However one defines an authoritarian regime, one of its hallmarks is a lack of press freedom.

Indeed, only about three weeks ago or so, an organisation called Reporters Without Borders published a report, which stated that Nepal's rank in the world, in terms of
press freedom, was 160 out of 167. Nepal did better than CERTIFIABLY authoritarian regimes such as Burma, Cuba and North Korea. Indeed, going by this report, it left
no doubt in anyone' mind that Nepal was/is indeed an authoritarian regime.

Surprisingly, at the time, everyone in Nepal seemed to accept this verdict WITHOUT challenging or questioning or even welcoming it. It became news and sort of died out after that.

[My uncharitable explanation for that silence is: Journalists did not want challenge it because (a) they don't have the basic background in stat to challenge the RWB's methodology, and (b) it's in their financial interest (i.e. to continue to have an easy access to donor funds for governance work to conflict-mitigation work to
whatever else that our 'conflict-jounalism industrial complex' has spawned in recent years!!) to continue have the rest of the world paint their situation as hopelessly khattam in Nepal.

They did not want to welcome it either, for they know that though situation is not
that encouraging in Nepal (especially for rural journalists), it's not horribly bad either, especially for most urban media elite (presumably the ones who filled out the survey questionnaires) who are basically well-paid NGO-wallahs!).

Besides the journalists had just received millions of rupees from the government, and, understandably they did not want to bite the hand that fed them.]

So that's Part I.

***

Part II is:

But when the old Panchayati hand Mohammed Mohsin dared to say that the country might well head toward being an authoritarian regime, watch how all hell broke loose.

From Khagendra Sangraula to Suman Pradhan, everyone jumped on Mohsin, some even asking for his resignation.

*****

Observations:

When foreigners tell us: "Based on your press freedom index, you ARE an authoritarian regime", Nepali journalists keep quiet -- and, assuming that to be true, do NOTHING to expand the degrees of freedom.

But when a Minister suggests that we might be heading toward an authoritarian rule, then everyone shouts at him as if any word against democracy is totally unacceptable.

********

Question:

Could it be that for most people in Nepal shouting at the Minister is a lot easier in terms of generating heat than challenging RWB's index?

After all, let's face it, an authoritarian regime does NOT exactly announce to all that it
is GOING to be an authoritarian one.

It just is.

oohi
ashu

i don't care about democary or freaking whatever monarchy junk.

whoever wants to have power have it. just make Nepal LITTLE better???????????????????????????????????????

Is that more to ask?

what is the use in fighting over who is good and who is bad. u know what? NOBODY DOES ANYTHING>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

all the politicians should be shot in nepal (coz i bet each and everyone are corrupt)

and i don't know what to do with the royals...... coz i don't know (not being royalist here mr nepe.)

nepal has to be a good place to live and that's it . screw democracy or monarchy!
if u actually see aristotle he says that for small countries like us democrary is not very good.............


anyways....

mae intelectual comments about whatever is better will not solve anything now will it.................

and
EVERYONE HAS THE RIGHT TO THEIR OWN OPINION.... doesn't matter if its right or wrong........



PEACE

God save Nepal

I don't know if I should be taking the charge of this thread of Ashu and respond to all the postings posted here. Since some of the questions/points/remarks are really important and interesting too, I take liberty to reply to this round of quiries/comments.

----

Brighteyes,

A Roundabout Way. Very interesting phrase !

And hey, you seem to have bright eyes. How did you make them ?

----

Pieces,

I am genuinely moved by your sincere thoughts and feelings and your wonder for a perfect world. How wonderful this world would have been, had we all been as compassionate as you are.

But we are not. Humans are animals. They live with their animal instinct for survival - competing with each other individually or by forming classes for resources. A gentleman had a brilliant idea - eliminating classes might eliminate that animal instinct. A very expensive experiment was carried out. Did not work. It created one more class of the classes. The Eliminator class and the marked-for-elimination class. And the competition became even more severe and more brutal.

The lesson ? We have no other than accepting the competition as the way of our life. All we can do is to strive for making that competition as fair as possible, and that too by the competition itself. And that's what Democracy is in a nutshell.

UML, NC, RPP, the King, the Maoists, you, me, testdirector, Pink Floyd all are parties to a competiton for survival in various forms. I can not answer all the questions you've asked. However, I am sure if you start with what I have just said you will get answers to those powerful questions yourself.

------------------------

Lazywally wrote:
If democracy (as a means) is what you want, surely you are smart enough to know that before implementing it, we need to patch the holes in the system that were exploited by corrupt politicians who brought democracy to its knees. What changes are necessary to the multi party democratic system of government for it to not fail like it did before? Ever thought about that?

If you have no answer, wait for someone who has one, instead of wasting our time with pointless mud slinging.


I am 100% with you. And it might not be THE answer if you have already a ready answer. But here is my views on how to patch the holes in the system that is failing now.

target=new href="HowTo Patch the Holes in Nepali Democracy" target="http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/column.cfm?extraid=622"

Sorry for the mess. Here is the link, Lazywally

( - http://www.sajha.com/sajha/html/column.cfm?extraid=622 )

/begin pointless mud slinging

It seems incredible to me that a certain segment of Nepal still thinks that Nepalis are sheep enough to REQUIRE a authoritarian in order to have a functioning society. Just look at Pakistan, they say. They fantasize about a muscle man like Musharaf.

For differnt reasons though. Some want to preserve that idyllic himlayan shangrila image (mahendra mal wallahs ) and some just don't think nepalis are 'civilized enough' for democracy ( in my observation mostly home grown pundits). The most irritating defenders, of course, are those who are ambivalent about it for being a 'western' concept. These type writer warriors are usually products of liberal arts schools in Amrika. They critique well, take your sentence apart and turn ideas into absurdities, but, sadly, they have nothing to offer. These people perched on fences who can commit neither to tyranny nor anarchy nor democracy. Pathetic people .

Lazywally wrote:

we need to patch the holes in the system that were exploited by corrupt politicians who brought democracy to its knees. What changes are necessary to the multi party democratic system of government for it to not fail like it did before? Ever thought about that?

I don't have the answer but let me try:

Since you seem to have a good grasp on political science, and someone interesting to talk to, here's my answer to your question: According to Weingast (1997), whom I find more well informed and educated than some of the self-proclaimed democracy experts here at Sajha : To have a functional democracy, you have to have a coordination between a soverign/govt and the people. Only when there's a coordination, you can have a functioning democracy. Without the coordination, there's no functioning democracy. How do you achieve that coordination then? Well, many scholars point out that the coordination is only possible with institutions. And how do we create institutions? Its through education and equal economic oppurtunity to all. Only when this coordination is achived, then you can define the appropriate role of the state. And when the appropriate role of the state is outlined/defined, then there's a national consensus and people will know their rights and roles, and can be effective against any action that violates the established appropriate role of the state. This explains why democracy works in the US and western Europe really well, and not so really well in the rest of the world.

We can understand Nepal's failure with democracy with this framework. In Nepal we are yet to define the clear role of the state and the people. There's no coordination and there's no consensus. When the governmnet fails to live up to the expectation, actually a large number of people would actually support unconstitutional or extraconstitutional remedies. This explains why people were happy when Deuba was kicked out of office 2 years ago. If we had a coordination between the state and the people, a consensus on the part of the majority, and institutions, this would have never happened, and if had happened, then people would have protested against it, instead of celebrating it. So I stand by my previous reply to you: Institution building, equal economic oppurtunity to the people and education, will in the long run create a tolerant and better informed community because this will create a "consensus" and coordination. And that's the key to having a functional democracy.

Addendum to my earlier post:

If there's no coordination between the state and the people (majority/minority), then no matter how good of a constitution any given country has, the country is still undemocratic because there's no way to restrict the leaders from committing unconstitutional actions. And the leaders tend to cross the boundries in the third world countries because of the division in the population. So whether Repulicanism, constitutional monarchy or a liberal democracy, things will continue to be messy in Nepal if the transition is without taking care of the division and coordination issues.

Nepal if the transition is without taking care of the = Nepal if the transition is made without taking care of the

Just to make it all simple, here's my analogy: You can't afford to buy things when you don't have money, can you? So, the first thing is to have money, then only you can go shopping, hoina? Borrowing is an option, but what if you fail to return the loan? You are screwed. Same thing happens with countries who make a transition without any preparation, i.e, they get screwed.

lazy wally, thant's my answer. Of course, given my lack of training and knowledge, I know only this much at this point of time. Feel free to correct, criticize and teach me.

Literacy:

definition: age 15 and over can read and write
total population: 45.2%
male: 62.7%
female: 27.6% (2003 est.)

cia world factbook.

a country where the literacy rate which is defined as ONLY READING AND WRITING, is this(shown above), and a country where CULTURAL/ RELIGION influecne drives the world , will it be possible for democracy to work? hence, as we know, our culture still harbors so much narrow ideas for this time period, u think we will survive democracy? and can we relate culture/religion and democrary? ofcourse...we can put our eyes right here in amerca and watch, cultural and religion influecne in democracy..

..eeh, i dont know if i am hitting the right point..

ooh yah, by the cultural influecne i meant, caste discrimination, women rights, all those nachiene dharma sastra ko kura haru..that has a stamp of its own on our society

Nepe,

When political parties cannot decide what to do, thereby making space for the king to seize his opportunity to do as he pleases, you are against the king.

Fine.

But when Nepali academics start fighting with one another, asking the king to step in to "save Royal Nepal Academy (RNA)", you bend over backward to justify their action by saying that, well, that's cultural and not political.

It seems that you are more interested in the absence of OBVIOUS signs of democracy than in the presence of INVISIBLE yet more important signs of democracy in Nepal.

Let me explain: Absence of obvious signs would be, yes, no elections, no MPs, no Parliament and so on. But these bundle of visible institutions ALONE does not make
up our demoracy. After all, these things were there during the Panchayati times too.

Presence of INVISIBLE yet more important signs of democracy would be the right to criticise the King and the parties publicly, to demonstrate against them -- as are happening in Nepal -- and so on and on.

The King, with unintended help from muddled politicians, helped castrate the VISIBLE signs. But he seems not to have touched upon the invisible signs as of now. That is why you can chant anti-King slogans in Ratna Park and NOT get arrested like you did during Panchayati times. This presence of invisible right, to me, represents some hope, that the King is going half-way. Now, it's up to the parties to meet him half way too, and give Nepal a FRESH start by: (a) uniting against the Maoists, and (b) going for the elections, come hell or highwater.

I don't know the King personally, but as a former businessman he must know that when customers get used to one kind of better service, they do not go back to preferring old kype of service. Translated it means when the Nepali public has gotten the taste of the invisible signs of democracy in the last 14 years (signs that have been more empowering to them), it's only a matter of time before they start demanding the visible signs too. The king may be a lot of things, be he is not stupid.

*****
Anyway, being some sort of a global vagabond, I don't live in Nepal these days and am "far from the action", so to speak. But I aim to bring up this and other issues in
clear, conversational Nepali language (thank God for laptopn, unicode and Internet connections!!) in columns I will soon start to write for Nepal's leading national Nepali-language daily. Stay tuned and give me mercilessly critical feedbacks so that these
and other ideas, previously explored on Sajha and elsewhere, reach a wider
audience across Nepal. [Sadly, this means: Fewer postings on Sajha from me :-(]

oohi
ashu

Ashu,

Good to hear from you. And I am glad to see you this much opened up regarding your view about the King. And I look forward to reading the column you are planning to write for Nepali papers and hopefully discussing about the things of my interest. I hope to see one of my criticisms about you that you are not opened-up about the King go away.

This posting, which looks like a sneak-peak of your future communications, clearly shows your faith in the King. I do not have any faith in the King and the royal family and their protectors- bhai-bhardars, old guards, new guards and the most powerful and most visible of all, the royal army. I think the large picture of our failed experiment with the monarchy-democracy hybrid, or rather a chimera, has, in it's heart, the loyalty of the Royal Army to the King. Your chintan-manan about democracy appears to be your personal interpretation of smallar pictures taking it's hybrid nature in Nepal as granted.

I hope to have more conversation with you on this in future.

Here are just quick reply to some of your points:

When political parties cannot decide what to do, thereby making space for the king to seize his opportunity to do as he pleases, you are against the king. Fine. But when Nepali academics start fighting with one another, asking the king to step in to "save Royal Nepal Academy (RNA)", you bend over backward to justify their action by saying that, well, that's cultural and not political.

I don't know how you synthesized this argument but it looks like an animal with a buffalo's horns and a goat's tail. Let's do one animal at a time. First the goat. Regarding the academy, as I said, 'Raja aau desh bachaau' and 'Raja aau Academy bachau' do not convey the same message. You appears to be insisting that they do. Clearly, you are guided by your positive political bias towards the King. Or alternatively, I am not as intelligent as you are, who is able to identify them as the same thing.

Now, the buffalo. In the first sentence above, you have said many interesting things which can be subjects for larger discussions. That for some other time. Here I will just point to how illogocal or rather reverse logical your logic is there.

If you are talking about post Asoj 17 scenario, yes, political parties have not been able to decide what to do.

However, before Asoj 17 they were making decisions one after another. At the point when the King, in your view, "seized his opportunity", they all had been able to unanimously decide what to do next.

They all unanimously and very very very strongly, so strongly that, they were ready even not to look if there is something in the constitution to come in their way, decided that Sher Bahadur Deuba will continue to run the government.

There was no space for the King, Okay there was space, but that was not the one created by the inability of the political parties to take decisions. The space was already there, although invisible and that to those who refuse to see it, long before we can blame the political parties for anything.

The space, that comfortable and unquestionable trustworthy space, was the LOYALTY of the army to the King. Had the army been or perceived as neutral, political parties could kick the ass of Gyanendra Sahu jee and tell him the sovereignty of Nepal is not his baauko birtaa anymore.

So gyanendra Sahu jee extended his real estate with the capital of army's loyalty. With his space extended even more, the political parties got sidelined more and more and became unable to take strong decisions.

This is my view. Ashu thinks the reverse.

But he seems not to have touched upon the invisible signs as of now. That is why you can chant anti-King slogans in Ratna Park and NOT get arrested like you did during Panchayati times.

One more time. To a wrong person, a wrong credit, taken away from from the right persons.

Those slogans are there not because of Raja's love to freedom. Those slognas are not there because of Raja's determination to nullify the law of the land that protects his family from being disgraced. Those slogans are there exclusively for the courage of our youth, their readiness for sacrifice for freedom and democracy. Ashu used to be never tired of ridiculing these youth until recently. And now he is thankful to the King.

Well, views aafno aafno, priority aafno aafno.

This presence of invisible right, to me, represents some hope, that the King is going half-way.

Again, dristikon aafno aafno. If this guy is going half-way, where the hell he was before, why the hell he came here in the first place. May be these questions are irrelevant to Ashu. To me , interpreting one step in isolation of the other is senseless and dishonest too.

Now, it's up to the parties to meet him half way too, and give Nepal a FRESH start by: (a) uniting against the Maoists, and (b) going for the elections, come hell or highwater.

Well, the unity of the King and the political parties is not the solution to the Maoist problem. In fact, that was what gave rise to and strengthened the Maoists. Itihas saakchhi chha.

The king may be a lot of things, be he is not stupid.

The King must be happy to be certified as not being a stupid by somebody like you. I don't want to debate on that. However, I'll say this much. No matter what, in the next political change, the King is going to lose all or most of the political power he had before. I am ready to bet anything on this. Would you like to bet, Ashu ?
In the next political change, hopefully not far away, we will find out if Gyanendra was a stupid or was a smart guy.

Astoo.

Testing

अहिले थापाकाजीका पाइला पछ्याउन एक हूल प्रा. डा. अर्थात् प्राध्यापक-डाक्टरहरू यात्रामा निस्केका छन् ।

Kunsang Kaka Ubaacha...

अहिले थापाकाजीका पाइला पछ्याउन एक हूल प्रा. डा. अर्थात् प्राध्यापक-डाक्टरहरू यात्रामा निस्केका छन् । यी प्रा. डा. हरूको कथा सरल छ । जब लोकतन्त्र दर्ुबल भयो, राजदरबारमा मात्र यिनले बल देखे । र, शक्तिका यी भक्तहरूलाई हिजोका लाभदायक दिनहरूको झल्झली सम्झना भयो । यीमध्ये अधिकांश प्रा. डा. हरू हिजो महेन्द्रपथका पथिक थिए । यी उमङ्गसाथ महेन्द्रस्तुति लेख्थे, र सट्टामा केही मीठो दानापानी हातलागी गर्थे । यी मुक्तकण्ठले चाूदनी-भजन गाउूथे र ज्यालास्वरूप अलिकता प्रसाद र आशर्ीवाद प्राप्त गर्थे । यी दरबारको खुफिया विभागको सेवा गर्थे र मेवाले भिक्षाको झोली भर्थे । पञ्चायत रजत महोत्सवमा यी एकतन्त्रको महिमा मण्डन गर्थे र छातीमा गोदवा भिर्थे । अहिले अर्को भेषमा जब पञ्चायत दोहोरियो, यी प्रा. डा. हरूका लोभी नाकमा दरबारको भतेरको मग्मग् बासन आयो । र अतीतको स्मरण गर्दै र ओठ चाट्दै यिनले एक स्वरमा सल्लाह गरे( अरे भाइ, जाऔू दरबारको दक्षिणीद्वार, खाऔू फेरि बक्सिस परिकार ?दासताप्रेमी प्रा. डा. हरूको नजर दरबारको गजुरमा स्थिर भएका थिए । ती साइतको प्रतीक्षामा थिए । नभन्दै साइत लिएर एक जोडी जोई-पोइ आइलागे । 'माथि' को खटनबमोजिम ती आए ।

तिनका हातमा बिन्तीपत्रका चाङ थिए । बिन्तीपत्रमा भनिएको थियो( स्वामी महाराज, कृपा गरी प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठानको संरक्षक भइबक्स्योस् र हामी असक्त भक्तलाई संरक्षण दिइबक्स्योस् । बिन्तीपत्रको भाका सुनेर प्रा. डा. हरू प्रसन्न भए । जोडीका हातमा दरबारको हरियो घाूस थियो, खापसियो थियो र डोरी थियो । घाूस गजप् छ बा ? हेरेर प्रा. डा. हरूका ज्रि्रा रसाए । तिनले नाक दिए । जोडीले खापसियोले तिनका नाक छेडे । अनि रक्ताम्य प्वालमा डोरी सजिए । यसरी दोपाया प्रा. डा. हरूको औतार फेरियो र ती चौपाया पाडामा परिणत भए । अघिअघि लोभलाग्दो हरियो घाूस छ, पछिपछि छन् भोका पाडाहरू । ल्याप्चे पाडाहरू डोरिूदै दरबारको दक्षिणद्वारमा पुगे । ती अहिले द्वारसामु किलामा बाूधिएर धनुष्टङ्कार मुद्रामा तेर्र्सो परेका छन् ।कुन्साङ काका भन्छन्( टीकाकार घटराज भट्टर्राई पाडा सम्प्रदायका विचारवान् प्रवक्ता हुन् । अति गहन चिन्तनपछि प्रवक्ता महोदयले भनेछन्( प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठान महाराज महेन्द्रको निजी सम्पत्तिले खोलिएको हो । अतः मौसुफको सम्पत्ति मौसुफकै उत्तराधिकारीलाई सुम्पिदिनर्ुपर्छ । गम्नोस्न पाठकवृन्द, मालिकप्रतिको यो कति उच्च बफादारी ? कति गहिरो यो भक्ति ? जताको मेवा, उतैको सेवा ।

यसो हर्ेदा कुरो ठिकै त हो ।छयालीस सालको आन्दोलनको राप र तापले प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठानलाई नारायणहिटी दरबारका पन्जाबाट मुक्त गरिदियो । तर दर्ुभाग्यवश, तातो ताप्केबाट फुत्केको आहत माछो तल भुङ्ग्रोमा पर्?यो । माने के भने प्रतिष्ठान सिंहदरबारको नोकरशाहीतन्त्रको कैदी बन्न पुग्यो । प्रतिष्ठानलाई सिंहदरबारका पन्जाबाट मुक्त गर्नु आजको ज्वलन्त खाूचो थियो । तर स्वतन्त्रतासूग डराउने र दासताको पूजा गर्ने पाडाहरू इतिहासलाई उल्ट्याएर फेरि यसलाई नारायणहिटी दरबारकै कैदी बनाउन कन्दनी कसेर लागिपरेका छन् । मालिकको गाडा तान्नु पाडाको प्रारब्ध हो । यी पाडाहरू निहुरिएर प्रभुको गाडालाई काूध दिइरहेका छन् ।

नेपाली साहित्य र कलाको इतिहासमा विवेक र बोलीको स्वतन्त्रताको रक्षा गर्न ज्यानको बाजी थाप्नेहरू नभएका होइनन् । कृष्णलाल सुब्बाले बाजी थापे र ज्यान दिए । देवकोटाले पुस्तकालय खोल्ने उद्योग गरे र कासीतिर लखेटिए । रिमाल दासताविरुद्ध हातमा नाङ्गो खुकुरी बोकेर अर्द्ध-विक्षिप्त मुद्रामा सडक-सडक दगुरे । युद्धप्रसाद मिश्र, वासु शशी र पारिजात मुखमा कालो पट्टी बाूधेर सरस्वती सदनअगाडि बसे ।

इतिहासको पन्तुरोमा यस्ता गौरवमय दृष्टान्त अरू पनि छन् । तर पाडा बन्न जिरह गर्ने प्रा. डा.हरूले इतिहासको यो उदात्त प्रकाश देखेनन्, दरबारको हरियो घाूसमात्र देखे । आफूलाई प्रा. डा., लेखक, कलाकार, सङ्गीतकार आदि भन्नेहरूको यो निर्लज्ज पाडो प्रवृत्ति नेपाली साहित्य र कलाको निधारमा लागेको ज्यादै फोहोर कलङ्क हो ।कुन्साङ काका लख काट्छन्( थापाकाजीको नयाू पञ्चपार्टर्ीी एउटा पाडो परिषद् हुनेछ । र, प्रज्ञा प्रतिष्ठानलाई लगेर नारायणहिटीमा बुझाउन दरबारको दक्षिणी द्वारमा पुगेका बिन्तीपत्रे पाडाहरू उक्त परिषद्मा पदेन नियुक्त हुनेछन् । मतिअनुसार यिनका लागि सुहाउूदो ठाउू त्यही हो( पाडा परिषद् । गजपको ठाउू, हकि ?प्रा.डा.हरू जब पाडा औतारमा प्रकट भए, लोकका स्वतन्त्रताप्रेमी नागरिकले तिनको अखण्ड निन्दा गरे । तर सकल पाडाहरू दरबारको गजुर हर्ेर्दै मौन मुद्रामा प्रतिक्रियाहीन रहे । बबुरा प्रा.डा. डी. पी. भण्डारीमात्र एक्लै रोइरहे । पश्चात्तापले पिरोलिूदै यी बूढा भण्डारी नारायण गोपालको गीत गुनगुनाइरहेका छन्( मेरो बेहोसी आज मेरो लागि पर्दा भो । जीवनमा भूल गर्नु मानव स्वभाव हो । र आप\mनो भूल सम्झेर रुनु हृदयको पवित्रताको प्रमाण हो । काकाका 'रिपु' भण्डारी बाजे रोऊन्, रोइरहून् ।

(Excerpts from yesterday's Kantipur Daily)

RNA related news in Deshantar:

http://www.nepalnews.com.np/unprotected/nepaliweekly/deshantar/2004/nov/nov28/local.htm#3

>(Excerpts from yesterday's Kantipur Daily)
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