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Greta Thunberg, the student activist who galvanized a global movement that is challenging world leaders to do more on climate change, summarized the UN climate conference held in Glasgow over the first weeks of November as “blah blah blah.”

But if any country could have made her proud, it would have been Nepal.

In a statement at the conference, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who also led Nepal’s delegation to the summit, made three bold commitments.

First, he noted that “Nepal aims to reach a net zero emissions by 2045.” This would mean that by 2045, Nepal would not emit more greenhouse gas than it saved (i.e., net zero). Second, he committed that 15 percent of our total energy demand would be supplied from clean energy sources. Third, he committed to “maintain 45 percent of our country under forest cover by 2030.”

Some of these commitments are, however, conditional on Nepal securing adequate climate financing.

The prime minister’s commitments went beyond what Nepal had previously outlined in its second submission of National Determined Contributions to the UN last December.

His commitments got a mixed reaction. Donors and development partners welcomed it as pathbreaking. Nepali professionals who work in the sector welcomed it cautiously, pointing out that the true test would be in implementation. For the broader Nepali public, there were other things to worry about—the state of the judiciary, for example.

The commitments were surprising. Maybe not to those who helped write the PM’s speech. But for many, it was a stunning announcement—one that defied expectations and invited cynicism.

The surprising—though bold—announcement raises an important question of how much ownership the country really has of its plan. Over the past few years, there has been an effort to broaden Nepal’s climate discourse to a wider range of stakeholders. But it hasn’t gone far enough.

Plans and bold announcements—the prime minister’s commitments being a recent good example—often represent the narrow views shared only by those who write the speeches. The reason that implementation of the plans then fail isn’t always because Nepal lacks the capacity or the finance. Rather it is because those tasked with implementing the plan have never even heard of it.

Whether PM Deuba’s climate commitments were backed by consensus and planning at home or represented two minutes of glory on the international stage, is perhaps irrelevant.

Nepal needs big, bold, and immediate action on climate. As the prime minister noted in his speech, “around 80 percent of Nepal’s population is at risk from natural and climate-induced hazards. During the last 40 years, natural disasters have caused close to US$ 6 billion physical and economic damages in my country alone.”

And that estimate is probably a gross under-count. With a fragile geology, vulnerable population, and an economy highly dependent on weather, Nepal is at the frontlines of climate change with much to lose.

Also read: Opinion | Nepal’s electric addiction

For Nepal, investments on climate mitigation and adaptation are ideal to build the basis of economic growth, reduce poverty and enhance resilience. Nepal’s recent submission on nationally determined contributions and the prime minister’s speech at Glasgow both highlighted its intent on instituting approaches that leave no one behind.

Nepal’s policies must align with that goal and its commitments. Many of its current policies disproportionately favor the rich and exacerbate climate vulnerabilities of the poor.

On energy, for example, Nepal has committed to ensuring that 5-10 percent of its power generation capacity comes from mini- and micro-hydro power, solar, wind and bio-energy renewable energy plants (where renewable energy is defined as less than 1 MW). However, Nepal’s energy policies are marginalizing such plants. Hundreds of small such plants are decaying and being left to die as supply from large hydro-plants grows.

On transport, which is another important source of fossil fuel use and energy imports, the government has announced ambitious plans to promote electric vehicle use. But a wrong mix of tax incentives is enabling the rich to adopt electric vehicles while distracting from the need to invest in electric public transport and accessible individual transport for the poor (such as electric bicycles).

The prime minister’s COP26 commitments on climate should be welcomed. But Nepal must also ensure that its policies and investments equally serve the poor and offers a base for stronger, inclusive and resilient economic growth.

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The government policy of increasing electricity consumption by lowering consumer tariffs will lock Nepal into an inefficient pathway that reduces competitiveness and may prove to be economically damaging in the long run.

Nepal has two policies that often appear to be at odds with one another.

On the one hand, the government is actively seeking to increase electricity consumption to help absorb the expected large bump in hydropower generation. The recent tariff proposal by Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the country’s monopoly electric utility, underlined an effort to increase consumption through lower tariffs.

There is broad public understanding about the need to increase electricity consumption. The idea is routinely amplified by the NEA and the government, which have both made the message the centerpiece of their public outreach. It has captured the public consciousness, so much so that each night, every Nepali now considers leaving their lights on as they sleep, just so they can contribute to increased electricity consumption.

On the other hand, Nepal has also adopted the National Energy Efficiency Strategy, which aims to double the rate of energy efficiency in the economy by 2030. Several sectors in Nepal offer large opportunities for energy efficiency, which could result in significant reductions in energy use.

The need for energy efficiency has yet to enter public consciousness. When it does come up for public discourse, it is met almost immediately with derision and bewilderment. Why are we pursuing efforts to reduce electricity use when there is a national movement to increase electricity consumption?

Also read: Opinion | History lessons for energy sector

The goals for increasing electricity consumption and energy efficiency, however, are not at odds with one another. But it does illustrate an error in how the need to increase electricity consumption is characterized. What the government and the NEA are trying to do in order to increase electricity consumption is actually “electrification.” The policy for increasing energy use doesn’t encourage consumers to keep the lights on more than they need (and certainly not while they sleep) or industries to run their equipment when not required.

The intent of the policy—electrification—is to encourage consumers to shift from other fuels to electricity. For example, if you were driving a petrol or diesel car, then switch to an electric one. If you were cooking with gas, then switch to electric cooking. Electrification leads to an increase in electricity consumption because it switches consumers from other fuels to electricity. But it does not intend to, or encourage, those who were already using electricity from using more electricity to do the same thing—that would simply be inefficiency.

Perhaps the confusion between increasing electricity use and “electrification” can be forgiven as mischaracterization. But it shouldn’t be ignored. Its impact on Nepal’s long-term economic growth and competitiveness will be damaging.

The public perception on the need to increase electricity consumption, coupled with the strategy of keeping electricity tariffs low (or free in some cases), encourages adoption of low-quality, low-efficiency products. This in turn increases the cost of production, reduces competitiveness, and lowers the quality of life.

Also read: Opinion | Unfree minds 

Consider poor households that now will now get free electricity up to a certain level. Most of these consumers will now opt for low-quality, low-efficiency products, which will be cheaper, and nor will these products result in any savings. For example, many such customers will opt for cheap low-quality LEDs, which provide lower levels of light quality and fail more frequently. In the long run, poor households will have spent more on shoddy LED bulbs than they saved from free electricity. The market will be flooded with poor quality products rejected from other parts of the world. A better policy approach would be to price electricity but subsidize the cost of high-quality efficient products and appliances for the poor.

The story will be the same with industrial consumers. The NEA has increased fixed tariffs on electricity for industrial customers, while holding or reducing per-unit costs. While this will provide the NEA with a secure income stream, it will incentivize industrial consumers to opt for less energy efficient equipment. Such choices have a lasting impact on competitiveness by increasing costs, decreasing productivity, and stalling modernization.

Countries around the world, including where electricity was abundantly cheap, learned that the trick to economic growth wasn’t merely promoting low energy costs but simultaneously creating incentives for efficient energy use. Nepal must learn from those mistakes.

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This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Maoists submitting their 40-point demand, a milestone widely regarded as the start of the Maoist armed uprising in Nepal. In the years that followed, 17,000 Nepalis lost their lives, thousands more were displaced, the economy was shattered, monarchy abolished, and a new federal republic of Nepal took shape.

We look back to that discarded moment of history–the submission of the 40-point demand–to ask if the bloodshed, violence, and turmoil that followed could have been avoided. Does it hold a lesson for us?

On 4 February 1996, Baburam Bhattarai and Pampha Bhusal arrived at Singha Durbar to submit their 40-point demand but were denied entry. In protest, Bhusal sprawled out on the road, blocking traffic. In the few minutes of commotion that ensued, a minister’s convoy was held up.

So much of history turns on an instant.

The minister happened to recognize Bhattarai. He called the Prime Minister’s office. Sher Bahadur Deuba was the PM then.

The two were ushered in. They got to meet Deuba briefly, and present the Maoist demands, which included a threat to start an armed uprising within two weeks if the demands were not met.

Deuba was occupied that day as he was preparing for a state visit to India. He shrugged off the meeting, and later that week, left for India. Less than two weeks later, the Maoists attacked the police post at Holeri, Rolpa. The armed Maoist uprising had begun.       

History has come full circle.

Today, Deuba is Prime Minister again. He is busy preparing for a visit to Glasgow, United Kingdom to attend the UN Climate Change Conference.

Also read: Unfree minds

Pampha Bhusal sits across the table from him as part of his cabinet, as the Minister of Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation.

As Bhusal sprawled out before the gates of Singha Durbar 25 years ago demanding to meet Deuba, did anyone have the foresight to imagine them huddled together in a cabinet meeting?

Had Deuba been provided a glimpse of the future when he was rushing through the meeting 25 years ago, would he have listened more carefully? Could history have been altered, the bloodshed of the armed uprising avoided?

If Bhusal and the Maoists had similarly been provided a glimpse of the future and were able to see that their demands—the abolition of monarchy, secularism, federal republic—were a lot closer within reach, would they have chosen a less violent path that avoided the bloodshed of the armed uprising?

The lesson for us from this incident should be that change doesn’t need to be all turmoil. Everything doesn’t need to be destroyed. Change can also be managed. For that, we need to find the courage to recognize and appreciate the underlying forces that are shaping change.

Nepal’s energy sector must draw from the lesson and listen more carefully to the underlying forces shaping it.

The sector is in crisis. The government’s narrative of excess electricity production has suddenly made Nepal’s hydropower potential seem irrelevant. At the same time, 80 percent of the country’s energy use still relies on traditional biomass fuels. Energy accounts for the largest share of imports.

Also read: Systemic dysfunction 

The government’s response to this crisis has been to centralize authority and decision-making. It is working actively to centralize the design of Nepal’s energy system and make it structurally more reliant on government’s authority.

The forces sweeping the electricity sector are tugging in the opposite direction. Distributed renewable energy technologies are eroding the authority of electric monopolies and enabling customers to be both users and producers of electricity. Digital technologies are reshaping how consumers and distributed technologies interact with one other, conduct business, and optimize production and use. Distributed renewable energy technologies are empowering customers to do more in a cleaner and sustainable manner than centralized systems have ever been able to do.

In 1996, Prime Minister Deuba shrugged off Bhattarai, Bhusal and the Maoists. Today, through its policies and program, the government is shrugging off the movement that is building around distributed renewable energy.

For Bhusal, the energy minister, who 25 years ago lay on the road in front of the gates of Singha Durbar demanding decentralization, it is an ironic twist of history that she is now creating policies that are centralizing our energy destiny in the hands of a few. 

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Nepal’s promotion of electric vehicles through lower taxes is a classic case of the poor being disadvantaged to finance the greening of the rich.  

There is no doubt that Nepal must do more to increase the adoption of electric vehicle. Nepal is still far from achieving its goal of having electric vehicles represent at least 20 percent of the total vehicle fleet, which is currently less than 1 percent.

This year’s budget, announced in May 2021, abolished excise duty and reduced customs duty from 40 percent to 10 percent on import of electric vehicles. It reversed provisions in the previous year’s budget that had increased excise and customs duty on electric vehicles. Taxes have been an easy policy target for promotion of electric vehicles. After all, customs and excise duties are the single largest factor driving up the cost of those vehicles in Nepal.    

Despite fully endorsing Nepal’s goal to increase the use of electric vehicles, I’ve long struggled to explain why I want taxes on electric vehicles to be raised. It is not a popular view.

Then, I failed my driver’s license exam.

Also read: Race to stupidity 

Some 25 years after driving with a clean record, and a driver’s license in two countries, I failed the driving exam in Nepal when I returned home this year and applied for one. It wasn’t that I was casual about it. I bought and studied all the model test papers for the written exam. I went for three days of driving practice around the course where the test was to be held.

The pass rate in Nepal’s driver’s license exam is dismally low, approximately 25 percent. In comparison, in India, it is closer to 70 percent, even though India has half the per-capita personal vehicle ownership of Nepal.

The Department of Transport Management, which manages driver’s licenses, argues that strict driving exams are necessary to keep our roads safe. This is a rubbish claim, widely discredited by evidence, and masks a different reality: vehicle ownership is simply not a goal for Nepal.

The government simply doesn’t want to encourage people to own personal motorized vehicles. Reasonably so, the country can’t really afford it and the road infrastructure isn’t quite there to support expanded vehicle ownership. Along with the low pass rate on driver license exams, high duties on vehicles are also an indicator of the intent to discourage vehicle ownership.

The goal of disincentivizing personal vehicle ownership is a sad reflection of our poverty and state of development. But it is our reality, and one that should encourage promotion of public transport, and now shared rides, as we build towards a future of prosperity where we can all own cars, bikes, and other types of motorized vehicles.

It is within this reality that we should ensure the promotion of electric vehicles don’t open floodgates to vehicle ownership. Even with the higher taxes in last year’s budget, electric vehicles were still cheaper in Nepal than conventional ones.

Also read: The life-changing power of gratitude 

Even under high taxes, the composite taxes for electric vehicles were 120-140 percent. Conventional vehicles, on the other hand, face composite taxes of approximately 250-300 percent. These tax differences more than offset the higher base price of electric vehicles relative to their comparable equivalent conventional vehicles.

There is a cost to reducing vehicle import duties when those taxes account for approximately 40 percent of all government income. This loss of revenue directly affects service delivery to the poor. Last year, for instance, the government is estimated to have raised approximately Rs 100 billion from duties on vehicle imports. The entire education budget that year was Rs 161 billion.

Even taking two wheelers into account, vehicle ownership in Nepal is limited mainly to the rich. The poor must rely entirely on public transport, which is weak, unreliable and lacking any real investment to enhance its quality.

Imports of Kia Niro, an electric vehicle, stopped last year after its price increased to Rs 12.5 million. This year, with the revised budget, the price is down to Rs 7 million. How many underprivileged children could you educate with Rs 5.5 million annually?

Those driving the Kia Niro, and other electric vehicles, believe they are reducing Nepal’s fuel imports, increasing electricity demand, and transitioning to clean transport. But for millions of poor Nepalis deprived of quality education, health, and other social services, because their government cannot afford it, it will be time to start building towards another revolution for equality.

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Whichever way the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is finally settled in Nepal, whether Parliament ratifies, rejects, or amends it, the dust storm from its debate will take a long time to die down. 

The United States offered Nepal $500 million in grants for the construction of transmission lines and strategic roads through the MCC. It was meant to be a transformative deal: a grant large enough to unlock important development chokepoints in Nepal. Instead, the MCC agreement has been mired in a debilitating national debate, even forcing senior MCC officials to visit Nepal last week.

On September 8, a day before Fatema Z. Sumar, vice president at MCC, was due to arrive in Kathmandu for consultations on the agreement, Prime Minister Deuba told a meeting of his parliamentary party that there was “no need to politicize the matter.”

Just before Sumar left Kathmandu on September 12, she told the press that “MCC was being politicized,” and that “economic assistance should never be made a political weapon.”

The debate around the MCC is, no doubt, wrapped in politics. But if unpacked, that political debate offers important lessons that could help Nepal overcome its development challenges.

The forgotten project

The debate on MCC rapidly degenerated into a discussion of the terms of the agreement, and whether it represented a defence alliance or was part of the US’s Indo-Pacific Strategy. The merits and long-term impacts of the underlying project—cross border transmission lines with India—were ignored.

A precondition to the MCC grant was that Nepal sign an agreement with India for the Butwal-Gorakhpur cross-border transmission line. Last week, on September 10, Nepal Electricity Authority and Power Grid Corporation of India signed an agreement to jointly invest in the Indian side of the line (120 km of the 135 km line falls in India).

Cross border electricity trade cuts both ways. If Nepal can export electricity to India, then India could also export power to Nepal. In the long term, Nepal may be unable to compete in Indian power markets, thus shutting down the potential for large-scale hydropower development in Nepal and increasing Nepal’s dependence on Indian power imports.  

MCC has argued otherwise. In an editorial in Republica on Oct 3, 2019, the US ambassador to Nepal, Randy Berry, was unequivocal. “The MCC project,” he wrote, “focuses on constructing lines that will bring Nepal’s power to the consumers who will pay Nepal good money for it.  It is a simple fact of geography and economics that means India.”

In another 10 years, Ambassador Berry may not be here to see whether India has paid Nepal “good money” for its power. But Nepal’s intelligentsia will still be here. They may come to rue debating an agreement for a project whose impacts hadn’t been fully considered in the first place.

Political accountability

As painful and political as the debate may have been, the best thing MCC did was to require the agreement to be ratified by parliament. The question we should ask now is why other international grants and borrowing are not subject to the same oversight and approval from parliament.

Over the last five years, Nepal’s public debt has increased significantly, and is now projected to reach 47 percent by the end of the fiscal year. International borrowing accounts for a large share of that debt. Of course, Nepal needs to borrow for development and investment. It has space to borrow more.

But within this space for borrowing, many of Nepal’s donors are failing to consider whether their development grants or loans are in fact truly beneficial to Nepal. This is accelerating the government’s rush to borrow (or be gifted with a grant) and spend, without focusing adequately on prioritizing productive investments and quality implementation.

As Sumar said, “economic assistance should never be made a political weapon.” But the tragedy in Nepal is that easy availability of foreign financing is fuelling the government’s lethargy, patronage, corruption, and politicization of everything.

Fortunately, MCC requires the parliament’s intervention. Nepalis must trust their parliament to make the right decision, including on MCC and other development projects. After all, we elected them to make those decisions. But we must also urge Nepal’s donors to be attentive to the aspirations of Nepali citizens as we work to build our young democracy.

We cannot hold our politicians accountable, make our governments efficient and responsive if they are always flush with donor cash for projects that may not even be needed.    

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Pushpa Kamal Dahal (nom de guerre: Prachanda), Chairman of the CPN (Maoist Center), former prime minister, and chief architect of the country’s civil war, is now a man in search of a mission.

At the Maoist Center’s central committee meeting on August 16, Prachanda gave a stirring speech where he pointed out that the party risked becoming irrelevant. “If we continue with our current activities,” he said, “this party will be of no use.” He called for reforms within the party.

This introspection, from a man who is otherwise tirelessly confident, caught even his most loyal party members by surprise. Despite the theatrics of that speech, its power ultimately originated from its underlying truth: the Maoists are indeed becoming irrelevant.

Over the years, since first coming to power, CPN (Maoists), the party that led the civil war, has splintered. Key ideologues have left. All that now remains, the Maoist Center, is held together by Prachanda’s crafty stratagems to stay relevant. He has skillfully merged, parted ways with, aligned, and maneuvered with other political parties to keep him and his party visible.

While Prachanda and his Maoist Center amble about the corridors of power playing political games to stay relevant, the party is bereft of ideology—lost about what it should do in the Nepal they themselves helped create.

There are, no doubt, many factors why the Maoists lost their way. For a large part, it was because they rushed to rule, not govern. Instead of seeking to empower individuals, communities, local governments, and provinces to make their own decisions, their leaders rushed to centralize, direct, and rule.

Among the many examples, consider for example, the story of Barsaman Pun (nom de guerre: Ananta). As deputy commander of the People's Liberation Army during the civil war, he led the attacks on Bandipur and Sindhuli barracks where approximately 50 people died. In the government, he last served as the Minister of Energy, Water Resources, and Irrigation.

As minister, his actions centralized power in Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), the country’s national power utility, further intensifying its monopoly, deepening political interference in NEA, and undermining the role of provinces, local governments, and individuals in the power sector. He failed to pass a single transformative legislative Act, the Electricity Act for example, which was in desperate need of reform.

Nepal’s deep-rooted problems cannot be solved by a single person, entity, or authority. It needs individuals and communities who are empowered to make local decisions and are accountable to their stakeholders. This is what federalism and decentralization offer, and what the Maoists had fought for.

Once in power, however, they forgot their fight for local empowerment and rushed to rule. Put aside concerns about corruption and vested interest that they enabled. The Maoists leaders decided what was best and went about forcing those ideas down from the center. They forgot that empowering local communities entailed just the opposite.

In hindsight, the Maoist civil war doesn’t anymore look like a fight for empowerment that is embodied in the constitution’s federalism, decentralization, and local governance. The activities of Maoist leaders have made it look like the civil war was nothing more than a bloody battle for political power.

The Maoist demand for an Executive President reflects its motivation to rule. Within Nepal’s federal structure, it is unclear how an Executive President would enhance governance, as they argue. On the contrary, it would institutionalize a structure for the centralization of power, and create a bigger risk for an authoritarian rule.

If Prachanda and his Maoist Center seek to genuinely explore how to stay relevant, they must ask whether they intend to rule or govern. To rule is easy: the party is full of clever people with political acumen and craftiness to vie for power, just like every other party.

If Prachanda and his Maoist Center intend to govern, they must return to their roots. Nepal’s progress doesn’t lie in a few wise men (or women) deciding the right solutions for everyone. It rather lies in empowering individuals and local communities to decide what’s best for them. Federalism and decentralization are still the best way to enable this.

Nepal’s federalism and decentralization remains weak, republic and secularism are unsteady. If the Maoists weren’t so busy trying to establish whose turn it was to be minister, they would already know their next mission: save federalism and Nepal’s constitution.

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In “Changing Course: Nation over Notion – Abolition of Federalism by Restructuring and strengthening Local Bodies, Referendum on Secularism,” Rabindra Mishra, a journalist, writer, philanthropist, and now politician, offers an unabashed inside view into the minds of privileged Nepali society that is unnerved by the changes sweeping across the country.

Mishra’s paper has gained greater notoriety for its headline conclusions. But those are a distraction from the rest of the paper, which reflects nostalgically on the glory of yesterday’s authorities.

The monarchy, for instance, “never stooped so low to harm the self-respect of the country compared to the present stock of our political leaders.” “Secularism has led to further religious divisions,” he observes wistfully, while in the past, “Nepal had not faced such a situation despite being a Hindu nation.”    

Towards the end of the paper, Mishra invokes the analogy of the former US president, Donald Trump. “White Americans,” he remarks, “felt that their feelings were being ignored,” which Trump harnessed into a political movement.

Mishra doesn’t realize it (perhaps, a Freudian slip) but by that point in the paper, he is the Donald Trump of Nepal. Like Trump, Mishra seeks to harness the grievances of Nepal’s privileged class whose traditional sources of authority are being challenged by the new republican, federal, decentralized, and secular structure.  

Just as Trump did, Mishra attempts to show that Nepal is in a state of grave decline. He has noticed “clear signals of ongoing irreparable damage to Nepal's independence, integrity, sovereignty as well as ethnic, religious and cultural harmony in recent years.” Exactly what those may be, he doesn’t explain.

On religious harmony, for example, he highlights the fact that churches are popping up in rented apartments and that temples are not adequately conserved. For him, these are symbols of religious discord. But, perhaps, these symbols are nothing more than a reflection of the poor state of governance in a changing Nepal.  

Like Trump, Mishra peddles a narrative of decline based on a false sense of lost glory. He writes about religious groups (exactly who, remains unclear) “proselytizing through enticement or spreading bitterness and hatred in the society.”

The growing cases of religious conversion are a common refrain among leaders who claim to represent Hindus. Mishra joins the bandwagon, arguing that “proselytizing” is hurting “the sentiments of majority Hindus.” Where or how those “hurt” Hindus have expressed themselves, he doesn’t say. He has been hurt, that’s proof enough.

Mishra makes no effort to understand why those that are converting have chosen to do so, or why they are being “enticed.” For him, as with Nepal’s traditional authority, retaining the flock was more important than empowering individuals on all matters, including their choice of God.

Like Trump, Mishra weaves a contrived tale of misinformation and imaginary history on how foreign powers subverted Nepal’s own progress. The fall of the monarchy and the Maoist movement, he suggests, were engineered by the Indians. Western power pushed the ideas of federalism and secularism, he imagines.

Such interpretations of history resonate with many who benefitted from generations of privilege and access to authority. It is hard for them to understand why they are being held accountable for the actions of their forefathers, when they are now working just as hard and honestly as anyone else.

Mishra taps into their “grievance” with an alternative history. No, he offers, Nepalis in the past were poor but in harmony. Nepalis never wanted federalism or secularism; foreign powers forced it upon them. Like Trump, Mishra is showing us how to exploit grievances into a political movement.

Mishra’s paper echoes the voice of Nepal’s traditional central powers: you people, we know what is best for you, listen to us.

“If we do not speak about our national interest, who else will?” he asks, echoing that voice.

He says resolving discrimination “requires a long struggle.” Only those who have never been subjected to social injustice—i.e., the privileged—could suggest we wait for “a long struggle” to end discrimination. Those on the receiving end want justice now.

Mishra’s demands challenge the very foundations of Nepal’s constitution. Nevertheless, Nepal’s democracy must provide him space and protection to convert those demands into a political movement. As our republic, federal, decentralized, and secular constitution struggles to strike roots and yield dividends, Nepal enters its final battle between those that benefitted and those that were marginalized. Within a democracy, we may have an opportunity to get through the battle without bloodshed.   

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Nepal’s constitution offers a flawed concept of democracy. The current constitutional crisis is, in part, an exhibition of those flaws.

In this five-part series, I explore the elements that make our constitution inherently frail and call on civilians to build a truly apolitical (or non-political) movement to save it.

Part V: Civil Society

Rabindra Mishra, a newly minted politician who heads the Bibeksheel Sajha Party, offers one of the best recent illustrations of the vulnerability of Nepal’s constitution. In a recent think piece, “Changing Course: Nation over Notion,” he calls for the “abolition of federalism by restructuring and strengthening local bodies,” and a “referendum on secularism.”

Mishra’s piece plays on the prevailing deep public discontent. He concludes, without any meaningful analysis, that federalism and secularism are to blame.

Mishra isn’t the only politician seeking to build a following by challenging Nepal’s constitution. Traditional and alternative political parties have used it to tap into public discontent. This is populism at its worst. Nepali citizens must push back against efforts to erode the legitimacy of the constitution and mobilize, neutrally without political affiliation, to strengthen the national charter.

Nepal’s constitution is flawed in many ways. A parliamentary system that makes the prime minister immune from accountability to parliament, for example. A federal structure that aims to empower minorities but wistfully longs for a strong majority at the center. Our constitution is far from perfect and has plenty of room for improvement. But it is our best option. What we need is an apolitical civilian movement that can restore the faith in our constitution and build a stronger democracy through deeper civil society engagement.

As civilians, we must stop associating a single party majority in parliament with stability, and a coalition government with instability. Our stability must now come from parliament where no party holds a clear majority. Nepal’s federal structure, its electoral system of direct and proportional representation, means that a single party is unlikely to ever win a majority in the central parliament.

Besides, truly representing Nepal’s diversity requires the inclusion of different parties and interests. This diversity makes a clear majority highly unlikely. We must stop encouraging the consolidation of parties and instead, push for greater diversity. Coalitions of political parties represent the best source of our future stability.

As civilians, we must find ways to end the involvement of political parties in local government. Our local wards and blocks cannot be a place for political parties to build their organizational strength. Grassroots citizens, not political parties, must be elected to and run local governments. As civil society, we must encourage, support and finance non-political, independent civilian candidates to run for local offices.

Across the country, there are many civil society movements, working to highlight a wide range of issues, such as corruption, policy, social injustice, and environmental degradation. They employ different means across social media; campaigns, protests and even hunger strikes. Overall, however, these movements have failed to coalesce. As scattered initiatives, they fail to generate enough sustained impact.  

Civil society engagement requires funding. Without financial resources, civil society engagement remains at best a loose conglomeration of like-minded individuals, perhaps each honorable in their own way but lacking the ability to collectively build sustained pressure for change.

How can civilians generate enough domestic funding and resources to support diverse and meaningful movements for change? First, of course, through contributions from businesses. Large and small businesses must consider systematically contributing to civil society movements. For how long will businesses, particularly large ones, continue to fund only political brokers? Even a fraction of that funding diverted to civil society movements could lead to more lasting and sustained change in a way that benefits everyone, businesses the most. Only with consistent funding resources can such civilian movements work more systematically for change.  

Second, there are many inspiring civil society leaders across Nepal who have remained as civilians, not joined a political party or started one. These leaders must do more, not just to promote their ideas, but also to build organizations. Movements cannot be easily funded, civil society organizations and institutions can.  

Burning our constitution, eroding its legitimacy, or seeking a populist referendum will not remove our disillusionment. As civilians, we cannot ever stop our politicians from being politicians. But we can make sure that our country runs smoothly and prospers despite the failure of political leadership.

[email protected]; Views are personal.