and here is where we needed to understand the reasons for the entrenched support that the CPN(M) enjoyed, as well as the yearnings of the citizens of these areas. Our next stop was in Rolpa district, considered to be the strongest support base of the Maoists, and where most of the major advances in the people’s war took place. Rolpa was also where the Maoists had built parallel institutions in “base areas” high in the hills.

Nepalgunj was an unremarkable town, and we did not particularly get a feel of being in a different nation. It was only after venturing outside Nepalgunj, into the inner Terai, and from there, to the heights of the hilly villages of Rolpa did we sense a new experience of the Nepal we had set out to see: hilly, beautiful, rugged and bristling with hope of change.

(To be continued)

Vive la République of Nepal

Editorial written for Economic and Political Weekly

The monarchy is dead; long live the secular, federal democratic republic of Nepal.

As expected, right at the first sitting of the newly elected constituent assembly (CA), on May 28 Nepal was declared “an independent, indivisible, secular, inclusive, federal democratic republic with sovereignty and state authority vested in the people”. The proposal was overwhelmingly endorsed by the CA -- 560 legislators voted for and 4 against the resolution. This marked the demise of 240 years of rule by the Shah dynasty. True to their promise made before the elections, the main political actors, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) [CPN (UML)] fulfilled the demand for a republic as soon as the CA was convened.

After having establishing a parliamentary form of democracy in 1990 through a people's movement, it took years of political uncertainty and instability, a people's war, and a peace initiative uniting mainstream and radical forces to overthrow the remnants of monarchical rule in the country. The formation of the eight party alliance – comprising the mainstream political actors and the Maoists -- was the first step in the isolation of the monarchy. Over a period of three years, following the people's movement to restore democratic rule in the aftermath of the complete usurpation of power by Gyanendra (the last king), a gradual shift of power away from the monarchy took place. This involved steps such as shifting ceremonial and cultural privileges, as also, importantly, control of the army to the democratic head (the prime minister), declaration of a secular character for the nation in the interim constitution and building a consensus among the eight party alliance to convert Nepal into a republic once the CA was convened.

Much credit has to go to the winners of the CA polls, the Maoists, who identified the monarchy as the fountain-head of a feudal order at the root of many a misery in the under-developed nation. Gradually, other prominent political parties also accepted the inevitable transition to a republic, due to the force of public opinion, moving away from their original endorsement of Nepal as a constitutional monarchy. Relentless public mobilisation by the Maoists and republican sections of the mainstream parties, as well as the notoriety and unpopularity of Gyanendra, ensured that nearly all political parties fell in line on the demand for a republic. The lone dissenting voice in the CA came from legislators belonging to the Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (Nepal) – a group representing ruling class elements from the erstwhile panchayat era and which was part of the dubious government propped up by the disgraced Gyanendra after he had dissolved parliament.

The remarkable aspect about this transition was the way in which the road to a republic virtually became a fait accompli once the Maoists were integrated into the mainstream of the polity. Yet, significant challenges still remain for the polity in Nepal in laying the foundations of the secular, federal democratic republic. Even as the constituent assembly was convened, problems were engulfing the process of formation of a new government, with the mainstream parties unable to accept the preponderant position of the Maoists. Concerns still remain about the maintenance of consensus among the eight party alliance along with the Madhesi parties over the nature of the constitution that would have to be written within two years through the deliberations of the constituent assembly.

A primary sticking point would be the nature of the “federal” component of the republic. While the Maoists have envisioned Nepal to be confederated into autonomous regions delineated on the basis of ethnic and linguistic identity, the Madhesi parties have demanded an autonomous state carved out within Nepal based on geographical difference (Madhes state in the Terai plains). The NC and CPN(UML) have however not spelt out their bases for federal re-alignment even as they have expressed opposition to both the Maoist and Madhesi parties' formulations on federalism. Writing an inclusive constitution would also be a challenge, but the mandating of consensus by the election verdict which was arrived at through a semi-proportional representation process has ensured that the era of exclusionary politics dominated by the monarchy has ended. Other bottlenecks remain as well, but over time, with the inevitable bargaining over posts, an accommodation over some issues is expected to resolve the remaining impediments to formation of the new government. At the same time, a historic opportunity exists for left and progressive forces in Nepal to underwrite a pro-poor constitution, owing to the sheer strength of the left in the CA.

All the challenges in government formation and constitution formulation notwithstanding, the achievement of a secular, federal democratic republic in a predominantly Hindu and underdeveloped nation is truly remarkable. The Nepali polity and the public have demonstrated that concerted peoples' agency could ultimately overcome the huge challenges posed by the feudal monarchy which was entrenched through appeals to so-called “divine rights” as well as international support. The imperative of establishing a progressive political and economic system with sovereignty and state authority vested in the people still remains as the constitution writing process for the republic commences.

Real change needed for Obama victory

Article written for The Post

After a long drawn out struggle through the primary process for the nomination of the presidential candidate from the Democratic Party, Barack Obama finally ended up with a majority of pledged delegates and super-delegates to overcome his powerful rival Hillary Clinton and thus clinched the nomination. The campaign saw unprecedented mobilisation of newer voters to the primary process, with both the candidates offering something new on their part: the ability to create history. Hillary Clinton enthused millions of women voters to turn up and put their hands together to anoint the first woman presidential candidate in the US, while Barack Obama’s magnetic campaign based on “change” and a charismatic call for rising above partisanship, plus his rich racial and cultural family background, saw a surfeit of young people, African-American voters and liberal graduates flock to vote for him in droves.



The unprecedented show of support by people in the Democratic primaries mirrored the popular dissatisfaction with the current Republican regime led by George W. Bush, whose reign as president over a nation in war has brought about an astonishing fiscal deficit, a financial crisis wrought out of sub-prime loaning schemes, unprecedented war budgets, hundreds of lost American lives, lakhs of Iraqi deaths and a destabilised energy and food environment that has threatened to wreck the world.

It would have been a no-brainer for a change from this apocalypse of a Republican administration to a fresh and energetic Democratic administration led by Barack Obama who has defeated his formidable opponent, Mrs. Clinton. More tellingly, the Republican nominee John McCain has promised to continue in an even more hawkish manner the pigheaded foreign policies of the Bush government, and has offered no substantial change from the completely flawed and pro-rich economic policy of the incumbent government. Anyone who would have watched the political and economic story of the US from outside would have been convinced of a smooth and easy change in government. Surprisingly, neither is Barack Obama’s becoming a president a slam dunk surety nor is the hope of substantial change in the US’ overall foreign and economic policy a guarantee. Why is this so?

The answer to the above question lies in some objective and some subjective issues in the US. Let us look at the latter first. The long drawn out primary battle involving Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama has hurt the Democratic Party more than creating any chance of a strong party. Clinton, in particular, was guilty of using underhanded and perverse tactics to try to capture the nomination that was virtually awarded to Obama after his string of victories in state after state in February. In desperation, Clinton started using the woe begotten but effective cards of race and class, as she pitched a theme that “hard working Americans, white Americans” was uncomfortable with Barack Obama’s candidature. Obama’s strength of a composite cultural background was pitched forward to threaten an already paranoid American public with fears being created about his immediate forefathers’ religion in subtle manners.

Then there was the issue of questioning his faith as well as his guide toward Christianity, his pastor. As videos surfaced of his pastor’s remarks about the deep fears and insecurities of the African Americans toward both the US’ foreign as well as domestic policies, Obama was forced to answer for the utterances of his pastor mentor. In a stellar speech, that addressed the race issue in the US frontally, Obama managed to link his message of non-partisanship and inspired leadership with the contents of the fears expressed in his pastor’s speech even as he distanced himself from the beliefs that were expressed in the same. Obama, in the end, came out of the controversy scathed but his honour and message intact. Clinton could not pounce on this predicament of her opponent’s but she sure was able to arrest the landslide that was threatening to pitchfork Obama as not only the sure-fire nominee but also the presumptive President in the forthcoming elections.

With the race dragging on, the latent insecurities of the rural and working class American voters were out in the fore and this decided that Obama could not win decisively once these voters gravitated toward Clinton. But the saving grace for Obama was the fact that the Democratic Party establishment never gave up on him and support trickled down to him slowly, and later in droves as it became more and more clear that he was not going to be surmounted by Clinton. On the other hand, Clinton did not quite give in either as she twisted and turned the mandate to create a spin that she had the popular vote. The result of all this intense politicking is that there has been a significant polarisation of voters among both the Clinton and Obama supporters, who affirm that they would only vote for their preferred candidate or none at all. No wonder, John McCain has benefited out of this subjective fight within the Democratic Party. It remains to be seen how Hillary Clinton would endeavour to unite the Democratic Party and enthuse her supporters to vote for Obama, even after this prolonged slugfest.

This alone does not explain the relevance of John McCain’s candidature as a formidable one. Objective conditions in the US also form important reasons. There exists a deep right wing shift in American polity that was affected by fear-mongering about the world outside and because of the strong wedding of corporate power and politics. Add to this the heady mix, the strength of the corporate media that refuses to look at the issues from the perspective of the under-privileged, be it the coverage of US’ imperialism in West Asia or even domestic economic battles. Accrued to this is the presence of significant hold of the religious, evangelical trend over peoples’ lives, particularly in the predominantly rural and traditionally conservative areas of the south in the US. All this has explained that the coalition that was forged out of religious conservatives, corporate right wingers, neo-conservatives and which has supported the Republican Party has remained formidable even now.

Barack Obama’s answer to this strength of the Republican Party has been to dilute his own inspirational message of change, by papering over the conservatism with small doses of political correctness. Witness his position on West Asia and militarism for example. A just position for the US would be to stop its interventionist policies and eschew its policy of rejecting multilateral bodies, such as the UN, from playing the primary role in world affairs. But Barack Obama does not promise a clean break from unilateralism or militarism. He offers only to privilege dialogue as a necessary means but refuses to rule out the above. On economic policies, he tries to shake hands both with corporate power and labour by being selectively protective. He promises to strive for universal healthcare for example, but refuses a fully mandated insurance programme, ostensibly not wanting to displease corporate medical insurance vendors. No wonder, such dilly-dallying on coming up with a fully progressive agenda to overcome the right wing polity has meant that despite the inspirational message of Barack Obama, candidates such as Ralph Nader are also in the fray for the presidential elections. Nader, with his impeccable record as a consumer rights activist and articulations on public policy, which are staunchly pro-consumer, pro-people and progressive, is bound to cut into Obama’s vote share unless Obama re-invents himself as the original progressive candidate. Subjectively, if Obama could somehow change his domestic agenda to incorporate Clinton’s and John Edwards’ ideas for mandated health care insurance, it would be easier for him to get the former’s undiluted support for his candidacy.

Thus, latest opinion polls suggest that despite the overwhelming freshness in Obama’s campaign and the unprecedented voter turnouts for the Democratic Party, Obama and McCain are neck and neck in popular support. Obama has to not only continue his refrain that McCain offers no substantive change from the Bush years and is cut from the same old conservative mould, but also use his inspirational message of change to formulate a thorough break from the conservatism and forge a new progressive consciousness that would encourage the American voters to vote directly for him.

Deepening the Social Divide

editorial written for Economic and Political Weekly

The BJP’s discordant and opportunistic politics is only deepening the social divide in Rajasthan.

Hardly did the trauma of the tragic blasts in Jaipur abate when Rajasthan was up in flames following militant protests by the gurjars being put down with a heavy hand by resort to largely unwarranted and excessive police firing, leading to a death toll higher than during a similar agitation a year ago. There is a clear lack of will on the part of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led state government, despite the party’s election promise in 2003, to recommend the provision of scheduled tribe (ST) status to the community. Police firing against agitators have killed 39 people (as we go to press) and injured many more, provoking an escalation of the agitation and its spread to the national capital region and other parts of north India. The agitators are now demanding nothing less than the immediate implementation of their demand for the state government to recommend the bestowal of ST status to the gurjars.




Last year, the Rajasthan government led by chief minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia had found a way to mitigate the crisis by constituting a committee to address the issue. The justice Chopra committee recommended an economic package worth Rs 280 crore to address the question of the backwardness of the gurjars, but their leaders (representing organisations such as the Gurjar Arakshan Sangharsh Samiti, led by Kirori Singh Bainsla) have rejected the same and have reiterated their demand for the declaration of ST status for the community in Rajasthan. Currently Gurjars are categorised as other backward classes (OBCs) in the state. They justify their demand to be provided reservations as a ST owing to associations of sections of the community (“van gurjars”) with pastoral work and as semi-nomadic cattle herders. Another reason is the fact that gurjars in Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh are already categorised under the ST category. However, the inclusion of gurjars in Rajasthan as scheduled tribes is problematic as the ST category as mentioned in the Constitution's fifth schedule is defined by certain specific and identifiable characteristics such as lifestyle, culture, inaccessibility and backwardness, and not just economic underdevelopment.

Another motivation for their demand has been the fact that the BJP led National Democratic Alliance government led by Atal Bihari Vajpayee had deemed the jat community in Rajasthan as OBCs. Inclusion of jats in the OBC category crowded out representation for the gurjars from the reservation pie. As mentioned, the BJP had also promised ST status for the gurjars before the Rajasthan assembly elections in 2003, but its subsequent lack of will to implement this electoral promise has fuelled militant protests by the community. The protests last year were muddied when the party diabolically provoked the meena community (who were provided ST status in 1954) to fight the gurjars. Given this background, the Rajasthan government’s conciliatory proposition to provide 4 to 6 percent reservations by classifying the gurjars as denotified tribes has predictably been rejected by the gurjar leadership.

The high death toll in police firing has only aggravated the problem, and has induced the gurjar leadership to adopt a maximalist position. Offers of talks by the chief minister have been rebuffed, but latest indications are that the gurjar leaders will come to the table. The offer of an economic package can be a starting point but the state government must take pro-active measures in addressing the problems of people traditionally relying on occupations such as pastoral work and dairy farming (many of whom belong to the gurjar community).

Obviously, use of the policy of reservations as a tool for alleviating economic backwardness as well as enhancing representation has proven to be difficult in states like Rajasthan. The garnering of support across various castes by political parties such as the BJP in Rajasthan and the Bahujan Samaj Party in Uttar Pradesh, who have promised reservations for the poor from the upper castes too, has created conditions for competitive caste politics fanning inter-caste clashes and demands for further reservation for other caste groups. It is incumbent upon political parties to reverse this dangerous trend by revisiting the basis on which reservations were formalised as a policy. Reservations cannot be on the basis of the criterion of economic backwardness alone. The policy has to be targeted towards gradually rendering the caste hierarchy redundant. At the same time, states need to formulate and work upon welfare measures for socio-economic development through policies that are for the betterment of sections across castes so that the incentives for specific groups to make claims for exceptional treatment through reservation do not exist. But where is the progressive democratic movement to bring this about? The BJP’s discordant and opportunistic politics is only deepening the social divide in Rajasthan.

Heady Times in Nepal

It has been a month since the election results for the constituent assembly in Nepal had trickled in. Despite having a time-table for the convening of the constituent assembly and for the smooth adoption of a republican constitution, there have been several bottlenecks that have been created by the mainstream political parties in Nepal. Most of these bottlenecks have to do with the government formation post the polls.


Before the CA elections, the seven party alliance had an agreement that whatever might be the outcome of the polls, the government post the elections, would still be formed by consensus and coalition, i.e. by retaining the existing alliance. But the unexpected victory of the Nepali Maoists has made the other main parties, the Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal (United-Marxist Leninist) -UML to change tack and come up with new formulations for sharing power. From amending the interim constitution to enable a provision for removing the prime minister through simple majority in case of a no confidence motion (the current constitution provides for a 2/3rds conditionality), to arguing for a retention of the executive posts by the major parties as they stand today, the opposition parties have thrown up newer demands to scuttle the smooth Maoist takeover of executive power. Day in and day out, the other parties have articulated newer demands and taken up hostile positions against the Maoists on government formation by flatly refusing to join the government sometime or demanding implementation of their conditions to do so, the other.


What has motivated these parties to go about this new song and dance attitude? Is it plain bitterness and angst at the unexpected loss to the Maoists, part of which was possible because of the Maoist reliance on their “efficient” mass organisations, such as the Young Communist League (YCL)? Or is it a game orchestrated by international players in Nepal who want to prevent the radicalisation of Nepal's political economy owing to Maoist control over the constitution building process? This writer feels that it is a combination of all these factors.


It is necessary to understand the composition, organisation and support base of each of the political parties to find out the reasons for their recent behaviour. The Nepali Congress is an umbrella organisation of various power centers, owing allegiance to different pressure groups both national and international. It's younger crop of leaders are staunchly republican and liberal democratic having fought the monarchy during the emergency to yield to a return back to parliamentarian democracy. Its older crop includes leaders of different factions, the conservative Koirala clan, which includes the prime minister GP Koirala and his daughter Sujata, and Sushil Koirala, and other important faction being that of Sher Bahadur Deuba (who merged his Nepali Congress faction back to the party prior to the elections). The Koirala clan (the most powerful of the factions) is almost the first family of “democratic Nepal” having produced a series of politicians who have dominated the Nepali Congress party. The Deuba faction on the other hand draws support from American backing, it is alleged, and was one of the biggest backers of the anti-Maoist fight using the Nepali Army with help from international backers (read Americans in particular) in the early 2000s. GP Koirala was responsible for the rapprochement between the major parties in Nepal including the Maoists against the monarchy.



In the recent elections however, both Sujata Koirala (who pushed for a constitutional monarchy) and Sushil Koirala lost, while Deuba was able to win both his contested seats. The Deuba faction and other leaders in the Nepali Congress have orchestrated the demand for the Nepali Congress to come out of government, while the Koirala faction prefers to stay in government, afraid that the Maoists will use power to further entrench their support base in Nepal.

For the UML, though, the matter of continuing in government and in the peace process is of a matter of the survival of the UML identity itself. The Maoists have been tapping into the UML support base as well as their cadre base, by virtue of their more militant, organised and radical communist philosophy and stances. The UML, on on the other hand, has become less of a radical force, having been muddled in reformism. Most of the UML senior leadership and cadre have over time, become part of NGO networks, losing their militant edge as communists. The UML suffered the biggest defeat in the recent CA elections and the general secretary of the party, Madhav Kumar Nepal was trounced badly at the hustings at the hands of unfancied Maoist candidates. The continued poaching of UML cadre into the Maoist party has become a threat to the very identity of the UML as a left force in the country. No wonder, this party has thought it necessary to keep its oppositional character against the Maoists intact and hence a majority of the UML leadership and central committee members found it necessary to stay out of government. The UML had also burnt its hands by refusing a left coalition with the Maoists (when the Maoists approached them before elections) with some conservative elements in the party opposing any form of tie-up. All such conservative voices such as K.P. Oli have bitten the dust in the hustings too. The future indeed looks very bleak for the UML.

The shifting of goalposts by these two major parties has also got to be explained by the role of international actors in the Nepali polity. The US has always had an influence on both the royalty and factions of the Nepali Congress in particular during the phase of war against the Maoists. There is still no recognition of the Maoist victory (who continue to be technically branded as terrorists by the US state department) and history suggests that the inordinate influence of the Americans in Nepali internal affairs is driving the unreasonable positions of the mainstream political actors too, as Siddharth Varadarajan of The Hindu newspaper alluded to recently. The Indian government which has the highest leverage over the Nepali internal political process, has still privileged the continuance of the eight party alliance and transition to a republic, but many sources within Nepal have told this author that the Madhesi identity movement which undercut Maoist gains was fomented by covert Indian help, afraid as the Indians are of Maoist supremacy in the Nepali political processes. As for China, the Tibetan cause within Nepal and the American role in it, has made it important for the country to start using its soft power within Nepal too, an influence which was lacking erstwhile.

A heady mix of international intervention through overt and covert means and internal political factors among mainstream parties are therefore in play to muddle the mandate in Nepal for a smooth transition to a new republic based on a consensual welfare based and radical constitution written by a popularly elected constituent assembly. Thus far, the premier victors of the electoral process, the Maoists have renewed their commitment to a consensual approach by willing to work not just with the aforementioned parties,but also the Madhesi parties as they steer the constitutional process forward. There seems to be no dissension within Maoist ranks in this regard. The Maoists suggest that the posturing by the UML and the NC are merely for bargaining over important executive posts.

But if any sabotage of the mandate occurs in the short term, through the heady mix elaborated above, it is possible for sections within the Maoists to want to change strategy and adopt an ultra-left posture which could involve a return to the insurrectionist phase. The mandate for the Maoists was also a vote for peace and stability and such a culmination of events would be tragic for the Nepali people. In the interests of the Nepali people and their future as the citizens of an upcoming sovereign republic, it is necessary for the mainstream political parties to come out off narrow political considerations and malignant international influences, to respect the mandate of the people and forge the path for the building of a new Nepali republican constitution that provides representation for hitherto marginalised groups and steer the political economy away from debilitating poverty and toward self sufficiency.

Article written for The Post

Fuel for Thought

Editorial written for Economic and Political Weekly

Biofuels have their advantages but as the world is learning to its cost that it comes with a burden of its own.

The ongoing energy consumption glut and the simultaneous pressure on depleting fossil fuels in the world have resulted in the coming to the fore of developing energy resources from new sources. Biofuels, the most well known example, are predominantly used as fuel for automotive transportation.



Following the example of Brazil, which has utilised extracted fuel (ethanol) from sugar cane grown in large-scale farms, many developed nations (and developing ones) arepromoting the growth of crops such as corn, sugar cane, beet, maize and jatropha (for biodiesel extraction) to manufacture biofuel. The reason for the new embrace of biofuels is, of course, the rising cost of crude oil and the need to promote energy independence. It is also being promoted on the somewhat dubious promise of reducing emission of greenhouse gases.

Within a couple of years of the global rush to promote biofuels new questions are being asked about the claimed benefits of these fuels and serious negative impacts are coming to light. One of the claimed advantages of biofuels over fossil fuels is that they do not contribute to global warming because of lower carbon emissions. However, considering that quite a large amount of new land needed to grow crops generating biofuels is being obtained by clearing forests, there is likely to be a net negative greenhouse impact in generating and using biofuels. The other major problem that is now becoming apparent in the large-scale production of biofuels is the fallout of the cultivation of crops for fuel rather than food. With the provision of substantial subsidies in the US for production of ethanol, large areas are now being used to grow corn for fuel rather than for food. This phenomenon of diversion of land to grow biofuel generating crops is one of the important reasons for the current surge in global food prices and shortages across the world.

The situation is so dire that the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki Moon recently called for the review of biofuel use policy and urged caution in transfer of land to grow these crops. Researchers, however, argue that second generation biofuels, which extract energy from biomass such as biodegradable waste and are more “climate friendly”, mitigate the limitations of the first generation biofuels that are generated from crops. But research in manufacture of second generation biofuels is still going on and large-scale production has not yet come to fruition.

In India, there are strong economic disadvantages of an ethanol-based biofuel generation scheme. This is because of the fact that sugar cane (from which ethanol is extracted through fermentation) that is produced in the country is adequate, other than in the occasional year, only to meet domestic demand and growing more cane only means the diversion of more scarce water resources for use in cultivation of this water-intensive crop. Hence replication of the Brazilian model of biofuel generation in the country must be ruled out.

It is in this regard that the focus of the biofuel policy in India has been towards utilising an “oil bearing” plant, jatropha carcus, for oil extraction, processing and eventual blending with diesel. The advantage of this plant lies in the fact that it can be grown on cultivable wasteland and requires very little fertiliser and other inputs as normally required in agriculture. The use of jatropha as the primary plant for fuel generation thus obviates the need to transfer crop land for this use. Yet state regulation must ensure that crop switching from food crops to the “fuel crop” does not take place because of the commercial benefits of growing jatropha.

The focus on jatropha was fleshed out in a Planning Commission committee report in 2003 that laid emphasis on utilising large hectares of wasteland in the country to grow jatropha trees. The entire supply chain of jatropha production, oil extraction and transesterification (conversion to biodiesel for ultimate blending with standard diesel), is expected to be an employment generating exercise. Cooperative farming, decentralised extraction units and large-scale processing plants can be used for the creation of an employment-intensive jatropha to biodiesel supply chain.

Challenges still remain in deciding the price band of seeds that will provide a reasonable return to the farmer and yet ensure that the eventual price of the blended fuel product would be economical and comparable to existing diesel prices. Different states in India have already embarked upon drawing up a framework to develop the biodiesel industry. From contract farming to joint ventures, various ways of encouraging jatropha production and biodiesel use are being encouraged.

The biofuel experience thus far indicates that its use poses many challenges. The use of such fuel through reliance on second generation biofuels, and wasteland grown plants such as jatropha with regulation of land use and selection can certainly help reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Yet even such adjustments may not be able to serve a preponderant consumerist economy that increasingly depends on personal transport, which can only keep guzzling natural resources of all kinds.

The beginning of a real revolution

As speculated in these columns some time ago, the impending collapse of the Nepali monarchy now seems a surety. The Nepali people, frustrated by years of a non-performing semi-feudal order, disenchanted with a polity that refused to stand up against the monarchy and could not manage to transfer sovereignty to the people, elected the Communist Party of Nepal(Maoist) in large numbers enough to control a substantial number in a new Constituent Assembly.


The CPN(Maoist) was an a-systemic party, a rebel outfit and an insurgent organisation not very long ago. They had formulated their ‘people’s war’ line based out of the fact that the mainstream polity was not willing to address the basic problem that bothered ‘democratic’ Nepal since 1990, the subordination of the standing army to the royalty instead of the elected representatives in parliament. The CPN(Maoist) used the strategy adopted by the Chinese revolution led by Mao Tse Tung to formulate a path of insurrection that would gain them power in semi-feudal Nepal.

This path was to capture the countryside and encircle the urban areas and gradually smash the state apparatus and gain power overthrowing the existing order. Even though they achieved the former, they were not able to defeat the Royal Nepalese Army convincingly enough to get to power. They were held in check as the mainstream polity still had a relevance and power in the urban areas and also because of the fact that international opinion was widely against them. It was very clear that the path of armed confrontation to capture power had led to a deadlock not just strategically or logistically but also it had gained only so much support from the people. Ergo, the Maoists called for a ceasefire and acknowledged mistakes committed by them during the ‘war phase’ where civilians were also killed in the crossfire and due to some anarchic handling. They even dropped the parallel institutions of governance in the areas they controlled.

The new war was now to be waged to capture the people’s minds and especially of those who were supporting the mainstream political parties, the CPN(UML) and the Nepali Congress (NC). This was bound to be a difficult task, but it was made easier because of the acts of the monarch, Gyanendra. By proclaiming emergency, suspending parliament, usurping all power for himself and trying to set Nepal back to the days of the ‘panchayati’ system, Gyanendra only brought the entire political spectrum against him. This in addition to the fact that he was viewed with wide scorn and anger because of the events that led to the earlier monarch, Birendra and his family’s death, ensured that there was popular mobilisation behind the entire political spectrum.

This opened a vista for the Maoists to gain a foothold in areas not controlled by them. By tying up with the mainstream political parties after a prolonged internal discussion, which led to the acceptance of a multiparty democracy, the Maoists gradually came aboard into the stream of legitimacy. The monarch’s obtuse steps in restoring autocracy alienated him not only from the masses, but made it untenable for even the international community to support him, despite the ‘Maoist bogey’ that he used to garner all powers for himself. Thus Nepal’s powerful neighbour, India, distanced itself from the monarch and lent support to the restoration of democracy.

At this precise time, the Maoists took the lead in arguing for a new constituent assembly that would throw the remnants of monarchy and identified the primary contradiction correctly to the general polity: the fact that the Nepal Army was under the thrall of the monarchy and not the elected political powers. Flowing from this was the logic that it was necessary to transfer the sovereign in entirety to the public and that would entail the creation of a republic that will be governed by a new constitution, itself a product of the deliberations of the representatives of the people themselves. Armed with this strong thesis for change, the Maoists were able to convince the entire political spectrum to unite for a new constituent assembly. These parties together launched a civilian protest for the restoration of democracy and were aided in this by representatives of civil society too.

Buckling under the pressure of the entire mainstream polity as well as the loss of international support because of a series of egregious steps, the monarch had to restore democracy yet again. This time, the government formed was in the nature of a national unity apparatus with all major political parties participating based on a common understanding. A leading role was played by representatives from the Indian polity too in forging this common understanding. The Maoists were now very much coagulated into the ‘liberal democratic setting’ and were even offered positions in government. They pledged simultaneously to keep their militias under lock with UN supervision and agreed to an interim constitution.

Inherent as it is with ‘noisy democracy’, the Maoists had to come down from several positions for example to provide guaranteed representation to all hitherto neglected sections and minorities in Nepal, including those of the plains region (the Terai) in Nepal while getting the interim constitution passed. This resulted in a widespread protest and alienation in the Terai region, which was also stoked by forces close to the monarch and saboteurs in the international community apprehensive of the growing clout of the Maoists. Over a year and a half, many little turmoils characterised the eight party alliance-led government; elections to the constituent assembly were postponed twice and the Maoists themselves were bogged down by the Terai issue and the complications created because of being part in a multi-class/party-based government.

They responded by retaining their powers of threat and persuasion by refusing to rule out a return to the ‘people’s war’ phase and ratcheted up their opposition to all forms of monarchy (constitutional or otherwise). Despite being part of government, they engaged in constant mobilisation and interaction with the masses through a strong network of activists who branched into the remotest part of Nepal and kept making headlines with their demands and arguments. The policy of containment played by other parties (the UML and the NC) did play out initially, but in the end, the Nepali people proved that they need genuine and radical change from the state of affairs that was commanded by the mainstream political parties since 1990.

In essence, this has resulted in the major victory for the hitherto a-systemic communist party of the Maoists in the recently concluded constituent assembly elections. The people have given them a resounding mandate expecting them to harness Nepal’s potential in natural resources for inclusive welfare and to honour political representation for vast teeming masses who were left out in the days of autocracy and controlled democracy. A herculean task still remains for the Maoists as the embers of anger in the Terai have not yet been contained as also the fact that there are seemingly insurmountable challenges to overcome in a predominantly poor and underdeveloped Nepal. They would still have to utilise their popular alliance with the entire political spectrum in formulating the new institutions, which would bring about the process of change and development. The real revolution for them has just begun.

Article written for The Post

The new mystery spinner

Ladies & Gentlemen, the new sensational spinner on the horizon from Spin-land : Sri Lanka:

Ajantha Mendis

Preview:

A veritable victory

The Supreme Court yesterday came up with a judgment to implement 27% reservation for OBCs in Higher Education. Coming from a constitutional bench, the verdict was virtually unimpeachable.

http://srinivasanvr.blogspot.com/2006/05/thoughts-on-reservation-issue.html

For someone who was a conscious activist in favor of reservation (with caveats) when this issue flared up in 2006, the verdict is what I would call a resounding victory. The caveats were clear: a) The reservations must be limited with a creamy layer identification and cut off, b) It must be subject to a periodic review based on yet another caste commission, and c) Reservations must be seen only as one of a package of welfare measures and should not be affecting those who will not avail it. That means, that there should be a increase in public funding for higher education followed by increase in investment such that there is also a hike in the seats in a manner that 27 out of 100 students are not affected as 27 get reservations (meaning a 54% increase in the seat outlay).

Now, a) and b) have been expressly handled by the Supreme Court in clear terms. Both the creamy layer argument and the reconstitution of the OBC reviews have been mentioned as part of the judgement. c) has been assured by the government and has been instituted in a vision document attested by the National Knowledge Commission.

Can one get any more happier? Apparently not.

Hey...but before I keep patting my back for this vision.. I must point out this:

http://www.cpim.org/misc/19900909_obc_mandal_pk.htm . An article by Prakash Karat in the People's Democracy in 1990 on the OBC reservation issue.

Relevant extract:

SUPPORT FOR OBC QUOTAS

Therefore, where the caste status contributes to the backwardness of communities under the OBC category, and where anti-caste movements have not been able to cut across caste barriers and build powerful class-based mass organisations, there is a justification for providing reservations to such communities. This is the basis on which the CPI(M) supported the implementation of the Mandal Commission report since 1981-82 and earlier in States where due to prolonged movements the OBCs were accorded reservations.

NEED FOR ECONOMIC CRITERION

The CPI(M) has, however, qualified this support on two counts. Firstly, it has argued for an economic criterion within the reservation for OBCs. This is a demand distinct from the blanket reservation for the SCs and STs for whom no economic criterion is necessary. Four decades of socio-economic developments and growth of capitalism have led to class differentiation within the caste structure. In the case of OBCs, it is well known that there are a few castes in different States which contain influential strata who own land and other means of production. They are well represented in the political power structure also. The complexity of the OBC problem lies, thus, in the fact that within some communities of the OBCs there is a great economic (inter-caste) differentiation and also there is inter-caste differentiation, i.e., compared to a few better-off communities there are a number of more backward communities.

In order to see that the landless as compared to the richer landed, the poor as compared to the affluent, the more backward as distinct from the strata of the developed -- i.e. the majority of the poor and deprived of these communities -- benefit from reservation, the CPI(M) wants an economic criterion. This criterion need not necessarily be just an income ceiling, but can be a package in which income tax assessments, extent of landholding, professional status of parents, etc., can be taken into consideration.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This was written in 1990, 18 years ago.

Democracy From Above

A royalty-guided democracy takes shape in Bhutan.

Bhutan joined the list of democratic nations with elections to choose candidates for its lower house of parliament, the national assembly, on March 24. Among the royalist parties that contested, the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT) party was the main victor in these polls, winning 45 out of the 47 seats. Jigme Thinley, the leader of the DPT is designated to become the prime minister of the country. The elections were held following a royal decree that persuaded citizens to vote.

Bhutan's transition to democracy has thus been guided by the benign hand of the hitherto absolute monarch. The current king, Jigme Khesar Namgyal Wangchuck had come to power after his father Jigme Singye Wangchuk abdicated and promised a shift to a constitutional monarchy in the predominantly mountainous state. The royal family in Bhutan controls most of the wealth and owns two of the largest business conglomerates. The current king had however made all efforts to ensure that many of the eligible Bhutanese get to vote in the elections to the national assembly. But a significant number of Bhutanese were disenfranchised owing to the fact they did not “fit” within the cultural parameters set by the monarch to be eligible for Bhutanese citizenship. These sections, primarily Nepali speaking, are concentrated in southern Bhutan and have refused to accept the verdict of the elections of which they were not a part. Many Nepali speaking Bhutanese had been exiled to Nepal earlier as refugees, complicating the problem.

Bhutan figures among the poorest in the world in terms of the usual economic and human development indices. Over the past few years, the monarchy has promoted state-led investment in education and health to alleviate the situation and there has been some betterment in living indicators such as literacy and life expectancy. Bhutan is still dependent upon India in matters of economy, with high levels of financial aid from New Delhi. The monarchy had instituted the concept of “gross national happiness” to measure Bhutan's progress, bringing in abstract notions of spiritual development and keeping in focus traditional Buddhist norms of living combined with respect for the environment. It is understood that the ushering in of democratic governance and the installation of democratic institutions guided by the monarchy were intended to placate the growing resentment among the Bhutanese.

The transfer of executive power to an elected authority should bring about improvements in living, provided the ruling party and its officials continue to instil democratic consciousness and function better than just being an appendage of the palace. However, both the main parties are only committed to continue the status quo – praise the concept of gross national happiness and to pay obeisance to the royal family. Yet a new beginning has been made to create an accountable executive and legislative authority and it is hoped that a democratic consciousness will gradually seep into the Bhutanese state.

It is here that Nepal, yet another mountainous monarch-ruled nation, offers both an interesting contrast and a parallel. Forced to become a constitutional monarchy instead of an absolute one, owing to peoples' agency in 1990, Nepal is now poised to become a constitutional republic after the rejection of the concept of the supremacy of the monarch by almost the entire political spectrum. The Nepali Maoists to whom much of the credit for such a remarkable culmination must be due, are taking part in an election to a constituent assembly which will decide a new republican constitution. The usurping of total power by the king in 2002 hastened the fall of monarchy and the transition to a republic will hasten the downfall of feudalism that ascribed divine power and suzerainty to the monarchical order.

In contrast, the transition to a constitutional monarchy in Bhutan has been a process initiated from above and has seen little agency from the masses. Nevertheless, a new consciousness of democratic norms and values and the benefits of a representative form of governance should help usher in the transfer of sovereignty to the Bhutanese people. Although the transition is in the nature of democracy from above, from now on, any further amelioration of the iniquitous conditions of living, it is hoped, would be the result of peoples' agency.

( An EPW editorial )

McCain: A sureshot Bush remix.

A cool Real News video on the issue featuring Pepe Escobar:

Tibet & China..

I wrote about how China ought to honour its own socialist constitution and ensure autonomy in its fullest for Tibetans and also about how that this critique is independent of the "hypocritic" support that is given to the Dalai Lama by the West.

Is China living upto its own constitutional pledges? :

Quoting one paragraph from the constitution:

"Article 4. All nationalities in the People's Republic of China are equal. The state protects the lawful rights and interests of the minority nationalities and upholds and develops the relationship of equality, unity and mutual assistance among all of China's nationalities. Discrimination against and oppression of any nationality are prohibited; any acts that undermine the unity of the nationalities or instigate their secession are prohibited. The state helps the areas inhabited by minority nationalities speed up their economic and cultural development in accordance with the peculiarities and needs of the different minority nationalities. Regional autonomy is practised in areas where people of minority nationalities live in compact communities; in these areas organs of self- government are established for the exercise of the right of autonomy. All the national autonomous areas are inalienable parts of the People's Republic of China. The people of all nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages, and to preserve or reform their own ways and customs."

Well. Real News has some videos that show how the recent unrest in Tibet has been treated by the Chinese law enforcers. The videos do not tell us enough about whether the Chinese government is committed to its constitution. But it certainly makes a case for more open-ness and guaranteed constitutional rights in Chinese society especially vis-a-vis the minority nationalities, part of China, as much as there should be open-ness and constitutional rights in Indian society vis-a-vis Kashmir or in Nagaland.

Z

Z: He Lives..Scenes from the classic movie, "Z", directed by Costa Gavras. A must see is Z..I re-saw that yesterday. Awesome direction, great flow, dark humour, class acting and total relevance. My recommendation: Have a good DVD rental nearby? Grab it rightaway.

Enlightenment in the Himalayas

Article published in The Post

Two predominantly mountainous nations in South Asia are creating late history. While Nepal is poised to shred any remaining dalliance with monarchy (even the constitutional variety), Bhutan recently embarked upon its first democratic experiment adding itself to the burgeoning numbers of nations that treat people as the chief sovereign instead of a monarch. It is the route that these nations have taken that is worth pondering and that forms the crucial difference.



In Nepal, monarchy was a sine qua non just two years ago. Observers outside the country suggest that the rapid decline in the status and popularity of the ‘kingdom’ in Nepal owes to the inter-royal squabbles that resulted in the death of several members of the royal family and the succession of Gyanendra after his brother Birendra’s death. Such a simplistic explanation is not enough to understand how the entire polity (except for a few sycophants of the royal family) united against the monarchy despite irreconcilable differences and formed a working alliance that retained power after an emergency called by the king was rescinded.

Nepal enjoyed absolute monarchy till the early 1990s when a constitutional form of royal suzerainty was structured. The main political parties, however, failed to provide stability and the king usurped total power, before being stripped of all power by the eight-party alliance that is ruling Nepal today. The yeoman struggle of anti-establishment forces of all kinds: extremists – represented by the Maoists – and civil society was responsible for the gradual withering of the hold of autocratic power, which legitimised itself on the basis of abstract concepts of ‘divinity’ and enjoyed vulgar privileges of pelf, power and privilege in a nation primarily of the poor. In merely two years the tide has changed so much that Nepal is no longer a Hindu kingdom and owing to the Maoists’ tenacity in calling for a republic, is to set to announce itself as a constitutional republic.

Bhutan, on the other hand, has had a different story. The current monarch came to power after his father abdicated in favour of this son, his eldest offspring (from his third wife). Bhutan had a treaty with India that allowed India to guide its external affairs relations, but over time Bhutan’s independence in foreign policy has been de jure, accepted by the Indians in a new treaty signed in 2007. Still Bhutan’s economy is heavily dependent upon trading with India. Bhutan’s king is supposed to enjoy a great degree of popularity. Even the fact that the living indicators in Bhutan are quite low has not meant that there is enough dissatisfaction against the ruling regime. The regime introduced a concept called, ‘Gross National Happiness’ to describe content and ‘spiritual’ progress and to justify the path of progress that had been charted by the monarchy in the kingdom. The current monarch, educated in public policy in England, has ‘guided’ democratic reforms in the state, by calling in for elections and ensuring good participation. The ‘democratic revolution’, however, is limited, as royalist parties have won all seats and have promised continuity in the impoverished Buddhist state.

For someone in the developing world, inured to modernity and exposed to the values of enlightenment, however, such fallacies such as ‘spiritual development’ is a farce and a euphemism for a false consciousness that privileges obligations of the public toward an anointed abstract authority (the king) over rights of the public itself. Surely, in today’s world, the ascription of divinity to the ruler and the suggestion that the public perform their duties and obligations in furtherance of the aims proclaimed by a ruler, who is certainly not accountable to the public in any form or fashion, is a sure-fire case of egregious regression and must be confined to the dustbin of history.

Considering this, it is encouraging that hidebound tradition and ‘false consciousness’ has given way to rationality in Nepal, which is on the cusp of becoming a constitutional republic with an elected constituent assembly to rewrite the norms of governance, and structures of political economy for the nation. In Bhutan, on the other hand, the guiding hand of the ‘renouncing’ monarch in developing democratic consciousness is welcome, but it is no substitute to peoples’ agency in deciding their collective destiny for themselves. One, therefore, hopes that the Bhutanese people also get to enjoy the virtues of freedom and civic rights instead of being hobbled by obligations and abstract duties, while holding on to their distinctive progressive cultural practices.

Meanwhile, yet another section of people are also demanding independence (and some others ‘real autonomy’). Tibetan protestors are now in the news for having staged demonstrations across several capitals obviously trying to use the backdrop of the soon-to-be-held Beijing Olympics to bring international attention to their ‘cause’. Commentators, particularly from the West, have tended to support this agitation for ‘independence’ from Chinese rule. Many have sympathised with the ‘spiritual’ head of the Tibetans, Tenzing Gyatso, named the Dalai Lama, who himself suggests a middle way to achieve ‘real autonomy’ as part of China. Yet, the commentators are not asking the most important question. How could one individual enjoy both temporal and spiritual suzerainty over an entire people? Was the Dalai Lama not ruling over a feudal order with ordinary Tibetans serving as serfs tied by the same obligations and iniquitous norms that are termed as regressive by Western countries, which themselves had gone through the phase of modern enlightenment? These are controversial questions that are skirted simply because the issue is made out to be a binary: that of so-called ‘Chinese communist occupation’ versus ‘Tibetan self-determination’.

In this author’s opinion, Tibetans should as much be children of enlightenment and beneficiaries of human progress as much as any other citizen of this world. The primary criteria is to judge whether China is fulfilling its own constitutional duty (as prescribed in the socialist constitution of China) to provide autonomy to Tibet and to preserve its cultural heritage within the framework of a socialist republic. This is consistent with the Dalai Lama’s pronunciations that Tibet is an autonomous part of China, but inconsistent with the fact that the Dalai Lama himself heads a ‘Tibetan-government-in-exile’ and thus has a temporal existence that cohabits his ‘spiritual’ image.

Thus while the Nepalis and the Bhutanese get to become masters of their own destiny in the material world without having to partake their rights for obligations to a nominal authority on the basis of divinity, the world including the West appreciates this as a step ahead in progression. Yet, as Tibetans couch their struggle against Chinese indirect rule in the language of independence and protest for the return of divine rule by the Dalai Lama in both temporal and spiritual matters, the support provided by the West to this endeavour reeks of hypocrisy.

The Tibetans should and must protest against the Chinese rulers if there is a violation of enunciated norms as provided by the Chinese constitution. And the world must put pressure on the Chinese (through the aegis of multilateral bodies) to respect its own sovereign constitution and treat its republic’s autonomous citizens with equanimity as ensured in the constitution and not to foist Han Chinese populations in the region. But the world cannot and must not take the inhabitants of Tibet back to an era that was reminiscent of the feudal dark ages of the medieval world. And to that extent, the Dalai Lama has to conform to the separation of the temporal and the spiritual. And that would be correct progressive thinking in these muddled times.

Higher Education: For a Different Paradigm

Editorial written for Economic and Political Weekly

Higher Education: For a Different Paradigm

Foreign provision of higher education cannot be based on the need to create skills for the global economy.

In May 2007, a proposal to introduce the Foreign Educational Institutions Regulatory Bill, prepared by the ministry of human resource development (HRD), in Parliament failed because of opposition by allies of the government. Since 2000, there has been provision for 100 per cent foreign direct investment in education in the automatic route, but this is “subject to sectoral policies”. The 2007 bill was supposed to regulate entry of foreign educational providers other than those that partner existing recognised institutes in the country.

The objective behind the aborted bill was to mitigate the problems of commercialisation and commodification of education in the country because of the entry of “fly-by-night” operators and at the same time provide incentives to “accredited” foreign institutions to set up educational centres in the country. This was in line with the National Knowledge Commission’s (NKC) recommendations to utilise the qualitative advantages of foreign institutions in higher education.

The state of higher education in India needs no elaboration. Starved of adequate funding, with only a few institutions of quality and relatively low enrolment from the relevant age-groups, higher education needs a major overhaul and a new thrust. The key argument, however, offered for foreign entry in higher education, particularly by the commerce ministry in a 2005 consultation note, is that there exists a quality and quantity gap between what is required by the market and what is produced in institutions of higher learning. More higher educational institutes are therefore necessary to plug this gap in skilled manpower and this could be achieved by utilising the norms of trade as may evolve in the General Agreement on Trade in Services, or so the argument goes.

The paradigmatic understanding here is the treatment of higher education as a “value adding” service that gels well with building manpower to service the global economy. While the commerce ministry note concentrates on building a competitive skill base through higher education, the HRD ministry focuses on keeping this process away from crass commercialisation. There is a serious lacuna in this vision itself: nowhere is the necessity to see institutes of higher learning as creators of organic intellectuals attuned to the specificities of Indian society acknowledged.

With respect to social sciences and humanities, there is a need in particular to build indigenous institutes that focus on the particularities of the Indian context and do not necessarily ape the methodological and epistemological structures of the west. This is especially so at a time when the Washington consensus exercises an ideological influence over the nature of development – a crucial aspect of nation building in which higher education plays an important part. Surely the entry of foreign institutions in the realm of social sciences, despite perfunctory regulation of the kind proposed by the bill, will work against this consideration. This does not mean that any exchange of knowledge and ideas transcending national boundaries should be avoided; only the treatment of such exchange as purely commercial ventures needs to be rejected.

In the case of technical and basic science education as well, the same emphasis by the government that sees higher education as a product of commercial value makes foreign investment problematic. The government has recently announced the establishment of 38 new central universities, 8 new IITs and a school of architecture in the country. This is a small beginning and much more can be done with the public university system itself. The argument that all the costs of building indigenous centres of excellence cannot be managed because of a lack of adequate resources does not hold water. For one thing, India continues to spend far too small an amount on higher education. It currently spends only 0.37 per cent of GDP on higher education, compared to China where the corresponding figure is 0.5 per cent. With the tax-GDP ratio rising and scope for reducing outlays in other areas such as defence, resource mobilisation can no longer be the problem it once was, especially in expanding science and technical education. If at the end of a major expansion of the public university system – in both numbers and quality – there is still space for foreign providers of higher education, that is something that could then be considered.

The enormous lack of research and technical facility as well as expertise plus the problem of a “brain drain” mean that there is a very real need for resource mobilisation for basic science and technical education in the country in conjunction with participation by technological and scientific institutions from across the world through exchange programmes, bilateral knowledge sharing agreements, etc. It is at the same time very necessary to reduce the income gaps between the professional and academic spheres so that the exodus of human capital from the teaching/research areas to the non-academic world in India and to foreign shores is stemmed.

Social justice and the socio-economic imperative to address students from the deprived sections with a low fee structure, scholarships and affirmative action also need to be given due weightage while deciding to let in foreign players. Foreign institutions, with their focus on cost recovery and commercial gain by tapping into student “consumers” of their academic “products”, will not weigh initiatives of social justice in the same manner as a publicly funded institution under public scrutiny would.

In essence, a paradigmatic shift that brings back the focus on higher education as a public good with concomitant increases in public funding, and that also overhauls our entire understanding of higher education is something that is expected of the government.

Sub Prime simplified...

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