Rumour city

The Nepal Army’s rank and file represents the country’s aspirations for democracy, rule of law and equal rights among various ethnicities

Kathmandu is a city of rumours, and rumours spread far and wide riding on the orbiting satellites. Before, the subjects spread rumours as a way of making sense of their rulers and the willful diktats of those inside the walls of palaces. Now, even after the palaces have turned into museums, rumours abound about the unpredictable ways of those who wield power — the power of the gun. Ever since President Ram Baran Yadav issued his order for Army Chief Rookmangud Katawal to continue, overriding the Maoist Prime Minister's dismissal of the general, serious journalists to conspiracy theorists have forewarned the people of a coup led by the celebrity Army Chief. This speculation has been based on rumours.
The rumour about a coup and counter coup by factions in the Nepal Army (NA) was first started by Kantipur daily even as the Army Chief issue was up in the air. Since Nepal's widely read daily said so and cited unnamed sources in the Army, the readers believed the rumour. Then, of course, the Army denied the rumour. And that was that. But then again, the speculative media and commentators began interpreting the Madhav Nepal government and its decisions regarding the Army as the victory of the Army, the ascendancy of the rightwing political forces, and rise of Katawal as a superman, a potential Ayub Khan or Ziaul Haque or somebody who will relegate the country to autocracy or dictatorship at worst and at best to a soft coup like that in Bangladesh.

Give us a break!

The first woman defense minister, the widow of a charismatic leader, may lack charisma and good sense about what she says to the press but Nepal now has too many leaders to let the generals get out of their barracks and run the country as its rulers. Katawal may have a classmate in the Indian Army Chief but it would be nothing short of suicidal if Katawal or the Indian Army Chief take it upon themselves to override the whole past few years and install a military backed government to write the constitution. Look at how many odds are stacked against any military adventurism:

a. Ram Baran Yadav

b. India's political establishment

c. The international community

d. Diaspora Nepalis

e. The Maoists

f. The seven party alliance and the people behind them

g. NGOs , INGOs, civil society and intellectuals

h. Nepal's regional geopolitics

Almost all the political forces are stacked against such a suicidal dare. Any attempt at a coup, soft or hard, at this time would destroy whatever political capital the NA earned when Prachanda and Badal in their political naiveté tried to mess with the NA unilaterally. It will destroy the capital they gained by supporting the transition to democracy and republicanism. This will not only jeopardize ex-king Gyanendra's chances of staying inside the country but will put Chief Katawal on the run to find a hiding place. And the NA itself will lose sympathy whether inside or outside Nepal. Given this scenario, why would any NA army officer think about supporting the foolishness of a handful of their rightwing, traditionalist colleagues?

Katawal or any small group of army generals is not the Nepal Army. The NA is a national institution and its rank and file represents the country and the country's aspirations for democracy, rule of law and equal rights among various ethnicities. Katawal and his resistance to change are a passing phase, and there may be others like him but they too will retire. The NA will remain as a dynamic institution, always evolving with the country, as it has done in its history, if not in lock-step, then following in its footstep.

Katawal's resistance to integration and recruitment of fresh soldiers against UNMIN's wishes followed by the Maoists unilateral attempt to fire him were both motivated by vested interests no matter how much the Maoists cry hoarse about civilian supremacy and Katawal come up with one ploy after another to establish the NA's sanctity, and thereby his own unwanted charismatic leadership, in the country's affairs. The Maoist and the Katawal episodes are in the past now. The Constituent Assembly (CA) is the supreme body. Nobody is superior to the CA no matter how mercurial and powerful he is. When the CA speaks in majority, it is, will be and should be the law of the land. Whatever any one individual says, whether it is Army Chief Katawal or a party boss, overriding everyone else is nothing but posturing. The CA's will is final in the country.

If the Madhav Nepal government goes, another government will come in its place but how can the constitution writing process stop? Nobody can stop this inexorable march of history in Nepal anymore. Despite its backwardness, illiteracy, poverty and all the ills and shortcomings, Nepal is in the grip the Nepali people and of the global forces, and both are for democracy. Look at the number of Nepalis, educated or uneducated, working outside of Nepal in so many countries. They send their remittances back but also keep an eye on what happens to their money and what happens to Nepal.

True, those whose traditional power base has been threatened, they may weep over a beer or whiskey how things are falling apart all around them in Nepal. It's their underserved, unfair privileges that are falling apart. Those who had never had a semblance of power and dignity, for them it's the new dawn, the beginning of a new era of dignity and recognition.

The Tarai armed hate groups are just that — hate groups. Many criminal elements have joined them to take advantage of the unstable situation. But there are among them groups and people who have a genuine commitment to the cause of the people of the Tarai because for them the institutions of the Nepali state are still filled with people with deep ethnic prejudices against the people of the Tarai or other deprived groups. I don't think there would be any Taraiwasi, no matter how assimilated into the mainstream, who doesn't remember encountering discrimination of some sort at some point in their lives, from the Village Development Committee (VDC) to the highest level of officialdom. And many of these individuals and groups in their shortsightedness have nursed the assault on their dignity and turned it into ethnic hatred. But that won't do. Bihari style caste hatred and animosity will not create a new society. Nor will silence create a new Nepal.

It's the job of the political parties and their leaders to convince these hate groups to channel their grievances politically. And it's the duty of the salaried security forces to weed out the criminals and force the armed groups to express their demands peacefully. Reward and punishment applies to everyone, including the political parties, their leaders and the security forces as much as the militant groups.

A short-sighted political leader from hill high castes may write a belligerent piece in the print media about civil war breaking out at any time as a result of undermining the privileges of Nepali speaking groups. A traditionalist NA general may vent his frustration over a drink about the disappearance of the old dispensation. An ambitious Madhesi political activist or group may threaten to take up arms and express hatred toward other ethnic groups or castes. The Kirat and Khambu groups may speak of and threaten to carve out a separate sovereign state. But these are all ways to vent one's frustrations in a new democracy and come to terms with the imminent changes in the political landscape. These must not be taken as signs of acting out on the words and gestures but as signs of growing pains of the republic.

Giving too much credence to rumours creates real wolves out of paper tigers. Army Chief Katawal who may not be heard again after he retires, like his predecessors, has been unnecessarily burdened with the weight of a superman. Let him retire and live in peace, like his mentor the ex-king, and receive well-wishers on birthdays. Let's not make too much of the Army Chief Katawal's pronouncements and let's get on with the main task of the CA: a twenty-first century constitution for a future Nepal.

Once Nepal has a constitution, things will fall into place. The institutions of state that are in a fix now will have solid ground to act and take the country and its people forward. Multicultural state institutions will always function better than those we have seen. And hope for the future always works better than the rumours of doom.