It is not very uncommon to hear people say that they have stopped following national politics—for the simple reason that nothing ever changes. According to this view, you could have gone into a Rip Van Winklesque slumber at any time over the past decade and woken up to find that you had not actually missed much—so much so that even the cast of characters remains pretty much the same.

There is no doubt that much has happened in the political sphere since the momentous success of the Second People’s Movement and the end of the Maoist conflict. The intervening years have seen the decades-long demand of all the major political forces at one point or another fulfilled—election to a Constituent Assembly, not once but twice in a row. The monarchy has been removed; the promise of an inclusive democracy somewhat realised; a new constitution adopted in the face of the devastation wrought by last year’s earthquake; and so on.

The one and only remaining issue is the continuing contestation on the meaning of a new Nepal, and on that aspect a meeting of the minds between what one might call the traditionalists and the progressives has continued to elude us for nearly 10 years now. Lest it be forgotten, it should be pointed out that in the immediate aftermath of the 2006 political change, all the major political forces were united in advancing progressive ideals they had held sacrosanct at some time or the other of their existence. Since then, unfortunately, it has been a downhill slide.

Left, right

As we are witnessing in various parts of the world, including in our own neighbourhood, the rise of conservative forces nudges centrist parties to the left. The general trend in history though has been the emergence of parties more to the left, forcing those straddling the stage in the centre and left-of-centre either into oblivion or into reincarnating themselves as apologists for the right. Fortunately, thus far, Nepal has also followed this general tendency only, and with periodic regularity.

When it came to prominence in the 1950s, the Nepali Congress embodied modern values. Although its record is rather mixed, its social and political agenda contrasted sharply with the preceding Rana era that had been stuck in the mediaeval period. Following the 1990 movement and its entry into parliamentary politics, the UML became the fount of radicalism and the social-democratic Congress ceded space and moved to the right. After 2006, the Maoists represented change while by various counts the UML leapfrogged the Congress and captured the space further to its right. And, by now, the Maoists themselves are viewed askance by many who had believed their progressivism to be of a more lasting variety.

The danger obviously is of the possibility of either a realignment of forces on the right leading to the emergence of something even more conservative than what we see now, or a bruising joust among them to garner the illiberal vote. We are already seeing signs of it in the Nepali Congress with a powerful faction led by General Secretary Shashank Koirala calling for a referendum on secularism. Granted that General Secretary Koirala does not measure up to the erudition and vision of his father, the agnostic BP Koirala, but to hear hardly a voice of dissent against the idea from within a party that still claims fealty to BP is a sad reflection of how far to the right it has moved. As for the UML, pronouncements from some of its prominent leaders sound like RPP-Nepal-speak, while Prachanda himself has been known to say on occasion that adopting secularism was a mistake.

Misplaced priorities

But these are concerns for a somewhat later time. The pressing issue now is that of amending the constitution. The most positive aspect is that everyone agrees that the constitution is a ‘living document’ and like any organism prone to modifications to suit the environment. Sadly, it has been more than a year and all the rhetoric followed by dialogue followed by rhetoric has resulted in barely perceptible shifts in party positions.

What is galling though is that there seems to be no seriousness of purpose among our top leaders. It is an old habit with them that every now and then someone gives a pass to an important conclave, citing all manner of reasons. For the ‘communist’ parties, they always seem to have a must-attend ‘training of cadre’ somewhere outside Kathmandu that trumps any meeting that could decide the future of the country. Once KP Oli had the other leaders wait in vain while he attended a function in the capital itself.

There are plenty of examples, and criticism, of foreign junkets the political leadership embarks on even as the country awaits for some form of political stability. But, last month, Prachanda surprised everyone by abruptly cancelling his planned trip to attend the UN General Assembly. We will not know if that was part of an undertaking he had promised Delhi since it came the day after his arrival from India, but the unforeseen announcement gave some hope that we will finally see some movement on the constitutional amendment front. The prime minister, however, seemed to lose focus and the next big news was his inspection of the Melamchi Project.

If that was not bad enough, three days after Prachanda’s selfless sacrifice of his New York jaunt, one of the main interlocutors to any discussion on the constitution, Upendra Yadav, decided it was just the right time to fly off on a three-week visit to Europe for the same old reason of attending a ‘party programme’. Not to be outdone, Kamal Thapa, too, took off for Japan a couple of days later to attend a function organised by the ‘Youth Day International Association’, which appears to be an entity without even a web presence.

These and others like them are the same leaders who warn of national calamity in all shapes and forms if their voice is not heard, and the entire country is held hostage to their threats. Nero is said to have played the fiddle while Rome burnt. Our Neros cannot seem to give up their jet-setting ways while the country burns in its own way.

If only we could jet them to a remote island and keep them there until they hammer out a resolution. But, perhaps I speak too soon for Prachanda announced yesterday that a draft of the constitutional amendment is now ready for discussion. That is some achievement, but also watch out for a ratcheting up of rhetoric in the days to come.