In a country obsessed with status, it was natural that Daman Nath Dhungana, who died aged 83, was referred to as the former Speaker of the Pratinidhi Sabha. That was indeed the highest office he held in a varied and fulfilling life. But Daman dai, as he was known to his legions of admirers of all ages, probably didn’t need a reference to his past rank. He gave dignity to whatever post he occupied rather than acquire respectability from his formal position.

Before the restoration of parliamentary democracy in 1990, he had been a student activist, journalist, teacher, lawyer, human rights campaigner and crusader for establishing a multiparty system. Come to think of it, he is the lyricist of a lilting and popular song of the Radio Nepal era—“Yehi ho Nepal, Nepali ko Ghar”—immortalised by its singers Prem Dhoj Pradhan and Ganga Rana.

When a constitution recommendation commission was formed in 1990 to draft a statute that would assert the sovereignty of the people, he was one of the natural choices of the Nepali Congress. Along with fellow lawyer Mukund Regmi, Daman dai was to represent the parliamentary stream of thought in a committee that had a lapsed Leninist Nilambar Acharya, moderate Marxist Bharat Mohan Adhikari, staunch Marxist-Leninist Madhav Kumar Nepal and the modest Maoist Nirmal Lama as its members.

The political direction of Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and the jurisprudential leadership of Chairperson of the drafting committee Bishwonath Upadhyaya are rightfully credited for delivering a charter of compromise within the stipulated timeframe. Since the committee was a non-elected body, it had a relatively free hand in formulating a technical statute incorporating divergent claims of desperate ideologies. The result was the draft of a procedural constitution, defined as “a pragmatic consensus on using democratic procedures” to resolve contentious issues relating to the values or identities of society and polity.

Perhaps there were influential voices favouring a prescriptive constitution that enshrined “the common values and aspirations of a homogeneous community”. Unlike the relative inflexibility of a prescriptive charter, a procedural statute is open to innovations. Perhaps that was why Daman dai once gushed that it was ‘the best constitution in the world’. Little did he realise that Prime Minister Bhattarai was convinced that ‘not even a comma’ needed to be changed in the charter. It began to degenerate from the very first polls that was to confer an electoral legitimacy upon a statute approved by the monarch.

Except for the critical voices based on moral principles, all constitutions require some form of fidelity from its governors: Institutions of the State have to honour its provisions; instruments of the government have to remain within its limits; and statutory bodies have to keep their eyes and ears open for all transgressions. Unfortunately, every signatory of the document of compromise began to renegade from their promise, and the statute was an orphan within months of its promulgation when the UML hit the streets instead of raising its voice in the legislature.

Contested legacy

A person without a fault is either a trickster or a fraud, and Daman dai was neither. He was a simple person with human failings and flaws despite all his liberal convictions. He came of age in a milieu when an end to the autocratic monarchy and the restoration of a multiparty system were the highest goals of an entire generation of democrats. He was the only non-communist candidate to win a parliamentary seat from Kathmandu, and yet he failed to realise the fading appeal of the formal democracy.

Conspiracy theories often have an element of truth in them, and it is possible that Prime Minister Bhattarai lost the 1991 election due to internal sabotage, external intrigue or a combination of both. However, blaming Girija Prasad Koirala for the electoral fall of the Nepali Congress chair was intellectually lazy, politically counterproductive and diplomatically embarrassing.

There may have been other reasons, but Daman dai’s declaration that the legislature belonged to the opposition was at least partly rooted in his personal dislike for Prime Minister Koirala. While it’s true that the Speaker is of the House rather than that of the party that had helped her get elected, it doesn’t mean that she must become a voice of the opposition irrespective of the merit of the argument.

The dictum of “executive to the ruling party and legislature to the opposition” is applicable only when both sides of the aisle share similar respect for the parliamentary procedures. In the 1990s, the ruling party was a divided house, while the radical leftists and rabid rightists on the opposition benches were united in their goal of sabotaging the system from within. Daman dai kept giving the benefit of the doubt to the opposition without doubting their intentions.

The much-touted method of mainstreaming the CPN-UML by allowing them to dominate the proceedings of Pratinidhi Sabha did succeed in luring its apparatchiks away from their outdated ideology, but it denied parliamentarians from the NC adequate opportunity to show their presence, hone their skills and establish their credentials through public visibility. Despite being celebrated as an ideal speaker, Daman dai never won any election after exiting office.

Feeble dealmaker

Once the Maoist insurgency became extremely violent and the creeping royal-military coup began being staged to counter it with the dissolution of Pratinidhi Sabha, Daman dai came out of partisan politics and donned the cape of a peacemaker. With a booming voice, non-domineering attitude and rationalisation abilities, he appeared to be tailormade for the role of a peacemaker. Soon, he shone as a civil society activist, human rights defender, mediator of peace talks, facilitator at the negotiating table and a promoter of minority rights.

Controversy is the byproduct of visibility, and the platform that he and his team were associated with—Nepal Transition to Peace (NTTP)—tainted his public image. The NTTP was an archetypal donor-organised non-governmental organisation (DONGO) with more show than substance. It did arrange some behind-the-scenes conversations between the second and third-tier politicos with the representatives of the insurgents and the security forces, but its impact on the peace process was marginal at best.

It was only after the promulgation of the divisive constitution in 2015 that Daman dai truly emerged as a national figure who spoke confidently for the rights of the marginalised and externalised sections of the population such as the Madheshis, the Janjatis, the Dalits, and the religious, sexual and gender minorities. A jingoistic section of the elitist civil society branded him ‘pro-Indian’ when he tried to explain the compulsions of a ‘treaty-bound nation’ in the light of the Treaty of Peace and Friendship with India. Regardless of criticism, he remained firm in his convictions.

Upon the death of fellow crusader Pradeep Giri, he wrote, “He was the Nepali voice of human beings fighting for freedom, justice, human rights and dignified life”. So was Daman dai, and a tribute to him is tinged with hope for the emergence of a few equally bold, eloquent and fearless fighters from the dominant Khas-Arya community that can champion federalism, inclusion and social justice.