When former Prime Ministers Benazir Bhutto and
Nawaz Sharif met in London and announced their
plan to return to Pakistan and fight jointly to
restore democracy, one wonders whether they paid
attention to one of the most remarkable movements
unleashed anywhere to regain and extend the rule
of the people — namely, Nepal’s anti-Palace
pro-democracy mass agitation. Its success in
bringing the arrogant King to his knees in just
19 days is a measure of what grassroots popular
mobilisation can accomplish in the face of
overwhelming state power and armed repression.
It’s hard not to experience a strong, spontaneous
sense of solidarity with the pro-democracy
struggle, to feel proud of the Nepali people, and
to want to share in their jubilation. Their
victory over a powerfully armed and remarkably
brutal regime represents a triumph of the
people’s will and kindles or reinforces the hope
that the people will eventually, but inevitably,
prevail over tyrants and elitist rulers, however
powerful, and however much protected these
bigwigs might be by curfews, shoot-at-sight
orders, and other draconian measures, besides
laws gagging free expression.
The triumph of the democracy agitation in Nepal
also vindicates and reconfirms a great lesson
which history has taught us right since the
English Revolution of 1640 — that the era of the
despot is over, that kings and emperors, however
mighty, have no future as rulers, that public
opinion will prevail over the force of arms.
It also disproves a stereotype about the peoples
of South Asia, which holds that thanks to their
fatalistic attitudes, and the existence of deep
social hierarchies, as well as powerful and
arrogant states, they tend to put up with the
most extreme forces of oppression and
exploitation. They won’t rebel or revolt.
Nepal’s ’democratic revolution’ has been in the
making for a long time. Ever since King Gyanendra
usurped direct executive power 15 months ago in a
putsch, itself following his coup of October
2002, it has been obvious to everyone familiar
with Nepal that the Palace was courting serious
trouble. Blatant mis-governance, cavalier
interference with countless ministries, cronyism
of the most despicable variety, muzzling of the
media, and brutal repression soon became the
order of the day.
The King’s direct rule, disastrous in every way,
further strengthened the Nepali people’s already
adverse opinion of the monarchy. In recent
months, their day-to-day life became more and
more suffocating. The Palace’s attempt to justify
autocratic government by citing the Maoist
’threat’ failed to cut any ice with the people.
Rather, larger numbers began to sympathise and
identify themselves with the Maoists.
Eventually, all the seven parties that make up
the bulk of the Nepali political space were
forced to form an alliance to defend themselves
against the Palace’s depredations. Last November,
they joined hands with the Maoists on the basis
of a thoughtful, well-negotiated 12-point
agreement under which the Maoists agreed to shun
violence in return for a joint commitment by the
broad coalition to demand the establishment of a
Constituent Assembly.
The Assembly would decide whether Nepal would
have a nominal or ceremonial monarchy, or become
an outright Republic. The consensus excluded a
continuation, in one form or other, of the
ultra-authoritarian system that Gyanendra has run
under the guise or pretence of a ’Constitutional
monarchy’, coupled with ’multi-party democracy’,
the so-called ’twin pillars’. Put simply, he
wilfully destroyed both the pillars.
The process of reaching the 12-point agreement,
which New Delhi facilitated largely under the
pressure of the supporting parties of the United
Progressive Alliance, was a tortuous one. India
vacillated and prevaricated. The United States
was hostile to the agreement, and until last
week, made public its preference for the Palace
over the Maoists whom it distrusts and has put on
the terrorist watch-list.
The agreement, mercifully, survived the
vacillations and ups and downs, punctuated by the
resumption of (limited) arms supplies to the
Royal Nepal Army by the US and India. Not to be
left out, the British too supplied arms to the
RNA, no doubt impelled by their long-enduring
addiction to recruiting Gorkha soldiers as
mercenaries.
Last month, the agreement was fleshed out in the
form of an agitation plan that would be
implemented beginning April 6. The King got
increasingly delusional as the agitation gathered
force in the face of savage repression. India, to
its abiding disgrace, sent a former maharajah,
Karan Singh, who is married into Nepalese
royalty, as an emissary to Gyanendra. The message
was clear: India still sets store by King
Gyanendra as a guarantor of Nepal’s stability. On
April 21, Gyanendra played his last card, by
pretending to restore democracy, but under his
own hegemony or paramountcy.
However, such was the force of popular rejection
of this egregious ploy that he was compelled just
three days later to retreat and announce that
’state and power sovereignty are inherent in the
people of Nepal’ and that he takes cognisance of
’the wishes’ of the ’Jan Andolan’ (people’s
movement). India had clearly misjudged the mood
of the Nepali people and was forced to revise its
April 21 stand — although Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh reiterated it the next day, only
to be contradicted by Foreign Secretary Shyam
Saran.
The Nepali people have won a historic battle. But
two issues remain: the procedure to be adopted
for proclaiming elections to the Constituent
Assembly, and differences between the Seven-Party
Alliance and the Maoists over the King’s latest
announcement. The SPA has welcomed it and
proceeded to form a government. The Maoists
reject it.
These problems are not insuperable. There has
been some informal consultation between the SPA
and the Maoists. The Maoists will keep up the
pressure for a Constituent Assembly even after
the Nepali parliament is restored and an SPA
government is installed. According to informed
sources, a confrontation between the SPA and the
Maoists is unlikely. The demand for a Constituent
Assembly represents a popular urge in the streets
of Nepal. It would be extraordinarily foolish for
the SPA to try to bypass it.
The Indian government has promised cooperation
with, and an economic package to help, the new
government. Although it is still silent on the
issue of whether and how soon a Constitutional
Assembly is to be convened, it is unlikely to
resist that demand.
There are major lessons in the Nepal developments
for all of South Asia. The region’s peoples are
getting politicised. Once they take to the
streets to assert their democratic aspirations
and rights, they get more and more energised and
empowered, and the momentum of their power
becomes unstoppable.
Political arrangements like the 12-point
agreement, which accommodates the urges of the
underclass represented by the Maoists, are the
best — if not the only — way to bring militant
currents into the mainstream and tap their
creative energies. Armed repression cannot work
beyond a point. Nor will Machiavellian
manipulation and backroom deals.
Bhutto and Sharif will do well to pay heed to
these lessons — as will all others in the region
who share a pro-democracy sentiment. The best
guarantee of a genuine and enduring democratic
transformation of South Asian politics lies in
mass mobilisation that empowers the people — not
in shady, slimy political deals.