I had a nice long walk in the Baluwate/Chundevi/Maharajgung
area in the bandh quietness yesterday. The squalor of the broken, dusty and
given-up-for-lost main road gave way to nice winding lanes with trees,
neighbourhoods where people had still left space for some bouganville and a jackaranda
tree or two, and group of young men discussing the upcoming elections. Women,
true to the nature of this election, were not in evidence in public, or in
private.
Reading the signs of the election candidates, I realized
they were riffing off the main Nepali song. One offered to pursue a republic without
federalism. The other offered federalism without a republic. There seems to be other variations on this theme—federalism
with certain features. Federalism without certain features. Republic with this
and that. Republic without this or that. Et cetera.
There were posters of a few candidates, primarily young
women (and one young man), promising to bring about an improvement of leadership. But other than
that, none referred to concerns of good governance.
In the general scheme of things, this is an
elections just to hash out the new Constitution. So the candidates are
primarily running to finish that task. But it appeared to be that none of them
appeared to know how to get out of the deadlock around these issues that have
plagued the process from 2008 onwards. In fact, the election posters felt like
an exact illustration of why the process stalled in the first place—it seemed
there are a lot of minute disagreement about minute issues, and no agreement about
the bigger picture.
As to how all these suns, hammer and sickles, cows, flaming
torches, dogs, camels, and umbrellas are going to get along under the same tent
needs to be seen. Especially with that swastika (did they have to pick that
swastika? Did anybody else feel uncomfortable seeing that swastika on TV every
day besides myself?) It appears to me they are stuck in hashing out the minute details,
and have, for the past six years, and missing the broad picture. Somehow I fail to see how designating Nepal
into federal zones is going to solve issues of poverty, health care, education,
employment, safe migration and gender equality.
But of course not for a female writer to butt into these important
matters of state.
In the meantime, I had an interesting conversation this
morning with a young man who returned after three years in Saudi Arabia. Although
he had a nice easy time in his room with the TV that had Nepali channels, working
for a Korean company, some things he said made me think not all was well in
this oil paradise. He agreed with me on
this--although he was making Rs.70,000 per month, he decided to return home
because “money is not everything. There are other things more important in
life.”
Amongst other interesting tidbids, he shared these stories—guns
are easily available on the street in Saudi Arabia, and even a child can buy
one. Then there’s the hangings. He
turned around to see why the car had stalled when going to work one day, and
saw all these people hanging above him. Police were known to just kill people
with whatever lay at hand, including shovels. There are about 100 car crashes
per day, with people speeding at 220 km per hour, with many people run over and
nobody to take responsibility. And then there were the three Nepalis who are
killed by lethal injection and their bodies sent back home—apparently they were
accused of looking at the women in the family. If you turn and make eye contact with a woman on the street and she complains, you're dead. “Nepalis,” he hastens to add, “are never
cut and made to bleed because they are Hindus.” They get the lethal injection instead.
“Everyone likes the Nepalis,” he says. “They don’t
like the Indians or the Pakistanis.” Thank god for small mercies.
It appears incredible to me that our leaders have no concern
that they are sending more than 200,000 young people, the cream of our working
population, every year to Gulf states into these kinds of situations. Instead,
they sit there fighting about what appears to me essentially a stalled matter
that is not going to shift into any dynamic solution anytime soon.
Perhaps I am “politically naive,” as a friend accuses me of
being. Or perhaps I am astute in other ways that politicians, and those who
support the political process, should learn from. This “election democracy”,
one size fits all, carefully put over Nepal over and over, and failing to show
real tangible benefits, begs the question whether there can be other models.
I saw a woman on TV last night who seem to have solutions. She mentioned that the leaders didn’t want to
include anybody, including women, into this political process. “The conditions
have to be created,” she said, “so they are not just included in a token
manner, but in a way in which they can feel comfortable being present and being
active in this political process.”
Say that to the current political process where whoever gets
the ticket gets the vote. The internationals are there precisely to make sure
that this “fair” process is followed. Interestingly, those who lose may again
get their comfy seat back—witness the fabulous Madhav Kumar Nepal who lost
twice in the last elections but gets honorary, lifelong membership at the
political frontlines. Meaning even the process of winning and losing is essentially a meaningless process.
There are many things that are not fair about this election—not
the least that the concerns of this election are concerns of the political
elites at the very top. Ask the average guy whether he prefers a republic or a
Hindu state, and he will shrug. He’s too busy worrying about that Rs.150 packet
of salt that just hit the market.
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