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By Shashi P.B.B. Malla

In the spate of articles and commentaries following the Gen Z protest movement, we  note two recent personal assessments.

Indian NSA Ajit Doval’s Take

Taking the short-term view of individual countries’ histories, India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval has said that “poor governance” was the reason behind uprisings that led to change of governments in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal – all in India’s immediate neighbourhood – over the past three-and-a-half years.

[It can be postulated that the younger generation of educated people were following developments in each other’s countries, and events first in Sri Lanka influenced what happened in Bangladesh and later in Nepal – a sort of South Asian ‘domino effect’]

Democracy and non-institutional methods of regime change in countries such as Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal have created their own set of problems, Doval said during a function in New Delhi last Friday (The Kathmandu Post, Nov. 2).

[Doval did not elaborate on the said ‘problems’ in the neighbouring countries].

This was in any case the first time a senior Indian government official made remarks on Nepal’s government change, following the Gen Z uprising in early September.

Speaking at the 6th Sardar Patel Lecture on Governance, Doval said: “While democracy (generally) has its successes, it has also created its own problems. It has led to partisan politics where there are dividends in division.”

[This assessment could very much apply to his own India, where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party is involved in divisive politics both at the centre and the states!].

“Change of regimes through non-institutional methods in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and others were actually cases of bad governance.”

The problem with Doval’s assessment is that a total peaceful transformation of the political system from within the system itself is very rare in world history. Such was the case with the Meiji Restoration in Japan, starting 1868.

[The Meiji Restoration was in fact the restoration of the emperor’s rights and privileges, which had been usurped by the Tokugawa Shogunate. This propelled Japan’s modernization and its rise as a great power.

Similarly, the restoration of Constitutional Monarchy in Nepal could work wonders.]

This required leaders with vision, which Doval does finally incorporate in his political equation.

Doval stressed that the power of a nation lies in governance. “The government works through institutions and in the task of nation-building, the most important people are those who build and nurture these institutions,” he said.

The Making of a Failed State

Dr, Binay Panjiyar, a Nepali medical doctor (who studied at the Texas Tech University and did post-doctoral research at Harvard), takes the view that: “Nations fail when they remain trapped in extractive institutions –structures designed to concentrate wealth and power in the hands of a few” (Republica, Nov. 2).

Panjiyar leans heavily on the thesis of Acemoglu and Robinson: “Nations fail not because of their geography or culture but because of their institutions”. (Daron Acemoglu & James Robinson: Why Nations Fail. The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty).    

But Panjiyar has taken this argument even further.

First, he believes that in Nepal, history is repeating itself again and again. 

Second, he maintains that institutions alone determine the course of Nepalese history; there is no role for visionary leaders.

Third, he insists that Nepal has been unable to transform itself because “the architecture of corruption has remained.”

For him, “Nepal’s founding moment institutionalized  the operating principle of the state.”

It is difficult to support Panjiyar’s wholesale use of Western concepts and his peculiar interpretation of Nepalese history.

First of all, it was in fact geography and culture that were instrumental in Prithvi Narayan Shah’s campaign of unification – which was not only military, but also political, economic and social.

No formal institution had been established then, but PNS’s vision propelled the unification movement forward.

There is absolutely no reason to disparage PNS’s supreme achievement.

The writer can be reached at:

shashimalla125@gmail.com

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