To begin with, I am with anyone and everyone who wants to rebel against the current political establishments of Nepal. I completely understand the anger. I am simply surprised to see the level of complacency among the people of Nepal. Nepal's public services and economy are in a horrible state, and this is all because of the inept and incompetent political leaders who lead Nepal's major political parties.
In this blog article, let me dissect some of the bitter 'truths' that characterize the state and society of Nepal, which are the source of most of Nepal's present-day sorrow.
Nepalese society is casteist. Few people want to discuss this problem, let alone accept the reality. Casteism is not only about having or believing in caste-based occupational categories or practising caste as a 'system'. It is a perspective that conditions the way one understands society and social relationships. Nepal is obsessed with a flawed understanding of a person's role in society. The notions of purity and impurity, decency and vulgarity, right and wrong, appropriate and inappropriate, prestigious and shameful, truth and untruth, big and small, make our social milieu suffocating. These notions are based on archaic and obscure criteria that are never clearly communicated or discussed.
Casteism, which is so pervasive and permeates all social and economic institutions, deprives individuals of agency. Individuals have no option but to succumb to them. Even those communities or cultures that do not practice the Hindu caste system have become casteists from their interaction with the caste-dominated Nepal's state structure.
Why is this context important? It is important because Nepal's political parties, bureaucracy, and all other state institutions are designed by casteists to suit their casteist ideologies. In this design, only selected members of society are endowed with privileges -even if the criteria for selection are not justified. The rest have to accept their deprivation and not resist. The casteist state and society not only ensure the privileged positions for the selected few but also deliberately deprive the masses of their rights and opportunities.
In my professional career in Nepal from 2008 until 2016, I interacted with several high-ranking government officials (sachibs, mukhya sachibs, etc.). Some of them still hold important public offices. With some exceptions, most of these high-ranking officials, in my assessment, were dangerously ill-informed and highly arrogant. Political leaders of Nepal are not different; perhaps they are even worse. Their perspectives based on religious caste ideologies were not only archaic but also dangerous. Most of the public policies we have to live with today and the public institutions that are messy and corrupt, have been designed by these people.
Nepal's casteist bureaucracy and political structures are obsessed with registration, permission, approvals, certifications, renewals, fees, fines, punishments, etc., while being inept to produce any meaningful public goods by itself. The political leaders believe that things will improve by virtue of them being in power. They need no competence; they have no obligation to be accountable for anything. This is in line with the principle of ritual purity associated with the caste system, in which one is pure by virtue of belonging to a certain caste!
Nepal also suffers from deep-rooted misogyny. Similar to casteism, misogyny is not just about respecting or hating women. It is about understanding each other's place in society. The casteist Nepalese state is obsessed with everything male. Therefore, women are subjugated to the status of 'protected species' with myriad visible and invisible barriers. Some petty government schemes for inclusion and social security have been used as a pretext to justify extremely exclusionary political and economic institutions, such as political parties, bureaucracies, and the judiciary. Women suffer from brazenly discriminatory public policies, rules, and provisions, which are rarely questioned or rebelled against.
The misogynistic mental frame that pervades Nepal's politics and society is an entrenched barrier to our progress and creativity. The false sense of superiority among men, intertwined with the false ideals of pride and respect prevalent in Nepal, can easily suffocate a sensible person.
In the context of Nepal (also in the context of India but let's forget India now), casteism and misogyny together form the bedrock of how we eat, what careers we pursue, how we raise our children, how we make decisions related to choosing our partners, how we make use of our limited resources, and most essentially, how we relate with other members of our society.
I often hear that it is possible to be a Hindu without being a casteist or a misogynist. Which may be true. Casteism and misogyny are prevalent among other religious groups as well. However, it is a reality that the Hindu religious texts have been used as the basis for casteism and misogyny in the case of Nepal, which makes them very pervasive and entrenched.
There is a growing anger about corruption in Nepal, and rightly so.
Nepal is historically a corrupt state. The ruling classes, people holding important public offices and the government employees have historically protected and benefited from extortion and rent-seeking. The rules and procedures of Nepal's public services and the distribution of state resources have been designed without any respect for the principles of accountability and honesty. However, a minute observation would tell us that our prevalent social norms favor corruption and even encourage it. We praise power and wealth without questioning the sources of it. We aspire for power and wealth without any concern about the impacts of illicit appropriation of resources. We invite the tragedy of the commons by being obsessed with the sense of power and honor that our society offers to us.
We should be asking an important question here: what makes our society so tolerant of corruption? Why do people praise power and wealth without any regard for the lawfulness of their sources? It is important to understand the social and economic conditions that sustain corruption of political parties, government and the private sector.
The norms that validate and create the favorable conditions for corrption can be different in different societies. In the case of Nepal (perhaps also in India), it is a flawed notion of honor, superiority, and privileges. It comes from the our traditional practices of caste and the false notion of sex-based superiority. The caste system provides esteem and power to a person based on criteria which are occult and can never be verified. Belief in the superiority of men is exactly the same -it honors men based on a false sense of power and capacity. Both of these belief systems reject the possibility of questioning, let alone challenging.
What is then the solution? I don't know. However, I think that we should start discussing the norms and values associated with power and prestige in the Nepalese societies. The Gen-Z with their open mental frame can do this better than any other social group in Nepal. Our concern about corruption should lead us to know our core problems. You can replace one corrupt politician with another one -but the cycle of corruption may continue. Therefore, a serious and passionate debate about the appropriation and exhibition of wealth can help us rebuild our regulatory frameworks and political institutions which do not thrive on corruption.
The movement started by Gen-Z shows some promise in this direction.
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