Nepal: Anti-Politics of Civil Society

Anti-politics, by definition, is anti-democratic, anti-public, non-responsive, exclusionary, personalized and opaque and restrictive of the domain of human rights and social justice to ordinary citizens. The anti-public role has been beefed up by the evolution of a sphere for circular squabble where each disapproves the other for wrong doing and defends itself for right thinking and right doing. In this context, the donors' unwavering faith in NGOs and civil society as handy partners, which can in some respects be more enlightened, issue-focused, competent and less bureaucratic in fostering the condition of democracy, human rights, development and peace, has been partially true on pragmatic grounds. The potential of civil society, human rights and NGOs to transform paternalistic and patronage-based regime into socially inclusive, gender-responsive, rule-abiding and transparent institutions remains tantalizing. Bulk of civil society groups in Nepal, like pre-political, lineage, caste and ethnicity-based interest groups, are essentially opportunistic, anti-rural and feudalistic in nature, as they continue to stoke communal passion, cultural differences and social conflicts. These groups do not have the ability to generate social capital for the feelings of citizenship. Many partial associations created by political parties have reinforced this vicious tendency. As a result, he Nepali state has become weak through the corruption of political process. Political leaders depend on comprador groups to finance political parties in exchange for neo-liberal policies that favor their commercial profits and civil society frame political discourse in the media for its endorsement because bulk of media themselves are run by this class who orient media contents to consent manufacturing. The partisan and antipublic nature of civil society can be explained from the following points:

Atomistic View of the Self: Bulk of urban civil society groups, locked in the ideological frame of funding agencies, political parties and business interests, are purely engaged in the rational pursuit of self-interest. They have failed to learn from the web of historical and cultural relationship and hierarchical forms of national life of citizens. Lack of any system of mutual learning has made them an instrument of social discrimination and political conflict than a free space for all for conflict resolution, ethical harmony and cooperation. As a result, their pursuit is primarily governed by strategic action, not the society-wide discursive orientation for civic education, norm-governed habits and action. Their cacophonous orientations have, therefore, opened new conflict lines between political, economic and civil society groups and their behavior is marked by a competition for clients and patrons. This has weakened the ability of society to maintain a balance between social integration and political development mediated by public philosophy and public action. To become relevant to public needs, Nepalese civil society groups must learn from the various intellectual traditions which formed the background of social cohesion, national identity and articulate a rationalistic worldview.

Like the voluntary basis of Nepalese duty-based civil society, Paropakar (charity based institutions), the modern version of civil society in not a home-grown concept. They are rights-based and have come as a part of modernization and secular individualization project. They are, therefore, less spirited to resolve the problems of agrarian societies of Nepal than engaging in fragile state framework of donors which have to work for social and economic balance during conflict. One can see bulk of civil society has lost the breadth of spirit necessary to question violent strikes, blockades and regular agitations troubling the ordinary public in Nepal. Since they did not originate from local values, knowledge and institutional requirements their usefulness is limited to solving the problems brought about by modernization, individualization and monetization of society in such fields such as human rights, trade unions, laws, business, civil service and professional work. This shows that there is no way they can be utilized to strengthen social capital of agrarian society without their proper indigenization. But, this is not their priority because it reduces their power. Human life cannot be divorced from the free will and reflective consciousness about the overall environment. In no way it can be subjected to anomie of secular modernism or postmodernism fostered by disciplinary social sciences to demolish the sociability and spirituality of ordinary public that glued the Nepalese society so far.

Elite Dominance: In contrast to the public character of traditional groups in their capacity to bring different citizens from all walks of life to interact with each other in discourse in public places, like Chautara and Basgharaha, school compound, temples and monasteries, the modern ones are exclusionary, specialized along political party, commerce and disciplinary lines and impenetrable for anyone outside the discipline. They are effective agents of change in their own discipline, no doubt, but they have lost the public character that their traditional counterparts have assumed in inspiring private individuals to form a public body (Eley, 1994:297). The southern parts of Nepal's Tarai exhibit the growth of high civility due to surplus economy and interest of property owning class to invest in schools, colleges, hospitals, public inns, temples, ponds, roads, bridges and charity-based activities and remove the gaps between the haves and have-nots. The instrumentalization of cultural differences by political parties to expand their base is, however, eroding this spirit.

The urban areas of Nepal witness the increasing fusion of boundaries between political parties, business groups and civil society for common interests. A strong bond glued by identical interest has squeezed the space for unorganized public to participate in political platform without leverage. Boundary crossing of members among these groups is also frequent. As a result of these, voluntary sphere is now increasingly being largely monetized.

Obviously, policy change through public campaigns and pressure tactics works in Nepal. Civil society activism in Nepal Development Forum (NDF) typically reflects this trend. Here, however, grassroots rural and agrarian institutions are hardly represented. Traditional institutions have specialized in bringing all the segments of society, including policy and decision makers in one space—the public space for undertaking a new initiative. Such public characteristic is rarely available in today's intermediary groups. The professional space has been expanding. It is providing opportunity for an array of professionals to be involved in public works. The same process is fraught with difficulties in the modern context with an infinite number of formalities and institutional delay, a work defined only for the specialists. Even then the public problem to be solved could acquire the unplanned shape as it reaches the resolution phase.

Civil society groups are generally considered to be voluntary, charity-based ones having no pecuniary and partisan interests in the policies they pursue. Since the modern civil society comes along with the development model being imported, it can neither remain free from the politics of being expedited by development agencies which in turn are influenced by the ideology being pursued by the most influential countries, nor can it claim to be free from the utilitarian motives of those importing the development models. One can see the incorporation of various exogenous development concepts in Nepal's five-year planning documents and country cooperation framework of various NGOs. Development dependency not only affects economic sphere, but also the social, cultural and psychological dimensions in a more direct manner. Social contexts are local while their shapers and those that maintain and sustain them are alien who understand little about them. While these groups may be effective and result oriented, the targets being met by them have the potential of bringing about a number of new problems in the course of solving old ones. In other words, the social change promoted by these agents could bring about wide fissures along existing fault lines that had been glued by traditional social capital until recently. This shows that, like Siamese twins, civility and utilitarian motives in these developments are strongly tied. And, a critic has argued that these civil societies are not propagating a system of civic education for a shared sense of civilized coexistence and a common authority of constitution (Bhatta, 2007: 18-23).

Dependency Oriented: The exponential growth of civil society groups and NGOs in Nepal in recent years "is largely due to the attraction of external funding" (Maskay, 1998:168). In modern public life external interests are valid only up to the extent they complement domestic public needs. Scholars from transitional countries have argued that imposed economic and political transition aimed through the state class or civil society fosters a new kind of undemocratic elites as they create a gulf between the state and society notwithstanding their convergence in capitalizing external resources.

Many emerging civil society groups in Nepal are not being rooted in the real needs, experiences and aspirations of Nepalese citizens as they are just a response to donors' aid package, aid conditionality and cultural, methodological and ideological conditioning defined in terms of patron-client relationship. Their priority, therefore, is less to operate according to constitutional vision than to be imprisoned by outside models of development manufactured for an entirely different context. There is an absence of institutionalized partnership of the civil society with the state which makes the functional boundaries of these societies very porous. As a result, politics of civil society in Nepal is dominated by a myriad of interest and pressure groups which are, consequently, de-culturating the organizational base of national political parties through soft power of ideas and hard power of geopolitics and money. In this context, bulk of urban civil society groups can be considered as high leverage actors, hyper mobile, resourceful and emancipated from the very concept of national loyalty essential for democratic rule.

The dependency in sustaining the civil society obviously leaves a more direct question to be addressed what after the donors have left? The relationship between the urban civil society and funders is built on patronage and, therefore, they apply clientalist approaches to solve problems and conflicts. If funding were to dry up, a majority of non-indigenous civil society groups would be fated to suffer terminal decline (Dahal, 2001:42). The defender of civil society admits, "The various institutions that are potential member of civil society are not perceived as truly independent, or as self-governing, self-financing bodies that they must become" (Panday, 2001: 124). The mounting resentment against the civil society groups, especially urban NGOs, is that they are not accountable to native citizens, often indulge in incitements and campaigns against the irrational fear of already weak state. The liberation of civil society from national affinity with the state and citizens has drained the social capital necessary for liberating citizens from social problems and enabling them as reflective and reflexive public (Shrestha, 1997:38) capable of assuming the responsibility of citizenship. Only a genuine civil society based on the spirit of self-help can make the process of liberation choice-enhancing, sustainable and national in character.

(Excerpts Only; The author is the Chief of Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Nepal)

Posted on : 2010-06-16 06:49:07

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