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 Nepal’s civil liberties are hard-won. During the 104 years of the Rana rule, there was no such thing as freedom of expression for common people. Education was out of their reach and foreign travel completely banned. When the Ranas were forced out, there was a brief respite from authoritarianism in the 1950s, before King Mahen­dra again usurped civil rights in 1960. It would be 30 more years before the gradual opening up of political and social space again. Finally, following another long struggle, absolute monarchy was formally abolished in 2008 and complete sovereignty vested in the people.

As people would from then on be governed solely by their representatives, never again would civil liberties be curtailed, it was hoped. Yet more than a decade later there continues to be a palpable threat to free speech. The two-third communist government of KP Oli has been coming up with one regulation after another to curb press freedom. It censors the internet. It makes a sweeping decision on ownership of traditional guthis in the country without even consulting the stakehold­ers. Most recently, it arrested a comedian on the dubi­ous charge of stepping on public sensibilities.

The communists the world over and throughout history have been high on discipline. (Lenin famous­ly wanted to maintain ‘iron discipline’ in his Bolshevik Party.) They like structures. But it is difficult to give defi­nite structures to a diverse society like Nepal’s. In fact, any democratic society is riddled with contradictions, and the more diverse it is, the more contradictions there will be. But rather than taking it as a natural part of the democratic process and trying to manage these contradictions in a democratic way, the federal govern­ment seems intent on imposing its own vision of a silo-like, monochromatic society.

Voted in with an overwhelming mandate, the ruling communists claim unsullied democratic credentials. They are no Bolsheviks of yesteryears, they protest. Having long fought for the cause of democracy, they claim to be aware of their duty to protect people’s free­doms. They rather blame the recent public backlash against the government as part of the opposition’s dirty politicking. But no one’s fooled. Rather than issuing empty promises to safeguard people’s rights and free­doms, the government would do itself and the coun­try a huge favor if it refrained from restricting people’s constitutional right to free speech. If they want to be heard, it is the democratic government’s duty to listen to them. The undemocratic way of trying to muzzle them is self-sabotage.

 Two recent instances illustrate a signature shortcoming of Nepal’s post-1990 demo­cratic dispensation. In his budget speech for 2019/20, Finance Minister Yubaraj Kha­tiwada increased the yearly discretionary spending cap of federal MPs in their respective constituencies from Rs 40 million to Rs 60 million. The Constituency Development Fund has been arbitrarily increased, at the insistence of MPs from across the political spectrum, even though this fund has historically been grossly misspent. People’s chosen representatives conveniently ignored the pressure this year from the media and the common folks not to do so.

Only a handful of opposition MPs criticized the increase in MPs’ spending capacities. True, Nepali Congress leaders were unanimous in their public objection to the “populist” and “wasteful” budget. Yet most of them were curiously absent from one place from where they could get the government to rethink its budgetary priorities. The ongoing discussions in the federal parliament over the recently presented budget has turned into a farce, as speakers address the assembly without even a tenth of its 275 members in attendance. Most senior leaders of the ruling and opposition parties are missing, as are most ministers.

Sadly, this kind of shameless dereliction of duty and open loot of state coffers by people’s chosen representatives have been a constant over the past three decades. The political system changed, as did the composition of the parliament, which is now a lot more inclusive than it was even a decade ago. And yet the self-serving nature of our MPs remains the same. Upon seeing the empty chairs in the parliament on such important occasions, people are bound to ask: Why will the parliamentarians turn up after they have already gotten all the money they want? Such cynicism of the parliamentary process is troubling. It reflects a deep mistrust of the political class, which only seems interested in enriching itself even if their country is going to the dogs.

A more charitable interpretation would be that our lawmakers are humans and it must be mighty difficult for them to refuse such large sums of money that come with few strings attached. Were we in their place, the vast majority of us would probably do the same. But the point is, we are not in politics, suppos­edly the highest public service. After taking the oath to selflessly serve the country and the people, this attempt of our MPs to suck their poor state dry is morally repre­hensible. In the long run, it is also detrimental to their political career.

 As Finance Minister Yubaraj Khatiwada out­lined the roadmap to the country’s pros­perity in the federal parliament on May 29, many Nepalis were preoccupied with the bomb blasts in the national capital just a few days earlier. Many wondered why the government and the Communist Party of Nepal (CPN) led by Netra Bikram Chand ‘Biplob’ were not talking. But talking about what? The party’s demands are either vague or too radical. When APEX asked Chand about his demands, he replied: “The long and short of it is that we want an end to the way the crony capitalist class is impoverish­ing the people and bankrupting the country by captur­ing the economic, political and cultural arena and key sectors like education, health and real estate.”

Typical communist-speak. But what exactly does ending the reign of the ‘crony capitalist class’ entail? Wholesale nationalization of health and education? His party has also been bombing and taking ‘physical action’ against multinationals, which it accuses of suck­ing the country dry. Apparently, kicking them all out is the only viable option. Another of his contentions is that top Maoist leaders like Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai ‘betrayed’ the revolution when they agreed to lay down arms in 2006. His party will thus push for the conclusion of the ‘incomplete peo­ple’s war’.

As Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa informed the parliament recently, the CPN has over the past few years been busy raising a militia to wage yet another bloody revolution. The party has been openly extort­ing businesses and NGOs to add to its war-chest. It has killed innocent people and made life difficult for every­one, and in doing so it is behaving more like a criminal outfit than a political party.

Yes, the Oli government has been rather harsh in dealing with Chand’s party. But it is also disingenuous of Chand to claim there has been no initiative for talks from the government’s side. Chand himself admits that there were many ‘informal’ approaches, which appar­ently amounted to nothing. It isn’t hard to guess why. In his own words, “we are not afraid of talks, but we are not convinced that they will address the issues raised by our revolution.”

The government should always be open for talks with a political party that has legitimate political demands. But how can there be meaningful talks when Chand refuses to abandon his violent and criminal ways? If the CPN wants the government and the civil society to consider it a credible political outfit, it should fore­swear violence and declare itself ready for uncondi­tional talks.

 Except for a section of the former Maoist gue­rillas and some Madhesi outfits, the rest of the Nepali political parties were always reluctant federalists. It made sense too. Before the 2007 Madhesi uprising, few Nepalis had heard of federalism. So wedded were they to a unitary state, the federal concept sounded alien, even as its proponents were trying to explain that it was just another way to ensure proper distribution of power and resources away from Kathmandu. It was natural that the political parties, the articulators of public aspirations, were also unsure about federalism. That was then.

Today, federalism, firmly enshrined in the Nepali constitution, is a fait accompli. The country has seven provinces and 753 local level units, each with its own government, besides the federal government at the center. The constitution sees each of these 761 govern­ments as autonomous, self-governing entities, even as it envisions a high level of cooperation and coordina­tion among them. Thus when Prime Minister KP Oli says that Nepal is “one country with one [federal] gov­ernment” with seven provincial and 753 local “subordi­nate” governments, he is walking on thin ice.

It was one thing for KP Oli the leader of the erstwhile CPN-UML to publicly express his skepticism of feder­alism. (Even that stand was not entirely unproblematic because he was among the top leaders who had put pen to the draft constitution that instituted a federal Nepal back in 2015.) But to do so as the head of the federal government is not just unseemly; it is also trou­bling for the nascent federal republic. It suggests either the prime minister does not fully understand his role as the head of the federal government, or he is know­ingly abusing his powers.

In the past year and a half Oli has tried to central­ize powers and shown his unwillingness to transfer power and resources to the provinces and local levels. This is as clear in the center-heavy budget allocations as it is in the continued existence of the parallel bod­ies under the old unitary structure that have created many problems for the provincial governments. The country expects better of Oli, the chief custodian and the embodiment of the federal constitution. He should realize that the federal formula can work only with high levels of delegation and trust between the three tiers of the government. On the other hand, the sham federal­ism that Oli and co. seem to be promoting imperils all the recent political gains.