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Speaking constitutionally, we are now a multi-party democracy. Even one who does not have any knowledge of Political Science knows from experience that this system depends absolutely on the functioning of party politics –– both in respect of the conduct of the individual parties and the relations among the various parties including the competition among them in capturing the political turf.
   Ideally, the state should remain neutral in the fight among the political parties –– and between the ruling party or coalition and the Opposition. In practical life, though, the ruling party or coalition gets the advantage of incumbency and the opposition parties find themselves at the receiving end of the coercive dispensation of the state. But when the state machinery gets involved in the competition among the parties, multi-party democracy gets distorted.
   Multi-party politics is the lifeline of multi-party democracy. Multi-party democracy thrives or deteriorates on the quality of multi-party politics.
   We know it from our own experience from the Pakistan days onward that whenever a nexus is formed between the ruling party or coalition and the law enforcing agencies to beat opposition politics, not only multi-party democracy but also constitutional politics comes under serious pressure or threat. At the minimum, the government of the day behaves fascistically and public faith in government and politics as such wanes. The so-called multi-party democracy then degenerates into proto democracy, so to say. The worst fallout from this nexus is the creation of political vacuum, leading to extra-constitutional interventions.
   We do not want to sound alarmists. We are simply asking the political elites in general and the government, in particular, not to forget the bitter lessons of the past.
   The lead story in our issue of April 19, under the heading ‘Over 100 hurt as Juba Dal men attack Juba League procession’, says: ‘More than 100 leaders and activists were wounded when a procession of the Juba League, the youth front of the main opposition Awami League, came under attack from activists of Juba Dal, youth front of ruling BNP, and the police at Lalbagh in the capital city on Tuesday afternoon.’ The report quoted the duty officer of the Lalbagh police station as stating that they were ‘forced to fire rubber bullets and arrest 25 activists, as they (Juba League) attacked us with brick bats.’
   This is a disturbing news but not unique. It has become almost a common practice with the ruling parties, when they are in power, to use the police almost as an extension of their parties in street battles against the opposition parties. At the moment, the ruling BNP is guilty of the political malpractice, nay, crime.

Non-tariff barriers villain of the piece

The extent of economic non-cooperation among SAARC members is evident from the fact that trade within the region accounts for a paltry four per cent of the region’s entire trade volume. The South Asian Free Trade Area presumably aims to address the issue. The SAFTA ministerial council is scheduled to meet today to discuss certain issues that committee of experts deliberated upon for the last two days.
   Under the first phase of the agreement, developing members of the free trade area — India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — will reduce their tariff to 20 per cent by December 31, 2007 and between zero and five per cent by December 31, 2016 for products originating from the least developed countries — Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives.
   While the proposition sounds promising for poorer countries of the region and Bangladesh in particular, the crux of the matter lies elsewhere. To begin with, there is the much debated and rather lengthy lists of sensitive products. These products are kept beyond the purview of the ‘free trade’ or the regular tariff reductions. Regular tariff reductions, no matter how steep, would be of little help if products of export interest to Bangladesh are restricted from free trade.
   There is also the question of non-tariff barriers within the region. These often include exorbitant fees for obligatory licences and applications, separate standards requirements, lengthy procedures and so forth. Such barriers are tantamount to a prohibitive trade regime despite successive ‘tariff reductions’. Apparently a number of products had been removed from the sensitive lists under the South Asian Preferential Trade Agreement but that made little difference because of the prohibitive non-tariff barriers that were applied. More often than not, the non-tariff barriers, being invisible and indirect, pose greater hindrance to free trade than tariffs. Together with the sensitive list, free trade agreement could be rendered meaningless if these issues are not given critical attention.
   The regional free trade agreement should devise a mechanism that would facilitate recognition of each other’s standards and simplify non-tariff trade barriers.
   As for Bangladesh, import tariffs are rather low already. Although tariff reduction and import liberalisation is considered a very sensitive matter all over the world, they have been susceptible to the whims of the ruling government. The whim, as is often the case, is a result of unconditional subservience to the economic prescriptions of the lending agencies and donors. Thus the government often considers tariff reductions to be innocuous for the economy simply because the rates are lower than the ones proposed at multilateral or regional forums such as free trade area or the World Trade Organisation. Consequently the government easily agrees.
   But in doing so, the government misses out on extracting concessions that other countries might be willing to give. It is an accepted norm in trade negotiations that a party gets only as much as it asks for.

History is repeating itself in Kathmandu. Everyday, in the past two weeks, thousands of protestors have taken to the streets of the Nepali capital, defying the government’s shoot-to-kill curfews and mass arrests, to agitate against King Gyanendra’s absolute rule.
   Nine people have been killed and hundreds injured in police firing in the riots that have ensued. Hundreds more have been arrested by the government, including prominent politicians, journalists and civil society members. King Gyanendra is no stranger to pro-democracy protests since he seized absolute power in a military-backed coup last year. Even the beleaguered and ‘arrogant’ monarch that he is, he should realise that the political scenario has changed dramatically in the past two weeks.
   Since February 2005, the general people of Nepal, who traditionally hang their monarch’s flower-adorned picture in their houses, had put their faith in the King’s double talk of democracy and elections while his security forces baton-charged and tear gassed activists of the seven-party opposition alliance. In fact, it would be fair to say that even the political parties were divided into sections that sought to reconcile with the King and those that were more sceptical. This status quo has dramatically fallen apart since the King addressed the nation in the Nepali new year last week, once more promising elections in April next year. It has become a case of too little too late.
   The general public, especially in Kathmandu, have responded so negatively to the King’s offer that even the agitating political parties have been caught off guard. One by one, professional groups of journalists, engineers, judges, teachers and even the family members of the soldiers have given strength to agitations led by average Nepalis who are tired of the lies and the repression that the King’s rule has brought. And as the King’s grip on the helm of power has weakened, the final blow to his rule has come from within his own power structure. On Tuesday, 25 senior bureaucrats of Nepal’s home ministry left their desks to chant anti-King slogans –– for which they were promptly arrested. Meanwhile, the general strike called by a loose agreement between Nepal’s Maoist rebels and the main political parties has crippled the landlocked kingdom, sending the prices of essentials spiralling, forcing the King to use armed convoys to help goods trucks enter the valley. Kathmandu papers reported this week, how the price of salt has quintupled in the past month, fuelling anger against the King.
   These events carry portents that King Gyanendra’s dead brother Birendra might have understood better. In fact, that these political developments have come in April should also be a matter of concern for the superstitious Gyanendra, who is secretly mocked in closed-door Kathmandu parties for placing faith in animal sacrifices and ancient Hindu rituals and portents.
   Since 1960, when Nepal first gained democracy, King Mahendra and his successor Birendra ruled Nepal in a system that banned multi-party politics, with an ersatz local government democracy in its stead. It was on April 8, exactly 16 years ago that Birendra’s totalitarian regime was toppled by a popular uprising that restored democracy to Nepal after a long gap of 30 years. And the political ingredients of that jan andolan were similar to Nepal’s present-day ‘crisis’. The general public of Nepal had, like today, lost faith in their monarchs’ ability to rule the country with accountability and benevolence. It started with agitations by the parties, followed by participation by the ordinary people, and eventually boycotts by the bureaucracy. When Birendra was forced to relent on April 8, 1990, it was because thousands of protestors swarmed the streets of Kathmandu and the neighbouring city of Patan and started marching towards the Royal palace. ‘No one was leading the crowd; it followed its own momentum…soldiers had taken up position between the palace and the police who were trying to control the protestors,’ as described by Nepali writer Deepak Thapa in his book, A kingdom under siege (The Printhouse, 2003). ‘Police began firing when the statue of King Mahendra…was vandalised. Accounts vary as to how many people were killed, but more important than that tally was the fact that the events proved to be the turning point for the movement,’ Thapa writes. Is it not a portent then, that on Monday, the ninth pro-democracy protestor was gunned down by the police within the span of the last two weeks? In fact, as the Brussels-based think tank, International Crisis Group has recently pointed out, the fact that Gyanendra has now brought key actors of Birendra’s regime into his inner power coterie, may be one of the factors that is corroding his public image. The only difference is, however, that it has taken the Nepali people 14 months to foment the same revolution for which they had waited thirty years in 1990.
   Some considerations need to be taken into account, however, before King Gyanendra is dismissed unequivocally. Firstly, even the most hard-line pro-democracy elements in Nepal recognise that the country needs a monarch to act as a symbol of Nepal’s nationhood, in the face of Indian expansionism. King Gyanendra need not have more than a ceremonial role as per the constitution, but the 237-year-old institution of monarchy needs to persist for Nepal to avoid sharing the fate of Sikkim, which was annexed by India following crises and riots in 1975. This consideration is further strengthened by the fact that the Nepali people have an innate respect for their monarchs and will not be averse to the idea of a compromise between Gyanendra and the political parties. The other important factor to be taken into account is that the country’s Maoist rebels are now a major force, who need to be brought into the mainstream of politics but also pressured into surrendering their weapons before Nepal can hold elections. The Maoists have waged a violent insurgency against democratic and autocratic governments alike since 1996 and over 14,000 people have died in the violence resulting from their ‘people’s war’. In the present scenario, in which Nepal’s political alliance has come into a loose agreement with the rebels in their common anti-king stance, can the parties be trusted to adequately rein in the rebels when the King’s government is toppled? Neither China nor India will allow the Maoist high command to sit at the helm of power in Kathmandu, so the solution becomes far more complicated than it may seem. The Maoists — who have long clamoured for abolishing the monarchy — will become a difficult ally once Gyanendra steps down. Although they too are looking for a surakshit avtaran or safe landing after a decade spent in underground insurgency, will they be willing to agree on a power sharing that involves the King? And if they don’t, will the Royal Nepal Army — which openly swears its allegiance to the monarchy — take orders from an interim government of politicians to crackdown against the Maoists, who already control about two-thirds of Nepal’s territory? As CK Lal, a commentator on Nepali politics has pointed out, ‘It is like chess and ... the king still has moves ... for example, lifting the repressive laws, freeing high-profile prisoners, removing the infrastructure of autocracy.’
   There is little doubt that of all the Shah kings that have (in one way or another) ruled Nepal since 1768, Gyanendra is the most unpopular. Most Nepalis still believe that he had a hand in the massacre of his brother Birendra and his family in 2001. But the Nepali people may still have some use for a King who has today become the biggest threat to Nepal’s future.
   mahtabhaider@gmail.com