The Gen Z uprising of September 8-9 against corruption and misrule by the aged and inept leaders turned into violent chaos, with the loss of 19 innocent lives of teenagers.
The protest resulted from the accumulation of leaders' missteps, compounded by decades of corruption scandals and the cronyism that flourished under their protection. The security forces' indiscriminate firing sparked violent chaos. This action irked the mass and poured into the street the next day, where the infiltrators, anarchists and criminals found the opportunities to take law and order into their hands creating a situation of anarchism with arson and looting the public and private houses and installations. It, eventually, forced the then KP Oli-led government to quit from power and hand over it to the interim government led by Shushila Karki. The Karki government is mandated to hold elections on March 5, next year.
The anarchists ruled the nation on September 9, burning houses of leaders, police booths, and other public installations. The house of the former prime minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was not only torched but also Deuba and his wife, the foreign minister of the then incumbent government, were both brutally thrashed by the mob. The houses of the reigning Prime Minister Oli and former Prime Minister Prachanda were torched even though several other senior leaders and party and business tycoons were also labeled corrupt and immoral.
Two months have passed since the protest. While the government machinery prepares for upcoming elections, major political parties are actively conspiring to force a change by demanding the reinstatement of the House of Parliament.
While the youth are demanding a visible change in leadership style, governance, and a generational transfer of power, the current leaders remain hesitant and resistant to this pressure. The conflicts within the party are visible since the first and second layers of the established parties' leaders are mostly septuagenarians. There are half a dozen ailing and ageing men who came into the limelight after the 1990 people’s mass movement and have not quit active politics; rather, they are seeking plum positions and opportunities to extract the nation's resources. They are in deep slumber about the changes the society has undergone within the decades, and demographic changes and technological advancement that have brought perceptual and ecological changes to the society, especially to the youth.
Instead of making bureaucracy merit-based and competent, the leaders politicized it and made a mockery of democracy.
The poor internal democratic culture enabled them to hold the party’s highest position for so long despite their weak performance and repeated failures in elections. If the top leader had resigned and transferred the power to the next capable leader after the loss of the election, the political scenario would have been totally different, and the democratic exercise and dispensation might have been matured. The leaders’ lust for power, fame, praise, and self-indulgence in the prosperity prevented them from thinking about democracy and its institutionalization. When there was time, they did not see the letters written on the walls, but suddenly they saw people in the street with banners in their hands. The wave had turned upside down with the wind unfavorable to them.
The Zen G uprising not only forced Oli to resign from the government but also pressured him, in an unprecedented move, within the party to give up the chairmanship and pass the baton to the new generation. For a few days until the dust settled down, he remained in his hideout and did not show himself to the public. Once he felt secure, he began throwing political cards and tantrums, undermining the Gen G protest and public anger.
The other prominent leader, Deuba, somewhat became wiser in this case and listened to the whistle of the wind and handed over the presidency to his confidante, Purna Bahadur Khadga, as acting president with the authority to hold a general convention to formally transfer power to the elected body. However, their factional debate over the issue has not come to an end with a rational decision, whether to conduct its party convention before or after the elections slated for March 5. There has also been the issue coming in recently, whether NC supports the call for the restoration of the dissolved House of Representatives.
The other influential party chairman of CPN (Maoist Center), Pushpa Kamal Prachanda, is playing tricks to consolidate his power, bringing ten parties under a single roof as a unification with a new party name. They are hell-bent on presenting themselves in a good face once again as saviors of the society and nation in a new avatar. So many political dramas are expected to come soon in Nepal.
A new political force, the Nepali Communist Party, has been formed through the unification of 10 leftist groups, including CPN (Maoist Center) and CPN (Unified Socialist). The party is led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Maoist Center and Madhav Kumar Nepal of CPN (Unified Socialist), along with other senior figures. The third in line hierarchy comes Jhalanath Khanal, and fourth Bam Dev Gautam, all are septuagenarians, and NC is not an exception to it. The Acting President Purna Bahadur Khadka is 70, and the rival factions of the establishment forces, Koirala and others, are all above 70 years old.
The above three instances are enough to present and calibrate the human emotion and behavior that someone has held so dearly for years, and with unexpected tremors, quit easily their name, fame, position, and power. Applied to our leaders, they are seen as reluctant to easily relinquish the power they have so dearly held for decades in the party and government. Even though, their relevancy has come to an end, their ego and desire to remain in power have not subsided.
Power and sex cause a surge in testosterone, and high testosterone levels further increase the appetite for power and sex, in a politico-erotic vicious circle. It is all about brain system.
The day when the Singha Durbar, the Parliament, and the Supreme Court, along with the Presidential palace, and governmental buildings across the country from east to west were burning, the security apparatus was dysfunctional and nonexistent; the country lost itself amidst the billowing thick black smoke.
On one side, the country suffered heavily under the anarchism and arson, on the other, the country suffered for decades with the corruption and misgovernance that reduced the confidence of the people in the democratic system, and did not have the able leadership to build strong institutions — a parliament, courts, rule of law, and to institutionalize the democratic credentials. Instead of making bureaucracy merit-based and competent, the leaders politicized it and made a mockery of democracy. Accountability, a pillar of democracy, simply remained a vocabulary word. Nepal began; whatever modest foundations once existed have been steadily eroded under the existing political culture.
Knowing all this situation by heart, the leaders still refuse to take responsibility and seem adamant to relinquish their power and transfer leadership to the next in command or generation. This is happening because of the winning effect. For decades, they were at the helm of power, enjoying the perks and power of the state, surrounded by the sycophants and new elites enjoying the narrow circle of coterie.
Neuroscientist Ian Robertson, in his book The Winner Effect, writes about how the brains of people in power change as they experience more of it. Power and sex cause a surge in testosterone, and high testosterone levels further increase the appetite for power and sex, in a politico-erotic vicious circle. It is all about brain system.
Testosterone boosts dopamine levels, and dopamine is a key element in motivation, in getting clear in our minds what we want, and setting out to get it. Winning changes how we feel and think by racking up testosterone and the dopamine-sensitive brain systems responsible for an action-oriented approach. In his writing, Peter Watt, the General Secretary of the Labor Party of the UK, speaks of politics as a drug. That is what addiction does; it takes people away from even those they love the most.
It is now time to make leaders realize the dire situation and not to provoke further, making the situation worse for another agitation. The desire never ends up rather grows further if not consciously controlled. You have already contributed whatever you can, serving five, four, and three times as the prime ministers. Now, the situation has changed. The leaders have to hear and read the graffiti and letters on the wall. The ecologist Garrett Hardin has said in his essay “Tragedy of the Commons” that individualistic human behavior, pursuing self-interest without social and ecological consideration, will ultimately starve the planet of its scarce resources and bring a collective end to civilization. In the political arena, this pursuit of self-interest ultimately starves national prosperity and development.
(Mr. Bartaula is a former Diplomatic Officer of the Government of Nepal.)
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