Any major political transformation—like Nepal’s shift from monarchy to republicanism twenty years ago—must be accompanied by individual security, lasting peace, basic civil liberties, and accelerated economic development. These are indispensable elements of successful change. Political leaders may consider it a fantasy but people entertain it as the whole truth. However, in Nepali context it does not apply even to a minimal extent. If there is anything that has stifled the country's path to a genuine democracy, political stability and economic development, it is the relentless power struggles among Nepal’s entrenched political elites who have practically monopolized the stage for over three and a half decades now.
Given the volatile nature of Nepal’s politics and the growing entanglement of external forces, public confidence in the stability of the Nepali Congress-CPN (UML) coalition remains critically low, with many comparing it to transient desert sands. The leading political stalwarts are locked in a neck-and-neck race, making and breaking governments like a game of musical chairs. This constant upheaval results in recurrent shifts in the state’s policies—both in economic reconstruction and diplomatic engagements with the outside world. Considering their blatant hypocrisy, political duplicity and degenerated statesmanship, one comes to a painful realization that Nepal’s newly acquired political culture is essentially endowed with a naked drive for power and a pathological lust for material affluence.
The universally accepted principles of democratic culture require people at the helm of power to treat political opponents as fellow citizens with whom they disagree but not smash them as enemies. However, in Nepal the actual practice is just the other way round and the leadership holding the reins of governance always exhibits some classic symptoms of totalitarianism embellished with personal cult, identification of the nation with himself and an outright refusal to accept the legitimacy of opposition. Almost all the principal characters of Nepal’s ongoing political drama are simply blinded by impatience for power and greed for wealth. They are the real instruments that make democracy messier.
For the last several years the underfed citizens have been watching in total amazement how the frontline champions of democracy and the self- acclaimed proletarian messiahs have been getting richer by every passing day and are enjoying a total immunity from the state laws governing economic corruption. If an inquisitive media person ever ventures to question them as to the source of their impressive physical assets the model answer would be: wife’s earnings or gifts from the in-laws or family inheritance. What a hogwash!!
It is true that the decade-long armed insurgency unleashed by the Maoist rebels costing national property worth billions of rupees and a tragic loss over 17 thousand precious lives and hundreds of people still unaccounted for, brought about a phenomenal consciousness among the downtrodden and marginalized people. They suddenly awoke to realize that the social inequality that they were subjected to was not an act of God to be passively accepted but a flagrant injustice perpetrated by a section of the population that was inherently imbued with feudal concepts and traditional values that they inherited for several centuries, irrespective of which dynasty or clan ruled the country. Thus, the Nepali masses, once politically inert, were suddenly awakened to the ideals of democratic republicanism—a system they eventually succeeded in establishing in the country.
However, it is deeply distressing that even after nearly two decades since the country’s political identity underwent a complete metamorphosis, the vanguards of this radical change have failed to deliver on their promises to the people—pledges made during the uprising against the monarchy, nor could they transcend their parochial interests, be it economic or political.
Almost all the principal characters of Nepal’s ongoing political drama are simply blinded by impatience for power and greed for wealth. They are the real instruments that make democracy messier.
They all fell pathetic victims to corruption of various kinds and magnitude. The Nepali people’s emotional sacrifices for a historic political transformation were rewarded with nothing but continued political uncertainty and rampant corruption. Instead of progress, they now face mass youth exodus, sky-rocketing prices, eroding social cohesion, and brazen foreign interference in national affairs. If judged against this backdrop, Nepal would certainly present itself as a glaring example of a failed governance in the entire region of South Asia.
Nepali politicians’ demagogic skills to mesmerize the general masses with romantic delusions and pillage the state resources to gratify their lust for material affluence continue unabated. Yet these duplicitous political serpents still dare to lecture the credulous masses, claiming their own moral bankruptcy—the casual debauchery of their minds and actions—poses no obstacle to their self-proclaimed role as guardians of democracy. In fact, they are the one who made democracy a running joke under which corruption network is accepted as essential neurons of the statecraft.
The classic slogan of “creating a new Nepal", a revolutionary signature theme during the popular uprising against the institution of monarchy in the early sixties, is still lost in the labyrinth of interminable political delusions and casuistries. Similarly, the balloon of vapidly recited but highly enticing political gimmick of Prime Minister K P Oli - “Prosperous Nepal and Happy Nepali” is likely to be deflated by a well-honed needle of their political dishonesty, far-fetched promises, and outrageous corruption. These slogans have now been reduced to a subject of public cynicism and a joke.
Ever since the collapse of the Panchayat polity in the early 1990s, Nepal’s internal political dynamics—as well as its foreign relations—have struggled to find direction or stability under successive regimes. While the fragmented communists continue pushing their recycled dogma to manipulate public sentiment for hidden political gains, the deeply compromised Nepali Congress—having long abandoned its democratic principles—opportunistically allies with any political faction just to cling to power and reap short-term benefits." Under these infelicitous circumstances retrieving public trust and confidence has become a Herculean task for any political leadership of Nepal. In the eyes of the common man they all symbolize living examples of political dishonesty and moral bankruptcy.
Baruch Spinoza, a 17th century Duch philosopher, wrote in his “Writings on Political Philosophy” that ‘the object of a government is not to change men into beasts and puppets, but to enable them to develop their bodies in security and employ their reason unshackled”. However, in Nepal, even the parliamentarians cannot fearlessly speak their minds. They have to go against their own conscience and lie in support of their leaders. A pressing question emerges: Could Nepal’s parliament truly degenerate into what a Turkish writer once scornfully called “a seraglio of political eunuchs”—even under multi-party democracy? Let us hope not. Let us hope the answer is negative!
(Mr Khanal is a retired Chief of Protocol at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Nepal)
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