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Nepal is one
of the poorest countries in the world, with a per capita
income of about $210 per year. It is also one of the most
politically fraught and troubled countries in the world.
Indeed, the turmoil is only increasing, as the conflict
between King Gyanendra, the parliamentary opposition
parties and the Maoist insurgency reaches new and more
complicated levels.
Nepal is a very young
electoral democracy, emerging after a
'People's Movement' (in which
all the main political parties were involved) agitated
successfully to replace King Birendra's rule with a
multi-party political system, in the early 1990s. But the
experience with electoral democracy thus far has been
volatile: since then
Nepal has been through three general elections, eight
governments and seven Prime Ministers. In addition, the
Maoist insurgency that eschews parliamentary politics in
favour of violent struggle, has gained substantial ground
since 1996, and controls large swathes of territory across
different parts of the country.
The relationship between the King and the elected
politicians in Nepal has always been tense, and has
deteriorated further after the reign of King Birendra.
King Gyanendra (brother of Birendra) came to reign in the
year 2001, after the mysterious and bloody massacre in
which the then Crown Prince Dipendra was reported to have
killed most of his family. Gyanendra too has indicated his
lack of patience with the niceties and messiness of
electoral democracy, and his preference for more
'directed' rule.
General elections were due
in November 2002; instead of allowing the elections to
happen, King Gyanendra exploited the infighting and chaos
in the then ruling Nepali Congress by dismissing the Prime
Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba in October, and giving himself
executive powers. The man installed as the puppet Prime
Minister was a loyal monarchist, who was appointed without
any consultation with other political parties. The King
also favoured a more aggressively militaristic response to
the Maoist insurgents, rather than political dialogue.
However, this situation
proved to be completely unstable, and political
instability as well as growing violence between the army
and insurgents disrupted the life of the citizens and the
peasantry in particular. The loyalist
Prime Minister Lokendra Bahadur Chand, became the focus of
opposition attacks, especially as the talks with the
Maoists proved to be fruitless despite the ceasefire. Five
political parties – the Communist Party of Nepal–Unified
Marxist Leninist (UML), the Nepali Congress (NC), the
Nepal Workers Party, the People's Front of Nepal and the
Sadbhavana Party – all demanded that Lokendra Bahadur
Chand resign and that the King reconvene parliament or
hold fresh elections under an interim government of all
parties.
Weeks of protest
culminated in the resignation of Prime Minister Chand in
May. However, once again King Gyanendra effectively
spoiled the possibilities of a solution to the conflict.
The King called on opposition parties to submit the name
of a replacement. But when they proposed UML secretary
Madhav Kumar Nepal, the King ignored them and instead
appointed Thapa, leader of the rightwing royalist National
Democratic Party (RPP).
Thapa appealed to the other parties to
join his government but was turned down. Instead, there
has been a groundswell of protests, organized by
politicians of opposition parties, against the King's
undemocratic tendencies, and the Maoist party has also
declared its dissatisfaction. The month of June was marked
by numerous demonstrations, and in July too there have
been a number of incidents of protest. This government is
therefore not likely to last, primarily because of the
domestic chaos that it has generated. It is clear that
King Gyanendra's ability to ignore popular opinion within
his own country is based on the support that he receives
from abroad, especially from the US and Indian
governments.
The Bush administration, which sees Nepal as having great
strategic significance because of its geographical
position between India and China, has used the political
instability and rise of Maoist forces in Nepal as levers
to play a more direct role in its internal affairs. As a
result, the Communist Party of Nepal–Maoist (CPN–M) was
declared a 'terrorist organization' at the end of April
this year, even though they were formally implementing a
ceasefire and working out negotiations with the
government.
The US government has signed a five-year agreement with
the Nepali government 'for cooperation in fighting
terrorism and preventing possible terror attacks'.
Military aid has been increased, in terms of both
financial aid and hardware, along with training of Nepali
armed forces. Within Nepal, such support by the US
effectively strengthens the hand of the monarchy, which
has traditionally relied upon and been associated with the
dominantly royalist military.
The Indian government, too, has more or less declared its
partisanship in the matter of the internal politics of
Nepal. This of course fits in with India's current cosying
up to Washington in foreign policy. It is true that Prime
Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee occasionally makes feeble
and deliberately ineffectual appeals to restore a
multi-party system in Nepal, even while 'congratulating'
the new Prime Minster on his appointment. But in effect,
the Indian government has been providing a substantial
amount of military aid to Nepal, which tilts the scales in
favour of the monarchy in the current situation.
However, such external support to the monarchy is unlikely
to make Nepal a more stable place in the near future,
simply because the forces making for discontent are
pervasive and powerful. Nepal remains dominantly a poor
agrarian economy, and there has been very little in terms
of either structural change or substantial development
that could have caused shifts in the pattern of employment
or in labour productivity in general. Poverty is
widespread; the Nepal Living Standards Survey (1995–96)
found 42 per cent of the population to be below the
poverty line (44 per cent of urban and 23 per cent of
rural population). The difference between Kathmandu and
the rest of Nepal, including other urban areas, is very
marked: the poverty ratio in the urban Kathmandu Valley
was estimated to be only 4 per cent. While open
unemployment is low, underemployment (or disguised
unemployment) is officially estimated to be as high as a
little more than 45 per cent of total person-days.
Much the same as in several other South Asian countries,
economic growth in Nepal did not translate into poverty
declines or improvements in living standards of the
masses. Instead, inequalities are said to have increased
substantially, even by World Bank estimates. Most of
Nepal's 20 million people are subsistence peasants, who
have experienced little or no improvement in their
material conditions. Such a situation has therefore
facilitated the spread of Maoist insurgency in Nepal.
Economic
conditions too have deteriorated in the recent past.
According to the Central Bureau of Statistics, the economy
contracted by 0.63 per cent in the 12 months to July 2002.
The 'modern' sector has been especially badly hit. Trade,
manufacturing output and tourism all declined by 11, 10
and 27 per cent respectively. The carpet industry that
employed 550,000 workers in 1992 was down to half that
size in 2002. The garment sector's workforce of around
70,000 in the mid-1990s has also been halved over the past
few years. A report published in May this year estimated
that out of 300,000 to 350,000 youth who enter the job
market annually, only 10 per cent find work.
Some of this was actually the direct result of World
Bank-style neo-liberal market-oriented reforms that have
caused trade liberalization, privatization and reduction
or removal of subsidies, including subsidies on food.
These were not only counterproductive in terms of making
it more difficult for the nascent industries to survive,
but they also hit directly at agriculture and were
insensitive to the requirements of a large
subsistence-based pattern of cultivation. As a result,
Nepal is now reduced to being a food-importer, whereas
earlier it was mostly self-sufficient in grain.
In such a context, it is hardly surprising that social
unrest is so high and increasing. Apart from the Maoist
insurgency, there are other indications of the growing
alienation and unhappiness of ordinary people. An attempt
to raise petroleum prices by 65 per cent caused largescale
demonstrations in Kathmandu. In mid-June, bonded labourers
took to the streets demanding equitable resettlement,
which has still not been granted.
It is clear that the possibilities for social, political
and economic stability are still very distant as far as
Nepal is concerned, and so are the chances for more
egalitarian and democratic growth. Moreover, interference
by outside powers, including India, may in fact contribute
to prolonging the agony of the country.
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