With the promulgation of the constitution last year, Nepal has witnessed a political polarisation. Some have hailed the statute as a progressive document and a historic achievement while others insist it fails to embody minority aspirations and hence risks being politically illegitimate. Akhilesh Upadhyay and Apekshya Shah Rana spoke to Carl Gershman, founding president of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a US non-profit organisation with the stated goal of promoting democracy abroad, about the prospects of democracy in a society as diverse as Nepal’s, the importance of inclusion and social justice to deepen democracy, and prerequisites for a functional democratic order. Gershman, who served as the US Representative to the UN’s Committee on Human Rights during the first Reagan Administration (1981-84), is in town to participate in the inaugural ceremony of the international Darnal Award for Social Justice today.

In your article ‘Democracy: Four Reasons to Be Optimistic in 2015’ (World Affairs Journal, December 31, 2014) you talk about the struggle of democratic movements throughout the world. Our experience with democracy in Nepal has been mixed, for instance, with 22 governments in 26 years. Does democracy work for all countries?

Democracy is difficult. It is difficult even in the Unites States today. We are having our own problems and I believe people know about it. But nobody wants to go back to authoritarianism. You have a vibrant civil society in Nepal, which is going to continue the bottom-up pressure for the political leaderships to make progress and solve the problems facing the country today. And it is happening.

I have always seen the glass half full. If the glass is not half full, I will get a smaller glass. But I do think there are reasons to be hopeful in Nepal, although it might be a long and tedious process. Nepal is a terribly diverse country and shaping a common national identity out of this incredible linguistic, religious, ethnic and caste diversity will be an enormous accomplishment. And it cannot happen without democracy. Because democracy is the only process by which people work out their problems non-violently.

Last year, we endorsed the new constitution with a two-thirds majority and yet a huge constituency feels left out. What could be the way out now?

There are specific issues that need be worked out and hopefully the constitution can be amended.  I do not want to pretend to parachute into a situation to give answers to questions that I cannot grasp. The issue has to be resolved internally. But what I do understand is that it is not about what is worked out but rather how it is worked out. The people who are disgruntled and feel left out are the ones who have felt abused for years, so a message has to be conveyed to them that they count, are respected, have dignity and that their voices are being heard. I think it is critical how the problems are resolved.

There are two schools of thought over this. First, the constitution was passed by a majority so we should ignore the disgruntled voices; second, that the document does not reflect the aspirations of the modern-day citizenry. These are deeply entrenched positions. 

This is a great challenge and people have to be prepared to make compromises. Passing a constitution of the country is not like passing a piece of legislation; it is very difficult.

A good constitution lays a foundation for a just society. In that respect it should be a document that that looks far ahead and envisions that all citizens are entitled to equal opportunity for prosperity and success.

You have a country with such great poverty. I am here to attend a conference on Dalits and I am beginning to learn and appreciate the issue of untouchability, which is not often understood around the world. It is an ignored problem. Changing something like this, which is so rooted in society is not just a matter of law. You can make it illegal but it still continues and we know that. How you can achieve social justice, real fairness and rule of law for people so that they are protected and are not brutalised because of their castes is a very difficult thing. It does not require rules but economic growth and development of a modern economy which is not possible without freedom. I think Nepal will get there but it will not happen quickly as we are talking about changes that might take decades.

When the democracy was restored in Nepal in 1990, it was a very optimistic moment for people like me. We had the so-called “third wave of democratisation” back then and there were transitions in so many other countries as well. But it turned out to be much more difficult and protracted than I thought it would be at that time. Everyone back then thought that liberal democracy was the wave of the future, but we do not feel that way today.

By liberalism, I mean the value of liberty, tolerance and human rights. An American abolitionist leader in 1858 by the name of Wendell Phillips said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance and you can never take it for granted. The support for democracy in the US itself is going down among the younger generation than the older people who remember the Second World War, the Cold War and the challenges democracy has faced.

Then how do we, in an emerging democracy, give people hope that democracy is going to work eventually? When is eventually anyway? 

First, people will not give up hope. The Czech leader Václav Havel, one of my heroes who died four years ago, said that hope is a dimension of the soul and people do not give up hope as it is part of who they are as human beings. But they can get very angry, upset and lose confidence in the powers that be. Still these people have to pressure political leaderships and have to organise themselves as it is also their responsibility to demand that the government perform. The government needs to be accountable to the people but for this, the people need to mobilise and organise themselves. It is not just about having beliefs. You need to be organised and put pressure. This is what democracy is all about. What has happened in this country is that forces have been unleashed and you cannot put the genie back in the bottle.

How crucial is it to address the issues raised by the marginalised classes in a democratic society?

It is critical. In a country as diverse as Nepal, where you have groups that have been historically marginalised, and given the standards people expect the country to live up to, you cannot have national unity without inclusive democracy. If you do not get marginalised people out from the margins, you are wasting a lot of human talent by suppressing people. It is not just enough to allow historical forces to take shape. You have to be proactive, and help people who feel left out. It is both about doing things to address people’s real problems and acting in a way that people feel respected.

So there’s more to democracy than a majoritarian rule?

Absolutely. You had a change in this country in 1990, but it was superficial and did not address the issues of the grassroots, problems of castes and poverty. All these take a long time to solve and it will require cultural change as well as social and economic change.

There is this critique about foreign aid that argues Western organisations here have raised people’s expectations at the cost of Nepal’s social cohesion. What took the West hundreds of years to achieve, they expect it to materialise in years here. How far do you agree?

I do not think it is Western organisations but the world we live in today.

We are not living in the 17th century. We are living in the world of internet where people have access to immediate information. They have consciousness that they did not have before. They expect things to happen quickly now and we have to recognise that. We are guided by how we empower them and we try to find people like Suvash Darnal, who was really realistic. He was also really proud of being a Nepali despite the discrimination he faced as a Dalit. This is a positive model people should follow to organise themselves.