Krishna Pokharel
Until recently, nation-building in Nepal focused on the role and activities of kings and the political elite located at the centre of power. This paper examines the role of common people in the process of nation-building. The discussion spans the period from the establishment of modern Nepal in 1768 to the present day. Special focus is given to the 1990 people's movement, the impact of the Maoist-led insurgency, and the recent unprecedented people's uprising in April 2006.
In common parlance, nation and state are used interchangeably, although the two are not the same. Strictly speaking, a nation is a group of people that shares a common identity, which may be built on a common language, history, race, culture, or occupation of the same territory (Almond et al. 2001). From the Marxist point of view, a nation is a stable, historical community of people that arises on the basis of a common economic life combined with the same language, territory, distinctive culture, consciousness, and psychology. The formation of nations and national liberation movements helps abolish the citadel of feudalism and establish either neo-democracy or capitalism.
A state, on the other hand is a political community; there may or may not be a close correspondence between nation and state. Nations may or may not have their own state or independent governance. The national right to self-determination accepted by the Treaty of Versailles 1919 propagated the idea that every nation had the right to form its own state, following which, the concept of nation-state became a common phenomenon.
Many new states, despite their political independence, still suffer the problem of national integration. People in such countries are reluctant to consider themselves part of a single nation or to pledge allegiance to a single centre of political power. These states represent a conglomeration of different tribal, ethnic, religious, and regional groups with little or no sense of identity or common interests. The integration of such communities into a nation-state and its subsequent development gives rise to the problem of nation-building.
The Process of Nation-Building
Nation-building involves developing a sense of community among people about the state they belong to. It provides a sense of identity, loyalty, social solidarity, and effective orientation to a system. This sense of community integrates diverse sectors of society and produces the consensus and cooperation so vital to domestic peace and political effectiveness (Kolb 1978). It implies developing a sense of national identity as a rallying point for people, cutting across their smaller group loyalties based on language, religion, region, or ethnicity.
The multi-communal character of developing countries creates a situation where the task of nation-building becomes even more challenging. The crisis of legitimacy impinges on the central authority, and regard for this authority and institutions of the political system become more difficult. The main political problem that developing countries face is the transference of loyalties from smaller primordial groups to an abstract all-encompassing unit--the nation-state. As long as the criteria for membership in this societal community are not recognised by the people, they cannot be expected to participate wholeheartedly in the democratic political process. This is why nation-building is so essential for developing countries.
State-building, however, precedes nation-building and even paves the way for it. While the former is a political-legal concept, the latter is psycho-cultural one. State-building occurs when the ruling elite create new structures and organisations designed to regulate behaviour and extract resources from society. Generally, the problem of state-building arises when the political system is threatened from either within or outside. To cope with this situation, the system works to develop of attitudes of obedience and compliance among its population, leading to the emergence of a bureaucracy. Unless both nation- and state-building are dealt with side by side, it is difficult to develop homogeneous loyalty and commitment to the central political authority, which ultimately jeopardises the very process of state-building.
In the 1990s, when neo-liberalism was at its peak and emphasised deregulation and privatization, the essential functions of the state were neglected. However, there are important residual state functions such as providing a rule of law and other public goods that can be done by the state more or less better than by the private sector. When ruling elites in the form of nation-builders welcome international assistance in strengthening state, bypassing indigenous institutions, they infantilise local actors, impede ownership, and ultimately retard long-term capacity development (Fukuyama 2004).
While defining nation-building, Deutsch (1963) draws a parallel with an architectural model. A nation can be built according to different sequences of steps, and in partial independence from its environment. This makes nation-building a slow and arduous process, and only through painstaking efforts can it be achieved. The process differs from country to country depending on socio-cultural environment, people's will, and the vision of the governing elite. There is no “one-size-fits-all” model.
Nepalese Context: Historical Perspective
Modern Nepal emerged in the latter half of the 18th century when most of its neighbours were under colonial rule. Sandwiched between two giants--India and China--Nepal's unification effort was led by King Prithvinarayan Shah of the tiny principality of Gorkha. It was under his leadership that the Baisee and Chaubisee kingdoms of Kathmandu valley and the eastern principalities were united under one kingdom, Nepal. This process may have unified Nepal but it also hampered the plurality of culture, traditions, and tribal autonomy of the principalities. This unification effort was continued by Prithvinarayan's successors, but it received a severe blow with the coming of the British to India. The unequal Treaty of Sugouli, signed in 1816 with the British imperial power, finally shaped Nepal's territory.
Despite his irrational and repressive acts, the positive role of King Prithvinarayan should not be underrated. The irony of Nepalese history is that the crucial role of the people and fighters of Gorkha in this process has been completely overlooked. The history of Nepal has been a history of rulers and masters, and now needs to be rewritten from a social perspective. It was Bise Nagarchhi, the legendary cobbler, who advised the king to meet the cost of war by collecting physical and material resources from each and every household of Gorkha. It was this advice that Prithvinarayan followed and became successful.
King Prithvinarayan's contribution to nation-building was only the political and geographical unification of Nepal. But why was the unfinished task of economic and socio-cultural unification not taken forward? The 238 years of the Shah Dynasty proved to be years of subjugation for most of Nepal's tribal people, the Madhesi people of Terai, and the Dalits--the so-called untouchables. The Hindu religion was imposed on tribals and non-Hindus under the leadership of kings. During the thirty-year panchayat rule, when the country was directly led by the king, kingship was wrongly depicted as a symbol of national unity. Although it was will of the people, not the charisma or force of kings, that kept the country united, people had been led to believe that if the monarchy was abolished, the country would also disintegrate. After the people's movement of 1990, Nepalese politics entered a new era. The 1990 constitution was comparatively democratic and recognised the society as multilingual, multi-ethnic, and multicultural. Still, it could not offer justice. The policy of one language, one dress, and one country was tacitly adopted. But the creation of a liberal and open environment provided an opportunity to the previously suppressed people to organise and vent their grievances against the state. Tribals, indigenous people, and Dalits began to unite and, on the basis of their organised force, started to claim their due place in national politics.
While the mainstream political parties were engaged in struggling for power, the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN)-Maoist raised arms and called for a protracted people's war. At the outset, no political force took this seriously, feeling that, with the fall of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, communism had lost its mass appeal. Even the mainstream communist party under the leadership of Madan Bhandari had already revised its political programme and adopted multi-party democracy. The Maoists played on the sentiments of the deprived and marginalised people of rural Nepal, and injected a sense of pride into the poor tribal, Dalit, female, and Madhesi, who, for centuries had lived under feudal oligarchic rule, and continued to tolerate their situation because of lack of political consciousness. Recruitment opportunities in the foreign army had partly acted as a shock absorber but when recruitment dried up and the message of the Maoists developed their consciousness, they took up arms for the first time to change their plight.
Nepal's Democratic Movement
The fifty-five years of democratic struggle in Nepal is a history of empowering and depriving the people of their democratic rights. The democratic forces trusted the king and tried to accommodate constitutional monarchy, but every time they wanted to make monarchy an honourable institution, the king would breach his contract and impose autocratic rule. It was the revolution of 1951 that restored King Tribhuvan to his throne. He promised to constitute an elected constituent assembly and promulgate a democratic constitution, but slowly retracted from his promise and declared that the sovereignty of Nepal resided in him. His heir, King Mahendra, outrightly rejected the idea of a constituent assembly and declared a new constitution. Ironically, he could not even tolerate the government elected under this constitution. The over-ambitious monarch ousted the elected government of B P Koirala, dissolved the parliament, and established an autocratic rule under his own leadership. Koirala's first elected government could not even prove its worth. The thirty years of so-called democratic panchayati rule was an obscurantist experiment that dragged the country towards authoritarianism.
At the end of the third wave of democracy, the democratic and left-wing political parties launched a peaceful people's movement which succeeded in re-establishing democracy in 1990. A triangular compromise was reached between the king, Nepali Congress, and the left front, which restored the derailed democracy to its right track. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990 not only established multi-party democracy and constitutional monarchy but also introduced a parliamentary system of governance and rule of law. For the first time, this constitution made the Nepalese people sovereign. Three consecutive general elections were held and even the peaceful transfer of power between political parties occurred as per the electoral outcome. It seemed as though the political game was settled. But the king was not content with the new settlement. Similarly, the left political group organised in the name of the People's Front, which was the third force in the first parliament, boycotted the second general election and declared an armed struggle in 1996, although initially, the mainstream political parties paid no heed to the impact of this insurgency.
Two other factors helped ignite the situation. One was the lack of vision among the major political parties. Instead of understanding the gravity of situation and taking appropriate measures, they quarrelled over their own petty interests. The second was the mysterious palace massacre of June 2001. The entire family of King Birendra and even the probable contenders of the throne were massacred. After the ghastly incident, the miraculously escaped Prince Gyanendra succeeded to the throne. The new king was not like his brother and did not hide this. He openly expressed that his role model was King Mahendra, his father.
Due to the Maoist insurgency, the country was in deep trouble, and the ruling Nepali Congress was divided into two hostile camps. The king exploited this situation for ulterior motives, and encouraged the prime minister to dissolve the House of Representatives and seek a fresh mandate. But the situation was not conducive for a general election. Ultimately, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was compelled to recommend to the king that he postpone the election for at least a year. The king misinterpreted the constitutional provision of Article 127, dissolved the Deuba government, and seized sovereign and executive power in October 2002.
This step created a serious political and constitutional crisis. The democratic system established in 1990 had previously came under attack from the left; now it was under attack from the right. The mainstream political parties were kicked back into political abeyance and the old panchayati guards recruited. When his soft ploy did not work, the king declared an emergency on 1 February 2004, banned political activities, curbed the press, and started to rule directly, forming a cabinet under his own chairmanship. His whole effort was to convince the international community that he had been compelled to take this step and was committed to fighting the Maoist terrorists and restoring democracy within three years. But within months his grand design was exposed domestically as well as internationally. Even the so-called “China card” did not work.
Meanwhile, seven mainstream political parties had formed an alliance and developed six-point common commitments. On the basis of these commitments, the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) forged a twelve-point understanding with the Maoists. This historic understanding raised hopes among the people and their confidence in the cadres of the SPA. Although the international community had harboured some misgivings regarding the intentions of the rebels, these were addressed by the SPA. The king's ploy to conduct local elections was foiled by the joint efforts of the SPA and the rebels. Finally, the SPA announced an indefinite strike and peaceful demonstration on 6 April 2006. Various professional groups and civil society joined in. This peaceful movement was actively supported by the Maoists. The 19-day people's movement was historic in every sense. Twenty-one people were killed, more than 5,000 demonstrators were injured, and more than six million people came out onto the streets to protest in a single day (Kantipur Daily). King Gyanendra's miscalculations brought him to the verge of collapse. He tried to patch things up by calling on the SPA to recommend the name of a prime minister on 21 April. But it was too late. Finally, he succumbed to the mass uprising. On 24 April 2006, he declared that he was ready to surrender all his political power before the SPA for them to implement their roadmap as they desired. In his declaration, he accepted the fact that the source of state power was the Nepalese people and that sovereignty resided in them. The popularly known “April revolution” took place.
This time, not only the Maoists but also civil society and younger members of the mainstream SPA openly advocated a democratic republic. The entire population is now in favour of a republican state. Even a ceremonial monarchy is considered regressive. The 55 years of democratic struggle show that monarchy and democracy cannot go together in Nepal. Whenever monarchy is engulfed in trouble it compromises and when it gets breathing space it conspires. The greatest destabilising force for democracy is monarchy in this country.
B P Koirala, the champion of constitutional monarchy, also wearied of the king's politics when, in a fiery encounter with King Mahendra, he found that the king wanted to go alone in Nepal's nation-building process. On 14 December 1960, two days before the ill-fated December royal coup, a meeting was held between the king and the prime minister. The king tried to persuade Koirala to retreat and give way to him. He was of the opinion that their temperaments were not conducive to each other. Koirala put forward an interesting concept of nation-building before the king. He said that the king represented traditional state power while the prime minister represented popular people's power. The process of nation-building in Nepal is so arduous and difficult that without the cooperation of both, the goal could not be achieved. Although Koirala failed to convince the king and was incarcerated, Nepali Congress continued to follow this concept till 2005. Later on, Koirala developed and theorized his concept as the policy of 'national harmony'. It was only after the royal take over of 1 February, that Nepali Congress, through its national convention changed this policy and pursued monarchy-neutral democracy.
Another mainstream left party, the CPN (UML), was republican by virtue of its political ideology. But after the popular movement of 1990, it slowly changed its stance and started to pursue the policy of constitutional monarchy. This implies that it too thought that the king had a distinct role to play in the process of nation-building. The royal takeover of February 1 2005 also disillusioned the party and it reversed its previous stance and made a democratic republic its tactical line.
The Maoist Rebellion
Ten years of Maoist rebellion has changed the political geography of Nepal. Although using violence to settle political agenda cannot be justified, the issues they have raised cannot be overlooked. Within years, they developed themselves as a national force to be reckoned with. Beginning with a few fire arms, cadres, and meager resources from remote rural areas of Rolpa and Rukum, the armed struggle of the CPN (M) has become a national phenomenon. The Maoists have very strong views on the question of nation-building. They are in the favour of national and regional autonomy for all oppressed nationalities, Madhesis, and oppressed regions with the right of self determination (negotiating agenda, 2003). This was their proposal during the second round of talks with the Suryabahadur Thapa government. The Maoists are of the view that issues like national security, foreign policy, international trade, fiscal and monetary matters, big industries and hydro-power should be tackled by the central authorities and the rest should be handed over to the regional authorities (Tamang: 2063). The interesting fact is that they have practiced this concept of regional autonomy in their so-called liberated areas. They are in the favour of restructuring Nepali society and inclusive democracy. For this, they propose to divide the country into nine regions. The Maoists want to build the nation from within, advocating the gender, linguistic and other rights of the people (ICG 2005).
The April 2006 Revolution
The epoch-making April revolution has turned the tables in the favour of the common people. The people's movement of 1990 had only pressurised the king to forge a compromise with the agitating political parties, but this revolution compelled the king to surrender. Now the fate of monarchy is at the mercy of people's vote. In the coming elections for a constituent assembly, if the people of Nepal vote for a republic, the monarchy will be wiped off the political map of Nepal.
Although some political forces on the domestic as well as international front are in favour of a ceremonial monarchy, the people's mood is against it. Political culture is not about events in the world of politics but what people feel about these events (Pokharel 2005). People were not reconciled to the findings of the Upadhyay Commission on the ghastly royal massacre. They were reluctant to accept the legitimacy of King Gyanendra's power. But mesmerised by the people's gathering during his tour and the ill advice of his court advisors, the king staged a coup. This made the people more suspicious, and thus, when the SPA and Maoists entered into their twelve-point understanding and called for a peaceful people’s movement, the people responded immediately.
However, after the resolution of the conflict, the country will not be same again. If the SPA and the Maoists work sensibly, the present conflict can be resolved peacefully. The political consciousness of the people is so high that it will not allow the SPA to deviate from their goal. Even the position of the Maoists indicates that they are prepared to play a peaceful role in the national politics. The April revolution has given a golden opportunity to the political actors of Nepal. If things move along the right track, an all-party political conference will be held in the near future. It will draft an interim constitution and the Maoists will join the government and through their collective efforts, hold elections for a constituent assembly. The new constitution will declare a democratic republic. People of all marginalised nationalities and regions will enjoy autonomy and work for the prosperity of the country. Hence, the process of nation-building will start from below.
Conclusion
Although Nepal is a multinational state, a mono-national feeling prevails among the various ethnic groups. They are more likely to introduce themselves as Nepali rather than members of the Limbuan, Khambuan, Tamuan, Magarat, Tamang Saling or Mithila regions (Gurung 2063). Whatever injustices might have been perpetrated in the past, in the changed context of the present, the SPA and CPN (M) should not adopt a policy of forced assimilation and integration in the name of nation-building. Instead, they should pursue the policy of allowing 'a hundred flowers to bloom'. If the rural population feels that adverse policies are being imposed, they will react violently. They expect that the policy of unity in diversity will be pursued.
In ten years of conflict, there was little or no commitment to peaceful negotiations and a determination to peacefully transform the conflict. But today, the April revolution has created a situation in which peaceful resolution of the ten-year conflict is quite possible. Through the concerted efforts of the SPA, the Maoists and civil society, conflict can be transformed, the barriers to nation-building can be overcome, and the country will march towards peace and prosperity. A new Nepal is looming large on the horizon.
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