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In my previous column “Decoding Chinese signals in Nepal” (June 3-9), I had argued that China is sending us a signal and we need to decode it to understand its intent in Nepal. Probably sensing that we are a bit slow in understanding it’s real intent, China has sent us yet another signal that even a five-year-old has no difficulty understanding. By providing the ruling CPN-UML with health equipment and 100,000 N-95 masks—nothing significant in terms of real help, but a highly symbolic gesture nonetheless—it is clearly telling us that it wants to start anew with KP Oli.

There are two reasons for China's change of heart. First, the less important one. China clearly understood that it is not yet ready to challenge and or upset India’s traditional role in Nepal. It has rightly calculated that Oli is here to stay for some time and it is futile to back those opposing him. And despite Oli trying to distance himself from China by not uttering the Belt and Road Initiative even once while talking about the India-led BBIN and BIMSTEC and the American MCC in his speech to the nation on May 28, China sending the symbolic “relief” to the UML a week later is a clear expression of an end of its political (mis-) adventure in Nepal.

And now the more important reason for repeated signals, and that has nothing to do with Nepal.

While some of our analysts never tire of repeating that Nepal is quite important for China to thwart any US or Indian designs on China by using Nepal (and only God knows what they mean by that), I too have been repeating that it’s not the case. Nepal was and is just a bargaining chip for China and it would use us to either amend its relations or to resolve its outstanding issues with India, which again has nothing to do with Nepal. To achieve that objective, it brilliantly hoodwinked us into believing that it had replaced India as a major player in Nepal. To be frank, China viewed us a pawn to be sacrificed in the grand chessboard of international politics all along, but “we” interpreted the Chinese “involvement” as it acknowledging us as an important neighbor for its security. As expected, there were a zillion misplaced and mistakenly argued pieces on Nepal’s geopolitical importance and what not by our “scholars”.

While they are still arguing Nepal is important for China, President Xi Jinping on May 31 clearly signalled a change in China's foreign policy. According to China’s national news agency, Xinhua—and as quoted by all major global media outlets—President Xi remarked “it is necessary to make friends, unite and win over the majority, and constantly expand the circle of friends [when it comes to] international public opinion.”

Many scholars have interpreted this as China acknowledging the spectacular failure of its assertive “wolf-warrior diplomacy” and as a proactive measure to minimize the damage to its international reputation following the US President Joe Biden’s orders to his intelligence community to find out the origin of the coronavirus within three months. China is certain that the US intelligence report will blame it for the pandemic and it needs friends to speak on its behalf. Assertiveness is not going to win it friends and influence the global public opinion, hence the volte-face.

While those interpreting it this way are mostly focused on Western powers, as a South Asian, I see it as China trying to mend its relations with India as well. India is a neighbor and a regional power and India’s silence on or dismissal of the US intelligence report would mean a lot to China. After all, India is the world's largest democracy and India’s opinions do matter in today’s world. And what credibility would the US report have if China’s neighbor and the West’s favorite India does not endorse it?

Therefore, China’s willingness to work with Oli is a clear signal to India, more than a signal to Nepal. And it is not the first time China has used Nepal to send a signal to India. It happened during Deng Xiaoping’s 1978 Nepal visit as well. According to Professor Ezra Vogel, Deng “not only avoided criticizing India, but also composed his message in Nepal in a way that might well appeal to India: China would assist all nations in the region trying to pursue an independent policy. Deng was paving the way for improved relations with India, which he hoped might help pull it away from the Soviet Union” (Deng Xiaoping and the transformation of China by Ezra Vogel).

Therefore, China’s support (absence of opposition equals support) to Oli is a brilliant way to let India know that it can have its way in Nepal, and China has no plans whatsoever to challenge its influence and authority here. Or to put it in a slightly politically incorrect way, China is using or sacrificing or trading Nepal to buy India's silence or opposition to what it views as a US-led effort to chastise it for the spread of coronavirus. In our scholars’ parlance, China is playing the “Nepal card” in its relations with India. There goes our “importance for China”.

Social media platforms are extremely alluring. You join one and a Pandora’s box is opened for you. The more you explore, the more you get into the quagmire. If you have a smartphone, chances are, 80 percent of your application space is taken up by social media apps and games. For a very long time, I have refused to join one social media app i.e TikTok. Previously known as Musical.ly, it was purchased by BetaDance Technology Co. in 2017 and rebranded as TikTok in 2018 with the purpose of monopolizing the video social. In TikTok you can post short form videos (15-60 second) basically used for infotainment (Information + Entertainment).

Resisting the app was easy-peasy until the first pandemic lockdown. I exhausted myself by watching a lot of movies/series, knit till my neck started swearing back at me, and cooked-posted on social media until my friends started disowning me for not inviting them. TikTok came as my last resort to survive in the lockdown. It started off with scout-outing the app for people I know and I ended up using that app for hours.

I found that videos are bombarded at you, one after another, from all across the world. The algorithm makes sure you get similar kinds of videos, on the basis of your search and the videos you have watched (To understand how the algorithm works a documentary named Social Dilemma on Netflix is highly recommended).

On average I was spending 3-4 hours a day watching videos. I accept it, it is highly entertaining and a great time-pass. It is a collection of amazing dance videos, DIY hacks, comedy skits, transition videos, singing, product reviews, etc., etc. It is a big pool of what you want to watch. As the videos are only upto 60 seconds, there is not a moment to get bored.

One thing that stole my heart is the active participation of the queer community who are using TikTok to showcase their talents. Some of them are using it to come out and some for awareness on LGBTQIA++ issues.

But like other social media, TikTok is not free from trolls or cyber bullies. Using fake handles or even from their personal handles people are cyber bullying. In the name of “commenting” people are getting away with body shaming, homophobia, racism and sexism. As most of the users do not know the technicality of how to handle such things, you block them. Another option is to make one more video and call them out. This is a never ending loop and it is high time people start educating themselves on the ethics of social media.

I always had a strong reservation about giving electronic gadgets to children. Last year, due to the pandemic and lockdown, when the schools in Nepal went online, my concern about exposure of unsupervised children online grew to an alarming level. A lot of parents had to give their latest cellphone to the kids; some went further by buying a new one, just so that the kids could have uninterrupted classes. But with a smart phone in their hands, we are exposing them to the realm of the cyber world.

Even in TikTok I see a lot of accounts made by children or young adults without adult supervision. There were few videos where young kids were dancing to an English song whose meaning was extremely explicit and sexual. Even for me to see young adults dance to such songs is pretty alarming but for a cyber predator, it is a box of cheesecake. This is the content they look for. Such contents are downloaded and passed on to adult sites.

It is frightening to see parents or adults post videos of their children to get attention and klout. Allowing young girls to twerk (not realizing what exactly it is) to Munni Badnam or Sheela ki Jawani or some explicit hip hop song online is to expose them to not only cyber predators but also to the pedophile community.

It is important to understand the pros and cons of the social media that we are using everyday. Last week, a compromising Clubhouse voice recording of a young girl was shared on TikTok. It was a “mere” dare in one of the rooms, recorded by a listener and uploaded on TikTok. It is high time we give the right values to our children regarding social media. One thing is for sure: we cannot stop this development and dependency but what we can do is make sure our kids know the difference between what to post and what not to.

These things should be taught at home and in school. Adults need to take out time to educate themselves about the risks of content posting on cyberspace. The Internet is humongous and addictive and it can hold unlimited information forever: once on the internet, always on the internet. This is not something to be taken lightly.

Nepal’s constitution offers a flawed concept of democracy. The current constitutional crisis is, in part, an exhibition of those flaws.

In this five-part series, I explore the elements that make our constitution inherently frail, and call on civilians to build a truly apolitical (or non-political) movement to save it. This constitution may be flawed but it is our only and last hope.

Part I: Stable governance             

Our constitution makes the incorrect assumption that stable governance requires stable political authority. (A regime that retains the same prime minister, or key political leadership, over a long period would be an example of such stable authority.)

Clause 100(4) states that a “motion of no confidence shall not be tabled [against the prime minister] until the first two years after the appointment of the prime minister and until another one year after the date of failure of the motion of no confidence.”

Ask yourself: why should the prime minister’s immunity against a motion of no-confidence be limited to two years, or to a year after the failure of a previous no-confidence motion? Why should it not extend to five years instead? Because five years would make the prime minister and, by extension, the entire executive branch of the government, immune from sanction by the parliament for a long time. But if five years is too long for such immunity why should two years or even a year be acceptable?

The idea that the prime minister is immune from parliamentary sanction even for a moment—let alone a year or two—is contrary to the premise of a democratic parliamentary system in the first place. The prime minister must always, repeat always, be within the sanction of the parliament. And if that means frequent changes of the prime minister because parliamentarians are always conniving and plotting, then so be it.  

The motivation for the clause perhaps stems from the desire to avoid past experiences, where infighting within and among political parties led to frequent government changes.

The drafters of Nepal’s constitution appear to have retained this dim view of parliamentarians as self-interested politicians who wouldn’t hesitate to bring spurious no-confidence motions to satisfy their own political ambitions even if that meant inviting political instability. They perhaps saw the clause limiting when a no-confidence motion could be tabled as a way to limit self-interested, politically motivated behavior. But it is this approach, the reliance on rules, rather than principles, that makes our constitution inherently unstable.

To achieve stable governance, our constitution relies on pre-established rules for governing behavior, for instance in getting parliamentarians to act in a certain way. Unfortunately, rules can always be gamed. There will also be a strategy that may be within the rules but contrary to the underlying principles from which those rules were developed.

Principles are the underlying philosophy of the system. Rules are merely the instruments through which those principles are to be achieved. Principles endure, though they may be interpreted differently over time. But rules must continually change and adapt to stay ahead of players who will always be devising strategies to game the system. A constitution that relies primarily on rules to keep the system stable is immediately irrelevant.  

The current constitutional crisis around the decisions of the prime minister, council of ministers and the president results from this problematic emphasis on rules. The Supreme Court is now being asked to interpret whether the prime minister, council of ministers and president followed constitutional rules in dissolving the parliament and calling fresh elections.

The court’s previous ruling reinstating parliament was similarly a judgment about the violation of rules, not a statement about whether the actions were in keeping with the principles of parliamentary democracy as described in the constitution.  

To save our constitution, we must return to the core principles of a parliamentary democracy as enshrined in the constitution without worrying too much about the rules for how the parliament functions. That’s for parliamentarians to sort out, so long as the core principles are honored.

One way to do this is by changing our assumption on stability. Stable governance is the result of ‘institutional stability’ not ‘political stability’. Institutional stability would allow governance to continue no matter who the prime minister is or how many times parliamentarians vote for or against the prime minister.

Only a truly non-partisan a-political civilian movement can bring about this shift to institutional stability and help reinforce our crumbling, frail constitution.

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The economy fared impressively for three consecutive years following the earthquake and Indian blockade in 2015-16, with around seven percent growth rates.

The spurt was the result of different factors, some of them natural, others related to long-needed reforms. Electricity supply had improved, and construction-related industries were flooded with demand as well as investment in post-earthquake reconstruction. Plus, a stable investment climate had been created after the communist coalition’s near two-thirds majority in the 2017 elections.

The newly elected local governments received a significant chunk of the budget from the federal government and the money they spent had an impact across the country. 

In the fiscal year 2018-19, a robust harvest was recorded owing to a favorable monsoon, and agriculture output grew by a record 5.16 percent. The construction sector grew by 7.8 percent. Improvements in service delivery at local level and more foreign investment sustained growth. 

Buoyed by the overall positive outlook, then Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada set an 8 percent growth target for 2019-20. His target was also attributed to the likely completion of two mega projects—the Upper Tamakoshi hydropower project and the Melamchi Drinking Water Project—announced in that year’s budget.

President Bidhya Devi Bhandari inaugurating the distribution of Melamchi Drinking Water project at Bhrikutimandap | Sunita Dangol

In February 2020, the mid-term budget evaluation projected agriculture output growth of 2.23 percent—lower than the previous year’s. The two game-changer projects were also not ready by the year-end. Bilateral development partners such as the World Bank and IMF and ABD now projected Nepal’s growth to hover around five percent.

The projections came as the government's capital spending, which drives private sector investments, and foreign investment inflow, also slowed. But Minister Khatiwada was steadfast on his projection. 

The government needed a strong base for economic growth and important projects such as Melamchi and Upper Tamakoshi had to come online for this, says economist Chandramani Adhikari. “But none of the projects that could help sustain high growth were ready,” he says.  

Then came covid

This was the country’s economic scenario when Covid-19 hit in March 2020. The government’s overall spending, heavily concentrated between March and mid-July, was yet to gain speed. “The government’s slow spending till mid-July also contributed to the economy’s shrinkage,” adds Adhikari. 

A nationwide Covid-19 lockdown stopped the economy in its tracks. International borders were sealed and trade froze. Tens of thousands of migrant workers, who walked hundreds of kilometers from Indian cities to get home, were stopped at the border. With a ban on international flights, the mega-program of bringing two million tourists in 2020 was shelved. 

“The government neither worked on keeping feasible industries open nor did it do much to check the inflow of infections from migrant workers in India,” Adhikari says. 

The government diverted Rs 136 billion from its budget to fight Covid-19. Some industries opened with the lockdown’s relaxation in June, but limited testing hindered economic activities. Those with limited means such as daily wage earners were left to fend for themselves. The economy shrank by 2.01 percent.

In mid-May last year, then Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada had tabled a Rs 1.47 trillion budget focusing on health facilities and Covid-19 response. A financial package worth Rs 150 billion (around 4 percent of GDP) was set aside to offset the negative impact of Covid-19 and subsequent lockdowns. 

Minister Khatiwada vowed that new jobs would be created as thousands of returning migrant workers were expected to take to agriculture. Also, “food-for-work programs in infrastructure projects will help create jobs,” he had said. 

The government, however, did not even assess the damage Covid-19 wreaked “on hundreds of new enterprises set up by the young generation”, says Pashupati Murarka, ex-president of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry. Nonetheless, a purse of Rs 83 billion for refinancing at 5 percent interest was available for enterprises that had borrowed from the banks.

But losses in tourism, recreation, aviation, transport, and service industries were huge and the government response was paltry, according to economists and members of the business community. 

“It didn’t even offer relief materials for the most vulnerable wage-earners and also ignored protests by youths demanding PCR tests and health services,” says economist Keshav Acharya. 

Remittance cushion

Despite the announcement of plans by all three tiers of the government to provide jobs to returnees and engage them in agriculture, migrant returnees, still jobless, started going back in hordes to India in October. 

The government could only rescue a few hundred migrant workers who had lost their jobs due to the Covid outbreak in the Middle East and Malaysia. Economists feared a reduction in remittance inflow; instead it has steadily grown since last June. Economies in Malaysia and the Middle East bounced back quicker than expected and the migrant workers this time chose to send money via formal channels, according to the World Bank. The government was cushioned by foreign currency received via remittances even when tourism collapsed.  

The health sector nearly collapsed. Wrote another economist Chandan Sapkota in an article for The Kathmandu Post, “This time, in addition to weak economic fundamentals and unrealized political and peace dividends, the inadequate infrastructure provision and a collapsed healthcare sector have laid bare economic and social vulnerabilities.” 

Poor implementation of the health budget crippled the health sector. But after five months of the fiscal, the government went on a nationwide foundation-stone laying spree for 5-15 bed hospitals at the local level. But real work on them was yet to begin at April-end, when the second lockdown began. A total of Rs 115.06 billion (7 percent of total budget) was allotted for the health sector, according to budget documents. 

But information provided by the Financial Comptroller General Office to ApEx shows that such allocation was only Rs 66.03 billion, including Rs 7 billion given to different ministries to fight the pandemic. Only Rs 26.98 billion (about 40 percent) of the budget was spent by mid-May.

Observers are worried the remaining 60 percent of the budget may remain unspent by the end of fiscal (mid-July) even as people struggle to access health services in remote areas. Death rates have spiked alarmingly in the second and third weeks of May due to shortage of oxygen cylinders and hospital beds. 

Farmers faced an acute shortage of chemical fertilizers during the paddy and wheat seasons, from June to November. Owing to the shortage, the projected 2.64 percent agriculture growth by the Central Bureau of Statistics will most likely be missed. So growth this year will be more or less the same as last year, economists reckon. 

Beware another wave

Now most of the country is under a second set of lockdowns and there is no indication of the economy’s reopening. No one knows when a significant proportion of the population will be vaccinated and allowed to return to work.

In his budget speech for the new fiscal, Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel acknowledged that achieving 4.01 percent project growth for this fiscal would be challenging in the middle of the pandemic.

Even in this bleak scenario, Nepal Stock Exchange has been on a bullish run, climbing to a new record of 2,800 points this June. Economists say the market’s trend does not mirror the reality of Covid economy and needs to be monitored properly. 

When covid cases declined in January, interested foreign mountaineers flew to Nepal and headed to the base camp to scale Mt Everest. The relaunch of mountaineering had rekindled the hope of a bounce-back in tourism, but the hope was short-lived. 

There is also fear of another wave. On May 25, Dr Sudhamshu KC of Bir Hospital tweeted, “We could not save lives because of mismanagement, we need to be better prepared for a possible third wave of Covid 19.” But the prime minister’s address to the nation and the finance minister’s subsequent budget speech were both silent on the third wave. 

Budget goodies

On May 29, Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel presented a budget of Rs 1.647 trillion for the next fiscal aiming for 6.5 percent growth. The budget focuses on health, with an allotment of Rs 122.77 billion for the Ministry of Health and various schemes to help the economy recover from the pandemic. The government expects the economy to bounce back soon after the majority of the people are vaccinated. Rs 26.75 billion have been allotted for vaccines in the next year’s budget while another Rs 37.5 billion will be spent on Covid tests and treatment. 

Finance Minister Bishnu Prasad Paudel walking towards the rostrum to deliver budget speech of fiscal year 2021/22

The budget waived 90 percent income tax of firms with annual transactions worth under Rs 2 million; and it waived 75 percent and 50 percent for firms with transactions ranging from Rs 2 to 5 million and Rs 5 to 10 million respectively. 

Likewise, income tax for hotel, travel, trekking, transportation, aviation, film industry and media has been lowered to 1 percent and these industries also can carry forward Covid-time losses for next ten years for taxation purposes. The private sector has welcomed these packages to revive the ailing economy.  

The budget also provides concessions for startups. They will get a loan of up to Rs 2.5 million as seed money at one percent interest and income tax waiver for five years. 

Lease fees for industries based in Special Economic Zones have been lowered while they, mainly established for exports, will also be allowed to sell 40 percent of their products in local markets for the next three years. The government will reimburse 75 percent of the cost of building access roads and transmission lines for new star hotels as well as cement and iron factories if the industries build them on their own. 

But the private sector is also concerned about the government’s slow progress in vaccine import. “Vaccinating people from the private sector is important to bring them back to work, helping achieve the growth target for the next fiscal year,” FNCCI said in a post-budget statement. 

Cost of jabs

Vaccination for eligible people should be the top priority to stem daily economic losses worth billions of rupees, say both doctors and economists. “If we want to bring the economy back on track, we first need to bring people out of their homes. This will only be possible when we vaccinate the eligible population,” says Dr KC. 

But the government plan of purchasing five million doses of the Covishield vaccine from Serum Institute India has failed and the whole episode was riddled with corruption. 

ApEx calculates the cost of importing the required 40 million jabs at around US $220 million (nearly Rs 25 billion), going by the $5.5 per dose price quoted by the Serum Institute. 

“People from developed countries may soon be interested in travelling to Nepal as tourists. But they won’t come if we have not vaccinated our people,” says Dr Sushil Koirala, chairman of the National Dental Hospital. Travel and tourism contributes 7.9 percent to the GDP and provides jobs to over a million people directly or indirectly. 

Economist Keshav Acharya agrees with Dr KC and says that the government should keep its citizens first. Acharya says, “Investing a few billions on vaccination would be wise, even if we have to pay a little more for it. This investment could eventually save tens of billions of rupees for the economy.”