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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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The world is beset by unprecedented challenges brought on by the Covid-19 pandemic, and Nepal is no exception. Most sectors of the economy are functioning at alarmingly low capacities.

Inflation, price levels, economic growth, national income, GDP, and employment are allotted almost equal weights in macroeconomic calculations in normal times. Clearly, the first priority now needs to be employment generation in all sectors so as to ensure all households meet their basic needs. But doing so may compromise economic growth and contribute to inflation. Greater weight for employment generation might also result in less GDP and less per capita income.

In this time, the previous levels of profits, wages, and dividends cannot be expected. Thus all actors in the economy, be they households, businesses, banks and financial institutions, and other stakeholders should be prepared to sacrifice to cope with this unexpected situation.

Innovative and practical solutions will be needed to save people from disease and starvation. The moment the Covid-19 pandemic starts declining, people’s lives will start going back to normal.

Nepali agriculture is agrarian. Apart from being a dominant sector of the economy, it is a way of life for most Nepalis. Paradoxically, in recent years, this sector has gotten less attention from stakeholders primarily due to emigration of huge number of youths in search of jobs abroad. The old parents are too weak to carry on cultivation at home, resulting in barren lands and neglected animals. However, old parents and weak members of rural community have been supported by remittances sent by their family members, relatives and friends from abroad. Due to the pandemic, foreign jobs have been lost and less is coming in terms of remittances.

Against this backdrop, Nepali planners and policymakers ought to reorient their vision of development, and design programs and projects accordingly. In general, the tendency among development planners is to gradually shift economic structure from primary to secondary to tertiary sector. The main reason offered in favor of this structure is productivity gains. But the current Covid-affected world needs a reversal. On the whole, this change implies a reduction in total production. (A sacrifice by all stakeholders.)

There is a trade-off between total production sacrifice and increased employment. For humanitarian reasons, Nepal needs to opt for the second, that also in favor of employment for unskilled labor. Basic human needs like food, clothing, shelter and healthcare should be immediately provided to poor and all those returning from abroad. This implies an assurance of minimum income to all so as to sustain their life during this pandemic. For this, the first priority should be agriculture and arranging for two square meals a day for these workers.

High production and productivity growth require deployment of new technologies and instruments. At present, due to the paucity of financial resources this proposition seems less plausible in Nepal. Likewise, inflow of foreign assistance, both bilateral and multilateral, at concessional terms, cannot be expected as most countries are now focusing on reviving their own economies.

This situation warrants vigilance in adopting a prudent use of resources at our disposal. While designing and implementing relief programs and projects to the workers cited above in terms of employment and income, we should look for optimum economic benefits. This means we should focus on retaining our youths, including those who have come back from abroad. We are cognizant of their contribution to our economy over the years in terms of remittances.

But time has come to change their contribution and directly involve them in nation-building, paving the way for sustainable development and rapid socio-economic transformation. The cherished goal of employment generation could succeed with a coordinated approach of government agencies.

The author is former Chief Economic Advisor of Nepal Rastra Bank