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Nepal is important for China because of Tibet. Nepal is gateway to South Asian mar­kets. President Xi will visit Nepal soon. China accorded warm wel­come to Nepali PM KP Oli because it has started to take us seriously. Or so the Nepali media would have us believe.

But is it really so?

China’s Tibet concern

For some strange reason we are in a time warp. The powers that played an active role in creating and supporting the Tibetan rebels in the 1950s and the 1960s did not back then believe China would give up its control of Tibet. Nor do they believe it now. The ragtag band of Khampa rebels did carry out sporadic attacks on the Chi­nese forces using our territory as their base, but planning and other things were done from Dhaka (or the Dacca back then), Washington DC and other places. China knows that Nepal was and is just a pawn in the grand chessboard of world politics and it now knows how to deal with the potentates on its terms. It does not need us to address its security concerns.

To believe that Nepal is import­ant for Tibet’s security is to under­mine the remarkable advances in Chinese defense and intelligence capabilities as well as its global economic reach, and overesti­mate ourselves. And strangely, we keep forgetting that we are not the only country that borders Tibet province. India does too. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile is actually based in India. But Chi­na apologists use Tibet to justify every Chinese action (or inaction) in Nepal.

‘Gateway’ to South Asia

Yes Nepal is a gateway to South Asia. But it is not the only gate­way for China to the Indian and South Asian markets and beyond. Myanmar is in a better position. Myanmar provides China with yet another access to the Indian Ocean and help solve its Malac­ca dilemma. It is where China’s oceanic, strategic and economic interests converge. Unlike Nepal, India doesn’t think of it as fall­ing exclusively under its sphere nor can it match years of Chinese investment and influence there.

The idea of the BCIM (Bangla­desh, China, India and Myan­mar) economic corridor between India and China is nearly two decades old. India sees the BRI (the Belt and Road Initiative) as going against its strategic inter­ests, “however, in the BCIM proj­ect, India is on board” (Can an India-China ‘Reset’ Help BCIM?, The Diplomat, June 9).

Both India and China realize the importance of doing away with the lengthy sea route in their bilateral trade. Therefore, both may settle on the BCIM economic corridor linking Kolkata with Kun­ming via Myanmar. The BCIM pre­dates the BRI and India can claim it too has a say in It. China could develop it independently of the BRI, despite claiming it falls under the BRI these days, and/or delay/give up on its plans to link it with the China-Pakistan Economic Cor­ridor. The BCIM could very well be a turning point in deepening economic cooperation between India and China.

The Keyrung-Kathmandu train, even if it materializes, is not going to be a game changer for years. India will not want to trade with China via Nepal using the infra­structure built under the BRI because it will be interpreted as India supporting the initiative.

China and India do not remotely view Nepal as a trading link; they would otherwise have included Nepal as a branch road in the BCIM and much would have been done in the proposed railway.

President Xi’s visit

China understands Nepal is des­perate to host Xi to establish the government of the day’s national­ist credentials. It also gets that the Oli-led government was elected on anti-India plank and the Chi­nese president’s visit will be seen as endorsing it. China, as a mature power, won’t do it.

There’s also a pattern to presi­dent Xi’s visit to South Asia, minus India and Pakistan. The visits are to the countries that China fears are moving into Japan’s orbit. It knows we are not moving any­where. So let’s be hopeful but not count on a visit to Nepal by President Xi anytime soon. It’s too early for that.

Let’s thank China for the “warm” welcome accorded to PM Oli but let’s not read too much into it. China accords the same level of welcome to all visiting dignitaries.

The constitution is a living doc­ument and, as such, it reflects the public’s spirit and aspira­tions. By no means is it meant to be interpreted as a wish list, but instead as a document which guides the everyday direction of the state, its functions and functionaries. Obvi­ously, if our leaders thought some­thing could not be implemented or handled, it should not have been written in the constitution. Bearing that in mind, constitution­ally, Nepal is a federal republic. After completing three tiers of elections, we are moving forward towards implementing federalism. Oddly, however, when political leaders are asked individually, the majority express some form of disappoint­ment over the federal structure we have recently passed. The very lead­ers who spent years mulling over the content of the Statute and were very much a part of its writing process now show little ownership over the document, and federalism in partic­ular. The uneasy answer of having signed on to the constitution under some ‘external pressures’ looms over the political class.

Perhaps this is why the trends we have been observing when it comes to implementing a federal constitu­tion is dubious at best. There is a real danger that Nepal’s federalism may be limited to name only.

We all know the Constitution of Nepal, although a commendable document, is rather vague on many issues. Some of the concepts, for example the declaration of Nepal as ‘pro-socialist’ country has no legal interpretation. Technically, only politicians can explain its spirit. Similarly, the definition of secu­larism is also beyond the under­standing of legal eyes. Even feder­alism through three tiers, which is explicit, seems to still be politically open for negotiation!

The irony is that for the last decade, the entire focus was on drafting the constitution, but once we got it, it is quickly being for­gotten. Still many elected lawmak­ers (federal, provincial and local) do not understand the letter and spirit of our constitution. Even those who invested in the process of constitution drafting are slowly turning a blind eye when it comes to safeguarding and implementing what’s in there. Constitutional lit­eracy is the need of the hour and neither the state nor the non-gov­ernmental sector seems to be paying much attention.

What’s in store for a state that deliberately undermines the value of the constitution and for a non-governmental sector busy in keeping business going is that there will be a gradual shift to centralized tendencies. Rather than focusing on implementing the constitution in letter and spirit, the government has diverted attention to stability and prosperity. The people are obediently being swept off their feet with promises of an economic revo­lution of sorts, which deep down we know is simply impossible without strengthening constitutionalism and rule of law.

Apart from the discrepancies in constitutional implementation I mentioned in my last column, there are a further two major upcoming constitutional deadlines by when the government must complete drafting new bills and pass them through the federal parliament. The first one is related to fundamental rights. As guided by the constitu­tion, within three years of declaring the constitution, this government must enact several bills related to fundamental rights. That is, by Sep­tember 19, 2018, these bills need to have been passed and they are more than three dozen in number.

The second is that within one year of the first meeting of the federal parliament, the government must enact all bills under the new con­stitution. The first meeting of the federal parliament was held on Feb 5, 2018.

If the government fails to replace the old bills with the new ones by Feb 4, 2019, the old bills will be automatically expelled and a situa­tion of constitutional vacuum will be created. It is already late-June and little to no work has been done on the hundreds of new bills and amendments that will be needed.

The Oli government and the oppo­sition parties are not serious about this potential constitutional crisis. The constitution is new but the mindset of party leaders is old and centralized, and going by the ‘old’ ways, the political class will find it easy to continue to shift and move deadlines to suit their political ends. A simple amendment here and there and this transition will be ongoing for another decade without all of us having even realized its costs. Prosperity surely cannot come in a constitutional vacuum.

Animation/Action

INCREDIBLES 2

CAST: Holly Hunter, Craig T Nelson, Bob Odenkirk, Samuel L Jackson

DIRECTION: Brad Bird

‘The Incredibles’ (2004) remains my favorite Pixar movie. The film’s biggest replay value, for me, is that it shows the day-to-day crime fighting routine of superheroes and also explores the question: “what if superheroes were to raise a family like normal peo­ple?” The film’s writer/director Brad Bird develops this central idea with the loveable husband-wife super­hero duo of Mr. Incredible (voiced by Craig T Nelson) and Elastigirl (Holly Hunter), who need to figure out a way to squeeze in time for their kids while saving the world. Bird’s comic approach was highly successful in bringing out a fun and lighthearted superhero film that took jabs at genre clichés and showed us the personal side of superheroes where they were put down by everyday hassles.

Now after 14 years of its release, many things have changed. The superhero movies have entirely eclipsed the market of mainstream Hollywood cinema. In the wake of ‘Deadpool’ and ‘Thor: Ragnarok’, superhero films have also come-of-age, in the sense that they are not afraid to poke fun at themselves.

So when Pixar green-lit ‘Incred­ibles 2’, Brad Bird was burdened with the same duties that are put on long-awaited sequels: to give fans of the original film a nostalgia trip and at the same time make it relevant for the new audience. After I can happily report that Bird has done an incredible job! He makes this second installment a funny and adventur­ous affair that will find the love of both the fans of the original and audiences who are new to the series.

The film opens on The Incredi­bles—Mr. Incredible, Elastigirl and their three superkids—and their close ally Frozone (Samuel L Jack­son) secretly trying to stop a sophis­ticated bank robber. But their effort causes a lot of collateral damage. This in turn angers the authorities that have already banned superhe­roes. Their point being, superheroes are liable to bring more destruction than protection to their city.

The Incredibles are ordered to stick to their secret identities. But soon, a brother-sister team (Bob Odenkirk, Catherine Keener) pres­ents themselves as guardian angels. They propose a plan to popularize superheroes again and urge the gov­ernment to lift the ban. For this, they choose Elastigirl as the face of their movement, fighting against a face­less and shape shifting supervillain, much to the dislike of Mr. Incredible, who is now left to assume the posi­tion of a homemaker.

The sequel doesn’t let go off the parenthood theme that was at the heart of the first film. Here too, it seems that the film is secretly dis­guised as a children’s film targeted at adults. True, there are enough crowd pleasing action and slapstick set pieces to tickle young audience but the film’s emphasis on good parenting will score high among the adults as well.

Bird remains in the formulaic storytelling territory but spins out new angles on old tropes. Thus in sequences where Mr. Incredible has to be Mr. Mom, Bird adds subtle visual humor and witty remarks to keep the content funny even if we’ve seen these beats before. But the sequel’s actual achievement is its decision to gender flip the story: Elastigirl gets more screen time, donning her daredevil suit and spar­ring against villains.

This is a solid sequel to a classic and much loved film. It is a super­hero movie but nonetheless it cel­ebrates the spirit of family, parent­hood and equality. The film’s enter­tainment factor will quadruple if it’s watched with family members.

Who should watch it?

Just because it’s an animated movie, don’t think it is just for children. As Pixar films go, ‘Incredibles 2’ is cut to satisfy both adults and children. It’s accessible and enjoyable even for those who haven’t watched the first film.

What are the main barriers to Nepal’s prosperity? I enlist eight of them below.

False sense of security

The more the people of a country are action-oriented and can take risks, the faster that country devel­ops. But when it comes to Nepal, the country has only ever been thought of as a ‘safe sanctuary’ since the Homo sapiens first made their way here while expanding away from their base in North Afri­ca around 100,000 years ago. The people belonging to Indo-Europe­an, Tibet-Burmese and Austro-Dra­vidian language families who set­tled in Nepal were for thousands of years occupied with rudimentary agriculture, animal husbandry and hunting—and always cursing their wretched luck.

In the 14th and 15th centuries, when the Europeans were scouring the world in their ships in search of new markets and places, and were making various scientific discov­eries, we were in deep slumber, or busy listening to tales of sages meditating in caves. This is how we missed the road to prosperity.

Quirk of history

Industrial development is pos­sible only in centralized nation-states or federal-states. This is why it was important to unite the many small princely states in this region in the 18th century. This was some­thing that could have been done under the leadership of the Malla rulers of Kathmandu, the Sen rul­ers of Tarai-Madhes or the Khas rulers of the ‘22’ and ‘24’ princely states. Unluckily, the mission was carried out under the relatively weak and poor Khas ruler Prithvi Narayan Shah.

The need of the hour back then was to take the feudalistic society towards capitalism, which was exactly what was happening in Europe and America at the time. But in Nepal the Gorkhali rulers tried to further solidify the feudal order by distributing land to their near and dear ones. Had the unification cam­paign had been carried out under the Malla rulers of Kathmandu, the hub of trade and industry at the time, perhaps Nepali history would have taken a different turn.

‘Halal’ revolution

Industrial development has been possible in various countries only after the completion of the political revolution against authoritarian monarchies, so as to establish mul­tiparty democracy, rule of law and to restructure the state according­ly. But in Nepal, starting in 1950, all political revolutions and peo­ple’s movements have ended either in compromises or partial achieve­ments, in what may be called a ‘halal revolution’. In this revo­lution, the revolution­ary forces always enters into compromises with the ruling power. This in turn ensures that the old rulers remain in place and thus any change in state mechanism becomes cosmetic.

Fatalism and casteism

There can be no meaningful change or revolution unless there is first a revolution in how people think. In the 10,000 years of human civilization, only in the past 500 years has there been meaningful changes and developments in their lives. This change happened when they were able to shed their old superstitions and conservatism. The scientific revolution, the Enlighten­ment, the political revolution, and the industrial revolution, they all happened in Europe in the period between 16th to 18th centuries. Cru­cially, this followed the reformation of the church in the 15th century. But in Nepal we have to this day been unable to shed our unscien­tific and regressive supersti­tions, conservatism, fatalism and casteism, which are all being perpetuated in the name of religion. Fatalism and casteism have been especially harmful for Nepal’s prosperity.

Geopolitical trap

A country’s prosperity or decline largely depends on internal reasons. Nonethe­less the outside world cay play an important, and even decisive, role in a special period in a coun­try’s history. In Nepal’s case, the 1816 Sugauli Trea­ty dealt a body blow to the cottage industries that were in the process of developing into modern man­ufacturing industries. The small cottage industries of Nepal were in no position to compete against the big Indian indus­tries. Likewise, the Chinese Communist Revolution broke Nepal’s traditional trade relations with Tibet, further ham­pering its cottage industries. But while the country has been time and again affected by this geo­political trap, there has been no national consensus in Nepal on how to deal with it, and how to reduce our overreli­ance on India.

Wrong capital allocation

For an industrial revolution, it is vital that the primary capital from agricul­tural and industrial activities is accumu­lated and reinvest­ed in productive sectors. But in the history of Nepal, especially beginning with the Rana period, most of the capital that was accumulated from agricultural and industrial activities has been later invest­ed in unproductive consumer goods and in building big plac­es for the ruling elites.

Even in recent times most of our remittances are being spent on imported luxury goods. It is clear that the cap­ital worth billions of rupees in our banks and financial institutions is still caught up in unproduc­tive sectors. The control over state resources of crony capitalists, mid­dlemen of foreign companies and various cartels and syndicates has further exacerbated the problem.

Labor migration

The presence of a large and independent manpower is one of the prerequisites to industrial rev­olution. After the Sugauli Treaty, abled-bodied Nepalis started to enlist with foreign armies. Now a big chunk of our able-bodied men and women in rural areas are working abroad as migrant laborers. Instead of importing capital and export­ing goods, we export manpower in order to import capital. Nowhere in the world has this flawed model led to prosperity.

Neglect of science

One of the commonalities of the developed countries is their emphasis on science and tech­nology. Scientific quests and discoveries were at the heart of the first, second, third and now the fourth industrial rev­olution. But starting with the mysterious murder of Nepal’s first scientist, Gehendra Shumsher, there has been an almost criminal neglect in the establishment of research facilities and in emphasizing sci­ence and technology education. Our public education is in dire straits and our educated manpower is increasingly migrating. This is no road to prosperity.

What is needed right now is a serious national debate on all these issues. We don’t have the luxury of continuing to be an underdeveloped island amid an ocean of prosperity. As Bhupi Sherchan said: “Who can fall asleep in a hay field when logs are on fire all around?”