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 Nepal has an image prob­lem when it comes to assuring investors. Years of conflict, instability, and a rent-seeking mentality in gener­al are an open secret that both domestic and foreign investors know all too well about. Just announcing Nepal is open for business isn’t enough; it needs to be demonstrated through action that Nepal actually has a busi­ness-friendly government and environment.

To be clear, foreign investors aren’t looking for a cakewalk; what they expect is a degree of certainty that even in the worst-case scenario, they won’t entirely lose their investments.

On the one hand, the govern­ment wants foreign investors to come here in droves, yet it appears reluctant to allow them to make profits and repatriate them back to their home coun­tries. Historically, such reluc­tance stems from our society’s deeply ingrained mistrust of the private sector, which in turn per­haps has its roots in the Marx­ist and socialist orientation of all major political parties. That mistrust remains pervasive both in government and civil society circles.

Strangely enough, we also toler­ate and perpetuate the monopoly of a few private entities and seek to shield them from competition, as reflected partly in the negative list of the Foreign Investment and Transfer of Technology Act 2019. Ideally, the negative list should be used to protect an industry unique to the country or critical to national security, identity or culture; this doesn’t mean a sec­tor should be deprived of foreign expertise or finance.

Public works

On financing public infrastruc­ture, our official obsession with grants and free money is the biggest impediment to crowding in of development finance. We should seek grants where they are available and advantageous, yet we need to be mindful of the strings they come attached with. For instance, any bilateral grant to, say, upgrade an airport infrastructure comes with con­ditions to use equipment man­ufactured by the companies of that donor country. While for the short-term, the upgrade may come free, in the long run, the cost of parts replacement ends up being very expensive for the receiving country.

The government has identified different modes of financing pub­lic infrastructure, including gov­ernment-to-government (G2G) agreements and public private partnerships (PPP), yet the civil service remains inherently skep­tical of the private sector. Per­haps the failure of the private sector to pull off the Kathman­du-Hetauda Tunnel expressway and Kathmandu-Tarai Fast Track may have reinforced the govern­ment’s mistrust. But at the same time, the government has done very little to examine its own role in ensuring that the project did not take off.

Foreign sponsors and lenders look for sovereign guarantee, particularly in funding infra­structure projects. After all, the private sector is here to make profits. But often the implied assumption in both our official approach and media narratives fed by officials is that it should be done as a service. The lan­guage used by officials unwitting­ly sends the message that Nepal is doing investors a favor by allow­ing them to invest here in the first place.

Despite two investment sum­mits and ongoing regulatory reforms, Nepal’s image is not going to change overnight. But it will help if government lead­ers work as champions of key projects where they demon­strate change in the way of doing business.

Success stories

A successful demonstration project in public infrastructure under different financing modal­ities will go a long way in proving to investors that Nepal means business—and thereby helping to generate funding for the coun­try’s huge infrastructure needs over time. For instance, rath­er than listing 20 projects, the government should identify one infrastructure project each to be built under the PPP and G2G models and see through its imple­mentation within a specific time frame. This can be an airport, an expressway, a sewage treatment plant, or a metro rail. It can also be something small, a hospital or street lighting.

Words of failure may spread faster than those of success. But success stories do travel and reach investors far and wide. Therefore demonstrating both intent and success is important—and this can only be done by walking the talk.

Late Madan Bhandari, the vet­eran UML leader, often shared a concern with me—that the communist movement was weak in Madhes. Following the 1991 par­liamentary elections, he came to the conclusion that the communist movement had had some impact on places close to the east-west highway, where a significant number of Nepali speakers reside, but not in areas further south.

Bhandari’s goal was to achieve ‘people’s multiparty democracy’ (Janatako bahudaliya janabaad or ja-ba-ja in Nepali) through parlia­mentary elections. Ja-ba-ja is con­sidered his brainchild. In the UML’s fifth general convention, he had formed a taskforce to address the Madhes problem. He did so with a recognition that Nepal’s communist movement could not incorporate the country’s diversity, was confined to people from a single community and has made historical errors. The convention came up with a docu­ment identifying major issues facing Madhes and possible ways to resolve them. But this idea died with Bhan­dari’s untimely demise.

The Nepali Congress had led the democratic movement of 1950-51 and had won a two-third majority in the country’s first parliamentary elections in 1959. Following the 1960 royal coup, not only was the Con­gress government overthrown, but the party ended up becoming the primary nemesis of the palace.

The main reason why the left is weak in Madhes is that several com­munist leaders had welcomed some of King Mahendra’s decisions that were not in favor of Madhes. The palace had also promoted some communist leaders—not to truly strengthen them, but to enable them to fight the Congress so that the Panchayat system could benefit. What the Madhesis understood from this was that the communist leaders were not on their side, but on the side of the king who had taken steps against the welfare of Madhes.

Another reason was that Madhes was the center of the Congress’s activities. When the party was banned, its leaders, who were in exile in India, entered Madhes on the sly and carried out their activi­ties at night. As a result, the relations between the Madhesis and Congress leaders got closer. Communist lead­ers, on the other hand, could not establish themselves in Madhes. They remained busy hurling accu­sations—of being revisionists, oppor­tunists, rightists, etc.—at each other.

Madan Bhandari thought of these as the historical reasons behind the failure of the communist move­ment to gain a foothold in Mad­hes. Unfortunately, no UML leader showed an interest in this issue after his demise.

The Maoists waged a decade-long armed struggle against the state in 1996. They were not very active in Madhes in the initial days of the con­flict. Later, they coopted various eth­nic groups into their struggle—not to emancipate them but to expand the war.

During the constitution-writ­ing process, there were attempts to undermine various progressive agendas like federalism and inclu­sion that were raised by earlier struggles. And a constitution was promulgated in September 2015 amid protests and disagreements. The Madhesis felt betrayed as their long-held demands and the assurances they had been given were not incorporated into the con­stitution. They started doubting even the Nepali Congress, a party that has had strong roots in Mad­hes. The feelings of betrayal, dis­content and doubt were openly expressed in various Madhes movements.

The policies, principles and con­duct of the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP), which came into being after the merger of the erstwhile UML and Maoist Center, are not friendly toward the Madhesis and Tharus. Some of them still voted for these parties. But the votes are not a reflection of the NCP’s popularity among the Madhesis, merely their dissatisfaction with the Congress. Votes are cast only during elections; they only have short-term impact.

The NCP does not have a clear stance on the Madhes question. Madhes has a class problem, but Nepali communists have already abandoned their class struggle. They also lack a vision for greater inclu­sion of Madhesis in party and state structures. The communist par­ties should seriously reflect on the reasons behind their unpopularity in Madhes.

Of the 165 electoral constituen­cies in Nepal, as many as 59 have a significant Madhesi population where winning a seat is not possible without their support. No party can easily win a parliamentary majority if they give short shrift to 59 constit­uencies.

Moreover, our electoral system—with its first-past-the-post and pro­portional representation elements—makes it difficult for any single party to win a majority. The erstwhile UML contested the 2017 general election as a coalition partner of the Maoist Center; it will be difficult for them to win similar number of seats if they participate in future elections as a single party.

About a third of the Madhesi peo­ple are committed Congress voters; they don’t expect much from the party but will keep voting for it irre­spective of what it does or who it fields. The remaining 70 percent voters are divided and vulnerable to indoctrination from various extrem­ist forces, be they regional, religious, ethnic, communal or separatist. This is an objective analysis of Mad­hes and a real danger.

South Asian politics revolves around winning elections by attack­ing the weaknesses of one’s oppo­nents, not by performing well. If this trend continues in the next election and the ruling NCP fails to attract voters, there is a real chance that we will end up with a hung parlia­ment, whose pain we have endured in the past.

It’s our misfortune that Nepali political parties are more focused on party-building than on nation-build­ing. It’s been one and a half years since the formation of this two-third government, but the NCP is still busy finalizing party structures. Main opposition Nepali Congress is embroiled in internal disputes and factional politics.

Our new constitution states that Nepal is a ‘socialism-oriented’ coun­try. But the term has not been prop­erly discussed and is interpreted differently by different parties. The Congress says it is democratic socialism; the communists claim it is scientific socialism. Those with a socialist bent have a different definition.

No one wants to define it pre­cisely, lest it gives rise to a conflict. As a result, the word ‘socialism’ has been a tool to sow confusion among the Nepali people. Political parties should discuss it honestly and explain what exactly is the kind of socialism they aspire to.

The author is a lawmaker in the federal lower house

 There’s a strange dichotomy that has developed in the climate debate in the United States. One group, known as the “denialists”, insist humans and fossil fuel have nothing to do with climate change. They may be asso­ciated with the oil lobby, or the Republicans, or the feminist-hat­ing men, or the Antifa opponents, or the right-wing extremists. In any case, they’ve decided to put their eggs in the “Denial” boat, just because in the US you have to take a strong position in any pub­lic debate, and this sounds like the right position to take. Their way of life is under attack and they’re going to hunker down and deny they have a hand in the world’s chaos. The other side embraces science, and refute the denialists. This discourse has taken on com­plex moral undertones, especially among the science stalwarts who are outraged that the denialists are ignoring the real science, and focusing only on beliefs.

This narrative, which is repeat­ed over and over in the American press (although thankfully not in the presses of other democra­tized countries), has also led to a fervent push for “science.” When Greta Thunberg got onto her little sailboat to sail to New York to talk about climate change, a banner in the background clearly states: “Unite Behind the Science.” When the National Geographic chooses women scientists to go and mea­sure the levels of plastic in the Ganges, they make a special point that only science can resolve this— and nothing else. Only science. Anyone else who dares to breathe a different opinion is automatical­ly labeled a denialist (in the US) and a Hindu fundamentalist, or BJP, or a saffron loving extremist (in the Indian subcontinent.)

I find that problematic, if only because modern science, which is touted as the solution to the plastic crisis and the fossil fuel debacle, is in fact the cause of our current environmental prob­lems. The most obvious example: there would be no plastic with­out science. Bakelite, also known as polyoxybenzylmethylengly­colanhydride, was developed by the Belgian-American chemist Leo Baekeland in Yonkers, New York, in 1907. Bakelite was desig­nated a National Historic Chem­ical Landmark by the American Chemical Society on 9 Novem­ber, 1993, in recognition of its significance as the world’s first synthetic plastic. We know the importance of bakelite, but we don’t know whether the chemist asked the right questions when creating it. Did he, for instance, think about the consequences of his invention when making it? Or was the invention itself the only important end-goal, and all social, moral and ethical consequences of his actions were elided in this eureka moment?

Modern science has been fueled by this pure pursuit of power and recognition, with no mor­al or ethical check-and-balance to keep it on track, unlike the scientific pursuits of an earlier age. The inventors and chemists of the Reinaissance where kept in check by the religious clergy and the philosophers. But since the 19th century, capitalism has been the moderating principle behind science.

Modern science operates in a narrow, blinkered manner, look­ing at one small problem at a time, unconcerned about its impact on the macro scale. Because scientif­ic work is incremental, nobody is responsible for the final product. No international forum or law court holds a scientist account­able for mass extinctions if they create a toxic pesticide that col­lapses the colonies of all bee spe­cies, or if they create a plastic which clogs up every waterway on earth. No scientist, engineer or technologist is responsible for fossil fuel inventions and their impact on air, water and human health. Scientists are only accountable to their patrons in the industries or in the military, and to the stockholders of the companies who they work for.

Whoever creates the most pat­ents wins the most money, lead­ing to a mad rush for funding, with military and government the first entities turned to for sup­port. How can science fueled for military purposes or for indus­trial capitalism be anything but destructive? But these questions are never raised in academia.

Somehow we are made to believe this very science which will again cure the looming exis­tential threats. A group of women scientists picking up the thread of a plastic bottle to the Ganges will suddenly cure the scourge of plastic, as if through the divine intervention of their female pres­ence and their STEM skills. We are asked to give up our supersti­tious non-scientific beliefs, and yet the alternative offered is again belief—belief in the all-curative powers of modern science.

If “snake-oil” refers to a decep­tive concoction with no real medicinal value which is sold as a panacea for all ills, then modern science is as much a snake-oil discipline as those thought up by any wily salesman of the past. While I admire good science (yes, there are some people still doing that), I don’t think this deified, adored and much adulated dis­cipline offers the world-changing paradigm we need to shift away from our current destructive ten­dencies towards a more simple and sustainable way of life. That will come from moral arguments and ethical frameworks, both of which has been missing from Western epistemologies for the past two centuries of rape and pillage of the earth. This will come from legal action and polit­ical will, international solidari­ty and global awareness, all of which is rising above the dom­inance of science to define this existential crisis .

What PM KP Oli did on the evening of August 20 was unprecedented. He hastily summoned an all-party meeting to discuss ways to preserve the post-2006 political gains. In the meeting, he pointed out how the new federal republic was facing a great threat from the far left (Biplob and company) as well as the far right (the ex-mon­arch and the parties supporting monarchy’s revival.) The meeting was called a day before Indian Minister for External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was scheduled to arrive in the Nepali capital for the fifth meeting of the India-Nepal Joint Commission. And two days before PM Oli was to go to Singapore on an extended medical leave. As many analysts have pointed out, the timing of the all-party meeting was no coincidence.

 In this reading, the prime minister seems worried that at least some parts of the Indian establishment are back to using their old bag of tricks in Nepal. Just like India had at one point leveraged the presence of the warring Maoists on its soil to extract concessions from Kathmandu, it is giving shelter to Biplob Maoists in case it needs to put the ‘pro-China’ Oli on notice. Likewise, the saffron-clad government of Narendra Modi wants to see the revival of the Hindu state, perhaps even the monarchy.

But why would India try to undermine a system that it itself carefully cultivated starting with the drafting of the 12-point New Delhi agreement in 2005? For one, the political establishment behind that agreement comprised the more secular-minded Indian National Congress and Indian com­munists, and definitely not the BJP. With the BJP government in India looking to undo everything associated with the INC, perhaps it is attempting a ‘course correction’ in Nepal as well. Perhaps when Pradeep Giri, who has always been close to the Indians, talks about the possibility of Nepal’s absorption into India a la Sikkim, he was really on to something.

Or perhaps all these are idle speculations among Nepalis long used to spinning conspiracy theories about Indian ‘grand designs’. Correlation, after all, is not causation. Maybe PM Oli, who will likely need another kidney trans­plant, was worried that he may not have much time on his hands, and just wanted to warn his political brethren about Nepali extremist groups and the threats they pose while he still could.

Yet it is easy to make out that not everything between Nepal and India is hunky-dory. In Nepal for the Joint Commis­sion meeting, Jaishankar was non-committal about the most important issue for Nepalis: Modi’s refusal to accept the joint EPG report. There could also be no substantial progress on any of the pending issues, from Mahakali to the postal high­way. Just the fact that it took this long for a high-level Indian official to come to Nepal speaks volumes about the state of Nepal-India ties. Maybe the Indians wanted firmer support from Nepal on J&K, which they didn’t get. Maybe Nepal, whose government is routinely painted as China-leaning in New Delhi, cannot be easily trusted. Or maybe something more sinister is afoot. Whatever the case, the post-blockade rapprochement between Kathmandu and New Delhi is still very much a work in progress