It was a pedestrian morning. A few people were sitting in front of a tea shop in Pipara Bazaar, Rautahat. A newspaper was open, hands still clutching mobile phones, and a conversation about politics was raging on. The talk included the government, elections, development and a question about one absent person—“Where is our MP?”

This question was not merely about the absence of any one Member of Parliament. In a democracy, electing a representative is more than a political process. It is the beginning of a relationship between the citizen and power. Voters do not cast their vote and then simply sit at home. They expect their representative to carry their voice to Parliament, listen to their questions and demand answers from those in power.

But when the representative remains absent, citizens lose a bridge to power. In a democracy, absence itself is a political event. In the villages and bazaars of Madhesh, democracy is often felt not in grand constitutional words but in small experiences like this.

For the citizen sitting in Pipara bazaar, the constitution is not some distant book. When Parliament is made secondary, when the representative is cut off from the people and when the decision-making process becomes opaque, a constitutional crisis becomes the everyday experience of the citizen.

Democracy is sometimes understood less from the preamble of the Constitution and more from this ordinary experience of a citizen—that their voice is being heard somewhere and that the government is ready to dispel their fears. The truth is that the ruling MPs are avoiding the people. There is no dialogue between them and the government. Indeed, this crisis is not limited to Nepal.

In many democracies of the world, elected governments, after assuming power, appear uncomfortable with three things: limits, questions and the future. Limits remind them that even after winning an election, they are not all-powerful. Questions remind them that a popular mandate is not synonymous with objective truth. And the future reminds them that today’s power cannot control the generations to come. Authoritarian governments do not accept any kind of limit at all.

But in a democracy, elected government must be accountable to the constitution, the judiciary, the Parliament, the press and civil society. A majority mandate gives them unlimited power. Then gradually, they begin to believe that no one should question them. However, in democracy, an elected government can and should be questioned by the people.

What I have earlier called a dopamine government—a government that constantly builds its political self-confidence on immediate achievements, visible results and popular excitement—faces a major crisis precisely in this. It tends to treat the popular mandate as a certificate of freedom from accountability. The intoxication of electoral success gradually makes it believe that popularity is morality, majority is truth and electoral victory is proof of authority over all institutions.

Today, a traditional military coup is not always necessary to weaken democracy. Democratic institutions are sometimes weakened through the very institutions and power structures that are considered guardians of the state’s stability. The erosion of democracy no longer comes wearing a uniform; sometimes it arrives by striking a deal with elected power.

The press sees this erosion first. That is why elected governments fear it. The press has no army, no police, no power to collect taxes—only questions. And questions are a regime’s greatest discomfort. The fear exists because the journalist asks: Why was this decision taken? Who will benefit from it? Who will pay its price? Is what the government said true? But the government, it does not like questions. It has to be answerable to citizens, but it hesitates.

That is why the methods of weakening the independent press have also changed. Sometimes the elected government need only plant a small fear in the journalist’s mind, and they begin to think: Will it be alright to publish this news? Will there be any trouble after this question? Is this the time to confront the government? When a journalist begins to think about their own existence before writing, it is evident that the crisis of press freedom has already begun.

While the elected government doesn’t think beyond the next election, some phenomena allow no such short-sightedness. One such phenomenon is the climate crisis. The former wants immediate results, but the latter warns of slow destruction, forcing us to think about future generations. The government demands roads, buildings, inaugurations and visible achievements. But climate poses it with uncomfortable questions: Who will pay the price for this development? Given its indifference to such questions, the current government’s apathy to the climate crisis is increasingly becoming apparent. When it deems environmental warnings as ‘anti-development’, and natural resources as ‘undeveloped’, development is reduced to mean more construction, more consumption and more extraction.

Nature speaks, but it has no vote. This is why those most vulnerable in a democracy are often those who cannot vote—future generations, displaced communities, dying ecosystems and the poor who bear the heaviest burden of the climate crisis. There is a risk that today’s popular government could become the maker of tomorrow’s climate disaster.

Nepal is not separate from this broad global trend. In Nepal, this question cannot be read merely as a theoretical one. Here, a newly elected government has come with extraordinary popularity, an aspiration for quick decisions, and a mandate of deep distrust towards the old political parties. The rise of Balendra Shah is a product of this very restlessness. But every popular elected leader faces this question: Can they transform the popularity into democratic tolerance? Because the early signals of Shah’s rule also remind us that popularity is not proof of democracy.

Democracy expects even more from the leader whom the people strongly support. If he fears the press, his popularity becomes his weakness. If he treats criticism as hostility, his mandate slowly turns into arrogance. If he sees the climate crisis as an obstacle to development, he punishes the generations of the future for the applause of the present.

We have to see whether, even when an elected government has a majority, it still listens to the voice of the minority. Whether, when the press writes against it, it improves its decisions instead of breaking the spine of the press. Whether, instead of destroying nature in the name of development, it also includes the rights of future citizens in its decisions.

Returning to that question itching the tea shop dwellers in Madhesh. “Where is our MP?” The one we elected—is the MP still among us? And if not, is the MP at least listening to our voice? The future of democracy may depend less on how fast power moves and more on how much it listens.