Ruptured Politics, Fractured Parties

Yuba Nath Lamsal

Nepal’s politics is ruptured and the political parties fractured. Ruptured in the sense that Nepal’s politics has lost its cohesiveness and rationality. Nobody can predict in which and what direction the country’s politics will head. This is mainly because of the unreliability and unpredictability of the political parties and their leaders.

Nepal has had unique political experience. We have come a long way from feudalism, oligarchic rule, monarchical absolute regime, guided democracy in the name of multi-party system, one-party Panchayat rule, monarchical democracy to the present federal republican democracy.

Our political journey has been long, arduous and tumultuous. But the Nepalese people are docile, obedient and law abiding. As law abiding citizens, they trusted and obeyed the rulers in the past with the hope that those at the helms of affairs would bring them and the country good fortune. But their beliefs were often proved wrong, and the people felt betrayed one after another by the rulers. At times when the level of deceit by the rulers crossed the limit, the Nepalese people revolted.

Nepal was created as a nation state following its unification by Prithivi Narayan Shah. He led the process of unification of the country that was nothing more than scores of tiny principalities. But the Shah king was not alone in accomplishing this huge national task. There was active and spontaneous participation of the people from every rank of the country and society in the national campaign. People like Bise Nagarchi, a poor and dalit, understood the value of a strong and unified state and offered whatever he had at his disposal to the unification campaign. As a result, a unified though fragile Nepal was created.

The unification was a historical necessity for which Prithivi Narayan Shah took the initiative. However, the rulers that came to power after him often got bogged down in petty power politics with the royal court propping one group against the other to have control over political and military power of that time. As the court conspiracy worsened, different groups emerged at different intervals of history, only to vanish in the trash bins of history.

The nature of the state was military, and one who controlled the army controlled the political power. In this dirty power politics, many honest, dedicated and patriotic nobles and knights lost their lives. Be it Bhimsen Thapa, Damodar Pandey, Mathbar Singh Thapa or Gagan Singh, they all lost their lives because of the dirty palace feud and conspiracy.

The Nepalese people extended their support to the monarch during the unification and consolidation of the newly established Nepal. Unfortunately, the monarch or their henchmen often turned against the people and resorted to exploiting them once they were able to consolidate their hold on power. Their chosen modus operandi to grab and retain power was either with military strength or by conspiracy.

Out of the conspiracy, Jung Bahadur Rana rose to power by eliminating all his enemies and rivals and introduced an oligarchic system in which only the Rana clan benefitted. This system continued for over a century and came to an end only in 1951. The popular revolution that was at its height was suddenly aborted by the conspiracy of the external forces and ended up in a tripartite deal, which the Nepalese people still consider as a blot on Nepal’s political history.

This deal served the interest of the monarchy, the feudals and landlords but not the majority of the people that had taken part in the revolution. The tripartite accord transferred the state power from the Ranas to the Shah dynasty. People who participated in the revolution with the hope of becoming masters of their destiny were once again made subjects only to serve other masters.

Although the 1951 political change was insignificant from the perspective of popular rights, it did make contributions to raising the level of people’s political consciousness. From Nepal’s foreign policy perspective, the 1951 marked a turning point as Nepal departed from the old policy of isolation and began to diversify its international relations. From the standpoint of clan rule, it was also a rupture. But it was a continuity of the old system in terms of class perspective. Although it marked the end of the rule of the Ranas and restored the Shah dynasty’s power, the same feudal class had an upper hand on the state power. Earlier, the Ranas represented and patronised the feudal class.

After 1951, the Shah monarchy emerged as the messiah of the feudals and elites. The monarchy enjoyed absolute power and ruled in the name of the partyless Panchayat system for almost 30 years. The fundamental interest of the monarchy was to protect the interest of the feudal class.

Another rupture was seen in 1990 when the country saw a transformation from an absolute monarchy to constitutional monarchy with limited democratic rights of the people. With the weakening of the monarchy, the foundation of feudalism was shaken, but it was still alive.

With the political change of 1990, feudalism patronised by the monarchy entered into an alliance with domestic and international capitalism mainly against the emerging communist force in Nepal. This alliance, too, failed to counter the emerging wave of communist forces that came to the fore in the form of an armed insurgency. The real rupture in politics was felt only in 2006 when the old feudal monarchy was abolished, and Nepal was declared a federal democratic republic.

On the political surface, there has definitely been a rupture, but from the class perspective, feudalism is still alive and kicking despite the abolition of its patron - the monarchy. Feudals and landlords have again formed an alliance with domestic and international capitalists in order to check and marginalise the radical and revolutionary force.

Now there is a friction between these two classes and forces, and they are trying to outdo one another. The deadlock in the constitution-making process is the result of this. Had any of the forces dominated the others, the constitution would have been written and promulgated long ago.

The Maoists represent the radical force and champion the cause of the poor and proletariat. They want radical change and institutionalise their agenda of ‘people’s federal republican democracy’. The Nepali Congress represents the capitalist class and ‘liberal’ democratic force and advocates capitalist parliamentary democracy. The other parties are not significant in the present class-based politics of Nepal except in the head counting parliamentary politics.

The class interests of these two forces have often clashed in Parliament as well as outside, which have delayed the peace and constitution-writing process.

While there is a sharp clash of interest between the two main parties, the parties are fractured badly from within and do not have unanimity on key issues. Different groups and factions are at work in all the parties. There are parties within a party, committees within a committee and organisations within an organisation. Since the parties do not have a singular voice, how can they be expected to come up with national consensus?

In the first place, there is no space for national consensus in class politics. Different parties represent different classes and advocate the interest of their own class. In such a scenario, national consensus has no place, and it is foolish to expect it. The present scenario is the product of this clash of class interest, which is not likely to change in the immediate future. Either there has to be class transformation of the leaders and parties or one force must overwhelm over the other. This possibility is also rare in the present situation of Nepal, which is likely to prolong the political crisis that our country has been facing. This seems to be our fait accompli.