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When we talk of bhakti, or the path of devotion, nobody compares to Mira (Mirabai of Mewar). She surpasses even Radha—the famous consort of yogi Krishna—in perfecting bhakti. Radha met Krishna in physical body. She didn't have to cultivate devotion for him; she just got the charismatic teenager's best attention among the many gopinis, the cow-herder women of Brindaban in northern India. Many thousand years after Krishna's passing, Mira, in her sanctuary, could materialize him in physical form and love him. Could bhakti be perfected any better?

When Mira was about five, she saw a wedding procession and asked her mother if she too had a bridegroom. The mother simply told her that she could take Krishna as her groom. That was it—Mira became Krishna's. She started loving his idol as her husband. Later her father gave her in marriage to Bhoj Raj, the crown prince of Mewar in Rajasthan. Bhoj Raj respected Mira's Krishna love and became her protector. But he died and the regime went to his brother Rana Vikram Singh.

In the conservative patriarchal society of 16^th-century India, Rana couldn't tolerate the ecstatic singing and dancing of Mira—a bride of the royal family—in front of ordinary people in her temple. So he tried to kill her. He sent her a poisonous snake hidden inside a flower basket, but when Mira opened the basket, the snake turned into a garland. He then put poisoned nails beneath her bed and covered it with rose petals. When Mira lied down, all nails became rose petals. He then sent her a pot of the deadliest poison, stating that it was nectar. Mira drank the poison but remained unaffected. Hearing the power of Mira's devotional singing, Mughal emperor Akbar and his legendary musician Tansen visited her in disguise. Akbar became so enchanted that he touched her feet—an act unthinkable of the great Akbar who was not only a proud king but also an enemy of the Mewar royals.

These are not episodes of a fairy tale, but life events of a real human who walked on earth 500 years ago. But how can it be possible? How can a snake turn into a flower garland? How can one just gulp down the deadliest poison and not get harmed?

We may find it hard to conceive. But there is no confusion for a true devotee. In true devotion, you don't remain you. The duality vanishes and you become your God. And the miracles we imagine for God become a reality for the devotee. Is there any poison that can kill the God? Doesn't king cobra salute Shankar, the great yogi who is ever one with the ultimate, and adorn his neck as an ornament?

Mira's oneness with her God—Krishna—is as perfect as it can be. He comes in flesh and bones for her. He dances for her, talks to her, sings to her, and embraces her. We don't know much about Mira's end. But the legend goes: in her 50's, she went to Dwaraka, the seat of Krishna's kingdom in India's west coast. There, the heart of Krishna's idol opens, Mira jumps in and disappears.

The demand for death penalty for rapes in Nepal tacks to the illiberal winds blowing across the world, helped in no small part by the speedy growth of social media. Of course, most of us are outraged when we first hear of an incident like the Sept 23 rape-and-murder of a 12-year-old Dalit girl of Bajhang district. Pre-social media, we had time to think through such cases, and to weigh evidence for the efficacy of extreme measures like death penalty before we jumped to conclusions. We would then know capital punishment as a crime-deterrent is ineffective, and often counterproductive.  

On paper, Pakistan hangs the rapists of minors. But when a minor is actually raped there, it is the victim who cops more of the blame for appearing ‘slutty’ or wearing ‘revealing’ clothes. Seldom are the men punished. Bangladesh—with over 1,000 cases of sexual assaults in 2020 alone—just reinstated death penalty for rapes. Yet it is expected to have minimal deterrent effect. In one survey, nearly 90 percent of men who admitted to sexually assaulting women in Bangladesh said they expected to get away with it. The Maldives flogs women who have premarital sex. Things are no better in Sri Lanka (which has lately been in the news for systemic rape of male Tamil detainees). where Tamil detainees the police the ‘rape capital’ of South Asia. Then there is Bhutan, where the husband of a raped woman is liable for compensations for the wife’s ‘adultery’. 

The attitude to sexual violence and rapes is as blasé in India. Men feel entitled to physically prevail upon women, and many of them express surprise when told they might be prosecuted for ‘having sex’ with a woman of their choice. India has had no letup in rapes since the hanging of the four gang-rapists in the Nirbhaya case in March, anecdotal evidence suggests. 

The problem, again, is lack of conviction for rapes—perhaps as little as 5 percent of all sexual offenders in South Asia are punished—thanks to the corrupt and tardy legal systems. Legal scholars in SAARC member states are nearly unanimous that guaranteed punishment would be a stronger deterrent for rapes than the provision of death penalty. After all, if nobody is convicted, even death penalty becomes meaningless. 

Only authoritarian states like China and North Korea still routinely mete out the death penalty for rapes. A democratic Nepal has been forced to consider this radical option, partly as people here are losing their trust in the government. Perhaps they would be okay with a long prison sentence for rapists if they were sure that these rapists would serve out their time.  

Thankfully, women MPs in Nepal have been more sober-minded. Some are still gung ho on death penalty, yet most of them say they are open to other options, including chemical castration of convicted rapists and longer jail terms.   

The growing voice of our women is another thing that is worth celebrating. Nepali women—our MPs, lawyers, rights activists—are more than capable of working out just and effective punishments for sexual offenders. This in turn emphasizes the need to have more women in decision-making bodies. Our new constitution outlining guaranteed women’s representation goes some way towards ensuring this. But, again, it’s just the first step.   

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) projects Nepal’s economy to remain flat, with the expectation of zero growth in 2019/20 and deep recession in ongoing fiscal year 2020/21. This revision has come as the government has been struggling to cover salaries and other day-to-day expenditure. Many people have lost their jobs as economic activities have shrunk due to the massive spread of the novel coronavirus. The government has failed to contain virus spread. As a result, a section of the population is being forced under the poverty line.

Globally, the World Bank has expected around 150 million people to be pushed into extreme poverty—with an income of less than $1.90 a day—by the end of 2021. The pandemic is going to weigh heavy on developing countries like Nepal. Agricultural output is expected to decrease this year as rice production was hampered by the unavailability of chemical fertilizers. A sharp fall in rice production will affect poor farmers the most. Better preparedness could have averted this.

The World Bank Group’s biannual ‘Reversals of Fortune’ report states that poor countries like Cameroon, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Liberia, and Nepal will require tailored policy approaches. Post-crisis recovery and future poverty reduction in these complex settings will be challenging and time-consuming. Food insecurity, poverty, conflict, flood risks and other phenomena will further erode the prospect of quick recovery. There must be a coordinated approach to identify interactions among these phenomena to design effective responses.   

Further, the report designates Nepal as among the most vulnerable countries. “Nepal is potentially susceptible to all the major challenges: a pandemic, a recession, current or old conflicts (with enduring effects), and climate change (notably through flood risks),” it reads. “In such “hot spot” context, an array of responses commensurate with the scale and scope of these compounding challenges will be needed to advance inclusive growth and sustain poverty reduction.” This warning in turn brings to focus the government goal of making Nepal a mid-income country with its ‘Happy Nepali, Prosperous Nepal’ slogan. Rather than the country embarking on the path of prosperity, there is now a higher risk of poverty, inequality, and social disparities.

The government has decided to rely on foreign aid and debt to sustain state functions as revenue collection has dwindled. In the first quarter of 2020/21, expenditure crossed income from revenue, which is unusual. The government has failed to lower unnecessary expenditure. Moreover, it declared no measures were off limit to collect revenue during these critical times. The Inland Revenue Department (IRD) has announced that it would deregister almost 29,447 firms if they fail to clear their dues on time. These reckless decisions will further hamper the economy.

With the high risk of falling into poverty due to lack of opportunities, most youths would want to flee the country. The government has started directing its focus on running its own businesses rather than pay attention to people’s welfare. State machinery will probably survive at the cost of people’s suffering.

Against this backdrop, our development partners should rethink about funneling money into our state coffers without due diligence of service delivery. Actors like the World Bank, the IMF, and the Asian Development Bank must start holding governments from these vulnerable countries to account. People can’t do so on their own as these governments have captured electoral processes and other means of check and balance. Humanity’s future is in the hands of these multilateral actors. It is time for them to show some leadership.

The concept of change being driven by leaders leading and followers following is so 16^th-century—utterly outdated. The 21^st century promises a new order where no one and everyone is a leader, both at the same time.

If you ever felt God had let you down, you could choose not to believe in God. There is even a word for it, atheist, defined as “a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings” (dictionary.com).

The same thing cannot be said about leadership. You cannot stop believing in leadership even if you were disillusioned with your leaders. You get a new leader, if only to switch from one leader to another (and likely branding yourself “disloyal” in the process). What would you even call someone who doesn’t believe in leadership? There’s isn’t a word for it yet.  

The entire human construct—families and communities, economic and political systems—is based around the concept of leaders leading and followers following. At the same time, a crisis of leadership is sweeping the world.

From rich to poor countries, democracies to dictatorships, global issues to local ones, leadership has failed to provide solutions. Instead, there is disillusionment, discontent, despair, and conflict.

With its marvels of information technology, the 21^st century offers the promise of a new order without the need for leadership.

Information about the availability of the Covid vaccine, when one is finally ready, will reach people far more quickly than the vaccine itself. The continuous generation, availability, and speed of information is only one aspect. Symmetry of information is the other; participants are now closer to a situation where they all have the same information at the same time.

The information platform isn’t perfect yet. There is, for instance, misinformation, disinformation, fake news, and barriers to access. Even with these imperfections, increased availability and symmetry of information have already had pronounced impacts around the world.

Change is now possible without the need for a charismatic leader, or a leader at all. The series of spontaneous anti-government uprisings that spread through 18 Arab states between 2010 and 2013, for example, resulted from collective activism rather than any single leader. The recent Black Lives Matter movement that has swept through the US and inspired similar calls for equality in other parts of the world is fuelled by a convergence in values, enabled, in part, by the availability and access to information.

Intellect, consciousness, empathy

The availability of information—often delivered in real time from across borders, cultures, and history—is allowing us to get closer to our core human instincts of intellect, consciousness, and empathy.

Technology is enabling our intellect to process more information, and faster, than ever before. Information allows our consciousness to recognize the impact of our individual behaviour. The picture of a plastic bag spotted in the deepest point of the ocean pinches us every time we discard one. From thousands of miles away, sometimes even across time, we are touched by pictures, sounds and stories of poverty, hunger, brutality, and injustice. We can see, feel, and empathize, if we choose to, with those struggling for their rights, equality, or simply a decent life.

Information, and 21^st-century technology, has reduced the complexity around us to a digital sensory world that we can see, feel, and hear. Our individual intellect, consciousness, and empathy are responding to this sensory world. Are we in or are we out? Do we agree or disagree? These are decisions we are now armed to make, and increasingly making on our own, without the need for leadership to show us the way.

Enabled by the marvels of information technology, the greatest achievement of the 21^st century thus far has been to demonstrate that change is possible without the glorification of leadership. Change is being driven by the convergence of ideas and values, not the appeal of leadership.

Relevance to Nepal

Within this emerging paradigm about the end of leadership is a message for those in Nepal who believe it is important to be in power to change the system. Maybe we don’t need to become the president, or prime minister, or someone with formal authority to change the system. We can produce lasting change if we are the system.

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