Democracy in Nepal

Abstract

Journey of Nepal towards democracy from 1991 AD to today, is not satiasfactory.Although people's expectation is very wide, but they say that poor peoples should get food, education, clothes.Similarly mid and rich peoples want social security so that they could invest money for establishing private enterprises. They want to see these things ensured in the democratic constitution of Nepal that is in course of formation. Democracy seems incapable to address the issues like corruption, insecurity and unemployment etc...Due to system of sharing among major political parties for major post in different sectors like university, hospital, transportation etc., democracy is weakening and so the nationality is. Problems like unemployment, poverty, crime are same as before with only some progress. Gap between rich and poor is very wide and is increasing and Nepal is the 2nd country after China in Asia where this gap is wide, because democracy is in still in hands of certain level of peoples. Peoples belonging beyond this class are not facilitated by democracy. But during these periods of democratic journey, due to establishment of private enterprise in huge numbers, it has progressed in many sectors like education, medicine, GDP share to the world etc...Similarly lifestyles of citizens have been increased significantly. There are no more good results of this journey except the free market, and private enterprises which are main reasons for progress in those sectors, in which Nepal is going up.

Introduction

Democracy is that political system in which power is in people's hand. Famous American president Abraham Lincoln had said that democracy is the political system by the people, for the people and to the people. This means every aspects and elements in democracy is led by peoples in contrast to a communist system and other authotarian system, in which rule is done by one people and is controlled by different armed forces. Freedom in establishing private enterprise, press freedom, human rights, freedom in changing the religion, access to education, health services, food etc., are all general bases for democracy. In other words, democracy is system in which even a boy born in a poor family, can be a leader in society.Generally,democracy may be defined according to the geographic condition, peoples status in country(poor, rich).For example the democratic system which is adopted in USA,India may not be applicable in Nepal because of its several limitation. In context of Nepal, there have been many revolutions starting from 1950AD to achieve a democratic system. But due to illiteracy, inability of leaders and due to location between two power countries i.e. India and China, it has not still achieved stability yet. After the removal of Monarchy in 2008, Nepal is currently in course of formation of new democratic constitution formation. But due to the regular conflicts between political parties for getting chair, democracy is in doubt to be flourished. Due to regular interference of India on its political journey, regular strike, corruption and, conflicts between youths belonging to different political parties, many peoples have started to think that Nepal is going to be as Afghanistan of 1990AD and some peoples are thinking it will be a failure country. However by extending the life of constitution assembly, the hope of peoples for getting democratic constitution has not yet died.

Citizen's Expectation

Every people in nation wish to have easy access to food,clothes,health services, education and everyone wants to have own home and everybody wants to establish own enterprise if he/she has some capital to invest. This holds true especially in case of developing countries like Nepal where still 28% of peoples are still below the national poverty line and many citizens are still bounded to sleep under clear sky due to not having own land and house.Helvetas Nepal reveals that number of such peoples is still higher (www.helvetasnepal.org.np/rbf.htm).In this case these people's expectation from the democracy is food to eat, land to involve in agriculture and a house to stay in so that they do not have to spend night under clear sky. These are expectations of very poor peoples. Let me slightly proceed from this. In 2008AD, Nepal became republic nation and from then Nepali citizens escaped from 240 years of monopoly system. During the kingship, many races and tribes were pressed and their numbers in national decision making position was very low. So many groups are formed either in the name of federalism or for increasing the number of tribal people in such positions now. So the expectations of such peoples are that their identity which was pressed during past should be appreciated. This is political expectation but as mentioned above, poverty, unemployment etc., are the major social problems and citizen wants democratic government solving such problems. ``Baadi`` tribe in Nepal is that tribe, in which women are compelled to be involved in sexual activities and money thus obtained is used for household expenditures. Leaders of this tribe expect that democracy in country will address the unemployment problem so that they can leave this profession, society hates {www.taipeitimes.com/.../2003137266(19 April 2004)}.

As democracy is a rule by the people, for the people, I think if leaders think seriously about these problems, these problems can be surely addressed. In my country, there are many peoples who are capturing many hectares of land, leaving bare and making land as a source of income by plotting. These many hectares of bare land should be captured by Government and thus captured land should be distributed to those not having lands and wanting to be involved in agricultural practices. But if one person is capturing many hectares of land and if he is farming the land, such land should not be captured by the Government. Democracy neither harms rich peoples nor poor ones. But rich peoples in each country pay tax to the Government for the enterprise they are running. In Nepal, tax system is very flexible. Government should avoid such flexibility. Today India has progressed in which tax also plays a major role. So democratic Government in Nepal should avoid tax flexibility and money obtained as tax from those peoples can be used for poor peoples in different sectors like education, health, employment generation, road formation, hydropower generation. As Nepal is second most rich country in water resource in the world. The tax can be invested in hydropower production and electricity left after domestic consumption can be sold to foreign countries. Money obtained from this can again be invested in different sectors for improving the living standards of poor peoples. By doing so the gap between poor and rich peoples decreases and in turns this help for the stability of democracy. As inflation is being main issue nowadays and is about 11%.In this condition the democratic Government must invest on agriculture sectors as Nepal depends upon another countries even for food and as among imported goods, food products occupies major proportion. I think import from other countries, is also a reason for inflation. Besides these Governments should make its agency aware whether problem is created by the local marketers. Besides these, there are many peoples wanting to invest money to establish different enterprise. Democratic government must provide security to them. In addition, Governments must provide other technical and physical support e.g. lands to them. There are many youths who do have skills and brain, muscles to implement the skills. I think Government may bring various popular programs such as self-employment. In democracy only Government can not solve all these problems so private enterprises that are already established, can play a creative role by coordinating with educated peoples in the society, university towards solving present problems

Democracy and Me in My Country

In democracy, it is only ideal that every one is satisfied with the Government and the governance system. But being an educated youth, I am very nervous with the democracy in my country. Since 1950AD, different political ups and downs have been in Nepal in the name of establishing democracy. During this, many lost their lives and many lost their house, family. But all for democracy and stability. Today due to childish behaviors of leaders, country is interfered by India in every political decision (Charu Lata Hogg, June 2010:-The world Today, Volume 66,Number 6,Chatham House, London).In this case how can I be satisfied with democracy. The problem like hunger, unemployment is as same as same as that before with only slightly less as before. The inflation rate is so higher that, for an officer, a salary of one month is tight for one month of expenditures and labors have to work with empty stomach. In this case how millennium development goal is achieved in Nepal, it is a matter of concern. In this condition, corruption is becoming the regular exercise of the Government officers from top to bottom. Recent study by Amnesty International shows that Nepal is the most corrupted country in South Asia. The gap between rich and poor is widening in such a way that rich peoples are becoming more and more rich and poor are being poorer. Democracy is renounced as `Damocracy` in real activities. There is no command of government over security. Killing of famous person even at the day time and even in the capital city is being a normal work but police can do nothing. Leaders are doing leadership and politics but when considered from a general public view, it seems they are doing all for themselves, their relatives and for their party. Even prime minister gives appointment to his brother in post of chief in different agencies although his brother was reported by different news papers as incapable person. This news has made Nepali frustrated with politics and democracy.

Brain drain rate is such huge that when considered to the peoples going to USA only, Nepal falls among the top 11 counmtries,from where peoples come to U.S. in huge number. The data of peoples going to other countries like UK, Saudi Arabia, Quatar, Kubait etc. is not clear. Thus going peoples are of the age 16-35.This means Nepal, although being a democratic nation, is loosing both brain and muscles at a time. If this rate of brain drain still continues, then in Nepal, there will be only old peoples and children, who are dependent. With this, development seems impossible and the probability of more corruption and dominance of bad extremist in governance increases. Social security system is such bad that owners of private companies sometime close the company for giving pressure to the Government demanding security. Many companies are permanently closed. This is mainly because cadres of different political parties beg money with the company owner. If owner rejects to give money, then he might have to face heavy economical and physical loss or even sometime death. Kidnapping and killing of industrialists becomes the main headings in daily newspapers frequently. In this situation satisfaction is only the dream and frustrations are only alternative.

Democratic Government's Responsibility

In Democracy, Government exists to serve peoples. In other words in democracy Government protects the rights of peoples. In return, peoples provide their loyalty to the government. But in authotarian system government demands loyalty from the citizen but in return the Government may or may not protect the people's right. Here people's right means: right to have food, right to have land, right to study, right to involve in social works etc.. These all rights are protected by the Government in democratic constitution. Food is defined as the fundamental need of the citizens in democratic nations. For example in many democratic nations, if peoples face heavy starvation, Governments buys food from other nations in order to feed its own citizens. But in case of authotarian government, such rarely happens. Take example of North Korea, where is communist system and Myanmar where there is army rule. News of starvation is heard every year through different media, but the Governments rejects the help of other countries, thinking that doing so will weaken their governing powers. In such a way due to globalization, many democratic developing countries are able to get new facilities, projects, knowledges.But there are some countries which ignore globalization thinking that globalization will harm them. So they prefer to remain alone rather than keeping their identity by competing with other nation.

I do not think, there are only questions related with democracy. I think responsibility and right goes simultaneously. If there only questions of rights in democracy, democracy becomes favorable to certain class of peoples but not to the whole peoples. But as in authotarian government, responsibility is not fixed in democracy. Democracy is not that in which citizens are mechanized and they do same things whatever the Government says. But citizen are free to do anything according to their knowledge and remaining within the periphery of constitution. So democracy won't be stable until peoples have knowledge to understand, their roles and responsibility towards democracy and nation. England does not have a written democratic constitution, but it is model for any democratic nation. This is because the citizens of the nation have strong affection towards the democracy. They do understand what the democracy is and what will happen to them if they bring an authotarian government. So for the stable democracy citizens must understand their limitation. This is the main reason why in developing nations, democracy is always in threat? Other question is identity. Until there is involvement of different races, religion, castes, proffession, ideology etc., the democracy is always in threat of tilting, because in democracy, there is always threat of revolt against government by the marginal, poor and those that are far from the facilities provided by the government. We see mainly in poor countries, the democracy is either kidnapped by a person or by a party leaving some countries as exceptions. So for the stability of democracy, the poverty should be minimized through the medium of rapid development. So I think responsibility, identity and poverty lines are the main questions related with the democracy.



People's Expectations about democracy

As mentioned above Nepal is currently in the course of writing new democratic constitution. The current politics of Nepal is proceeding on the basis of consensus between three major political parties' i.e.Nepali Congress, Nepal communist party-unified Marxism Leninism and Unified Nepal Communist party Maoist. Citizens are wishing at least the consensus not to break until the formation of new democratic constitution and democratic system. Peoples expect that democracy must ensure their identity which was lost during the monarchy. Also they expect that the democracy will provide food for those not having food, house for those not having house, school for those not being able to go to school, employment opportunity to those who are bounded to go to others nation for employment. Newly forming democratic system and the democratic parties should evaluate the potentiality of the skilled persons in country and try to implement the potentiality in Nepali scenario to make hunger free, fight free, unemployment free Nepal. Besides these peoples are also wanting that democracy which provides the identity of peace loving, development loving, poverty free, corruption less and independent country instead of today's violence, poverty, corruption and dependent upon other countries.


Democracy and Economic Freedom in Nepal

Democracy is that system in which one is king of him/herself so the slavery of someone for making him/her rich is not necessary. One who does have skill is likely to generate employment and the one which does not have skills is likely to be skilled in democracy. In democratic nation as in others nations, in Nepal, the market system is not monopoly so that interested peoples can open their own supermarkets,shops,trade centers not violating the rule formed by the governments. In monopoly market there is less demand of workers, staff but in contrast to monopoly market, in democratic market system there is more demand of workers and staff as the number of trade centers is huge. So as a result of democracy, many private enterprises are established in my country and thousands of peoples are getting job in their own land which is positive factor for increasing the lifestyles of general peoples.. However it is still to be improved. While talking about my country avoiding different ups and downs, it has started step towards democracy from more than 20 years ago. During these periods of 20 years of democracy practice, there is significant improve in the living standards of peoples. In the beginning of the 20 years, there were no more media centers, no more schools and universities, no more trade centers as these are today. Today there are more than 10 TV stations and more than 250 FM stations in Nepal, established on the effort of private agencies. Similarly due to open markets accompanied by democracy, many banks are established. Agriculture sector is also preferred by different private agencies for commercialization. Due to these trends, Nepal is being success to reduce the percentages of peoples below the national poverty line from 39.8% to 27.5% during these 20 years. Similarly the percapita income/year of Nepali in 2009 according to IMF was $448.96 which was $210 in 1991.Similarly GDP share of world, total PPP by Nepal in 1991AD was 0.04% and it was 0.05% in 2009 AD. The major percentages of GDP is contributed by public enterprise whose number was significantly increased during these 20 years of democratic periods.Transportation, agriculture, health, education, medicine, in every sectors, there is dominance of public enterprises providing employment to thousands of Nepali.Due to the establishment of huge numbers of schools, colleges and universities either by Government or by private sectors, Nepal has progressed on education sectors. By the establishment of different media houses and songs recording centers, even poor peoples with pleasing voices, have got chance to become a singer and have started to bring song albums in markets. These are beautiful results of 20 years of democracy. But I think these 20 years of democracy has made Nepali to go from 0 top 10.But we have still to go to at least 80.But for this firstly leaders should be in the favor of peoples rather than in the favor of ambassadors of other countries and they should coordinate with private sectors in solving each and every problems that are present in the Nepali society.


Conclusion and Recommendation

In conclusion, I can say there are lots of hopes of peoples from democracy. They think that the democratic constitution will provide identity to those, which was lost during the monarchy, food, shelters.clothes and lands to poor and favorable conditions in case of rich. But leaders as well as the peoples, who are positive towards democracy, should coordinate with private enterprises to address these problems. But before this coordination each and every political party must avoid dreaming about bringing any type of extremism. They must understand that Nepal's future is in democracy. Once democracy comes on way in Nepal, I think we do not have to struggle for development as many of other countries faced because we are among those nations who watched color television without watching black and white television and we are those who started to use computers and internet simultaneously without using computer alone b