Solving the Katawal-related crisis

Drama around Katawal's sacking
So then the Maoists decided, as they had tirelessly expressed to the press, the public and political parties alike in what they called "efforts of forging a consensus", to sack Rookumangad Katawal. In a few days of high drama, Katawal denied accepting the letter of his sacking, the president Dr. Yadav reinstated Katawal and the Maoists resigned from the government. Then out came the video showing Prachanda convincing his cadres of how the party command had shown its cleverness during the verification of the then Maoist army and that they would not lose the elections, for they would not let an election happen that they would not win. As if that had not made enough news for a week, Prachanda's "We all know we were seven to eight thousand" while addressing his cadres has caused political parties to continue saying that the Maoists are liars and thugs and that the verification process should be redone taking into account the Maoist chief's statement. At the same time political parleys have intensified and an understanding seems to have been built between the UML and the Congress to create an environment allowing the creation of the next government. The Maoists themselves have been stubbornly demanding that the president correct what they call his mistake (referring to reinstating Katawal) before the formation of the next government can start. Also after a few days of what appear to be unsuccessful attempts to eke support out of the infuriated UML and the always-furious Congress, the Maoists have bluntly labelled other political parties as pawns of the South Bloc and Maoist media is rife with news of an agent of the Indian intelligence RAW present and operating in Nepalese capital. With so much going on, we the poor people of the country are left to try to find the themes in these diverse events such as to be able to find a way of lighting up hope for our beloved country. This piece will be an attempt to ignite that hope amidst the frustration of dishonest and inefficient governance and political culture of the country under which all of us have been suffering.

A real crisis
First things first- we need a government. Whoever shapes it in whatever way, we need one. Now let us see what is going on in that direction. After Prachanda resigned, president Yadav gave the political parties a few days to come up with a proposal on forming a government. Frankly it was too short. Unfortunately for the political parties they had been having too much to do (like commenting on the Prachanda video, meeting Sood etc) and thus it was not enough time to forge an understanding for a majority. Well the president has reacted rightly saying the parties should elect a prime minister from the parliament by majority. But that is coming out to be tough as well, for the Maoists have been disrupting the house.
Disrupting the house is not an act of bravery as such but with a reasonable demand it might be justified. The Maoists are stuck to their demand that the president should take back his move of reinstating Katawal. Now that is obviously a difficult issue which has the possibility of inviting unexpected results (including possibilities of hard and soft coups) if it really happened. So where did things go wrong?
Under a ceremonial presidential system, the sacking of an army chief would have to follow a few constitutional norms. The cabinet would decide to sack the guy and the president would seal the sacking, then it would be declared. The ideal news would possibly read "The president has, under the recommendation of the cabinet, released XY from his duty and responsibility as the army chief of the country". If the president did not like the idea then he would have the possibility of sending back the recommendation to sack or asking time for consultation on the issue. In the Katawal issue things went wrong one after the other. The Maoists declared unilaterally that Katawal has been sacked. That was beyond the norms. True that they had spoken out with the intent very often but that was not enough. They should have forwarded the proposal of sacking Katawal to the president for the presidential seal and their failing that is an indication that although they might be the party best represented in the parliament, they have yet to learn political norms and should try to think of moving together with the other political parties and not just singlehandedly. Such moves will only feed to the other's impressions of the Maoists being a party with a dictatorial mentality.
So the first breach of norm was from the Maoists but then unfortunately the gentlemanly and popular president Yadav happened to practice something that is not clearly written in the constitution as being a right of his. With the president's unconstitutional (probably driven by emotion) move Maoists got what they wanted. Moreover the issue of the constitutionality of the president's move has reached the Supreme Court and there have been divided opinions from different political and civic society leaders. In such a situation it is difficult to expect that the Maoists will let parliamentary activities resume normally. And if that happens the government formation process will suffer.
So in that sense it might appear that the constitutional problem was the president's reinstating Katawal and that if the president reversed that things would be okay. The president has categorically denied doing something like that unless the Supreme Court says his move was invalid. Now frankly our politics has a weird element in it, namely of not accepting decisions of the court if they are unfavourable. The Maoists are no exception to this culture and so it is likely they will protest the court's decision if the president's move is validated. What happens thereafter to the peace process and to parliamentary proceedings is something to be seen then. Say the court said the president made a mistake. That would mean the reinstatement of Katawal will be void, the Maoists would be okay in the short term but what about the fact that their decision was not one that the cabinet was unanimous. This will most probably feed the spirits of the other political parties and problems in the street and the parliament and most importantly in Nepali households will continue.
Thus the Katawal issue as such has invited a real chaos with legal and other dimensions all of which appear to be very complicated to solve.

Dasha from das directions
As the old saying goes, dasha attacks you from das directions. And it seems to have once again.
In addition to the constitutional crisis, the lack of trust among political entities is at a critical low. The Maoists are angry with other political parties for a whole lot of things starting with not agreeing with Katawal's sacking, not opposing the president's move and so on. And the other political parties are angry that they were not listened to on the Katawal issue and more recently very dangerously on the issue of what Prachanda apparently presented as shrewdness to his cadres. All of a sudden demands of reverification are becoming intense and these might as well gain crucial voice from the international community. Such a scenario might put the previous understandings on which the current transitional republican constitution rests on risk. The results of that might be grave.
International interest has been rising (or consistent in cases where it has always been at a maximum) in recent days making the political field very difficult to understand and follow.

How could we get out of this chaos?
It’s a very uneasy situation from where exit seems difficult. But an exit from here, a stable government is what we all need for a start. After all we all want to live with dignity and walk without fear in our streets. And a stable government that establishes a rule of law is the first step towards that. In this wish, we Nepalese people already have a defined goal. And that’s where we can put hope on. We know what we want and we need to figure out how we can get it and how our politicians can facilitate the process.

The Maoists should stop causing trouble in the parliament
The Maoists should realize that, whatever the reason(s), they essentially failed to gain the confidence of the other political parties. Whose policies were at fault is something that we people should be left to decide and that we shall do in the next elections. Since they have failed to garner consensus in crucial issues and have invited constant criticisms (for example for promulgating ordnances extra-parliamentary) they should realize this with the humility that was there in the prime minister's resignation speech.

The President should admit his mistake
One of the problems of the current situation is the president. And unfortunately this man was at a serious fault if one talks with reference to the constitution. The president should realize it was a mistake that he made and possibly resign on moral grounds. His admission of a mistake and resignation should pave the path to withdraw the case against him at the court and the court would be saved from showing what will either way be read as a bias in its decision.

Katawal should go, the next cabinet should decide on the next army chief
If the president admitted his mistake and the Maoists stopped disrupting the parliament, the path for forming a new government would open but the issue that caused all the havoc is still there. What about Katawal? Because Katawal has not been people friendly while he worked with the king, and has not been government-friendly after the king was gone, Katawal has no right to remain as the army chief. And technically if the president admitted his mistake, Katawal has been sacked already anyway. In either case, Katawal should go and the best he could do is to resign to facilitate the resumption of normal constitutional practices whih have been disturbed.
Once Katawal is out the army chief post will be vacant. That should be left to the next government to fill.
The Prachanda video has to be forgotten
Frankly it is ridiculous that Prachanda talked to his cadres in the tone that has come out. It was a very patronising speech low in intellectual contents. What that however also tells us is that the Maoists fighters' base is not an intellectually strengthened army. The continuing (mis)deeds of the YCL also stands proof to this. This brings us to a very important question- if it was not an intellectually matured political ideology, why did so many people support the Maoists (taking the results of the election as a truth- sorry if you disagree). Moreover why were people ready to fight with the national army with just slippers on and with primitive type weapons? And the answer is that the places where the Maoists started building their party base lacked in essential requirements of life and had been living in hardship for generations. Literally speaking people who joined the Maoist army were young lads who saw no real possibilities in their life. And we have to accept that this is not terrorist mentality but rather the fury borne out of desperation. Therefore it is very important to stop calling the Maoist army terrorist. If we see that they are not terrorists but people looking for a better life it will be easier to see why so many people are in the Maoists cantonments (taking for granted that they were not all real fighters). Let us imagine for ourselves the pathetic situation where we find it better to be in the cantonment, labelled as a Maoist fighter, for if the leaders gave us what they promised we would soon be employed in the army! (And as we all know being an army man is a matter of social and economic privilege in rural Nepal.) Seeing things in this vein might help us understand the people in the cantonments and not flatly label them as goons or thugs or terrorists. Let us not forget that most of them are certainly not there by wish.
Then let us imagine Prachanda was right when he said there were just seven to eight thousand fighters. Asking for a reverification means not only a huge logistic and economic problem but also amounts to not recognizing one's own signatures. The verification was done through the UNMIN with the representation of all major political parties. If the Maoists could still escape with lies, then sadly but honestly we should all accept we have been fooled by a genius liar. And frankly we have moved further from there. Let us try to make things better from here on.
Candidly speaking I was not at all surprised by the video. It was an internal thing of the party and I am overwhelmed by the amount of things that comes out of political parties and its leaders publicly. I would be lying to myself if I believed that fair games are being played inside. Of course that is no excuse for dirty games but I believe that we should go from outside to inside- for us at this difficult situation in time, it would already be a great deal if politicians stuck to what they said in public a few days back.
Then again it was a party internal thing of a party that has been consistently talking of a communist republic. Of a party that has recently come to the surface after over a decade of underground politics and war against the state structure. Therefore it is perhaps folly to expect them to change their ideologies overnight. To the people it is a matter of ease that they have come to surface politics at least and participated in an election that was overseen by national and international observers.

We need a government soon
If every one of us accepted our weaknesses it would become easier to find a common way out of the crisis because after all we know best what culprits we are and we do know what we all want- namely a functioning democracy. So if the Maoists, the president, other political parties and the army are truly keen to see the current crisis diffused we can move forward from here and the focus must be on forming the next government as soon as possible. Dangerous differences are appearing between and within the major political parties and with the presence of several foreign players whose primary interests are in no way to help us pahades and madhesis live a decent life, we should all be ready to give in, be forgiving and forgetting towards ourselves and form a government which can then start working for the people by shortening the transition period, solving the issue of rehabilitation and/or integration of the Maoist army and very importantly establishing law and order and erasing anarchy.
Krishna used to be with Sudama in stories. So let us hope the Gods are with us, the poor.

raktim.nepali@gmail.com