Nepal’s public intellectuals have become racists, intellectually. If an intellectual’s being racist is anything negative, let this be counted as an additional casualty of the Maoist people’s war (here is a deliberate grammatical deviation from the standard Maoist “People’s War”).

Any form of racism has many offshoots. In the context of the Nepali nation-state- which itself is a collective expression of the race of Nepalis- political racism has been a given for long, at least since 1950s. The democrats and communists have talked at each other, not to, historically. Literary writers, largely, have created their own small fraternity and protect and promote each other within the fraternity. Not that this is not understandable though. Amidst this old and not so exciting history of racism, the latest political drama has offered a fascinating overview of intellectual racism in the so called civil societies.

Incompetence and corruption discredited the political parties during the insurgency period. Incompetence and dishonesty has discredited the Maoist party- that had carried a new hope for the time being- during the transition. Post-Constituent Assembly elections period has seen a discrediting of the civil societies. Intellectual racism is the reason behind. For example, just think how many “groups” of civil societies we have. Count them by the number of the press releases and statements they give as different civil society groups. If forming groups within is not groupism, what else is it? If treating others as untouchable is not racism, what else is it? If people with opinions different from yours are bad people for you, isn’t it a cruel form of racism?

If the dismantling of

the old is a necessary condition for the creation of

the new, this is time we begin to have spaces of the

civil society. Let us get rid of all the old, discredited

ones, based on artificially created icons. Not having any of them is less dangerous than having some

or all of them. They have already wasted the little precious intellectual neutral space that dimly existed between the discredited lines of political divisions.

The nomenclature “civil society” would not have been so ‘sexed up’ since February 2005 had our politics been not so ‘sexed down’. Now, that the term civil society has been sufficiently discredited, it is time for people to return home: to their rightful and natural home. Let the human rights people return to their human rights work, professors to teaching, lawyers to advocacy and media people to journalizing. In these respective areas they can still remain as civil society.

At this point, we must also drive the politicians away to their natural homes. We saw some politicians who have signed “statements” as civil society people. They would perhaps argue that as politicians, they too are members of the civil society. If so, who is not other than the security forces? It is understandable why a few “clean, intellectual” politicians still love to sign the press statements in the name of “civil society”. They think that the civil society they are tied to for the statement purpose is more clean and respectable than their own political parties. It is a pity. This perhaps is time to rethink that no civil society group is more respectable than any political party. It is another matter that none of the above is well-respected, and deservedly so.

The “civil society” we are talking about now in Nepal was artificially created by the media after the February 2005 coup by the then king. The king blamed the political parties for corruption and incompetence while staging the coup. The king’s step was absolutely wrong but his analysis of the political parties was partially correct. It was in this twilight zone of confusion that certain individuals, self-professed as civil society movement, became comfortable icons for the media to project as new saviors of democracy and civil liberties. And it helped. It was created artificially but it does not mean that it did not serve any good purpose. However, because it was artificial, it was bound to fall. The twilight zone was obliged to progress into darkness. Because these individuals representing the civil society in a certain period of time have no civic constituency of their own other than being public intellectuals. Their era is gone. The controversy on the Army Chief removal issue has become a political catharsis, which has purged and sent everyone from the “civil society” species into their rightful spaces.

The catharsis has brought some new hope. Civil society now has the opportunity to be genuine. It does not matter which constituent of the civil society- bar association, professors association, journalists’ federation for instance- can lead in the new but original space. It could be more than one constituent obviously. The recent events have only helped to expose what should have been exposed long ago. What was artificially created has been artificially eliminated. Those who lament this are the one to be really pitied.

bishnu.sapkota@gmail.com