Civil Society in Nepal
The Civil Society in any country is a top-conscious
community with diverse settings, capable of debating political, socio-economic
and religious-cultural issues. It represents the existing structures in the
concerned country. This representation includes conflicts and differing
perspectives molded by experiences derived from different settings.
No international definition exists there to specify the
Civil Society. Many people in Nepal think that a few elites cooperating with
the ruling class to re-strengthen their power dominance in every sector make
the Civil Society. Elite journalists cum media entrepreneurs, elite legal
experts and retired bureaucrats are often highlighted as the Civil Society in
Nepal. In the post-1990 decade, even political activists have launched
themselves as the Civil Society members. Although some of them have time and
again advocated progressive changes, their advocacy mainly appears a
superficial intellectual luxury not well backed up by research output and cause-and-effect
analysis.
By global practice, those who launch intellectual advocacy
on public agenda represent the Civil Society. In reality, the Civil Society
does not mean the intellectual luxury of luxurious elites. It, instead, means
the intellectual force that looks after citizens' wellbeing through public
eyes. It works to enable citizens to be good thinkers and actors. Even in
absence of the elected government or the parliament, it works in close
collaboration with the mass media. Its purpose is to represent citizens at
citizens' level. But basically, the term Civil Society is vaguer throughout the
world.
Nepal's Civil Society does have its Nepali characteristics.
It reflects the nature of the Nepali society. While the country was afflicted
with a decade-long Maoist armed insurgency and the state's counter-insurgency
actions, the Nepali Civil Society advocated for peace and peaceful settlement
of the armed conflict. The intellectuals in favor of political and socio-economic
changes produced a united voice to use a peaceful means to manage the conflict.
This is how the Civil Society members presented themselves in crisis hours.
Their advocacy was focused on adopting peaceful methods to bring peace to the
nation. They supported change agenda as part of Nepal's conflict management.
Yet, they were unable to provide any guidelines that could pave the way for
transforming Nepal. In a way, the Civil Society supported changes, opposed the
then autocracy and provided some input to media for public discourse while the
political parties were losing their image and strength due to public
discontent.
Vague advocacy of Nepali Civil Society amidst public
confusions
When we saw the automatic dissolution of the Constituent
Assembly (CA) on 27 May 2012, we realized that our Civil Society is a weak
advocate. The Supreme Court of Nepal dissolved the elected CA as well as the
Legislative Parliament. This was an utter mockery of parliamentary democracy in
the world. How can the Judiciary work as the Legislature? Nepal's Civil Society
members were too superficial to look into this case. They could not
sensitize the ordinary masses. Elites were against the CA and any possible
constitution that could pave the written way for state restructuring. But the
Civil Society members in favor of progressive changes could not communicate
effectively to stimulate a series of public debates on the change agenda.
Pro-change Civil Society members could not be proactive and consistent to
defend the nation's change agenda even when some top leaders of different
political parties apparently acknowledged that they do not have to become
responsible for a new constitution because it is the former rebels' intention,
not their own. Nepal's Civil Society has become a vague communicator. There are
certain reasons behind this argument.
One particular reason why the Civil Society has now been
considered weaker in its advocacy and communication is that most of the Nepalis
appeared less informed and awakened about the significance of the historically
elected CA, a unique tool to draft out possibly the best constitution in the
world because of its most inclusive characteristics.
As soon as the CA was elected in April 2008, an unidentified
campaign of anti-CA propaganda was launched, and many knowingly and unknowingly
began to follow the propagandistic tracks, less aware of why the CA was formed
and what historical achievements it had to ensure.
Anti-CA propagandistic campaign was widespread in about
4,000 villages. The literates and illiterates began to believe that the CA was
a burden, with no motive for a new constitution. The distrust in the spirit of
CA worked to dissolve it. As an effect of this distrust, the supporters and
organized members of major political parties, which had formally expressed
their commitment to changes through the CA, could not pressurize their
leaderships. The political leaderships not pressurized at all by the bottom
strata, entered an easy atmosphere in which they did have an excessive series
of dialogues with the traditional ruling and business elites. Due to their
frequent contact and deepened and tightened ties with the elitists, the
leaderships failed to continue their ideological communication with their
foundational strata. The outcome naturally was the psychological
detachment from the public spirit, including the one of the April uprising of
2006.
Interpretative passivity of Nepali intellectuals
Seeing the repeated history of political betrayal and moral poverty, most of the political
workers at the bottom and middle strata either preferred to remain passive or
were engaged in securing their material opportunities, worried about the
destiny of their own as well that of their family members. This trend led to
people's disengagement with the political agenda-setters at the party
organization levels. This applied to all the major peace process stakeholders
in Nepal.
While the majority of the Nepalis were misinformed about the
vital mission of the elected CA, the major peace process stakeholders, viz. the
Unified Communist Party of Nepal Maoist (UCPNM), the Nepali Congress (NC), the
Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML) and the Madhesi Front (the united forum of
Terai-based regional parties with Madhesh origin) mistakenly or deliberately
used the CA historically elected CA as a mere bargaining parliament heavily
focused on forming, reshuffling or dissolving government. They paid scanty
attention to their primarily set mission-a fundamental method to manage the
10-year Maoist armed insurgency through a republican constitution.
The Nepalis have now been puzzled over the final outcome of
this political stalemate that resulted from the dissolution of the CA. We
haven't yet seen other alternative political forces that can act as true
alternative forces. The current dilemma requires a chemical mental processing
to provide people a more suitable way out. At the moment, these major
stakeholders often parrot "consensus' among themselves. Each of the major
four peace process stakeholders suffers from a win-lose idea, which ultimately
bars the national consensus. The ultra-trumpeted "consensus' has been
understood not as a way of mutual understanding and agreement focused on
addressing the common concerns of the people. It rather has been interpreted in
their own partisan terms. But the peace accord signed six years ago has a clear
win-win proposition: political and socio-economic transformation of Nepal. Why
do they disagree on this if it facilitates a sustainable conflict
transformation?
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