Nepal: State-Building as a Mechanism for Conflict Resolution

State did not collapse in Nepal over these years but it has simply failed to deliver as per the expectations of the people. More than half-a century of political instability, a decade plus long persistent conflict waged by the United Communist Party of Nepal(Maoist) and precarious politics thereafter have exposed thousands of people to insecurity, loss of opportunity, and increased risk of failing into poverty and transition is getting prolonged. This political fragility has forced Nepali state on the brink of failure as it is losing its Weberian legitimacy in all spheres. The vicious cycle of mistrust is building up between state and society and people at large have lost their faith on politics and more and more people including the young generation is becoming anti-political. This is primarily because politics as such has failed to justify its raison d’etre. The administrative control of the state is weakening day-by day and the bureaucracy is seen as an instrument of power abuse, this has led to the institutional disintegration. Over the years, methods that Nepali stale has used to manage “post-movement” period has always dashed public expectations. In contrast, this is inciting further conflicts in society as those who benefited from the political movements have always marginalized those who have lost it. Moreover, the “political class” has treated political movements as a license for their personal prosperity. This has marginalized the broader public voices. Understandably, there are problem of “social hierarchy” in society which is based on the caste system. To some extent there are sign of improvement in “societal hierarchy” as the gaps are bridging. But political movements over the years have change the “power structure” mostly political (not the economic which is yet to be democratized) but power structures are actor dominated not the process (democratic) and anti-people due to which gaps are increasing. These all conditions compel us to adopt systemic, yet, different approach to change the “power structure” in every domain of state affairs including political parties. This can only bring lasting peace in a society and it has to start from the process of state-building as it is a multifaceted integrative approach. The CPA, and other political agreements should serve as guideline to gain political stability by creating capacity of the state to perform core functions.

The slogan of making “New Nepal” that is coming out from different domains of society is the manifestation of an endeavor of state-building but in the real sense of the term it does not specie’ as to what extent new Nepal will be different from the old one. Strictly speaking, this has occupied an important place in the current political discourse without any proper thought given to it. That it does not have any recipe to secure a shared prosperous future of each and every Nepali. The agenda of building “New Nepal” will only be accomplished when the political process is participatory, inclusive and addresses demands generated by diverse stakeholders of society located in multiple social and economic hierarchy, patriarchy and strikes a balance between hard-ware (foundations) and soft-ware (values and norms) of democracy.

The process of state-building has become problematic in Nepal as the historical identity of the state based on the old social contract has been deconstructed. The new social contract based on justice, equality that can define fundamental terms of social association and cooperation (Rawals 2005: 11) in order to establish the government that can unite all societal forces is yet to be developed. Similarly, the “old political class” has been rejected and the “new political class” has not been able to win public confidence. In fact, Nepal faces problems of nation-building as well as state-building. The crisis of nation-building has emerged as Nepali state is struggling to maintain the “common national identity” and state is fragmented across, ethnic, religious, linguistic and regional lines. Whereas the problem of state-building has emerged as state-intuitions are not in a position to deliver service (Ehatta 2008).

The regime change that took place in 2006 has brought ‘notable’ changes wherein democracy could have flourished and an egalitarian society could have been established. But three years down the road; the politics of consensus has been replaced by the politics of competitiveness and revived historical fear of each other’s intention, capabilities and strategies despite the popular mandate for the nations shared future (Dahal 2009a). It appears that much admired ‘loktantra’ by the people is becoming more and more oligarchic, that is, of the few and for the few; society is entering into the state of nature and politics is shifting towards the place of contestation (containment of power) as in the Machiavellian term (Bhatta 2008). The culture of comprise within the political parties has been governed by rationality of their group concern. This group concern has forced them to continue to fight against those outside the group boundaries and use Comprehensive peace Agreement (CPA) merely as a face saving devise than exit strategy from the conflict (Dahal 2009). This tendency has transformed the nature of the Nepali state into ‘class state’ which has produced various interest groups who maintain “revolutionary political culture” to fulfill theft demands in the country. In fact the permanent nature of movement in the country had a strategy of what Gramsci had called the movement [war] of maneuvered (Gramsci 1996: 234-38, italics added). Poiitical movements in Nepal have frequently changed regimes but politicians have betrayed popular trust and cheated people by denying them, what Hannah Arendt (1958:296) said, their ‘right to have rights’ to belong to an effective political community. Maoists succeeded in generating political awareness in rural Nepal simply by becoming the dream merchant (Kumar 2007:3 15). But the raison d’etre of Maoists governance is centered on as how to capture the ‘state and the system’ in one-way or the other. One can argue that loktantrik [democratic] Nepal differs only superficially from earlier [Panchayat} Nepal (Brown 1996: 145, emphasis inserted), in fact Nepali state today stands between ‘order and anarchy’ and there are several sectors that have contributed to this end and stand as major obstacles for democratization as well as to move the peace-process to the much talked ‘logical end’ (Bhatta 2008).The occasional convergence of ‘old class’ and ‘new class’ of political leaders of different ideology motivated is only for by the common personal interest. It is highly embedded in elitism is promoting clientalism in every sector of governance. This is testimony of the fact that regime that has been occurring through ‘elite settlement’ is not serving state and society.

The process of state-building requires the support of civil society; without it the government’s legitimacy will be questioned. Without such broad based public support governments depend on a narrow power-structure, and patronage is the result. Patronage system undermines meritocracy and promotes clientalism. It is this clientalism and group bound interest that has failed to strengthen democratization process. Civil society’s group interests have discounted their civic responsibility. This has led to the growth of what Gramsci had called gelatinous superstructure of society and contributed towards the formation of ‘class state’. The class state promotes ‘clientele regime’ centered on the personality networks constructed by party bosses and the civil society leaders (Jenkins 2003: 266-67, italics added). This type of democracy is formed on the basis of ‘exclusive’ instead of ‘inclusive’ participation of relevant social actors (Jenkins 2003: 266-67) and raises questions on state ownership (the popular sovereignty for that matter) and implicates disillusionment towards the performance of democracy and civil society (Bhatta 2008).

(The author is associated with Friedrich-Ebert Stiftung, Nepal Office)

Posted on : 2009-12-30 14:24:45

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