Cut from the same cloth

Such stories and scandals regularly surface in the UK and most everywhere else. And, as such, I have reached the conclusion that politicians—perhaps even all people the world over—are, broadly speaking, of the same breed of selfish power-hungry individuals. Not very different in essence from the same selfish and power hungry leaders we see in Nepal, either.

At home in Kathmandu, the blame for all political, social and economic failures often rests on ailing politicians, about their inherent corrupt attitudes and moral shortcomings. But as I see it, it is not so much that Nepali leaders lack moral aptitude and Western leaders are guided by principled morality but simply that a David Cameron, for example, cannot get way with the same kind of political nonsense that say, Sushil Koirala or Prachanda can. This is because we in Nepal lack public and media resistance to political nonsense. I do really hate drawing these West and the Rest comparisons but given that parliamentary democracy is the scale, there’s hardly a choice.

Recently, the answer to the question of who to blame for the mess we’re in has expanded to include the media, the donors, the NGO-walas and so on and so forth. So much so that even leaders blame these domestic and foreign hands. There is a tendency to point fingers at everyone—except ourselves, of course—especially among the urban middle classes.

Now the trouble in Nepal is that the middle classes, particularly among some social groups in urban areas, are so heavily patronised by the political class and vice-versa that the idea of resistance against the dark dealings of the state and its various machinations is limited to tea-time banter. After all, a youngster from Kathmandu whose uncle is an inspector is not going to get thrown in jail over a Facebook comment as Mohamed Abdul Rahman was, or killed by the police as Thundup Lama was. The feeling among the middling mass in the centre seems to be that the state is failing to ‘develop’ the country, that ‘civil society’—comprised of donor funded NGOs and responsible for holding the former accountable—is getting rich on donor money and that they are hapless bystanders. The opinions are churned out as though there is no space for people to act, that we are mere spectators in a game between the agents of the government and civil society. But that is far from reality.  

Two-way street

The crisis actually has more to do with the unwillingness to accept the idea of democracy as a two-way street—that we individuals choose the way in which we interact with the state, its actors and associated institutions. This is, of course, all old news, and the idea of social accountability has been around since the early 2000s at least. And yet, it seems to not be filtering through to many people, perhaps most significantly the urban middle classes. If the country is in a crisis, if the politicians are failing, if there is no rule of law or accountability, it is fundamentally a collective failure of the people who sit idly by as society falls apart around them and the most vulnerable become prey to the state machinery.

But instead of resistance, what we see is a whole lot of complaining. Criticising politicians, donors, the media, journalists, NGO-walas and anyone in the public domain is our favourite hobby. These complaints are not met by action, perhaps because the failures of the public sector in the short term have little effect on those who can manipulate these failures to suit individual needs. This is the social capital used every so often to bypass state failures. The social capital also stems from well-placed people in the third sector and the fourth estate as well.

According to a World Bank manual from 2011, the ‘public sphere’, which lies between the state and civil society, is where the legitimisation of the state happens. It is in this space that accountability is demanded and received, after which public legitimacy is granted. This happens in large part through those who have the means to influence and engage in public opinion building—namely, the urban middle class.

Silence as action

So when a select few talk about the desire among ‘privileged’ people, particularly in the Valley, to maintain the ‘status quo’, they are talking about this desire—in case anyone still doesn’t get it—to maintain social capital across sectors. This social capital is destructive to democracy, effectively meaning that a sizeable group of the Kathmandu and urban middle classes (who, ironically, are also the icons of democracy) are playing a directly detrimental role to thwart democratic progress.

The blasé approach to injustice and accountability harboured by this group is a political statement in itself. For inaction in the face of injustice is as potent as taking action. As Arundhati Roy reminded us some years ago: “Keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. There’s no innocence. Either way, you’re accountable.”