Nepal stands on the deadline of election approximately 150 days with all functions of investigations almost dead with no technological proof that social media will be misinformation free and no promises to tackle and prosecute such acts in fact Nepal is seeking election on the peak of Mendacious Stories suffocating democracy to its final breaths.
Last decade, Nepal should have been focusing on three things– reviewing achievements and failure in the field of overall governance since the promulgation of the constitution-2015, performance and it working independence of the vital state institutions, and lastly, addressing political reforms through institutionalizing people's voices and ensuring free and fair elections including reform of the political parties. Given Nepal is in a geostrategic position for the global super powers to engage, failure to strike a balanced relationship with the four major development partners India, China, USA and the EU struggles are nothing but obvious. She should have found an instrument of resilient peace right after the promulgation of the constitution, which is also a jointly partnered document by the development partners.
The unbalanced spread of communism continues to hinder the strengthening of democratic pillars. Failure to conduct a free and fair election within the communist party continues to create a stagnancy of leadership and the Democratic Party seemed covetous of power, through the unconventional pre-election coalitions with radical communist parties in various regions to win the elections. Which bolstered the rise and spread of Communism, leading to fifty five percent of the total votes swung to various communist parties. Much surprising like the first Indian Prime Minister Nehru's alliance with the Yugoslavian neo Stalinist Josip Broz Tito Nepali congresses alliance with the Maoists and United Marxist Leninists has diluted Nepali Congresses democratic character. A democide occurs when a political player chooses a political setting beyond their control and that is what happened with the unholy coalition of the Democrats and the Communist. Democracy starts to choke when truth is sacrificed for power, and truth be said Nepali congress is the pioneer of democracy and its value in Nepal. Election victories now depend more on strategic manipulated perception than on informed consent. We are in a time of history when better-planned lies and well-planned tactics overshadowed facts and philosophy. Democratic societies are in grave danger from the proliferation of digital propaganda, disinformation, and ideological distortion, especially in politically unstable countries like Nepal.
Populist leadership often ascribes the proliferation of misinformation in modern political discourse. However, the deliberate manipulation of truth by those in power is not a new phenomenon. As the communist philosopher Marx, presciently, argued in The Communist Manifesto (1848), the ruling classes "The Bourgeoisie" have long wielded ideological control by propagating distorted narratives through the media to legitimize and reinforce their dominance.
The communist in Nepal still subscribe to such philosophy, when in this era of the GENZ the technology has toppled down to general people and tech savvy new generations irrespective of their financial conditions. This horizontal proliferation of technology through various online networks now creates a room for unveiling truth-raising voices that were never heard, but simultaneously also creates a darker fear of manufacturing consent. Hence the use of GENZ and GEN Alpha technology demands higher morale as to where it is used, whether to create a vibrant democracy or to destroy it into anarchy.
Since COVID times, this dynamic has only grown more deceptive, manifesting in high-profile campaigns against the vaccine of Covid 19, as well as the rise of organized movements that reject empirical study altogether. Today means of production do not merely dominate the means of material production but also the means of mental production, shaping what is widely accepted as "truth" to preserve the status quo. The big tech companies that sponsor the small social media groups and political groups are being harnessed to disseminate the technology and ideas. These technologies require higher morale to use; there is fear of it being weaponized to disrupt the democratic societies. These are weapons to fish on the anger of the general people through grey democratic allies of technology. This theoretical framework finds resonance in recent global events.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, prominent leaders dismissed scientific advice and actively undermined vaccination campaigns, framing them as conspiratorial or unnecessary. This deliberate sowing of doubt not only endangered public health but also eroded trust in institutions tasked with safeguarding the common good. Similarly, the persistence of the Flat Earth movement commonly known as the flat earthers collective rejection of centuries of scientific evidence. Recently seen as the abruption of GENZ protests around the globe organized using technology that are very sophisticated and beyond the government radars.
This exemplifies how misinformation can blend into organized like militant sub-culture. These phenomena reveal a troubling erosion of epistemic authority, where facts themselves are contested terrain. The rapid growth and use of technology in institutions including universities, research laboratories, and professional disciplines are influenced and could be manipulated to maintain regressive narratives like in the recent years in Nepal there are political parties that claim the totalitarian 19th century was better than the 21st century. They have become the new "truth factories" political parties where narrative rather than knowledge is being nurtured and disseminated.
Despite the Constitutional guarantees of freedom of expression within "reasonable restrictions". These restrictions govern expression in the real and digital worlds. Reasonable restrictions like national integrity, harmonious relationship among people (religious groups, castes), caste-based discrimination, disrespect of labor, defamation, contempt of court, incitement to an offence, and acts against public decency and morality. These positive limitations set the boundaries of access to information and freedom of expression to individuals in the digital spaces and challenged at the court in cases of violation. However, these will only be mere black letters of law and governance in case of failure to understand and create a lateral technology to combat such infiltrations in the future. The relationship between knowledge, power, and resistance. While scientific rationality and academic rigor remain indispensable, they must be coupled with critical scrutiny of whose interests they serve. This is particularly urgent in an age of digital media and Artificial Intelligence. Misinformation spreads rapidly and traditional gatekeepers of facts and knowledge are being out fashioned. The new Democratic norm must cultivate not only scientific literacy but also an ideological and moral awareness, the ability to recognize how truths are misconstrued, by whom, and for what purpose.
People are exposed to pessimism and sensationalism to retaliate against the system. Rather than motivating them to self-improve and make an effort through democratic and peaceful means. Despite factual evidence of global progress, algorithms of technology tend to overemphasize poverty, violence, and instability. Research indicates that even in societies with high levels of education, the majority of people undervalue advancements in living standards, education, and life expectancy. Political opportunists flourish on this cognitive bias spread of fallacies, misinformed ideas of power, banquet fear to suppress reason and truth. Populism and mendacious stories prey on moral outrage, tribal instincts, and a predilection for straightforward explanations over nuanced deluded realities where misinformation flourishes.
Online farming of Misinformation and Fear are the abettor of Democide. We should learn from Sri Lanka, during the 2019 presidential elections, candidates leveraged public anxiety in the wake of the Easter Sunday attacks to justify hardline security policies demonizing Muslim communities. Similarly, in Bangladesh, the ruling Awami League has employed both subtle and overt tactics to sow fear of instability and opposition violence, portraying itself as the only barricade against chaos, which creates In South Asia, with such vibrant yet fragile democratic traditions, has not been immune to this phenomenon. Recent ongoing aggression in India, the largest democracy in the world, offers a stark illustration of how these tactics are being weaponized to suffocate democratic discourse and polarize society.
Abruption of neo-political forces using IT and AI armed by BOTs and false accounts are fighting the new domestic politics, and these new powers control both the means of mental and material production, designing narratives to build power. Smaller social media groups dividing larger public debates into echo chambers, and huge numbers of small media conglomerates, entangled with corporate and political agendas, amp up carefully controlled disinformation.
