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With the end of the Maoist insurgency and the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2006, most civil society leaders probably thought their job was done. What was then considered a near-im­possible task had been completed, and Nepal became a federal republic. Political order was restored and peace, by and large, prevailed. With the announcement of the first constit­uent assembly elections, some civil society activists even joined active politics while oth­ers chose to retire, in line with the idea that civil society’s major role had ended. The major responsibility of institutionalizing the political gains of Jana Andolan II (People’s Movement of 2006) was left to the political parties and their leaders.

Furthermore, because of the mingling of prominent civil society activists with political parties in the lead up to Jana Andolan II and thereafter, civil society leaders slowly began to lose their credibility. A fissure among the prominent names laid the foundation of what was to come: a fractured, fragmented and highly polarized civil society space with little credibility.

Erosion of respect

In the past three decades, the same network of civil society that worked closely in the 1990s and leading up to 2006 on larger issues of national interest slowly crumbled with no concerted effort to pick up the pieces or recon­cile. Instead, leaders began to see the political change and ‘transition’ as opportunities to pursue personal interests.

As a result, in the public eye, civil society was no longer meaningful and was mired in competing interests. Respect was lost with the loss of neutrality. People started viewing civil society leaders as representatives of petty interests. Civil society was divided along the lines of geography, race, ethnicity, gender, political parties, donors and what not. And when respect is lost, so is the capacity to mobi­lize the masses in times of need.

Greater vigilance

From 2006 to 2018, the political parties failed to meet basic public expectations. In the absence of a vibrant civil society, the political parties’ performance went unchecked. They acted recklessly. They institutionalized the politics of spoils-sharing (bhagbandako rajn­iti). Corruption was rampant and impunity received political license. On such vital issues, civil society remained largely ineffective.

Although 2006 was a major turning point for the country in terms of political gains, it was the beginning of a political process that needed the vigilance of a vocal and active civil society. It took 12 years to push through a con­stitution and hold a set of elections, a process that went largely unchecked and in which the erosion of the state was palpable. Nonetheless, that is water under the bridge and the year 2018 has heralded yet another milestone in Nepali politics. This time, civil society must rise up to the challenges that the forthcoming years will bring.

Left domination

There is a left majority in all three tiers of government and the ruling coalition seems poised to garner a two-thirds majority in the federal parliament. There is also a leftist inclination in the Supreme Court (which will be more pronounced once the current CJ leaves). And historically, the majority of civil society leaders and NGOs have leaned left. The president, the vice president and the attorney general also lean that way.

This means all the major state organs and non-state actors are currently dominated by the left. While this could well be a sign of bet­ter days to come in the form of development and prosperity, the situation also calls for an unprecedented role of civil society leaders to demand accountability and integrity from all state institutions.

The civil society space needs to grow and efforts to shrink it must be fought, regardless of one’s political inclinations. In the past decade, the media in many ways played the role of civil society: it continuously exposed cases of corruption, impunity and political misdeeds, but there was no strong civil society movement to act upon them.

And it isn’t easy for the media either. The ongoing “contempt of court” case against Kantipur publication is an example of how the judiciary may be used in the coming days to silence the media. At which point, the responsibility falls on all of our shoulders to speak up in favor of what is just. No majority government or political stability can deliver growth without accountability. That is where our civil society must focus.

Owing to a warning by the Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplab’-led Nepal Commu­nist Party, Bollywood superstar Salman Khan’s show in Kathman­du, scheduled for March 10, has been postponed. The show rep­resented an assault on our cul­ture and nationalism, the splinter Maoist party argued, and that the Bollywood actor was allegedly taking away the money required for national reconstruction fol­lowing the 2015 Gorkha earth­quake. Similarly, it urged people not to forget the Indian economic blockade following the promulga­tion of the new constitution. In a way, the party made it appear that stopping the show represented a victory of Nepali nationalism: we avenged all the injustices com­mitted by the Indian government by not allowing Indian actors to perform in Nepal. In yet another show of mis­placed nationalism thousands gathered to prove the Buddha was born in Nepal, when it is already accepted by the world that the light of Asia was indeed born in Lumbini, Nepal.

In this day and age, this kind of nationalism only makes us a laughing stock. This is not to say that everything is hunky-dory between India and Nepal. We are neighbors and we obviously have issues with one another. But let’s not forget that our problems with India and vice-versa are between the governments and politicians of the two countries, not between the two peoples—except occasion­ally when some ill-informed and ill-educated Indians claim Buddha and Everest as their own.

The bilateral relation is com­plicated more than it should be because both the partners are way too sensitive when dealing with each other. Our leadership believes India meddles in our internal affairs. But the irony is that the same leaders who are quite vocal about Indian med­dling are the ones who at one or another point have requested the Indian government to interfere on their behalf. Strangely enough, some of our great nationalist leaders were the same ones who requested the Indian government to impose a blockade on Nepal following the ill-advised and ill-timed coup by King Gyanendra in 2005.

Indian leadership views us as ungrateful and insensitive to its strategic interests and believes it has every right to meddle in Nepali domestic affairs because of the help provided to the polit­ical parties in the past. And India defines its interests in terms of our relations with China. This is quite hypocritical. It wants us to limit our interactions with China but then itself maintains good relations with China, barring the occasional border standoff.

The trade volume between India and China is growing and both have focused on developing people to people level ties. Nei­ther do our leaders ask nor do Indian leaders clarify what India will do to help Nepal develop if we limit our interaction/engagement with China. That’s what compli­cates things politically. It’s likely to be this way until both countries have sensible leaders, but that doesn’t mean we should compli­cate other things as well.

Coming back to the postpone­ment of the Bollywood superstar’s show, more than Biplab’s party, our government is to be blamed for it, as argued in a blog post from March 2 on mysansar.com. The show’s “postponement” rais­es many questions but hardly any­one is asking those for the fear of being labeled pro-Indian or being on the RAW payroll. The most important question is: Would the government have remained silent had the Biplav faction issued warnings against, say, a show involving Chinese celebrities? Per­haps the government reckons that cancelling the show of a global Indian cultural icon earns it some brownie points with China.

But if the government thinks that its silence and inaction please China, it is clearly mistaken.

Shows and concerts by foreign celebrities are common in China. It even allows select Bollywood movies to be screened despite a host of problems it has with the Indian government. The govern­ment-owned China Central Tele­vision’s movie channel regularly broadcasts Bollywood movies and songs. Last week, while some of us were issuing warnings against the show by Salman Khan in Nepal, one of his movies, Bajrangi Bhai­jan, was released in China and is doing rather well, according to media reports. Because unlike us, the Chinese know that culture and politics are two different matters and there’s no point in mixing the two. Ah, when will we learn?

We have just celebrated Inter­national Woman’s Day and by coincidence, in the same week, I watched a film about the American Suffragette Movement, followed closely on HBO by another film on the Civil Rights Movement. Into the whole ‘rights’ package of the first week in March, add the Human Rights Film Festival and the Vagina Monologues, both held in the Nepal Tourism Board Hall. While it’s great to celebrate the achievements of women, why in 2018 do we have a world where the rights of women, indigenous peoples, religious minorities and those with certain skin color are still an issue? Will we ever reach a point when everyone is equal? Until women stop bitching about other women, until the privileged stop looking down on those who are worse off than themselves, until men start really standing up for females, and until men “get over themselves”, I fear the answer to that question is ‘NO’.

Wow! This column got serious fast. So let’s get back to vaginas…

Written in the mid-1990s by Eve Ensler, the Vagina Monologues is an episodic play looking at consensual and non-consensual sexual expe­riences, body image, genital muti­lations, reproduction, sex work, etc. Oh, that doesn’t sound sexy at all—that sounds as if, as Ensler says, “women’s empowerment is deeply connected to their sexuality”. Ensler also says “I’m obsessed with women being violated and raped, and with incest. All of these things are deeply connected to our vaginas.” These thoughts prompted her to interview hundreds of women, out of which a play was born. Ensler found out quickly that a play could be more than a staging of drama, it could be a global call to action.

I first saw the play around the mid-2000s in Kathmandu. I found it quite shocking to hear these conver­sations take place on the stage of the City Hall. During that performance several people walked out and I thought “this is too much, too soon for Nepal”. Ten plus years later the Vagina Monologues reappeared, and I think now the time is right. Women and men are more aware, and vocal and angry about physical and sexual abuse against women and girls. And, just so you know, name calling and discussing sexual intent with some­one who is not interested is also sexual abuse.

I think back to Lainchour in the monsoon and a young guy on a scooter who was spouting terrible expletives in English as I walked through the evening rain. Since tell­ing him to “F” off wasn’t working, I chose to ignore him. Nothing he was saying was new to this woman: isn’t that fact alone very sad? He disappeared and a few minutes later someone grabbed my arm. Turning, I found a young Nepali girl of around 20 holding onto me for dear life. He had directed his nasty, verbal sexual abuse at her. For her, his obscene words were something unheard before and had affected her deeply.

Sobbing and shaking, she tried to explain to people waiting at a bus stop, but they merely looked shocked and helpless. I walked with her and offered to put her in a cab. She refused…probably thinking how she would explain arriving home by taxi. I knew she was not going to tell her parents about this incident. Why? Because it is always the wom­an’s fault—in this case she was out at 7pm. 7pm! No, not the man’s fault, says society, but her fault.

Today the Vagina Monologues are making young women in Kathman­du think and take a stand against sexual abuse. Sexual and physical abuse of women and girls is not new of course. But what is new is that women are shouting “Enough!” Encouraged by those in Hollywood and the sports arena, women and girls all over the world are finally speaking up for themselves and for their vaginas.

Two events this past week could have lasting impact on Nepal’s foreign relations, the first more so than the second. First, the two sets of Eminent Persons Groups (EPGs) formed to suggest changes to old Indo-Nepal treaties and to review bilateral ties, are reportedly close to a final deal. If India does indeed agree to amend the 1950 treaty, long decried as ‘unequal’ in Nepal, it will be a watershed in Indo-Nepal ties.

Second, the Communist Party of China (CCP) is amending the national constitution to abolish the two-term limit for China’s President and to incorporate the ‘Xi Jinping Thought’ in the charter. With this Xi Jinping, the CCP chief and the reigning President, would arguably have more power than any of the previous leaders of modern China, including Mao.

The ‘Thought’ envisages, among other things, ‘common destiny’ of China and other countries in a ‘peaceful international environ­ment’, particularly its immediate neighborhood.

Based on Indian media reports and my recent (and extensive) con­versations with two representa­tives of the four-man Nepali EPG team, the Indian change of heart is undoubtedly a result of ‘grow­ing Chinese activism’ in Nepal. Its blockade-time Nepal policy, New Delhi has come to realize, was mis­guided, and India needs an urgent ‘course-correction’ if Nepal is not to be forever lost to China.

Ready for love

India is now open to ‘regulating’ the Indo-Nepal border, such that people can cross over only thor­ough select points and only after registration. The Nepali side has also proposed that Nepal be allowed to import arms from a third country after ‘informing’ India. Nepal has, moreover, clarified that considering the vast differences in the two coun­tries’ area and population, a recip­rocal treatment for Indian nationals in Nepal is impractical. That their Indian interlocutors are even ready to discuss these issues, which had until recently been no-go areas, is a big surprise to the Nepali EPG quad.

If Modi worries about Chinese penetration into Nepal, he is right to do so. The Chinese influence in Nepal—be it in terms of the number of Chinese tourists, investments or political clout—is at an all-time high post-blockade. Xi’s consolidation of power at home will only make him more ambitious abroad.

Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli knows he cannot afford to antag­onize India if he hopes to stick around. However great the Chinese influence in Nepal, he is also aware, China cannot match the extensive people-to-people contacts and the geographical proximity between Nepal and India. Yet Oli is not in a position to make a clean break with the Chinese, as the Indians perhaps expect of him.

It will be hard for Oli to abandon the popular agenda of closer ties with China, having endlessly cham­pioned it on the campaign trail—and with such success. Near the end of his political career (and perhaps, the 66-year-old sickly prime minis­ter reckons, even his life) Oli also seems keen to leave behind a strong legacy: he wants to be remembered as the first Nepali leader who dared to openly question—and do some­thing about—India’s stranglehold over Nepal.

Gujral Doctrine 2.0

Separately, Chinese President Xi has made no secret of his ambition to restore China’s past glory. To achieve this, the Chinese probably feel they have to limit the role of the US, the world’s sole military super­power, in the Asia-Pacific.

As the strategic links between India and the US multiply—the Cold War-era suspicions subdued—China is starting to eye Indian activism in the subcontinent suspiciously. China under Xi will try doubly hard to sell to immediate neighbors China’s alluring agenda of mutual prosper­ity in a ‘peaceful international envi­ronment’. Otherwise, the Chinese fear, these countries risk fall under the sway of the Americans, who are increasingly happy to use India as their smokescreen in South Asia.

In its dealings in the subcontinent, China, it can be said, has rather par­adoxically come to champion the ‘Gujral doctrine’: the former Indian prime minister’s mantra of helping India’s smaller neighbors without expecting much in return. Reality however is seldom this ideal; there really is no free lunch in interstate relations. China nonetheless has been able to convince South Asian strongmen and democrats alike of the foolishness of not trying to ben­efit from China’s stellar rise.

The inconvenient truth for India is that its cumbersome bureaucra­cy-driven decision-making is no match for the zippy trickle down authoritarian model China has per­fected. As Robert Kaplan would perhaps put it: Geography is destiny, until a strongman like Xi with inter­national imagination digs a tunnel under it.