Session II
Functioning and Outcomes
Chaitanya Mishra (Sociologist, Tribhuvan University): Chaitnya Mishra put forth a few questions from the chair for the discussants to follow. “What is democracy? What are its main elements? What does not come under it? Why do we need democracy? What were our expectations from it? Are these expectations fulfilled or not? Will they ever be fulfilled?”
Naresh Shankar Palikhe (Nepali Congress Activist, Pokhara): “The main element of democracy is ownership and participation of people and that people are the source of power and change”.
Krishna Khanal (Political Scientist, Tribhuvan University): “Democracy is about the feeling of self-responsibility but we took democracy only in terms of a system of ruling. The election was considered as a means for rising to the level of a ruler. This is clearly linked to the present distortion in Nepali democracy. People were made dependent on the government”.
Subodh Pyakurel (INSEC, Kathmandu): “Democracy is about people's ownership. It is not a site of conflict alone. Democracy in Nepal has raised people's self-confidence. The literacy rate has gone up from 26 percent in 1990 to 52 percent now. The king has no courage to throw the constitution to the gutters. The state is increasingly militarised, but people are also speaking out. We cannot go back to the days of a guided democracy now”.
Ramesh Shrestha (Political Scientist, Patan Multiple Campus, Kathmandu): “Democracy is the rule of people by the people. A democratic political culture is needed to consolidate democracy. This is what seems to be lacking among our leaders. They get elected through making a lot of promises, a lot of which still remain unfulfilled. Kathmandu-centrism is increasing day by day”.
Narahari Acharya (Nepali Congress leader): “Democracy is an accountable governance system. Questions are raised in democracy and they have to be answered. Democracy is in threat in a place where these questions are not answered or when leaders hesitate to answer them. We all accept that many things could not be done in the last 13 years but the most important thing is that the voices of people oppressed for centuries are being raised. There have been public debates about discrimination and oppression. It is true that we still hesitate to raise questions regarding the monarchy, but that is no longer the case as far as other leaders are concerned”.
Nabaraj Subedi (National People's Front): “Democracy is all about self-respect. We have seen many positive changes in the last 13 years. In addition, the negative developments are not the result of the mal-functioning of political parties alone”.
Krishna Prasad Sapkota Kavre (Association of the District Development Committees Nepal (ADDCN): “Democracy is about unity amidst diversity. This is particularly true for a multi-cultural, multi-religious and multi-linguistic country like Nepal. In the last 13 years, we have achieved a lot in the field of infrastructure, organization of people and social mobilization. No doubt, we have many shortcomings. There are definitely some problems with the structures we have adopted. For example, the judiciary is not as independent and impartial as we had imagined. The parliamentary system we have adopted also has some limitations. We saw the buying and selling of votes in the parliament”.
Krishna Hachhethu (Political Scientist, Nepal Centre for Contemporary Studies): “Where is the threat to democracy—from below or from above? The democratic opening allowed for public expression of anger. In the conventional sense political parties were supposed to represent these voices and aspirations but this does not seem to be happening. The Maoists cashed in on this situation. So a threat to democracy was built up from below also. Perhaps the popular demands were not properly managed”.
Prem Suwal (Nepal Workers Peasant Party): “Democracy is about people’s participation. It is also about equality, freedom and fraternity. This requires the end of all kinds of exploitation and discrimination. People’s aspirations have not been fulfilled adequately. In future, real democracy will be established and this also entails the end of capitalism. In democracy, the means of production have to be nationalized. This is not possible under capitalism. It is possible only in socialism”.
Ganesh Datta Bhatta (Lawyer, Kathmandu): “Democracy is people’s rule through their representatives, the rule of law, an independent judiciary, a guarantee of freedom, freedom of the press and balance of power among the judiciary, legislative and executive. These are some of the main elements of a democratic system. We created institutions and rules conducive for democracy but we lacked seriously in implementing them”.
Lok Raj Baral (Political Scientist, Nepal Centre for Contemporary Studies): “Now we need to rethink the concept of democracy as the rule of the people and for the people. A new concept of the rule of the governed has emerged. It is about full expression of oneself. It is also the best system for establishing a linkage between the individual and society. In this sense, we can think of democracy as a form of liberation—not only political liberation, but also social and economic liberation. There are threats from both below and above”.
Lal Babu Yadav (Political Scientist, Birgunj): “In this country, the minority is ruling the majority. The monarchy is not functioning under the principle of constitutional monarchy. The army has to be brought under the parliament”.
Chaitnya Mishra (Sociologist): “What are the institutional set ups necessary for furthering democracy? What are their characteristics now? Let us now discuss their tendencies also. We should also discuss the civil society and administrative system”.
Subodh Pyakurel (INSEC): “The state forgot the role of supervising and monitoring while privatising services and industries. Political parties are not democratic themselves. The leaders never retire from politics. The Judiciary is not active enough for ensuring fundamental rights. The case of the poet Purna Biram is an illuminating one. The Judiciary asked the army to produce him before the court, but the army said he was not in its custody. A few days later, it (the army) released him”.
Narahari Acharya (Nepali Congress): “The monarchy is wanting to be active these days. We were not clear about the position of the monarchy when we framed the constitution. It should have been brought under the parliament, but we made compromises during the framing of the constitution in 1990”.
“In theory the executive is to be under the legislative but in practice it is the opposite. Therefore the PM (Prime Minister) has to be elected through adult franchise, and not from among the elected members of parliament”.
Yubaraj Ghimire (Editor, Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post): “The movement for democracy in Nepal, as elsewhere in South Asia, aimed at establishing an accountable system of governance. Questioning the unaccountable leaders and parties is an essential task for all of us. No institution can remain outside the accountability structure in democracy. Once Dr. Madhu Ghimire had written in the Kathmandu Post that if the King was not behaving within the limits set by constitutional monarchy, then he also should be impeached. We should not, therefore, feel guilty about criticizing the political parties. We have seen the dynastic system of leadership. If people stop raising questions, the leaders behave like landlords. People’s role is not limited to voting every five years. The candidates are chosen by the central level leaders. Local level leaders and workers are generally sidelined”.
“Secondly, all the privileges have to be codified in democracy—be they those of a monarch, or specific groups or political parties. We need to get rid of unwritten privileges”.
“The Judiciary in our country is not functioning well. It was visible when it dealt with the prisoners. The Judiciary almost functioned as a quasi-executive authority”.
“How do we deal with parties that file losing candidates? The proportional reservation system is a viable option”.
“The press in Nepal is also to blame. The journalists get money from the Department of Information - the main government body looking after the issues of the press. The Hundi-journalism is rife in this country. In the past some journalists used to receive money from the palace. Now that is taken over by the government”.
Krishna Prasad Sapkota Kavre (Association of the District Development Committees Nepal (ADDCN): “We have adequate administrative structures - from the centre to the village level. The problem is with the tendencies and actual practices. The governance structure is three-tiered - the central government, district committees and village development committees. The administration is accountable to the central government. This needs to be changed. There has not been real decentralization yet”.
“We saw the limitations of parliamentary democracy. Perhaps, we should have a directly elected PM (Prime Minister). Or we could have a provision mandating that the ministers be from outside the elected parliament, so that they could be more professional. The role of parliament is to formulate policies and make laws”.
“The Judiciary also needs to be changed. Perhaps, we need to adopt the Swiss Judicial model under which even the district Judge is elected through popular votes”.
“There has to be a provision for intra-party elections for selecting candidates”.
Parshuram Khapung (Rastriya Prajatantra Party): “In Nepal today, the minority is ruling over the majority. May be we should go for a proportional representation system, such as exists in the Scandinavian countries. We also need to have a thorough reflection of the electoral system. This is crucial for strengthening democracy in Nepal. There is a serious lack of intra-party democracy. This has to be rectified”.
Chaitnya Mishra (Sociologist [chair of the session]): “What is the relationship between the economy and everyday needs? What kind of relations should we build among the police, military and administration? Maybe we should focus on new topics now”.
Anil Bhattarai (Nepal South Asia Centre, dialogue coordinator): “We discussed a lot about the institutions that exist. Maybe we should also be discussing the historical processes that brought these institutions in place and that led to changes within them”.
Ramesh Shrestha (Political Scientist, Patan Multiple Campus, Kathmandu): “I had gone for field work in Baitadi district in Western Nepal. What we found is that there was very little rigging of polls during the local elections as all the party cadres were very active and watchful but during the parliamentary elections, there seemed to have been several instances of vote rigging and mobilization of muscle power”.
Chaitanya Mishra (Sociologist, Tribhuvan University): “We need to focus now on the linkages between: democracy and security, and democracy and everyday needs”.
Hari Roka (Political activist and columnist): “For long now only a narrow group of elite coming from a few caste groups ruled in this country. It is time for us to take democracy beyond them - into the villages. For this the structures of our political parties should change - it has to be more decentralized. We saw that the central leaders are dominant in making decisions about the village level issues—more so during the election time. Our organizations were built from above. First the central committee and then the lower level committees were set up”.
“The centralized administrative structure is also problematic in our multi-cultural society. The administrators do not know the local language and culture, which makes it difficult for them to conduct the daily administrative affairs”.
“We also need to address the issue of globalisation. Perhaps we cannot deliver justice as long as the neo-liberal theory of total privatisations remains dominant. It does not allow the state to work in favour of the groups who are raising their voices now”.
Luxmi Rai (National Women's Commission): “The military has to be under the parliament and should be accountable to the people. The press also needs to be reformed. The administrative system can be cleaned only when we have a clean political system”.
Somat Ghimire (Community Development Organization, Chitwan): “The administrative system and the civil society both are not accountable to the people. They are accountable only to their masters. The local bodies could have been more representative but if we look at their priorities, they were representing the interests of a narrow group of local and regional elites. The elected members of parliament also failed in functioning effectively as they do not have time to do analytical work. They are busy meeting the requests of their voters and cadres. There have been several movements after the restoration of democracy, but these movements did not become topics of discussion in parliament. The political parties also function like the administrative system—the leaders operate as if they are the bosses. They consider people only as clients and voters. We need to work towards building an active citizenry”.
Naresh Shankar Palikhe (Nepali Congress Activist, Pokhara): “There is a direct linkage between democracy and the fulfilment of basic needs. The empty stomach cannot be conducive for democracy but there are other examples where the fulfilment of basic needs did not require a democracy for example in Singapore, South Korea and Malaysia. Maybe we need to adopt their models so that we can achieve faster economic development”.
Ganesh Ram (Dalit activist, Siraha): “We saw that the leaders themselves were functioning against dalits at the local level. In Saptari they blocaded dalits and created trouble”.
Nabaraj Subedi (National People's Front): “The state in Nepal is not fulfilling its duty of ensuring basic needs to its people. It is involved in rampant privatisation”.
“The security forces should be under the control of the parliament. It was a mistake to include the Commander-in-Chief of the Army in policy making, as is done in Nepal through the provisions of the Security Council”.
“The bureaucracy is unnecessarily politicised in Nepal. This sets limits to good governance practices in the country. The appointment to the constitutional bodies was also highly politicised. There was a proposal for public deliberations on the proposed names for constitutional posts, but this was not seriously implemented”.
“The legislative also functioned as a bureaucracy system. At least this is my own experience in parliament. The People’s front had tabled several crucial bills, but they were not tabled until we went to gherao the rostrum. A similar thing happened when Hridayesh Tripathi tabled an amendment bill”.
“Democracy and monarchy contradict each other. At least this is what is experienced in Nepal. The best system for democracy is a republic. We need to at lease bring monarchy under full control of the elected parliament”.
Dhruva Kumar (Political Scientist): “First I want to raise questions about the research design itself. The questions that have been presented here are all loaded questions, which lead to predictable answers. I think this is not a good way to do social science research”.
“About the linkage between economic development and democracy, let’s not forget that in South Korea, Singapore and Malaysia, Americans and Europeans poured in lots and lots of money to fight communism but we saw how shaky these economies were when they collapsed during the financial crisis in 1997. My study tells me that democracy is conducive for economic development. The social security arrangement in Nepal is an outstanding example. We need to go towards increasing the production base we cannot enrich ourselves by selling our labour alone. We need to invest within the country but this does not seem to be possible in the near future. There is an increase in the armed forces - eight thousand strong forces are added this year. The budget is going towards the security system”.
Lok Raj Baral (Political Scientist, Nepal Centre for Contemporary Studies): “We are psychologically scared of the army but they obey the power-that-be. They accepted Jung Bahadur when he was in power. They accepted the King when he was in power. The army has not taken political initiatives on its own, but it is highly politicised as it has served the political interests”.
“In 1990, we all thought that there had been a qualitative change but this was not the case in reality and this was because of our leadership. They compromise on fundamental issues. Now the five parties have come up with 18 demands, but some of the leaders already announced that they are ready to make compromises on them”.
“The first elected Prime Minister Mr. Girija Prasad Koirala dissolved the parliament and went for a mid-term election - he could not express why he had to take this decision. The leaders are not dependable in this country. How can we expect economic transformation in this situation?”
“Some argue that socialism is needed for economic equality but now democracy is inclusive of that also. So we can talk only about democracy. It is about social justice, it is about equality and it is also about economic development. The capitalist class in this class are not rooted - they became rich by selling foreign goods”.
Indra Adhikari (NCCS, Kathmandu): “We cannot forget the role of the business class in democracy. They are the ones who provide donations to the parties and get benefits from them. The elections have become rather expensive. Only the rich are able to stand on their own. The locally popular leadership is generally sidelined. This has to change”.
Prof. Peter R deSouza (Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS), Delhi): “Let me clarify about the loaded questions that Prof. Dhruva Kumar has raised. This was not our intention. These questions are only meant for initiating and facilitating dialogues If these really are loaded questions, then we may have failed but from the discussions we have today, we know that many issues got discussed that were not strictly part of the project. We seem to be discussing really well. Some of the most fundamental issues have come up here. For example, the question of monarchy has been so central to the discussion on democracy in Nepal. This could be because of the situation in the last one and half year but we are also discussing how the institutions function”.
“We have listed a lot of problems. Our idea is that these questions can be addressed only by more politics and not less. We may identify negative or positive aspects of institutions, but these are all issues of politics. This is more the case for a plural, diverse and resource-deprived society like ours”.
“In our survey, we will be asking a lot of non-loaded questions. At the end of the survey, we will be able to tell you what the situation actually is, what people are thinking? In 1996, CSDS did a survey which revealed that the most trusted institutions were the higher judiciary and the election commission. The police, political parties and bureaucracy were the least trusted ones”.
“This dialogue is only one methodological component of our research. There are limitations which will be addressed by other components”.
Ganesh B.K, (Dalit Rights Activist, Dhangadhi): “The dalits are increasingly excluded from economic opportunities because of the practice of untouchability, on account of their low and dependent economic situation, they are not free to decide on political matters. They do not have land in their own name, even the land that they have been cultivating for a long time. The monopoly of certain caste groups in power needs to be broken for a really inclusive democracy to flourish. We consider reservation as a right and not alms from the state. It is a right to repair the historical injustice. The Dalit commission had a non-dalit brahmin director once. Only 13 dalits were represented in the 75 district development committees. In the peasant organizations, it is only the rich peasants who take up leadership”.
Day Two, 23 November, 2003
Agenda for Future Transformation
Anil Bhattarai (Nepal South Asia Centre, dialogue coordinator): “Yesterday's discussion clearly revealed that, as organizers, we were not wise enough in structuring the sessions. We had expected that we would discuss one component after another in a very linear fashion but in reality we cannot think in fragments - we discuss everything together and cannot discuss promise at one session and functioning at another. I think we will continue that way today also”.
Laxmi Rai (National Women's Commission): “I open the floor for discussions”.
Krishna Khanal (Political Scientist, Tribhuvan University): “I want to focus on three main areas where changes need to occur: The state structures, political parties and the electoral system”.
“First, we need to de-link the state from the monarchy - may be we should stop calling it a kingdom. The janajatis are feeling excluded - they are saying they do not have much place in the present structure. Perhaps, we need to change the unitary structure, which cannot incorporate the cultural, linguistic and ethnic diversity in the country. We have to go in for regional structures and federal structures. In the last two centuries, the centralized state was dominant. Parties also followed the same structure. Pluralism is not acknowledged in the parties. All this needs to change. The administrative structures follow the same pattern. There had been an attempt to create regional governors (kshetrapaal). This is just the extension of a centralized state”.
“We can think of autonomous district councils. Narahariji has been proposing the idea of regional autonomy. Nepali Congress leader Dhundiraj Sashtri had proposed regional parliaments”.
“The role of the opposition in Nepal is not clearly defined in practice. No-one wants to be the in opposition”.
“The first past the post system of election in our country is already outdated. People are now discussing about a proportional representation system but the list-system of proportional representation may be worse than the present system. The politically influential may be chosen by the parties irrespective of their popular base. Perhaps, the multi-member proportional system, that exists in Germany, may be more appropriate. Or we can go in for the Swiss model. The Nepali Congress and the UML are going to lose in the proportional representation system, but they are also talking about this. Perhaps, for popular consumption”.
“In the present system, people who are elected have the right to be the Prime Minister. That means they may not have been elected with that possibility, but due to the quantitative calculations in the parliament they might end up heading the government - as did happen with Surya Bahadur Thapa and Lokendra Bahadur Chand during the coalition governments in Nepal. The parties have to behave more responsibly in future, and the leaders have to be more honest. They should be ready to give up power if they lose”.
Narahari Acharya (Nepali Congress Leader): “We need to change the structure of monarchy and the palace. In our 235-year history, only less than fifty percent is spent under active monarchy but it is the central element in our polity. There has always been conflict between the king and the people—be it in 1950, or in 1960 or in 1990 or at present. King Tribhuvan had promised elections to the constituent assembly, but did not comply with this. King Mahendra usurped power militarily and King Birendra continued till 1990. Now the present king seems to be doing the same. We need to settle this issue definitely”.
“Now I want to discuss about political parties. They have to be decentralized. We are suffering from the problem of democratic centralism. This might have crept into the Nepali Congress because we have to fight the Communists. There were some attempts within the Nepali Congress to have regional organizational structures—but they did not get realized”.
“Democracy is not about the supremacy of parties, but that of the people. In Nepal, parliament was established through struggle. In Britain it is the parliament which created political parties. Parties somehow expect a privileged position in society but this is the problem. An NGO has to be registered, but not the parties—unless they want to go to elections. This should not be the case”.
Nabaraj Subedi (National People's Front): “The question of sovereignty is the central one. We need to stop using the concept of His Majesty’s Government and instead use only ‘Nepal Government’, as used to be the case till the mid fifties. The constitution has not accepted the multi-religious reality. The state has to be secular”.
“Our party has proposed regional autonomy. In some places, it could be based on ethnic composition, but in majority it is based on geography. There has to be a right to education in one’s mother tongue and that could happen only with regional autonomy. The minorities have to be protected by the state in all the situations”.
“Our practices have moved towards autocracy. Debates occur in parliament. But the institutions of the state do not function well. The MPs job includes providing perks to their close cadres. They are not concerned with policy issues”.
“There has been over-politicisation in every institution. For example, directors are appointed to the public enterprises based on their party affiliation, notwithstanding their skills and ability to handle the job. We need to have public consultations before people are actually appointed to constitutional posts”.
“We might have to adopt a proportional representation system, based on our past experiences. This may change the present system of buying and selling of votes in parliament. We might have to have an electoral government”.
“There definitely has to be a vibrant civil society and the government has to take inputs from it but we need to be clear as to what we mean by it”.
Sanjaya Sherchan (Janajati Activist, Intellectual): “Nepal is a multi-religions, multicultural and multi-ethnic society, but we have been seeing the dominance of a few castes in the state for the last 234 years. Maoists have raised this issue of janajatis, Madhesis, dalits and women, but the leadership is still dominated by brahmins. The senior intellectual is Babu Ram Bhattarai. The constitution has taken the side of the Hindu religion and Nepali language. Even the Judiciary upheld this. Constitutionally, no party can be opened with an ethnic name. But the Shiv Sena party was registered. This is the irony. We need to go towards proportional representation. We need to stop thinking that electing a PM is a way of strengthening the state. We need to strengthen people on the margins—people of the remote areas, women, dalits, janajatis, etc”.
“When we raise the issue of ethnicity and regional autonomy, there is a fear of disintegration. This could have been because the brahmin Chetris do not have their own native place”.
Hari Sharma (Nepal Trade Union Congress): “When we discuss the link between the state and political parties, popular politics comes to the surface. Political parties articulate the popular aspirations and demands. How is civil society linked with the state? What is its role? Should we be limited within the definitions provided by the donor agencies only? When we discuss politics today, we need to discuss social movements. We can discuss the normative positions about the institutions but we also need to look at empirical reality”.
“Political parties are just a platform for non-violently negotiating identities. The social movements should be strong enough to force political parties to assume that role”.
Lal Babu Yadav (Political Scientist, Birgunj): “We need to differentiate between representation and participation. The electoral system is rather weak in Nepal. Therefore, we have seen the power of money, muscle and mafias. The candidates are selected based on caste, community and money. Thus the root of democracy is weak. Women are given tickets where there is fair chance of losing. Dalit candidates do not get votes. Maybe we need to reserve some seats”.
“The Prime Minister (PM) has to be elected through popular votes. The parliament can remove the PM with a two-third vote of impeachment and the PM can appoint constitutional posts with approval from the parliament. These changes may improve the functioning of the system. The Judiciary should not be immune to criticism”.
“The question of monarchy is an important one in Nepal. There can be either active or constitutional monarchy. In Nepal the army is still not under the elected parliament. We witnessed the case of Holeri where the army did not follow the order from the PM”.
“The upper house should be converted into a multicultural parliament. Otherwise it is almost useless”.
Prem Suwal (Nepal Workers Peasant Party, Bhaktapur): “Parliament is supreme in democracy. Decentralization is an important part of democratisation. The upper house could be representative of the ethnic and cultural diversity in the country”.
“The present electoral system is rather corrupt in that only people with muscle power and money power get elected. The elected members also change their parties”.
“The state should take the responsibility of ensuring the satisfaction of the basic needs of the people. Economic power is key to the access to state power”.
“We need to set limits to property ownership. We also need to ensure equal opportunity for all”.
“Communists do not accept monarchy. The king can remain as long as he serves the interest of the people. Socialism is necessary for real democracy. The end of socialism is the end of democracy”.
“Implementation is also the real problem. Different committees have submitted recommendations on various aspects of governance from time to time. But they are not implemented”.
“Civil society should be representative of the people. It needs to launch a campaign of intellectualisation of the people. This means making them at least B.A. pass”.
Krishna Prasad Sapkota (Association of the District Development Committees Nepal (ADDCN)): “We discussed about the formation of the executive. Ministers appointed from outside the parliament will go a long way in solving some serious shortcomings”.
“The Judiciary needs to brought under public criticism. We have heard of cases lingering for 17-18 years. We have heard of differing and sometimes contradictory judgements on the same cases by different courts”.
“About ethnic representation, we need to think about this seriously. Oftentimes, this is raised as a slogan, but can it be practical, say in Kanchanpur where there are more than 100 ethnic groups living in the district. I think the central question is that of local autonomy”.
“Internal democracy is necessary. But Narahariji’s argument that the Nepali Congress might be suffering from democratic centralism because it has to compete with the communist parties does not stand to the scrutiny. In the Nepali Congress only the leader is elected and other central committee members are handpicked up by them. But in Communist parties almost all the committee members are elected”.
“We need to go for direct elections in the district development committee also”.
“About the economy - we might have to go towards a community controlled economy as we saw that both the state-controlled and individual enterprises are on the losing end”.
Ganesh Datta Bhatta (Lawyer, Kathmandu): “We cannot keep ourselves outside the globalisation trend. We can point out some lacunae in privatisation. The bureaucracy is not pro-people. Unless you know someone in the office, you cannot get your work done”.
“The NGOs run according to the wishes of the donors. They are active only when they have money”.
“The constitution of 1990 really made the king constitutional. The leaders did not behave properly”.
“The Judicial appointments have to be done with professional process. Those practicing in the field have to be appointed in maximum numbers. Our Judicial system is rather slow and expensive. We heard the news about a suicide because of the cost of court cases”.
“The donors are very active in preparing parliamentary bills. This has to be discouraged”.
Somat Ghimire (Community Development Organization, Chitwan): “Now people have to decide whether they want the king or not. The parties themselves should be transparent. Non-transparent parties cannot morally ask for a transparent palace and monarchy. Who gives them money? How much? How could the leaders build their houses? How could they buy vehicles? All these are very non-transparent. They only sell their past sacrifice, but this is not enough now. People cannot be blackmailed for so long”.
“Parties also should be creative in preparing issues for election. They have to do research and try to learn about how people live in society”.
“The civil society is dollar-dependent in this country. But we can set our own agenda if we are creative enough. The problem is not with the dollar alone. The problem is our subservience to the donors for ideas”.
“The intellectuals can play a crucial role in reorienting the political parties. It is not enough to say they are bad. Bad politics is not good for good intellectuals. The challenge is how to improve politics. Merely criticizing the parties and party leaders is not enough”.
Hari Roka (Political activist and columnist): “There has to be a serious discussion about the question of ethnic autonomy. We cannot make decisions based on individual whims and cheap arguments. This applies for the reservation for dalits also”.
“Accountability is the main issue - not only for the parties, but for everyone - the civil society, the palace, the administration, etc.. Shouldn’t intellectuals also be accountable? The World Bank gives loans and puts lots of conditionalities. But civil society remains quiet”.
“Social movements are necessary. For example parties could have initiated popular campaigns against untouchability right after the restoration of democracy in 1990, but they did not”.
Dhruva Kumar (Political Scientist): “We have been discussing the same issues for these two days. There are endless agendas for transformation. We need to be realistic also. We cannot think beyond the state. We have to think about possibilities within it. The main challenge is the vertical power structure but we also need to think about resource availability when we discuss the district autonomy. How could the poor districts raise necessary resources for their development? We have people who cannot pay one rupee as annual tax”.
“We have discussed a lot about the conflict between the monarchy and democracy. Perhaps, we need to deal with this issue definitely, and then move on others”.
Laxmi Rai (National Women's Commission): Chair’s Remark. “We all agree that the leaders should be committed. The National Women’s Commission has prepared a report about the discrimination against women in the present constitution. We are yet to discuss this with the political parties. We are proposing 33 percent reservation for women in all bodies - the parliament, the government posts, etc...” |
