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COMMENTARY
Absolute monarchy to
absolute democracy
By Kanak
Mani Dixit
(Posted with permission from Foreign Policy in Focus)
KATHMANDU - King Gyanendra has taken the
people of Nepal on a disastrous course, using the
excuse of fighting an insurgency to compromise
democracy. Nepali society must be returned to
complete democratic rule, which also provides the
only means to tackle the raging rebellion and
promote social and economic progress in the long
term. In order to stop a complete unraveling of
the Nepali future, political parties backed by
civil society must wrest the state back from the
palace and military administration.
Nearly
two months after the royal coup of February 1, it
is clear that the regime change conducted by King
Gyanendra was an attempt to bring back
authoritarian rule on the pretext of tackling the
Maoist insurgency (also known as the Maobadi
rebellion). Since a military solution to the
insurgency is impossible even by the reckoning of
senior army officers, serving and retired, the
proper course would have been to build a front
with the political parties and then to engage the
rebels. Instead, the king exploited the
differences between the parties to prepare the
ground for his takeover.
It has also
become obvious that there was no plan as such
behind the royal putsch, with which the palace was
to tackle the Maobadi challenge. The action of
February 1 is therefore to be seen as nothing more
than a power grab, the only correction to which is
a complete return to multiparty government, an end
to the state of emergency, and restitution of all
freedoms and fundamental rights. The presence of
the extra-constitutional Maobadi in hill and plain
cannot be used to blackmail the Nepali population
and the international community to support
discredited authoritarianism. The democratic state
is more than capable of confronting the
insurgency, as long as the palace and army do not
play spoilsport.
On a historical scale,
the royal action was and remains problematic in
terms of both principle and practicality. It is
not as if Nepalis had not suffered through three
decades of the Panchayat system under the present
king's father and brother. It was that royalist
system which maintained the autocratic continuum
into modern day Nepal and whose regressive legacy
a dozen years of democracy had just begun to
address.
Nepalis who were 12-years-old in
1990 when the Panchayat was ended are today 27,
and they have known no political system other than
parliamentary pluralism. Citizens of all ages have
found their voice, and for this reason alone the
country cannot now be converted into a police
state bereft of fundamental freedoms and civil
liberties. For too long have Nepalis spoken and
organized freely and seen the advantages of
pluralism for social and economic progress, and
2005 is not 1960, back when it was possible for
King Mahendra to muzzle society through his own
royal coup d'etat. Indeed, King Gyanendra's
takeover has its origins in a 1960 deep freeze
that does not countenance the current
socio-political reality.
Additionally,
while the earlier coup was carried out with the
help of feudocrat power-brokers, including those
who betrayed democracy, this time around King
Gyanendra has made no-holds-barred use of the
Royal Nepalese Army (RNA). Only a king out of
touch with present day discourse and unwilling to
listen to the clear voices of social science and
common sense could have read out the proclamation
of February 1 and taken the actions that followed.
Since it is clear that the royal
proclamation was not a knee-jerk action but
something thought of months in advance with the
help of willing military commanders, there would
be some method behind the madness. The short term
plan, already in implementation, is to act on the
fear of the Maobadi and browbeat the political
parties while exploiting the latter's weaknesses
and differences. Under a particular logic, the
longer term plan would be to do away with the 1990
constitution and develop another document which
redirects substantial power back to the monarchy.
Thereafter, an election would be conducted
where a conservative force is made to emerge in
order to sabotage the secular system of
parliamentary governance. As in the Panchayat
years, the proposed process would look and sound
progressive, with sops for historically
discriminated communities, but would at its heart
be reactionary. All in all, King Gyanendra would
be attempting to bring back "guided democracy" by
grabbing the keys to the kingdom that have been in
the hands of the citizenry since 1990.
Given that such a dangerous agenda is
fraught with uncertainties, many who wish King
Gyanendra and his dynasty well are keeping their
own counsel, while sycophants and quislings from
the early Panchayat era are emerging from the
slurry to try and turn back the flow of history.
With the king now chairman of the Council of
Ministers, the monarchy is exposed to the
turbulence of politics and administration, but it
has neither resilience nor goodwill on its side.
King Gyanendra has donned a new hat, but does he
realize that a blunder has been committed? If
there is such realization, then the political
parties may yet come to the rescue of the crown on
the condition of an absolute and unconditional
roll back to democracy. If the palace does not
backtrack, the people are in for an extended
agitation.
Today, Nepal faces on the one
hand a state of emergency, suspension of civil
rights and an autocratic military-supported
regime. On the other hand, there is the vicious
insurgency. The resolution of the Maobadi
challenge through dialogue and constitutional
course-correction can only be contemplated when
there is first a return to democracy. Barring a
total collapse of the state, such a return can be
contemplated through the reinstatement of the
disbanded parliament or through an interim
government put in place at the initiative of the
political parties, with or without the palace in
agreement.
Seven weeks after the coup,
while we wait for King Gyanendra to reconsider his
drastic and ill-advised action, and for the
political parties to locate and act on their
collective voice, it is time to review the royal
takeover as it affects 26 million people of the
40th largest country in the world.
Detention of politicians
The
continuing detention of scores of political
leaders and activists is, to put it simply,
offensive. The incarcerations fly in the face of
Nepal's democratic experience and can never be
justified by the palace in the name of fighting
"terrorism". King Gyanendra, as chairman of the
cabinet, bears direct responsibility for the
confinement of political leaders and the
continuing clampdown on activists around the
country, as he does for all other attacks on civil
liberties under the state of emergency. A royal
proclamation which repeatedly swore allegiance to
democratic values has been implemented through a
whole series of undemocratic acts. Article 27 (3)
of the 1990 constitution, which enjoins the
monarch to "preserve and protect" that supreme
law, has been used instead to destroy the letter
and spirit of that document.
Freedom of
the press
The harassment of the media runs
deeper than the jailing of journalists. There is a
concerted campaign afoot to demoralize reporters,
editors, radio producers and publishers, to break
their will through continuous maltreatment. Those
working outside Kathmandu Valley are extremely
vulnerable to pressures from the district-level
military commanders. In Kathmandu and elsewhere,
editors of spirited tabloids are forced to submit
to frustrating appearances before chief district
officers. The royal action has halted Nepal's FM
radio revolution in its tracks, and the future of
this unique South Asian success story is now in
jeopardy.
The dishonorable manner in which
this coup was conducted is exemplified by the
palace press secretary who told the editor of a
leading daily that the army was in control and he,
the editor, "could even be disappeared for a few
hours" if the royal strictures were not followed.
Today, newspapers and magazines are banned at whim
from entry into certain districts, the FM airwaves
are empty of empowering news, discussion and
information programs, and clandestine rebel radio
broadcasts now fill the resulting vacuum with
their vicious propaganda.
Among other
ills, the king's clampdown has made it impossible
for the press to cover Maobadi abuse that is
continuing. Simultaneously, the media is no longer
there to report on excesses by the security
forces. The public lies exposed and unprotected as
never before. Overall, the advances achieved by
print and electronic media over a dozen years of
unfettered freedom are being rapidly eroded, and
the domino effect on society and economy will be
significant.
The Royal Nepalese Army
(RNA)
The military-backed coup conducted by
King Gyanendra constitutes a barrier to the
evolution of the RNA as a professional force. The
Nepalese military, commended for serving in UN
peacekeeping assignments over the decades, had
found it a difficult fight after it was deployed
to engage the Maobadi in 2002. Its image already
tarnished since by human-rights abuses and
disappearances, the RNA now stands accused of
being part of a coup.
The royal takeover
has forced army officers to take de facto command
as local administrators, a function for which they
are ill prepared. The longer the RNA is asked to
play such a role, the more entrenched will be the
anti-democratic and anti-people evolution of the
polity. The militarization of society will retard
social and economic progress for decades on end,
and the RNA risks losing whatever credibility it
presently has by engaging in everyday policing,
censorship and otherwise preventing citizens from
enjoying fundamental freedoms.
Over the
medium and long term, the army's deployment
against the political forces will negatively
affect the morale of soldiers and their ability to
protect the people. The Nepali army can only
evolve into a disciplined and professional
fighting force if it is kept out of public affairs
and brought within full control of parliament. The
RNA rank and file's allegiance must shift from the
crown to the people, a transition that would
enhance the motivation of soldiers and officers
alike.
King and parties
Even
though the stated purpose of the royal-military
takeover was to fight the Maobadi insurgency
effectively, the method of its implementation over
the past month-and-a-half seems to have shifted
the attention of the state apparatus from
counter-insurgency to the suppression of
democratic institutions. King Gyanendra's
well-known and unwavering antipathy toward the
political parties and their leaders had earlier
seemed merely a simplistic error by someone who
came late into statecraft. Today, this antipathy
begins to look opportunistic, a means to cynically
rally support for an active monarchy. What the
king detested were obviously not the individual
political personalities, but the very process of
pluralism they represented.
Even more than
before, however, a king who has moved to shatter
the trust of the parties now needs their support
to extricate the monarchy from the quicksand of
irrelevance. While King Gyanendra echoes the
upper-crust Kathmandu perception that Nepal's
dozen years of parliamentary rule were a failure,
this was clearly not the case by any yardstick
with which one measures political systems. The
onus now lies on King Gyanendra to reach out to
the parties with an olive branch, conceding the
series of mistakes that started on October 4, 2002
and culminated in the move of February 1.
As responsible, nationalist
representatives of the people, there is no doubt
that the political leaders will respond to a bona
fide approach. The most urgent task of the
political parties themselves is to unite
effectively against the royal action, but this is
made difficult by timid leadership, inter-party
wrangling as well as confusion over priorities at
this instance - whether to go for an all-out fight
for the republic or save the rights guaranteed by
the 1990 constitution first. While some claim that
the rank and file in the parties cannot be brought
out onto the streets without a "republican" agenda
targeted at doing away with kingship, other
leaders prefer to stand on the platform created by
the 1990 constitution while working to tie down
the monarchy to a constitutional role.
Monarchy as heritage
The Nepali
monarchy is the property of the Nepali people,
whose ancestors have invested a lot into the
institution over the last two-and-a-half
centuries. The particular incumbent on the Serpent
Throne cannot jeopardize this common heritage by
assuming direct rule in the "twenty-first century"
(a century often referred to by King Gyanendra,
though neither the Nepali government nor society
at large goes by the Gregorian calendar). King
Gyanendra, who ascended the throne at the age of
56 without prior experience in governance, does
not have the right to decide to be a proactive
king and wrest the initiative from people's
representatives. In the "twenty-first century",
here as elsewhere, bloodline or dynastic
contribution cannot determine a person's
decision-making power. The Nepali monarch can no
longer reign as well as rule, and any other
suggestion must be understood as a slur on the
people.
Since King Gyanendra's definition
of constitutional monarchy is not in line with the
understanding that held sway during Nepal's dozen
years of pure parliamentary practice in 1990-2002,
it is even more important to emphasize that a
future constitutional monarchy can only be
ceremonial, without even the residuary powers he
prefers to read into the 1990 constitution. The
monarchy must remain at the pleasure of the people
as a supportive institution, which cannot impede
social and economic progress through the
democratic process.
King Gyanendra's
mistreatment of the 1990 constitution through
willful misinterpretation of its various
provisions - such as Article 27 on protecting the
constitution, or Article 127 on removing
"impediments" in its implementation - has provided
strength to the Maobadi, who claim it is a dead
document. Meanwhile, the royal takeover has
strengthened immeasurably the rebel call for a
republican state, and further beleaguered those
who believe in retaining the monarchy as a link to
the history of Nepal and as a utilitarian
institution for various social, economic and
cultural national purposes.
The future of
the monarchy is now dependent on the incumbent
being willing to remain "constitutional" under the
most stringent definition of the term, meaning
ceremonial. But even this has been made difficult
by the February coup, which has radicalized so
many in the political arena against the
institution.
Strength and sovereignty
of state
Nine years of insurgency have
weakened the Nepali state and society in numerous
ways. It was the Maobadi who brought the
ceremonial army out of the barracks to become
active countrywide for the first time in the
modern era. The rebellion has retarded the economy
and hit development activities. It also made India
increasingly powerful in national affairs, as
Kathmandu sought help from New Delhi to confront
the rebels. In each of these areas, from
geopolitics to economy, the royal move has
accelerated state-weakening trends set in motion
by the rebellion. In addition to entrenching the
military, the impact on the economy has been
significant and development activity is at
standstill.
Meanwhile, the great powers
with influence on Nepal seem to be willing to let
New Delhi, as the "most affected party",
coordinate the international response to both the
royal coup and the ongoing insurgency. Given that
the nationalist project of the modern era since
the time of King Mahendra has been to develop an
independent identity for Nepal, particularly in
relation to the powerful southern neighbor, it can
be said that the state has been that much more
weakened by the royal action. New Delhi is now
more a player in Nepali affairs than at any time
in the past five decades.
Human
security
Without support from the
political parties and their countrywide networks
and with the police force sidelined and sullen,
the RNA is left to provide security coverage with
its limited reach and logistics. While the
military is thus over-extended, the Maobadi have
the run of large parts of the country. The
population in rural Nepal has been left more
insecure than ever before as journalists,
human-rights defenders and ground-level activists
are prevented from carrying out their tasks. Some
urban residents in Kathmandu Valley may perceive a
respite, but the situation for the majority of the
population has turned grimmer since February 1.
The hope of many was that King Gyanendra
had "a plan" when he took over - either a secret
deal with the Maobadi or the ability to mount a
rapid military campaign against the insurgents.
Seven weeks later, that hope remains unfulfilled,
even while the political parties who believe in
constitutionalism and rule of law have been
violently removed from the middle ground.
A flash audit of the royal takeover would
almost certainly indicate that King Gyanendra has
made the average Nepali man and woman in the
districts outside Kathmandu Valley even more
vulnerable than earlier. With the abysmal
human-rights record of the security agencies, and
the count of disappearances frighteningly high,
the situation is now immeasurably more dangerous
for the people at a time when activist
organizations and the media are sidelined.
The Maobadi
The long-term
prospects of the Maobadi rebellion are dim because
of the anger of the people at large against the
mayhem they have wrought, the stance of the Indian
government and other geopolitical factors, as well
as the growing fighting capability of the RNA. The
continuous need to raise money through extortion,
the lowered motivation of fighters unable to make
spectacular attacks on army and police garrisons,
and the loss of political control over
increasingly militarized cadre are other reasons
that the Maobadi are likely over time to collapse
under the weight of their own contradictions.
For the moment, however, the insurgents
have been given a boost in the arm by the royal
takeover. They have been handed an advantage with
the clampdown on political activists throughout,
which leaves the rebels alone in the field, gun in
hand. They also now have a powerful propaganda
weapon, for an allegedly rapacious kingship has
always been their prime target, even though the
rebellion was started in the mid-1990s against a
parliamentary democracy. With the vacuum created
by the harsh royal action, many politicians and
activists in the districts may now have no choice
but to turn to the rebel commissars for sheer
political and physical survival.
Meanwhile, the political parties which
have faced the brunt of the Maoist violence are
asked to keep up the fight even as the rug has
been pulled from under them. It is clear that
nothing could ever justify the Maobadis'
ground-level brutality against innocents and the
unarmed, nor their choice of armed revolution over
social revolution in the context of what was
necessary and feasible in the Nepali countryside.
In retrospect, it is appalling that the
palace ignored the oft-repeated advice of the
framers of the constitution and political analysts
to make common cause with the political parties so
as to weaken the rebels politically. Today, King
Gyanendra proposes to go it alone militarily, and
unless there is an unprecedented collapse of the
insurgency unrelated to the royal takeover, the
population is in for a long haul.
Absolute democracy
The Maobadi
can possibly be defeated by the RNA in the long
term if the national economy is sustained and
international support continues in both the
development and military arena. However, the
extended period required for a
victory-through-arms will simply entrench the
military and exact an unbearable price from the
populace. The open society built up with such
sacrifice of the people will begin to unravel in
innumerable ways.
The one answer to both
the political crisis and the Maobadi challenge is
a return to absolute democracy. The international
community, including India, the United Kingdom and
the US as the main partners in the state's fight
against the Maobadi, has been steadfast since
February 1 in its call for a return to multiparty
democracy. This has been welcome and the
international community is to be thanked, but it
is unrealistic to expect more support than this
from the outside. The battle for restoration of
democracy must now gather steam within Nepal. Any
resolution brokered from elsewhere will
necessarily be more conservative and less
democratic (and perhaps more hurried) than one
fought for by Nepal's citizens.
For all
the world community's good intentions, foreign
governments will hold stability of the country
more important than transformation of Nepali
society through the democratic process. After a
"grace period" of a few months, it is likely that
the external players will settle for a balance of
power that favors an evolving status quo, which
would not deliver optimum democracy with
sovereignty resting entirely with the people.
Meanwhile, King Gyanendra's attempt to run
the country as a corporate chief executive is
taking him back to the discredited loyalists of
the palace to run his regime. Since an extended
royal rule is obviously not a possibility, one can
make out the contours of a royal plan to build a
new political terrain where pro-palace political
forces are made to emerge. Loyal royalists would
be nurtured so as to support monarchical activism
well into the future. This would add a dangerous
and diversionary departure from the open society
that must be re-established in Nepal.
Moving ahead
As a country which
emerged from centuries of authoritarianism only in
1990 (with only a year-and-a-half of democracy in
1959-60), the blame placed by King Gyanendra on a
dozen years of pluralism for the inability to
deliver social and economic progress is
unreasonable and prejudiced. Since the people's
movement of 1990, the present should have been a
time when Nepalis were fine-tuning their
democracy. Instead, we seem to have returned to
the drawing board. While the talk until recently
was of constitutional readjustment in order to
deliver a more inclusive state, we are back to the
task of rescuing democracy from an active
monarchy. Indeed, the time has come to try and
save Nepali pluralism from the palace as well as
the insurgents, by means of a principled yet
practical resolution.
Where do we go from
here? The way is still open for King Gyanendra to
work with the parties, as he could have on October
4, 2002 or February 1. The Maobadi could still lay
down their arms and join the democratic parties in
above-ground politics. But the royalist and
Maobadi mind sets are not variables that one can
rely on, so it is important for those who believe
in open society to chart an independent course.
Only the political parties of the suspended third
parliament have the legitimacy to lead this
charge, because they more than any other entity
(monarch, rebel or anyone from "civil society")
represent the people by the fact of having
submitted to the ballot.
Evolution of
constitutional practice through parliamentary
exercise and judicial oversight is the obvious
path of political progress, but the shakeup of the
polity has been such that there is no escaping the
need to revise the 1990 constitution while
standing on the platform it has created. Such a
revision can be achieved through a permutation or
combination of a number of recourses, including a
referendum, election-to-parliament,
election-to-constituent assembly, or a roundtable
conference of all concerned parties, including the
rebels.
Constitutional reform would have
to address matters which go to the heart of the
current discourse, such as ensuring the RNA's
allegiance to civilian government; instituting a
restrictive definition of constitutional monarchy
that defines a ceremonial role for the king;
removing the "Hindu" appellation from the
description of the state; and transitioning to a
federal system of governance based on sound
economic and political principles rather than on
race, ethnicity, language or faith.
While
constitutional evolution is of utmost importance,
the immediate task is to rescue democracy as we
know it under the 1990 constitution. Failure to do
so can invite adventurism from the extreme left or
right. The rapid descent to an authoritarian state
requires the political parties to take immediate
action to return the people from absolute monarchy
to absolute democracy.
The present royal
government with the king as chairman is
illegitimate under any interpretation of the 1990
constitution as well as in light of the general
democratic principles. A resolution which would
"cleanse" the monarchy of the stain of February 1
and at the same time revive the democratic process
under the 1990 constitution would of course be the
revival of the third parliament. Indeed, no
political move could be more people-friendly than
to revive the Lower House for a specified period,
with preliminary understanding among the main
players about the key tasks, such as formation of
a cabinet, talks with the Maobadi, and the longer
term constitutional issues. If King Gyanendra
recognizes the blunder that was the royal
proclamation, he may yet opt for a revival of
parliament as an institution - which incidentally
would also be a secure dynasty-saving action.
If not a revived parliament, political
resolution would have to come in the form of an
interim government under the aegis of the
mainstream political parties. If King Gyanendra
understood the perils of the moment, he would seek
the help of the parties and encourage them to
cobble together such a government. Under the
reasonable assumption that he will not pick this
option, the political parties must present the
palace with a fait accompli in the form of
a fully-formed interim government. Such a
government could be an all-party entity, or also
include a mix of respected independent
individuals. Such a government chosen by the
parties rather than by the palace has been a
requirement since October 2002, and can still be a
means of simultaneously reinstating democracy,
addressing the insurgency and stabilizing the
polity and economy.
The establishment of
an interim government by the political parties
would not obviate further evolution of the polity
to respond to the drastic royal move of February
1. This would be an emergency measure to respond
to the public's democratic inclinations as
indicated in numerous public opinion polls, and to
ensure that the supportive international reaction
on behalf of the Nepali people and against royal
adventurism is not wasted. Once a people's rather
than the king's government has been put in place,
it is important for those in the saddle not to
forget the pressing constitutional, political,
economic, and social issues that must be tackled
in order to ensure that the fruits of democracy
are finally delivered to the people of Nepal.
Hopefully, the crisis brought on by the
rebels in the jungle and the king in the palace
has brought sober appreciation of the need to
reinstate and vigorously protect parliamentary
democracy. At the same time, the burden is now on
the political parties and individual leaders to
conduct themselves in the weeks ahead in a manner
that respects the people of Nepal and responds to
their trust in the democratic process. The path to
the immediate future should be defined by
political forces backed and watch-dogged by civil
society, to challenge the king and to set up an
interim government. The people await their
representatives to respond to this need of the
hour.
Over the past nine years, the hopes
of the people of Nepal have been massively
compromised by the violence brought on by the
Maobadi insurgency. Now the people have the
misfortune to be led in an opposite and equally
unrealistic direction by a king who misreads the
demands of the so-called "twenty-first century".
How far can the lot of the people worsen? When
will relief come and of what kind? Nepalis still
have it in their power to decide for themselves,
and to reverse the regime change introduced on
February 1. If King Gyanendra will not loosen his
grip on the state, the state will have to pry it
from him.
Kanak Mani Dixit is
the editor of Himal, Himal Southasian and the
fortnightly news magazine Himal Khabarpatrika, all
published from Kathmandu. He contributed this to
Foreign Policy In Focus.
(Posted with
permission from Foreign Policy in Focus) |
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