Marginal gains
Deputy Prime Minister Uprendra Yadav, who is also the chairman of the Samajbadi Party Nepal, has repeatedly warned of quitting the federal government if Prime Minister KP Oli continues to ignore the demand of constitution amendment. His party co-chairman Baburam Bhattarai has been goading him to do so since the merger between his Naya Shakti and Yadav’s Sanghiya Samajbadi Forum two months ago. Bhattarai believes time has come to hit the street to force a change in the constitution in favor of marginalized groups like Madhesis, Dalits and Janajatis. Yadav is not convinced.
This is partly because there has been no headway in another much-discussed merger between Yadav’s party and the Rastriya Janata Party Nepal, which have 17 seats each in the federal parliament. (They are also the first and second biggest parties in Province 2, respectively.) Yadav is unsure a street action will succeed, especially without the RJPN merger, against the mighty Nepal Communist Party that has near absolute control over government machinery. Much better to continue to nudge the PM to honor his pledge on constitution amendment from inside the Oli cabinet—a position which with all the added perks for himself as well as his party—then quit in haste, giving up the coveted DPM post and pushing his new party into uncertainty.
As things stand, a merger between Samajbadi Party and the RJPN looks difficult. There are far too many big egos to accommodate under a single roof. Even within the RJPN, which has six heads, it is proving to be difficult to maintain unity among the quarrelling lot. Besides, Yadav does not seem ready to quit the Oli government, an RJPN precondition for merger talks. Meanwhile, the RJPN has started engaging fringe ethnic parties to mount a collective struggle for the rights of marginalized communities.
The problem for these small outfits right now is that identity politics is losing ground in Nepal. Marginalized groups have been accommodated in state institutions through reservations and quotas. Leaderships of political parties are more heterogeneous too. Not enough, those batting for identity politics may contend. They may be right, and they may eventually get their chance as the disenchantment with the two-third Oli government grows. Yet with the next set of elections many-many years away, and most of their youthful cadre-base now out toiling in the Gulf, they have no valid way of immediately regaining their lost political ground. The astute Yadav seems to know exactly what he is doing.
Testing times
close relations can be easily strained. The cordial people-to-people and government-level ties and the open border between Nepal and India connect the two countries in a way few other neighbors are bound together. Yet the sheer disparity in their sizes and populations also means they can never have a truly reciprocal relation. One marker of this disparity is what crosses (or does not cross) the open border on a daily basis.
In 2015-16, nothing did, as India seemed determined to teach the Nepali leaders a lesson for not honoring its wishes about the new constitution. Today, even though Indian pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables have been found to be harming the health of Nepalis, they are entering Nepal unhindered. Initially, following a recommendation of the Ministry of Commerce, the government had stopped their import. But after pressure from the Indian Embassy, which accused Nepal of imposing ‘non-tariff barriers’ on its goods, the trucks carrying the greens have been allowed back in. (It remains to be seen whether the latest Supreme Court ruling on resuming mandatory testing is enforced.)
India’s business-like approach to this humanitarian concern is deplorable. In the name of protecting its businesses, it is literally playing with the health of millions of Nepalis. Highhanded gestures like these do grievous harm to Nepal-India ties. To be fair, it was always going to be tough on any Nepali government, however strong, to resist the Indian pressure. Even so, the easy cave-in of the Oli government on this life and death issue was disappointing.
There seems to have been no prior consultations with India on the matter. The new provision mandates that all imported foodstuffs be tested for their pesticide levels. Yet there are few functional laboratories on the Nepal-India border areas to do so. The foodstuffs imported from India had started rotting on the stranded trucks. Ideally, Nepal should have first fully equipped these labs before stopping the edibles from India. But there was also no time to think things through as the health of millions of Nepalis was on the line. Now, rather than pointing fingers at each other, the two sides should sit down and find an amicable solution—and soon. After only just coming back on an even keel, Nepal-India relations cannot afford another rupture. Nor is it right to force people to keep consuming poison
Open and shut
Nepali cable TV distributors are being disingenuous when they say end customers will be saddled with extra charges if the federal parliament passes a recently registered Advertisement Bill. The bill bars out-of-country paid TV channels from broadcasting foreign advertisements. As getting clean feed from paid international TV channels will cost them more, the cable operators argue, they will have no option but to pass on the added cost to their viewers. But then Nepali cable TV viewers are already paying high surcharges, which should more than make up for the puny increase in cable distributors’ costs.
With the passage of the bill, foreign ads on cable channels will be replaced by Nepali ones, to the benefit of many constituencies in the country. Nepali advertisers will be buoyant as all TV ads for foreign products will have to be made in Nepal. Nepali ads will also have more slots on international channels. The Nepali ad industry is projected to grow by at least 20 percent as a result. After all, why should foreign products get free advertisements on Nepali TV? Not only does it lead to a loss of market for Nepali advertisers, it also encourages Nepalis to pick foreign advertised products over domestic unadvertised ones, to the determent of the already struggling economy.
While the Nepali ad industry is still in its infancy, its revenues continue to shrink as more and more people move online for news and entertainment. The problem is that there isn’t much money in online advertising. At the same time, with the economy facing a severe liquidity crunch, Nepali producers and industries are cutting back on their advertisement budgets for newspapers and television. On the other hand, the multinationals operating in Nepal have not had to spend a single rupee as their ads are already transmitted through pay TV for free.
The clean feed policy is a boon for all Nepali content creators. The quality of our advertisements will improve as more money enters the industry. Local products will be more competitive. The stagnant Nepali media will see a fresh inflow of cash. Cable operators have no case.
Hard lesson
The federal government and its head can learn many things from the recent Guthi bill fiasco. One is that decisions with far-reaching consequences should be made only after extensive consultations with key stakeholders. Frankly, in its year and a half in office, the federal government, and Prime Minister KP Oli in particular, have acted like a law onto themselves. PM Oli makes vital decisions without informing senior leaders of his own party, much less the opposition parties. The advice of a small coterie of party hacks seems enough.
Broad consultations are at the heart of the democratic process. But for the self-described democrat who fought autocracy half his life, Oli seems to have internalized some authoritarian tendencies himself. Again, seldom does he consult other experts and seek a second opinion. Take his recent Europe trip, which turned out to be a disaster. The prime minister was keen on visiting Europe and shoring up his international image even as there had been no preparations. The expected agreements with France and the UK could not materialize; the heads of the state of these two European powers did not even bother to see him.
Had the prime minister consulted some foreign policy experts, or even read an oped or two on the topic on the eve of his Europe trip, he could have figured out that instead of buttressing his international image, the meaningless tour would have just the opposite effect. More important, it would harm the standing of the country he represents. But just like he did not bother to consult the Guthiyars—the age-old custodians of the country’s precious heritage—before introducing the Guthi bill, the self-assured prime minister did not see the need to seek expert advice on his foreign travel.
The forced withdrawal of the Guthi bill is possibly the biggest blow to the prime minister’s seemingly unassailable image. He perhaps does not realize that if he continues on his unilateral course, the press, the opposition parties, the intellectuals, and hundreds of thousands of his voters—could all be alienated. It is a reminder that in a democracy you can rule only by a broad consensus and trying to ram through unpopular measures invariably backfires. Perhaps the retreat on the Guthi bill will make PM Oli realize the power of the collective.
