If Nepal fails to arrest its national decay brought about by corrupt politics, it is doomed to become a failed state on the face of this planet.
By Bihari Krishna Shrestha
THE UNPRECEDENTED NATIONAL DECAY
The people, after three decades of party-less democracy, the Panchayat system, with its own restrictive policies on organization and freedom of speech, had longed for change
that would essentially bring them greater prosperity as well as wider personal liberty in terms of basic human rights.
However, it turned out to be total corruptibility of the post-1990 multiparty governments perpetrated by all major parties, although with diametrically different stated ideological positions, namely, the democratic socialist Nepali Congress (NC), the people’s democratic communists, the Nepal Communist Party (United Marxist Leninist) (NCP-UML) and the Maoist Maoist Centre (MC. This impoverished country has been in dire straits ever since and getting worse by the day.
While the nation’s decay has been on all fronts—economics, health, education, diplomacy, and so on, nothing is more precarious than the country’s failure to capitalize on what is generally known as the ‘demographic dividend’.
Although labour constitutes a major factor of production for the growth of the economy, it delivers only in conjunction with other constituent factors like capital and good management. While Nepal’s own capital formation has historically remained tardy, the country has also failed to attract any significant foreign capital investment, thus consigning to the vicious economic phenomenon of low-growth-trap that is characterized by weak investment, trade, productivity and wage growth in particular.
Given that globalization has been the new mantra in the management of international relations, Nepal’s labour force–that had remained underemployed and under-remunerated in the land-scarce agricultural economy in this predominantly mountainous country– made its unprecedented exodus to international destinations where capital and good management has been abundantly and efficiently at work.
With the population of these economically advanced countries ageing, the demand for labour from poorly performing countries like Nepal to run their industrial and service establishments is further accentuating,
As things stand, the vast majority of Nepal’s able-bodied workforce are already working abroad. Lately, going by the sudden upsurge in no-objection certificates issued by the education ministry to the recent 10+2 graduates to study abroad, our young student population too seemed headed to join this exodus, rendering this country to transform into merely a residential geography.
The crux of the crisis for Nepal is its failure to capitalize on what is known as the demographic dividend as mentioned above. Demographic dividend for accelerated economic growth occurs from the demographic transition resulting from a low birth rate in the population that results in a low dependency ratio (proportion of people aged <15 and >65 in the population) increased saving, productivity and investment, leading to the country into a sustainable state of prosperity. Thus, the demographic transition is essentially a precious window of opportunity lasting only half a century before the population begins to age and the dependency ratio mounts. For instance, since Nepal is currently going through this demographic transition, its dependency ratio stood at 53.78 percent in 2022, whereas the dependency ratio of Japan, long past its demographic transition, stood at 71.08 percent that year.
It is estimated that Nepal will complete its demographic transition in the next three decades or so before our own population too start ageing. If Nepal fails to benefit from its demographic transition, the endgame would most possibly be to turn into a failed state with an undeveloped economy and drastically reduced remittance earnings due to a steadily ageing population and depleting labour force to export.
NEPAL’S ALL-OUT CORRUPTIBILITY UNDER OUR PERVERTED WESTMINSTER DEMOCRACY
With the introduction of the perverted Westminster model of parliamentary democracy in 1990, Nepal has only seen political corruption magnify continuously both in scope and magnitude, turning the country into one of those rare places on this planet where just about every single politician remains a corrupt man or woman.
When the post-1990 first elected prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala allegedly made his inaugural pitches in institutionalized corruption by embarking on what was widely known as Dhamija and Lauda Air scams in the mid-90s, they had defrauded the national flag carrier in sums that amounted to a few crores of rupees.
Fast forward to around 2020. The only thing that has proliferated under our version of Westminster democracy is that very same political corruptibility but with vastly magnified scope and magnitude and with total impunity that crossed almost all party lines.
The major scams of recent years include the so-called Wide Body Scam under the UML government reportedly defrauding the exchequer of several billion rupees by over-pricing the two wide-body Airbus aircraft bought for the national flag carrier. The issue was never seriously investigated by the parliamentary committee due to the main Opposition, the Nepali Congress, too reportedly being party to the scam
While a complaint has also been lodged with the anti-corruption watchdog, the Commission for the Investigation of Abuse of Authority (CIAA), it, headed by a former secretary (reportedly a UML protégé) has just sat over it all these years.
Another major scam is LalitaNivas under which politicians across party lines colluded with the land mafia to defraud the government of a huge tract of prime property in Kathmandu. This reportedly involved many politicians, including two “communist” prime ministers and a Chief Secretary of the government, all of them remaining scot-free for the prosecutors failing to rope them in due to pressure from corrupt politicians at the helm.
Gold smuggling has lately become far too frequent, with major politicians reportedly saving the main culprits while only the porters and smaller fries faced the music of the law. As reported in social media, the gold coming from Hong Kong has to do with the Maoist leaders and that from Dubai, the UML.
However, the most blatant of the cases to rock the nation lately has been the human-trafficking ring known as the Fake Bhutanese Refugee scam put together by professional scammers with the active support and participation first of the UML government and later that of NC. Under the scam, gullible Nepalese aspiring to land in America by hook or by crook were defrauded of several million rupees each under the assurance that they would be officially sent to the US in the guise of Bhutanese refugees. Crores of rupees from that booty were passed on to the ministers and high officials in the government, in some cases, reportedly also their wives.
PROFESSIONALLY UPRIGHT POLICE OFFICERS ASSERT AMIDST THE COMPLICITY OF THE FORCE
When the victims realized it was after all a scam in which they were unwittingly defrauded, they, numbering hundreds, lodged complaint after complaint with the police but to no avail. The police relented on their professional mandate.
Internationally, the police’s mission is to make communities safer by upholding the law and keeping the peace
preventing crime and antisocial behaviour protecting and reassuring communities investigating crime and bringing offenders to justice.
Unlike in other better-governed countries, the Nepal Police chose to remain under the thumb of these corrupt political thugs at the helm, often colluding with them in their sinister designs for money or career favors. The police just did not act on those complaints.
But as events unfolded, professionally upright policemen like SSP Manoj KC and AIG Shyam Gyawali emerged on the scene at the opportune moment, rounded up the scammers, and managed to put them behind bars in judicial custody, including the former UML and NC ministers. Recently, the NC managed to get its former home minister Bal Krishna Khand, released on bail, however, has not been seen in public, probably due to the utter disgrace.
While the current Maoist PM Prachanda and home minister NK Shrestha had earlier been crying hoarse, boasting of zero tolerance against corruption, this too has been a hoax. They had to shunt these two professionally upright policemen from their positions recently to save the wife of former PM and coalition partner who reportedly received crores too from the scammers and could have followed Khand’s fate in judicial custody.
WHY KING GYANENDRA MUST BE RESTORED TO SAVE THE NATION?
While former King Gyanendra too has lived a chequered history of his own, today without question he remains the most popular politically significant person in the country. Given the fact that Gyanendra’s own father, the late King Mahendra had intervened against the corrupt and India-leaning NC government of the late BP Koirala and laid the unshakable foundation for Nepal sovereignty in particular, people when in crisis have always looked up to his son, Gyanendra and habitually appealed to him to “come and save the nation”. Just now, there is an inverted relationship between the king’s popularity and the disgrace of this corrupt political class. That is, the more unpopular these corrupt politicians become, the king’s popularity makes even steeper rises. Today, wherever the former king goes, people converge in tens of thousands of their own accord to greet him from close quarters if possible, if not, at least to get a darshan of him from a distance. And the slogan making is the same refrain: Oh King, Come and Save the Country.
Given such a solid base of popularity, the question is no longer whether; it is when the king and his monarchy would be restored.
If the politicians read the writing on the wall, they themselves must plan this transition to achieve a modus Vivendi with the new ruler.
Of Nepal’s neighbors, India has mostly played a predatory role in Nepal. Much of the current hopelessness in Nepal, we owe to India, including the decade-long Maoist campaign of death and destruction that was reportedly aided and abetted by India.
However, Nepal remains the soft underbelly of mighty China too. During King Mahendra’s time, Mao’s China had come to his rescue by acting as countervail to India’s possible excesses in Nepal. It is time once again that they should come to Gyanendra’s help if the need arises.
However, King Gyanendra’s own priority must be to reestablish democracy in Nepal on a firmer footing and in the real sense of the term. That would involve restructuring our state polity in such a way that the people at the grassroots themselves remain in command of their destiny as evidenced by Nepal’s stellar performance in restoring our forest wealth through forest user groups or in dramatically improving women’s and child health in Nepal through ubiquitous Mothers’ Groups and their Female Community Health Volunteers.
King Gyanendra should further recognize that the civil service, the police forces and the army constitute the permanent pillars of Nepal’s statecraft. While their identity too has lately come under the shadow of the corrupt political class, the unmistakable saving grace is that there are always professionally minded and upright officials like the SSP Manoj KCs and AIG Shyam Gyawalis in their ranks now as always before.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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