Ideological inconsistency of Parties

Yuba Nath Lamsal

Democracy is collective self-rule. In other words, democracy is the political system that empowers people to govern and handle their own affairs. In the direct democracy which ancient Athenians practiced, every adult citizen could participate in decision making and governance. There used to be a system in the city of Athens that all people of the city were required to assemble in a public place and would take decision with approval of every one assembled there. This is called a practice of direct democracy in which each and every citizen have a say and directly participates in the decision making and governance.

With the advance of time, the society slowly grew complicated. Direct democracy became almost impossible to manage, which gave rise to indirect democracy in which people elect their representatives to make decision on their behalf. Although the concept of democracy has gained more currency in the modern day, which has become a political lingua franca of the 21^st century, the form of democracy is being narrowly defined. The scope of democracy is becoming limited. People are said to the masters of their own destiny and the supreme arbiter in the political system. But their role is getting limited and their voice is lesser heard. Their role and participation in the political system and governance has been narrowed down to taking part in the periodic election. Once elections are over, the people figure nowhere and the role and say of the people in the political decision making process does not virtually exist. In this way, the modern day democracy is becoming a privilege of a handful of ruling class elites.

As politics has become a privilege of the elites, the political system has failed to address the real problem of the majority of the people who are poor and have lesser access to decision making. The modern day democracy, which is also known as liberal democracy or capitalist democracy, often protects the interests of elites and corporate businesses in the expense of overall interest of the vast majority of the people. As a result, the world is now in serious crisis, which is already visible in Europe and America. The deep recession in Europe and America accompanied by high rate of unemployment, low growth has led to the Western governments to announce austerity measures in order to cut government spending, which have added further burden to the already vulnerable people. These decisions are aimed at protecting the financial and political system they have adopted. But their decisions have already boomeranged as waves of popular protests and struggle have surfaced and have taken a concrete form against the Western political system itself. What the capitalist countries are trying is like prescribing painkiller to the patients who need surgery.

In fact, the present global financial and political order is rotten so badly that it has started crumbling like a house of cards. The present financial crisis that has engulfed the entire world is the problem with the economic and political superstructure of capitalist system, requiring us to seek an alternative model, which may be more human. Such a system alone can address the present global economic crisis that the people in the world are facing.

We have seen the emergence of anti-capitalist movement across the globe. This has been accompanied by a defensive struggle by the working class in Europe, America, Asia and Latin America against the brutal neo-liberal offensive launched by the capitalists against their rights and conditions. This has resulted in a series of strikes – some of them one-day general or public sector strikes – throughout the world.

This struggle is not merely against capitalism and imperialism, this is an urge and movement to establish an alternative political, social and economic order in the world. The alternative model is already with us that is socialism, which professes ‘from each according to one’s ability and to each according to one’s need’. Capitalists had and have unleashed an ugly propaganda in a
Goebbels’s style against socialism and socialist model. They say socialism is dead and that capitalism is the only viable system that works is not going to work in practical sense. But this is mere propaganda being unleashed with the fear that the global capitalism may be swept away by another wave of socialist movement in the world.

It has been proved that capitalism cannot solve the global crisis and human problems. Capitalism professes and thrives on unlimited profit. Since the world’s resources are limited, unlimited profit is not possible. In the absence of profit, capitalism crumbles, which is the case of the present global crisis. Capitalism is inhuman system that is insensitive to human pain and plights, thus, unable to address the problems facing the world. Thus, the viable and only alternative is socialism that ensures equality and equitable distribution.

Capitalism has less virtue and more flaws, while socialism is equipped with more virtues and lesser evils. It is not to say that socialism is full of virtues and it has no flaws. While applying socialism both in China and Soviet Union, some mistakes had definitely been made that defamed socialism. But it does not mean that socialism as a system is a bad idea. With the crisis constantly creeping into capitalism and growing attraction to socialism, even the faithful followers of capitalism in the West and their lackeys in the rest of the world have embraced and introduced some of the basic and good aspects of socialism to defend their system and protect their interest from the growing rage of the people against capitalism. The concept of unemployment allowance, free education and free health care facilities that some of the Western capitalist countries have introduced is its example. Similarly, concept and theory of social democracy is influenced by socialism. Germany’s Willy Brandt is known as the father of Democratic Socialism consisting of the concept of blending some of the basic virtues of socialism into capitalist system. This is aimed at preventing the rising wave of socialism in the world and protecting the fundamental interest and tenets of capitalism. In essence the democratic socialism is not a pure socialism but a façade to hoodwink the people. But it is better than ultra capitalism that is being at vogue in the world as the so-called synonyms of liberal democracy. When socialism had a growing appeal in the world especially in recently liberated countries in the decades of 50s, 60s and 70s, the capitalist ruler of newly independent India Jawaharlal Nehru introduced his own style of socialism. Nehru’s socialism did nothing to the poor and downtrodden people instead it gave a good pretext to consolidate his Congress party’s capitalist and opportunistic hold on power for decades. Now India has made a break even from Nehruvian opportunistic socialism and embraced ultra capitalism that has created numerous contradictions and complications in India society.

In Nepal, there is great attraction towards socialist ideals and virtues. There are communist parties in Nepal that raise the slogan of socialism in the beginning to attract people towards their political fold. But once they go to power, they give up the socialist ideals and serve the interest of the capitalists and imperialists just to cling onto power. This has been right from the beginning. Socialism is the catch political phrase in Nepal without which parties cannot gain upper hand in politics. Visualizing the growing craze of people for socialist ideas and ideals and being influenced by Nehru, JP Narayan and some other Indian leaders, BP Koirala, too, advocated democratic socialism as the core ideals of the Nepali Congress. But this was more for preaching than practicing. Even when BP was in power for a brief period of almost two years, he hardly practiced his much avowed democratic socialism. Despite advocating democratic socialism in principle, the Nepali Congress practices ultra capitalism. The policies of the Nepali Congress government after the 1990 political change are its example. Thus, there is always mismatch and discrepancy of Nepali parties in their policies and practices. This marked inconsistency of political parties is behind the political uncertainty, economic inequality and ideological vacillation in Nepal. This inconsistency and vacillation has led the parties to enter into any kind of political deals without properly assessing their impact on national interest and their ideological stance. As the country is now trying to come out of the prolonged and painful political transition, the parties now need to make their position clear on various issues that may have far-reaching impact on the country and the people. The ideological clarity of the political stakeholders would alone help clear the political mess of the country.