Views of a Nepali Economist

Labels: aishwarya, kri, nepali movies

The following opinion piece was published on June 15, 2019. The direct link to an edited version of the article can be found here.

Labels: Bir Bikram 2, Freedom of Expression, Meme Nepal, Milan Chams, Pranesh Gautam

The following opinion piece was published in Republica on April 7, 2019. The direct link is here.



Humanity and power have an inverse relationship. If that sounds like too strong an opinion, let us see two related examples. First, the Armed Police Force’s vehicle escorting Lokendra Bahadur Chand brushed a scooter riding female in the street. The police vehicle did not stop to check if the scooter rider was alright. The police force issued a statement saying it would investigate the incident, only after a mass of uproar in the media. Second, in a similar case from a few years ago, a police vehicle escorting Madhav Kumar Nepal drove on the wrong side of the street and killed a two-years old girl. The killer driver was fined Rs 1,000 for reckless driving. The police force washed its hands off the case. 

Alright, so the Nepal Police cannot be trusted to uphold the rule of law. But, what did our ex-prime ministers, who were being escorted, do in those cases? We have no idea what Lokendra Bahadur Chand has done. We know what Madhav Nepal did. He felt sorry enough to send over Rs 2, 00,000 to the family of the child. However, Bamdev Gautam, the Home Minister at that time, blamed the parents for letting the child go into the street. He did not blame the police for driving on the wrong side of the street. Apparently, when you escort an ex-prime minister, rules of the road don’t apply.

Someone once said, and I paraphrase here, “If you do not stick to your values when they are being tested, then your values are not values, they are hobbies.” If Nepal is a country with rule of law, it should apply to everyone. It should apply to the commoner, the police, and the politicians. It should apply in all circumstances, not selectively. Bamdev Gautam’s action was a disgrace, unbecoming of his position at the time. Bamdev Gautam, Madhav Nepal, and Lokendra Bahadur Chand could have used their power to ensure proper justice was carried out in the cases.

Do you lose your humanity after gaining a position of power? Nepal Police’s official motto is Truth, Service and Security. It has strayed away from that motto so many times that the motto has lost its meaning. Police officers have acted above the law in numerous instances. Forget about the top brass in Nepal Police, even a low-level policeman cannot be touched by the rule of law in this country. Justice is especially difficult to come by if police officers are involved as perpetrators or abettors. Ask Nirmala Panta’s parents.

There is a healthy contingent of Nepalis who like to make social media posts showing foreign leaders not engaging in escorting practices and not halting traffic. Most often, it is the photo of the Dutch Prime Minister who rides a cycle to work by himself, sans visible escorting. There is the Japanese Prime Minister whose escorting crew follows the rules of the road, and does not halt traffic. The Japanese practice even became a plotline in the Hollywood movie, London Has Fallen.

However, what this social media contingent misses is the inhumanity displayed in other ways. Scandinavia has long been seen as the place where liberal democracy has flourished. However, many Dutch, Swedish, and Danish political leaders have capitalized on hate, and have developed hate-filled extreme right-wing politics in recent times. Japanese politicians would rather see their country’s population decline than admit foreign immigrants. Ingrained xenophobia does not allow them to see foreigners as equals. Japanese governments only recently started recognizing Japanese minorities. The United Nations has reported that hiding behind those deep bows in the Japanese population is xenophobia, which refuses to see the non-Japanese as equal human beings. The result is that 40 percent of foreigners looking to rent apartments are turned down for being non-Japanese, according to the Justice Ministry’s own survey.

The province of Quebec in Canada is trying to enact a law banning religious display of faith among public servants. That is, a Hindu worker can no longer have a tika on his forehead when in office, a Sikh cannot wear a turban, and a Muslim cannot wear a headscarf. The Quebec government says it wants its public workforce to look “secular.” Many Quebecers support this government decision. Of course, they do, because 90 percent of Quebec’s population is Christian. They don’t wear a turban, tika, or a headscarf. It is unclear if Quebec is also banning people from wearing a cross around their necks while at work.

They say all politics is local, and that we get the leaders we deserve. Do we deserve the people in power that we have? Did we put them in those positions of power because, deep within, that is the kind of people we are?

Labels: Bamdev Gautam, Denmark, humanity, Japan, Lokendra Bahadur Chand, Madhav Kumar Nepal, Nepal Police, Netherlands, power, Quebec, secularism, Sweden

The following opinion piece was published in Republica on January 15, 2019. The direct link is here.

In Defense of Private Schools

The report of High Level Education Commission has stirred unrest among private education entrepreneurs across Nepal. It recommends turning private schools into trusts within 10 years. Private educators say that would be the end of private education entrepreneurship. Article 31(2) of the constitution states that the government needs to provide free primary and secondary education to all citizens. The Commission interprets this to mean there should be no private schools. There lies the main bone of contention. Owners of private schools argue that the Commission is reading too much into the constitutional language.

While constitutional scholars are best suited to discuss whether the interpretation of that language is correct or flawed, there are several driving factors at play that influenced the Commission’s recommendation.

First, the Commission argues that allowing private schools to generate profit is a breach of the Constitution. This is not a new opinion. Public and political dissatisfaction with wealthy private schools has been festering for a long time. The Commission’s argument simply reiterates that fact. Talks about shutting down private schools have cropped up many times in the past, mainly citing their high profits. But, this is the first time that idea is being granted consideration using the law as the basis for support.

Yes, several schools in major metropolitan areas have made their owners rich—maybe filthy rich. However, that is not true of thousands of other private schools spread across the country. Also, anti-profit argument is anti-free market argument in a country that has been thriving on free market ideas and ideals.

Why can’t an entrepreneur open a private school and make profit in the process? Why don’t we let the market decide if it wants private schools? If there is a question on quality of students or teachers, then pass regulations to ensure proper quality.

Second, opinions are flying around saying private schools make no social contribution, and, therefore, they should not exist. I’ve got a question: What bigger social contribution could there be than educating our kids?

Why do we expect social contribution from private schools while we have no similar expectations from other businesses? Do we ask Mr Binod Chaudhary what social contribution his company makes? What about the Chandragiri and Manakamana cable car people? Making social contributions is not a requirement to run a private business. If they make such contributions, it must be out of volition.

Third, some question the quality of students being produced by private schools. While research evidence on this issue is lacking in Nepal, results from similar countries show that students in private schools perform better and, generally, receive a higher quality education and development for a variety of reasons.

Lower student-to-teacher ratio, better teacher attendance, and more time spent on teaching ensures students have more access to their teachers in private schools. A research in India found that student-teacher ratio was 27 to 1 in private schools (43 to 1 in public schools). During random inspections, 98 percent of teachers in private schools (75 percent in public schools) were found teaching in their classrooms. And, 97 percent of a teacher’s time in private schools (75 percent in public schools) was dedicated solely to teaching. Factors such as these ensure students get more attention from teachers in private schools.

Private schools also have better infrastructure to support student development. This could be something as basic as having blackboards in every classroom or provision of drinking water and toilets. In India, blackboards were available in 96 percent of private schools (78 percent of public schools), drinking water was available in 99 percent of private schools (57 percent of public schools), and toilets were available in 97 percent of private schools (52 percent of public schools). Private schools also have better provision of several other infrastructures such as fans in every classroom, lights, computers, playground, library, and audio/visual equipment.

Academic results show that students in private schools perform much better, possibly as a result of all the extra attention from teachers and the infrastructure provisions. The survey in India found that private school students, on average, scored 62 percent in Math and 59 percent in English courses. Those figures for public schools were 39 percent and 22 percent respectively.

Fourth, those who question the quality of students also, often, object to English-medium instruction. However, bashing English-medium instruction is a futile exercise. English is the world’s language. You want to be an accountant, engineer, doctor, nurse, teacher or a migrant foreign worker? You need a command over the English language to succeed. You have a business and wish to trade with other countries? English helps. There is a demand in Nepal for English-medium instruction in schools. As free market enterprises, private schools are simply fulfilling that demand by offering that service.

A handful of public schools across Nepal have risen up to the challenge and have started offering English-medium instruction. My father taught in one such public school until he retired last year. Perhaps it is time our government rises to the occasion and offers English-medium instruction in all public schools. That will help reduce the number of private schools in the country. English-medium instruction has become a marketplace in Nepal, and the way you compete in a marketplace is not through regulation to kill your competitors. In a free market, you should compete through better services at competitive prices.

Fifth, a recent op-ed in this very space stated that private schools create inequality. The suggestion is that private schools increase inequality by not serving the poor but only the middle class and elite families. That is, private schools are enriching themselves by only serving the well-to-do clientele. This conclusion is unfounded.

Remember the survey of Indian private schools I cited earlier? All schools in that survey were located in the slums. So, the families that sent their kids to those schools were not exactly middle class or elites. Those schools served the poorest of the poor at low costs. Yet, the results show that they drastically improved the quality and performance of students in comparison to public schools. If that is not a social contribution, then what is?

Sixth, in that same op-ed, the writer decries private schools and colleges for advertising study abroad options. The writer needs to read our government’s National Employment Policy (2015). Section 13 states that our government will provide migrant workers “suitable training and skills … as demanded by foreign employers,” with a special focus on youths from “Dalit, indigenous nationalities, Madhesi, Muslim and marginalized communities from backward regions.” Oh, and just so you know, the government will make the remittance system “more simple and easy” in addition to encouraging the “investment of remittances in productive sectors.”

Going abroad for work is alright, but going abroad for further education is not? This double standard needs to change. Now, there are legitimate concerns over the issue of brain-drain that may occur if those students don’t return. However, banning private schools and colleges and study abroad consultancies is not the appropriate policy solution. If only we put the same amount of effort in improving our public schools as we do in sending our youths to foreign employment in sketchy middle-eastern countries, we would be a lot better off as a nation.

We would also do well to heed the old adage that we should not fix something that is not broken. Private schools play an important role in educating our kids, and that in itself is a huge social contribution on their part. Of course, there are legitimate discussions on several issues. For example, what is the impact of private schools on human capital? Evidence shows private schools produce better quality students, and, thus, improve human capital. Private schools cost more in comparison to free public education. Does that mean we are sending only boys to private schools and leaving girls behind? There is no evidence to show that is the case.

In light of the current debate, there are several legitimate policy options that the government can pursue, instead of shutting down private schools.

First, the appropriate overall response is not “no private education.” It should be “freedom of education.” If the government wants to replace private ownership of schools with private school boards, it should then fully fund such schools like public schools. This is what countries like the Netherlands have done. This allows parents to retain the freedom of choice while ensuring that the government’s main goal shifts to “education for all” from “free education.”

Second, the government should focus on improving teaching and infrastructure standards in public schools to match those offered by private schools. Ensuring all public schools have drinking water and functioning toilets is a good way to start. Research has shown that lack of toilets is one reason for lower student attendance, especially girls, in public schools.

Finally, the focus should be in increasing overall societal welfare. Better teachers and better infrastructure play a part. Affordability is another big factor. To that end, the renowned Cato Institute proposes that, in a country like Nepal, the government should provide education vouchers to the poorest families. The voucher amount varies based on family income levels, and will allow parents to shop around and choose the school they prefer. If it happens to be a private school, so be it. The voucher solution shifts the focus towards lifting the poorest higher, instead of pulling the middle class and elites down.

Labels: free market, High Level Education Commission, private schools, public schools

The following opinion piece was published in Republica on May 13, 2018. The direct link is here.

Renewed Opportunity

Nepal has more than 100 ethnic groups and more than a dozen officially recognized languages. This ethnic and linguistic diversity makes the Nepali society one of the most diverse in the world. However, this staggering amount of diversity also means ethnic confrontations and grievances are bound to occur periodically.

Many Nepalis today believe that ethnic conflicts are a more recent phenomenon in Nepal, and that we faced no such conflicts in the past. It is true that the Maoist conflict and other recent ethnic conflicts have put ethnic issues and rights in the forefront of our public and constitutional discourse. However, ethnic conflicts and grievances are not recent phenomena. The only difference is ethnic issues today are debated in the mainstream and the parliament. In the past, such issues were swept under the rug and movements were efficiently suppressed.

The Sugauli Treaty—signed two hundred years ago between the Nepali government and the British East India Company after the Anglo-Nepal war—has a request from the British asking that Nepal’s Tarai inhabitants not be punished for their support of the British during that war. This is the moment when the general distrust and marginalization of the Tarai by Nepali governments started. Nepal’s rulers took Tarai’s support of the British as a “betrayal.” As a result, Madhesis were no longer recruited in the Nepali Army and were slapped with visa requirements to even visit Kathmandu.

The hill and mountain communities did not fare any better after the war. Subsequent Nepali governments moved to enforce Aryan Hindu laws and culture on all Nepalis. This had the effect of hill minorities leaving Nepal in droves and settling in Sikkim and Darjeeling, where the ruling classes were more understanding. This exodus of hill minorities, especially from revenue generating Eastern hills, appears to have caught Jung Bahadur Rana by surprise. This is clear from his June 1850 letter to Colonel Krishnadhwaj Kunwar enquiring why Eastern hill minorities were leaving Nepal and settling in neighboring countries. It is unclear if Jung Bahadur was provided the reason for the exodus because he went ahead and codified the Aryan Hindu laws and customs through the Muluki Ain.

A hundred years later, King Mahendra’s monocultural nationalism policies hurt the minorities further, especially the Madhesis. The Citizenship Act of 1963 deprived many Madhesis of Nepali citizenship certificates. State-sponsored programs between 1955 and 1964 encouraged hill people to move into the Tarai. As a result, hill population in Tarai increased five-fold in the 1950-2000 fifty-year period. It went from six percent in 1951 to 33 percent in 2001. Not content with Nepal’s hill people flooding into the Tarai, Mahendra’s policies also encouraged Nepali-speaking hill groups from Assam, Bhutan, Burma and Sikkim to move to Nepal’s Tarai. Scholars have debated the merits and demerits of this policy in details over the years. However, what is not debatable is the fact that Mahendra’s nationalism policies resulted in Pahade-ization of Nepal’s Tarai.

This is also the period when ethnic conflicts in Nepal started taking shapes. It is only natural that two centuries of state-sponsored policies by and for the benefits of the ruling hill castes would one day boil over.

Much of the pushback to Nepal’s nationalism policies have come in the form of struggles for linguistic rights. In the late 1950s, Newars in Kathmandu had started lobbying for the use of Newari as an official language in the Kathmandu Valley. At the same time, BedanandJha’s Nepal Tarai Congress party was engaged in the “Save Hindi Campaign,” lobbying to use Hindi as Tarai’s official language. In 1979, Padma Ratna Tuladhar founded Manka Khala to fight Mahendra’s Panchayat regime for linguistic rights. The linguistic right struggle continued even in the post-Panchayat regimes. Gajendra Narayan Singh founded the Nepal Sadhbhawana Parishad in 1990 to fight the Nepali language monopoly. In 2008, Paramananda Jha the then vice president of Nepal took his oath of office in Hindi. He was widely ridiculed for this.

While linguistic pushback to nationalism policies has a long history, ethnic pushback is a more recent development. The Maoist insurgency is credited for an “enlightened” ethnic population, which resulted in several subsequent ethnic conflicts. These ethnic and identity conflicts have been very regional. The advantage of this regionalization has been that strong movements have achieved some level of success. For example, we now have a Madhes province. The disadvantage is that most causes have been lost causes. For example, Limbuwan, Khumbuwan, Tharuhat, Tamsaling, Tamuwan, Newa, Magarat, and Kochila have fizzled out.

Madhes movement was the only regional conflict that was able to create a “national” discourse, and its success reflects that. The other movements failed to nationalize their issues, and suffered as a result. This failure could also be attributed to the fact that several of these movements went up against each other, instead of jointly going up against the Khas-dominated Kathmandu-based polity. 

The new federal-provincial structure grants these failed ethnic and identity movements a renewed opportunity to set provincial policies, which does feed into the national policymaking. The crossroads we find ourselves currently is the result of last two centuries of ill-fated nationalism and our attempts to come out of it. It is quite clear that our national discourse and policy will continue to be Khas-dominated, but federalism provides us an opportunity to unshackle ourselves from that slowly. As with most things, it will take time. But we are on the right path, and we will get there—eventually.

Labels: Jung Bahadur, madhes, Mahendra, Sugauli treaty

Labels: catalonia, federalism, madhes, trade

There are competing factions on both sides that benefit from the status quo of unresolved grievances and up-in-arms citizenry. They prefer the country in a perpetual state of quagmire. However, there is no enemy. There are simply unaddressed historical grievances. Madheshi parties finally agreeing to participate in the delayed local elections is a positive step in that direction.

(c) Mukesh Khanal

Labels: Canada150, Madhesh

On November 8, Narendra Modi suddenly banned the 500 and 1000 Indian Rupee notes, and thereafter popularized a word not many had heard before: demonetization.

Modi stated that this action was in response to the endemic corruption and black money in India. The logic is that black money in India is hidden under mattresses in 500 and 1000 Rupee notes. Modi thinks that banning the large denomination notes will render all that black money useless. However, 86 percent of India’s cash is in 500 and 1000 Rupee denominations. Also, much of India engages in cash transactions. So, it is not only the rich who have suffered from the ensuing chaos. Around 50 demonetization-related suicides have been documented in India so far. None of those 50 appear to be rich Indians.

So, how corrupt is India? For the year 2015, Transparency International’s “Corruption Perceptions Index” ranked India 80 in the world among the surveyed 168 countries. In South Asia, India fared better than Nepal (85), Sri Lanka (90), and Afghanistan (166), but worse than Bhutan (27) and Bangladesh (68). Maldives and Pakistan were not surveyed. So, India is in the middle of the pack in both the world ranking and the South Asian ranking.

While many Indians have lost their lives due to post-demonetization chaos, much more support and laud the action. To gauge the public’s reaction, Modi launched the NaMo app to collect the public’s vote on the issue. The results so far indicate that 93 percent of those that voted through that app approve of the Prime Minister’s action. However, only 500,000 people have voted so far, and chances are high that majority are BJP supporters who would blindly support any crazy idea that Modi can conjure.

Analysis and statistics will tell us in the future whether Modi’s demonetization action was a masterstroke or a dud. But, the policy is fraught with dangers.

There is a perception that corruption is ongoing in the name of ending corruption. Arvind Kejriwal—the Aam Aadmi Party leader—and others have accused Modi of informing his friends beforehand of the ban. While that is difficult to prove, what is easy to prove is that 1000 Indian Rupee notes were being bought by smart “entrepreneurs” for 600 in some parts of Nepal. If that is happening in Nepal, I can only imagine what is happening in India, mostly rural India where people have no access to banks. The opportunities have suddenly become rich due to Modi’s scheme.

Many people in other countries will suffer, too, as a result of this ban. There are millions of Indians all over the world who keep a certain amount of these large denomination notes with them. I have personally spoken to three of my Indian friends who live outside India, and they mention they each have around IRs 15,000-20,000 with them in 500 and 1000 denominations. That money comes in handy every time they visit India. How many billions worth of 500 and 1000 Rupee notes that Indians overseas have that are now suddenly worth nothing? Nobody knows.

This is a spectacular policy failure, especially because India wants to become a world economic power. It wants its currency to be traded worldwide, like the US dollar and the Euro. It even came up with a new symbol for the Indian Rupee with that purpose. However, Modi’s demonetization scheme just crushed that ambition. Can anyone ever imagine the United States suddenly deciding to ban all their 100 dollar bills? That would collapse the world economy. Thankfully, India is not the United States and the world economy is safe despite the demonetization folly. However, the demonetization action also means the Indian Rupee is nowhere close to becoming an internationally traded currency.

Even if the demonetization scheme achieves its purpose this time around, who is to say corruption in India will not continue in the future? What if the new 500 and 2000 Rupee notes do not curb corruption? Will India, then, issue 500 and 3000 Rupee notes?

The Indian government—in fact, all governments—need to understand that corruption exists because of other policy failures. For example, the Prevention of Corruption Act of 1988 considers both bribe-taker and bribe-payer in India equally guilty and both receive equal punishment under the law. That clearly goes against the intent of the Act to reduce corruption because a bribe would never be reported because both the sides stand to lose from the revelation. Other legislations, such as those that deal with bank and securities fraud, grant amnesty from prosecution to those who expose such frauds. However, the Indian law’s unclear language on amnesty and the onerous onus it places on the accusers has resulted in toothless action.

Kaushik Basu, the noted Indian economist, has been arguing for clear amnesty language for decades. He has proposed that the language of the law be amended to reflect that giving bribe is legal but taking it is not. In addition, if proven successfully that a bribe has taken place, the person receiving the bribe would not only have to suffer the legal consequences but also return the amount of the bribe to the briber payer. Basu argues that this would ensure the interests of the bribe payer and receiver are not aligned. Once the bribe is paid, the payer would have all the incentives to expose the bribe receiver.

Every corrupt country has to start somewhere to tackle the problem. India—as well as its poorly ranked neighbors—would be wise to give Basu’s ideas a chance. It is a more sensible policy, it won’t crash the world economy, and it will not make the poor commit suicides.

Labels: black money, corruption, demonetization

There is an interesting theory in social psychology. This theory—called moral licensing—argues that when individuals perform a morally good deed, they feel so good about themselves that they immediately go ahead and perform an immoral action. We see this in our everyday life. The best father at home is the worst, most corrupt bureaucrat at work. You exercise today, and, therefore, don’t feel guilty when you indulge in unhealthy snacking immediately afterwards. This phenomenon also helps explain the Trump win in the American election on November 8.

It wasn’t long ago that blacks and women in the US could not vote. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 granted voting rights to all colored Americans. Women got that right in 1920 through the Nineteenth Amendment to the US Constitution. However, after almost a century now, it is still unfathomable to a large proportion of the American population—including female voters—that a woman could be president. The final results show that 53 percent of white female voters voted for Trump. A hatred of Hillary Clinton does not explain that huge proportion. It is especially astounding when considering the fact that Trump has a recorded history of objectifying women, misogyny, sexist remarks, video and audio leaks showing degrading remarks about women, and no fewer than twelve women who came forward with accusations of sexual assaults.

Moral licensing—the good feeling that came through electing the first black president—allowed people to openly engage in sexist rhetoric and slander against Clinton. Moral licensing allowed them to vote for a sexist narcissistic demagogue. Of course, moral licensing is not the only reason for the Trump victory. There are a few others.

First, as in all other western economies, United States is experiencing racial and demographic conflict. Much of white working class America increasingly sees the non-white immigrant population as the “other” and is threatened by it. As a result, the white power movement has gained steam in recent years. Some of that has manifested in the Black Lives Matter versus the Blue Lives Matter confrontation (Blue being the color of American Police uniform). White Supremacist language is now tolerated, although not quite encouraged.

Trump’s rhetoric of a “deportation force” to round up all illegal Mexicans, and his plan of barring Muslims from entering the US were actually popular with the white working class voters. While more than 50 percent of both Democrats and Republicans expressed being afraid of the other side, there is already evidence that the Trump rhetoric has encouraged violence. The Los Angeles County—which has a large Mexican immigrant population—has seen a 24 percent increase in hate crimes after Trump was nominated. Now that Trump is the president, the real danger is whether those who agree with the rhetoric feel emboldened to further carry out their hate-filled fantasies against the non-white population.

Second, there is no denying that the American political process does have a healthy dose of corruption, just like in every other country. Wikileaks released emails showing that the Democratic National Committee—which is supposed to be neutral and help carry out the process of choosing the Democratic Party’s nominee for president—was engaging in foul play to bring down the candidacy of Bernie Sanders. It was found to be covertly supporting the nomination of Clinton.

The DNC succeeded in its mission, but the truth came out and alienated the young voters. A post-mortem analysis should show that these young voters refused to vote for Clinton. Instead, a significant proportion of these young people voted for Gary Johnson, the third party candidate. It did not matter that Johnson’s knowledge of domestic and foreign policy is as good as a fifth grader’s. Hillary was considered “unlikable” by 55 percent of voters and “untrustworthy” by 67 percent of them. The bottom line was that Clinton’s campaign engaged in corrupt practices and had to pay the price.

Finally, profit through globalization has not been shared equally throughout the world, and that has given rise to nativism. CEOs of large companies make multimillion dollar salaries and bonuses while workers experience stagnant wages and benefits. The phrase “rich become richer and poor become poorer” has never been truer in history than in today’s current time. Countries that promoted and lobbied for globalization and trade are now seeing their people rail against those ideas. Failing manufacturing industries, where the majority of the white working class was employed, has left America. The white working class voted Trump with hopes that he would bring those jobs back.

Paragon of liberal democracies, such as Sweden and the Netherlands, have already seen a rise in far-right anti-immigrant, anti-trade political parties. Working class citizens in the western economy have come to the realization that “globalization” is no longer benefitting them. The result is that walls have come up against the ideas of globalization and globalism. Brexit and the far-right movements gaining steam in France and Germany mean the European experiment of free trade and open borders is now coming to an end.

Already, there are actual walls being erected in European borders. Hungary started building a fence in its border with Serbia in June 2015, and with Romania in September 2015. In August 2015, Bulgaria completed the construction of its border wall with Turkey. In September 2015, Slovakia started building a temporary border with Hungary. In November 2015, Austria started building a border fence with Slovenia, Slovenia built a fence with Croatia, and Macedonia built a fence with Greece. Trump ran on a promise to build a border wall to keep the Mexicans out. This growing anti-immigrant, anti-trade feeling in western economies these days is a strong rebuke to the decades-long globalization phenomenon, which now needs a revision.

After all is said and done, the US election results show that it is the rural white America that has brought Trump into power. This America does not share the views of urban diverse America on what America truly is. Trump mentioned this America in his victory speech as the “forgotten people.” This is the same phrase used by American politicians after the 1960s—after Black Americans got the right to vote—to describe the white working class voters who were no longer the targeted voters for political campaigns. Now that Trump has won, these supposedly forgotten people expect America to be “great again” for them.

Labels: moral licensing, Trump

On October 2, 2016 Colombians voted on a referendum that would bring peace by ending the 50-year conflict between the Colombian government and the FARC rebels. The government and the rebels had been negotiating on a peace agreement since 2012. By the end of September 2016, the agreement had been reached and it was lauded and approved by everyone in Colombia—the government, the rebels, and the larger civil society. The only step that remained was a formal endorsement of the end of conflict and establishment of peace by the Colombian people through a simple referendum vote of Yes or No.

The question on the referendum was simple: Do you support the final agreement to end the conflict and build stable, lasting peace? Everyone in Colombia thought that a win for ‘Yes’ was a foregone conclusion. Generations of Colombians had suffered enough in the last half century through the conflict with the FARC. So, ordinary Colombians would vote ‘Yes’ for peace. However, 50.2 percent of Colombians on October 2 voted ‘No.’ The world was shocked. How could ordinary Colombians not agree to resolve a conflict that has lasted for over 50 years? Do they not want peace?

The Colombian referendum vote came on the heels of the Brexit referendum vote, the results of which had also shocked the world. However, there have been numerous other referendum votes around the world in the past. When the process and results of all those referendums are considered, we can arrive at a few lessons on why referendums sound like a good idea, but are actually incredibly bad.

First, most referendums have a simple win-lose criteria: whichever side gets more than 50 percent of the vote is the winner. This idea basically arises out of the belief that the voting public has complete information on the issues of the referendum. Therefore, the simple majority would always arrive at the ‘correct’ conclusion. However, any social scientist can tell that this is an incredibly stupid idea. Nobody has complete information. For example, there were news reports after the Brexit vote about the British people googling about the impacts of leaving the EU the day after the vote. It was pretty clear that the voting public did not have complete information about the significance of their vote.

Second, on the surface, referendums appear to be our political system giving us—the common people—a chance to voice our opinion on the huge, critical issue that could make or break the country/region. At least, that is what everyone presents a referendum as. That is never true. Referendums are also a result of our elected political leaderships and the political system avoiding making tough, complex decisions. It happens when political leadership faces a situation when it is damned if it did something, and damned if it did not. So, what do they do? They ask the public to make the decision for them. Brexit is a case in point. The point is: referendums are sometimes the result of our political leadership shirking from the duties that we elected them to perform.

Third, following from the point above, referendums often occur on issues in which there is a huge element of ‘emotion’ across the nation/region. Because the issues are often emotional and the public is under-informed on the issues, the referendum vote can be hijacked by rogue elements that would have no chance to do so in a proper political setting of a legislative chamber. This is what happened with the Brexit vote, in which the rogue forces were able to persuade just enough members of the public to achieve the destabilizing result and end the prime ministership of David Cameron.

Finally, the worst thing about referendums are the simple ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ options. Conflicts and issues have nuances that the voting public may not have had the time to explore and understand. Even when the crucial understanding and exploration has been performed by negotiating groups and leaderships, the voting public may not be completely aware of what the negotiations were like and what the results are. Therefore, asking the public to vote a simple ‘Yes’ or ‘No’ to end—say, a 50-year old conflict that has impacted the lives of generations—is unfair to the voting public.

Let us bring this issue closer to home. Let us ask ourselves what the results would have been in Nepal if we had held referendums on two most contentious decisions that were made in the recent past: monarchy and secularism.

On May 28, 2008, Nepal was declared a federal republic and the monarchy was abolished. A nationwide public perception survey commissioned by The Asia Foundation three years later in 2011 showed that only 43 percent supported the overthrow of the monarchy. That support was lower in future surveys. So, what would have happened if there was a referendum for monarchy in Nepal? The 2013 election result gives us a clue. The pro-monarchy Rastriya Prajatantra Party Nepal, headed by Kamal Thapa, won zero seats out of the 240 First-Past-the-Post seats. However, its pro-monarchy campaign resonated with the people and brought the party 24 proportional seats, making it the fourth-largest political party and a major player in our Westminster-style compromise-laden government system. The result demonstrated that if there was a referendum in Nepal to determine the fate of monarchy, the monarchy would still be alive and well.

On the issue of secularism, the 2011 survey showed that over 57 percent of the Nepali public wanted the country to be a ‘Hindu’ state. Surveys in the following years showed similarly high support for a ‘Hindu’ Nepal. For example, a follow-up survey in 2013 showed that the support was lowest—49 percent—in the Eastern region and highest—85 percent—in the Far-west. The large support for monarchy, coupled with the large support for a Hindu state, resulted in Mr Thapa’s “one vote for dai (the brother), one vote for gai (the cow)” campaign slogan, which brought his party the 24 proportional seats. That result, along with the annual survey results, showed that a referendum for secularism would have been soundly defeated in Nepal.

What would have happened if there was a referendum in 2007 on whether to accept the peace deal between the Nepali government and the Maoist rebels? Would we have chosen peace or would we have gone the Colombian way? What will happen if one of the provinces in the future —say, the Madhesh province—brings a referendum to secede from Nepal? Will the people in that province say ‘Yes’ or will they say ‘No’ like the people in Quebec, Canada did in 1995? These are issues that ask for cooler negotiations and compromises from political leaderships, and not a referendum that allows the ill-informed, emotional, and riled-up public to vote on.

Labels: Brexit, Colombia, CPA, Madhesh, maoists, monarchy, referendum, secularism

The current crisis has brought about an unflattering portrayal of the Indian media, political leadership, and diplomacy. The Indian media is chock-full of misinformation about Nepal. The political leadership is on its way to sacrificing centuries of fraternal relationship for what appears to be a short-term gain in Bihar elections, and lobbying on behalf of an ethnic movement in the neighborhood. And, seasoned Indian diplomats have come across as ‘crass’ in their diplomatic manoeuvers. In short, the current crisis has been a disaster for India.

The Indian media is busy portraying Nepal’s latest efforts to bring fuel from China as “Tibet-ization” of Nepal, and how this means a rise of Maoism in Nepal, which they claim is a threat to India. The Indian media fails to realize that Maoism had already risen in Nepal when the Maoists won the 2008 election. They also fail to realize that Nepal’s current negotiations with China to ease fuel supplies is purely driven by economics—the economics of scarcity as a result of the Indian blockade. When a neighbor that surrounds you from three sides refuses to send fuel to you, it is only logical to approach the neighbor that lives on the fourth side for help. Their inability to grasp this very simple concept of markets, demand, and supply is baffling. Their belief that Nepal trying to increase trade with China is somehow a signal of growing Maoism in Nepal is equally laughable. If they want to see signs of growing Maoism, they simply need to look within their own borders.

Nepal’s current negotiations with China is a sign that our leaders finally appear to have grown some sense—and some spine—and realize that India should not have a monopoly over our fuel supplies. However, our current negotiations with China only targets the fuel crisis, if at all. The other crises still remain. The blockade continues to cause a shortage in medical supplies. So, our hospitals, labs, and clinics are struggling to function. Our people were also denied an opportunity to gather with their loved ones during the Dashain holiday, especially after the horrors of the recent earthquakes. And, the winter is coming. The blockade will starve many earthquake-affected folks in the hills and mountains in coming days. They are being denied warm clothes, food, and shelter that they deserve after losing everything in the earthquakes.

The Indian media is also misinformed about the new Nepali constitution. They keep reporting that madheshis have been reduced to second-class citizens in Nepal. That is incorrect. Every Nepali citizen, including all madheshis, enjoys the same citizenship perks. The Indian media appears to be speaking up for “naturalized citizens”—such as Rajendra Mahato—who cannot hold top elected posts or top posts in the Nepali Army. However, they fail to realize that the naturalized citizenship limitations are the same in India as in Nepal—that they cannot hold the nation’s top posts. Their ignorance on the issue, again, is baffling.

Like the Indian media, India’s political leadership fails to realize that the blockade is not only hurting Nepalis, but is also hurting the Indian bottom-line. For example, in 2014/15, Nepal imported 290 million liters of petrol, 922 million liters of diesel, 20 million liters of kerosene, and enough LPG gas to fill 8.7 million cylinders. We paid India Rs 26.5 billion for petrol, Rs 65.5 billion for diesel, Rs 1 billion for kerosene, and Rs 12 billion for LPG gas. That is a total of Rs 105 billion in fuel for household consumption only. This figure does not include aviation fuel and electricity that we also import from India. Also, this figure does not account the fact that many Nepalis in border towns purchase fuels from across the border in India, where they are cheaper. Any fuel supply agreement that Nepal signs with China will mean the Rs 105 billion pie—that India currently has a monopoly on—will shrink.

China is also showing an interest in a power-sharing agreement with Nepal, and wants to support Nepal’s hydropower ambitions. It also wants to extend its railway line from Lhasa to Kathmandu—despite the challenging geography—at no costs to us. If those come to fruition, it will further dent India’s influence in Nepal and its bottom-line.

The bigger surprise during this blockade, however, has been the absence of common sense diplomacy from Indian diplomats. Unlike the Indian media, India’s seasoned diplomats are aware of the nuances at play in the current crisis. They understand Nepal well. Yet, Indian diplomatic response—as evidenced by Ranjit Rae’s blunt statement that the “unofficial” blockade would officially continue despite the developing Nepal-China fuel negotiations—has been very undiplomatic. Perhaps, the current Indian diplomatic arrogance is because they know us too well.

Indian government and diplomats, perhaps, believe that un-blockading Nepal now—with the Madhesh issue still unresolved, which was the excuse for initiating the blockade—would be akin to bending backwards to satisfy Nepal. However, they fail to realize that the same applies to Nepali leadership. Nepali government’s current dillydallying about meeting and engaging with Madheshi leaders could be because they fear that doing so would appear to appease India. And, in the current blockade climate—when anti-India sentiments have risen among Nepalis—the last thing any Nepali politician wants to do is to appear appeasing India. India needs to realize that un-blockading and resumption of normal India-Nepal relations is first needed to make it easier for Nepali government to engage Madhesh leaders.

India has failed to play the situation well, and has made a mess. As a result, there is growing anti-India sentiments in the current population, especially the youth. Many of today’s Nepali youth will eventually run the country in the future. However, an entire generation of today’s Nepali youth will carry this memory forward, and will find it difficult to trust India in the future. India’s blunder of trying to drive our political process—like the recent forced candidacy of Sushil Koirala for Prime Minister—has resulted in the election of hardline nationalists in the government, election of a supposedly pro-China politician as the Prime Minister, and a thoroughly discredited Nepali Congress and Madheshi Morcha leadership. This last factor was further costly. It resulted in the election of UML and Maoist-backed candidates in all top posts—President, Vice-President, House Speaker, and House Deputy Speaker. To say that India’s interventions were completely nullified by a raging Nepal is an understatement.

These past few weeks have, therefore, been a disaster for Indian foreign policy. India has come across as a regional bully. There is much that the Indian media, politicians, and diplomats can learn from their failure. However, everything is still not lost. India and Nepal still share an exceptional fraternal, cultural, and historic relationship. And, broken relationships can always be restored. India has to get off the high horse, and engage in common sense diplomacy.

Labels: blockade

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The following opinion piece was published in Republica on October 28, 2015 with the title "Disturbing Silence." The direct link to the piece is here.

Blockade on Germany—from 1914 to 1919—by Britain and France during the First World War brought Germany down to its knees. In 1962, the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States suddenly got hot when the Soviets decided to install nuclear missiles in Cuba, only 90 miles off the US. So, the US blockaded the Cuban coast to prevent the Soviets from reaching Cuba.

These examples show that, in foreign policy, a blockade is a wartime tool. Nepal and India are not at war, and neither is a threat to the other. If India continues the blockade, it will definitely bring Nepal down to its knees. Nobody doubts that. But, why is India using a wartime tactic against Nepal? More importantly, whatever the intended results, does India truly believe that the means justifies the end?

A "blockade" is a very effective tool to instigate suffering, and no country knows this better than Germany, which suffered one of the worst cases of an economic blockade in human history. After the Allies beat Germany in WWI, Britain and France wanted Germany to sign the Treaty of Versailles for immediate peace. To pressure Germany into signing the agreement quickly, the British and the French continued the blockade that they had been imposing on Germany since 1914. Although the war officially ended in November 1918, the blockade continued for eight more months, until July 1919.

Aimed at punishing the national level policymakers, the blockade hurt civilians the most. Germans suffered from malnourishment, rickets, scurvy, tuberculosis, and several other illnesses. The British intelligence reported that in the year 1917, hunger-related typhus was responsible for almost 75 percent of deaths in the city of Dortmund alone. More people died in Germany in the flu epidemic of 1918 than in any other European country. In 1919, reports came out that 10 percent of patients in German hospitals died that year simply because the hospitals could not feed the patients.

Famine during the extra eight months of blockade alone killed 250,000 Germans. The government's rationing system fell apart. So, urban populations suffered from chronic hunger due to unequal rationing of food. Rural self-sufficient farmers fared better than urban citizens. In the urban centers, black markets developed to sell food and essential items at exorbitant prices. Dairy prices were 33 percent higher than the market price, meat's was 50 percent higher, and eggs and fruit's were 1,000 percent higher. While the wealthy and the well-connected in Germany managed to feed themselves, the black market prices killed the urban poor.

The current Indian blockade of Nepal has now reached a point where health-related crises have started. For example, this month, hospitals in Jhapa stopped providing dialysis services to patients due to medicine and equipment shortages, and ICU/NICU services have not operated smoothly due to fuel shortage. Recently, the Nepal Medical Association announced that hospitals in Kathmandu Valley will soon have to shut their intensive care, surgeries, and incubation as a result of fuel shortages. Pharmacies in the valley have run out of critical supplies, such as anesthetics and life-saving drugs. Because Nepal is no Germany, it has taken us only a month of blockade to face imminent public health crisis.

Rationing of essentials has allowed price gouging in the market on everything from salt to gas cylinders. Immediately after the blockade, onion prices jumped to over Rs 200 per kg in Kathmandu. The valley's urban poor can no longer afford to purchase gas cylinders. Unequal rationing has also meant thousands of Nepalis queue for hours to buy two liters of petrol while the Rishi Dhamalas walk out of a petrol station with 20 liters of petrol in a public display of "access" and "connection."

Some valley dwellers got innovative, and asked their family members in the Tarai to send them gas cylinders and petrol cans. We saw the risks in that process. For example, in Banke, many died when a bus carrying gas cylinders and petrol cans met with an accident, causing the gas cylinders to explode, which caused the petrol to catch fire and engulf the entire bus. In another case, a taxi driver's family in Kathmandu got trapped and burned to death when an emergency supply of petrol stored indoors caught fire.

It is surprising that international media has been relatively quiet on the blockade. The loudest opposition, in fact, has come from the Indian media. However, many of those penning the opposition pieces are current or ex-Indian Congress leaders and politicians. Their opposition could simply be a case of opposition politics, rather than true concern for their neighbors. After all, it was the Indian Congress government that imposed an economic blockade against Nepal in 1989 by closing the borders. Therefore, the Indian Congress Party's sudden rise in moral authority on the blockade issue is dubious.

The German experience teaches us that a prolonged economic blockade hardens the human spirit and changes people. Scholars have attributed the rise of Nazism and nationalistic policies in Germany to the economic blockade that Germany suffered during the First World War. It is a gross exaggeration to claim that something similar will happen in Nepal. However, there has been a rise in the level of bitterness among Nepalis against India, and some of that is seen even at the top level. A supposedly pro-China politician has been elected the Prime Minister. A known nationalist has been appointed the Foreign Minister and was sent to India to resolve the current mess. The current government has started inquiring China about possibilities of becoming our fuel supplier. These should worry Indian policymakers who certainly agree that Nepal importing all its fuel from China will damage Indian interests—both economic and political. And, then, there is the damage sustained in the cordial relationship between the two people with shared history and culture.

There is a Sanskrit saying: maunam sammati lakshanam. That is, silence means agreement.Western nations that spare no dime lecturing Nepal on human rights and dignity have shamed themselves on this issue. The response, or lack thereof, from the rest of the world indicates that—at the end of the day—economics trumps human rights and dignity. The US government has mentioned in the past that it follows India's lead on Nepal-related issues. The EU nations have made their opposition known but not forcefully. The United Nations has mentioned the fuel crisis and its potential impact on earthquake survivors in the coming winter, but has not acknowledged the blockade. Even China—which has repeatedly informed the Nepali government that it is willing to help out in any way possible—has not called India out on the blockade.

If the Sanskrit saying is true, our international friends are complicit in this blockade. Billions of dollars in trade with India is more vital to them than acknowledging the suffering of Nepalis. The international missions claim to be vanguards for peace and security for all. If they can't perform that role, they don't deserve to be in Nepal, and should be asked to leave. We can start with the UN and the EU.

Labels: blockade