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“I inform my wife about important decisions I take for the family. But if I know something is right or good, I decide. I don’t feel the need to discuss every matter with her,” said an educated young person while discussing decision-making in his household. His response represents a common belief in our households—the belief that the household in-charge can unilaterally decide. For most households in our cultural context, that person happens to be an elderly male figure.

There are multiple problems with such a model of decision-making. First, by merely informing our wives, mothers and daughters about our decisions, we are taking away their agencies. In doing so, we reiterate that the decision-maker knows better and can decide on the lives of the others. Second, such a model of decision-making involves a risk of nurturing a passivity that brings more harm than good in the long run, for both the active decision maker and the passive follower.

For the most part of their shared lives, parents take decisions for their children. But as these children grow up, the same parents may expect their sons and daughters to make decisions on their own. And if there is a hesitation or inability to decide, parents may even express their frustration. Another example is that we ask our daughters and sisters to keep away from men outside the family all their lives but then want them to decide on marriage soon after they have met someone, even briefly.

In our education system, educational engagements for children at school are highly structured—the government provides a curriculum; the school chooses textbooks, extra- and co-curricular activities; the teachers set up exams and discussions without involving children. But, as soon as the students pass grade 10 they are expected to decide what to study for their 10+2, or bachelors. Such examples display the ambiguity embedded in our decision-making.  

It is wrong to expect someone to decide without equipping them with necessary social, cultural and psychological tools. How can someone who is not even encouraged to decide on seemingly simple things like choosing a dress, a meal, a magazine, or a movie take significant decisions like which discipline to study, what career to pursue, or which country to live in?

Those who decide for others commonly argue that they have benevolence at heart and more knowledge and experience at hand. But are prior knowledge and experience prerequisites or adequate for good decisions? Where then do qualities like creativity and novelty fit? How often do we reflect on the consequences of our earlier decisions on ourselves and on others? What have been the repercussions of the decisions our elders/parents/bosses/spouses have made on our behalf without including us? We find that there are hardly any right or wrong decisions; there are only right and wrong ways of decision-making.

The ‘right to self-determination’ principle, popular in social work, asks practitioners to allow the client to make decisions on their own. This principle is built on the belief that ‘only the wearer knows where the show pinches’. The practitioners treat clients as ‘experts by experience’ and facilitate the client’s understanding of their context, strengths and limitations. Practitioners offer help in the process but never decide for clients or merely inform them. Social work practitioners believe that clients strengthen their agencies and become empowered by practicing their right to self-determination.

We firmly believe that the ‘right to self-determination’ should be integrated in our everyday decision-making including families, offices, and bureaucratic apparatuses. We propose engaging people of all ages, including children, unfailingly in the decisions that matter to them. Children, particularly, should not be treated as individuals without agency and merely be informed, but be actively engaged in matters that affect their lives. Engagement in decision-making in one area empowers them to decide in other areas too.

However, some individuals and groups like people with mental challenges, young children, and the marginalized might need support in decision-making. This support should be extended by laying out the contexts and the consequences of the decision-making rather than deciding on their behalf.

The best decisions come from sharing and engagement instead of unilateral assumptions and patronization. So let’s not forget to engage people who have a stake. And haven’t we agreed over generations that two heads are better than one anyway?

Going through the Indian press over the past few weeks, it would appear Nepali Prime Minister KP Oli has no bigger friend than Xi Jinping and no bigger foe than Narendra Modi. But it is Modi that Oli looks up to. The similarities between them are uncanny. Both committed themselves to politics early, with seemingly little regard for personal life; and now, both are without progeny. Both like to project themselves as self-assured, not reliant on others for decisions big and small, which goes naturally with their illiberal impulses. Both have aced majoritarian politics, largely by vilifying the minorities and appealing to the majority’s baser instincts. 

Xi presides over a top-down one-party system that offers few if any useful lessons for Nepali or Indian politicians, who must, perforce, heed public opinion. But there are ‘democratic’ ways to persuade people. Oli and Modi are masters at whipping up nationalism by demonizing a particular pesky neighbor and using the resulting anger to cement their hold on power. Oli returned as prime minister with an overwhelming majority on the back of his dogged stand against India during the 2015-16 blockade. Modi, for his part, rode home to victory in the 2019 general elections on Pakistan-bound bombers. 

Both seem adept at cartographic mischief as well. At the end of 2019, with the Indian economy growing at its slowest in six years, Modi changed the national charter to claim all of Jammu & Kashmir (which is partly responsible for the ongoing India-China tensions). This year, after an uproar in Nepal over Indian defense minister’s inauguration of a road in Lipulekh, Oli too amended the constitution to expand the Nepali map. Separately, pre-pandemic, another way the two prime ministers tried to resurrect their flagging domestic images was by going on self-promoting foreign trips. 

Oli, like Modi, is aware that voters are emotional beings. They might vilify Oli for his failure to control corona, to stop corruption, and to lead the country towards prosperity. Yet Oli knows the anti-India nationalism card, played at the right time, will wash most of his sins away: Which upstanding Nepali will oppose measures to stop the big brother’s land grabs in Nepal?

Modi has a similar modus operandi. Before the last general elections, he bombed Pakistan. On the eve of the next one, he might once again successfully project himself as a stout defender of Indian territories—perhaps against China this time. Again, thanks largely to his hard line on Pakistan, in the latest CVoter’s State of the Nation survey, Modi enjoys 65 percent personal approval, with nearly 60 percent people reporting satisfaction with his government. 

But unlike Modi, Oli is losing grip on his own party. His efforts to project himself as China’s most trusted man in Nepal, and hence high in the estimation of the nationalist Nepalis, are now being hijacked by Pushpa Kamal Dahal. To prove his loyalty, the former Maoist supremo has emerged as the most vocal critic of the American MCC compact, even as Oli seems to be in its support, much to Chinese consternation. 

Due to the many pressures he faces at home, it will be hard for Oli to budge on the new map. Modi too will hold fast on to the changed J&K map. All the more strange that there is no love lost between them.

The sanctity of the Nepal’s constitution has been breached.

The cracks in our young democracy became visible as the country prepares to stand up to India. It is in such times of national stress that the safeguards of democracy are truly tested.

Nepal’s democracy failed the test. Great danger lies ahead.  

Lack of accountability

In mid-May, Nepalis woke to discover that India had unilaterally built a road in Lipulekh, an area that Nepal claims as its own. Nepal has publicly disputed India’s claim to this area and is on record seeking a resolution through dialogue. This border dispute has been a sensitive issue for many years, high on the radar of our government.

There are many things that the government could have done as India was building the road. It could have drawn public and media attention to the transgression as it was underway. It could have protested more visibly and forcefully. It could have demanded urgent talks. It could have created border army posts in the area, as it has now done. If all these failed, the constitution should have been changed as the road was being built.

Instead, the government did nothing as India built the road.

After India inaugurated it, Prime Minister Oli said he didn’t know India was building the road as no one had told him.

Stretching over several months in broad daylight, a foreign power built 80-km road through difficult terrain (involving lots of blasting) crossing into Nepal’s (or at least disputed) territory and the prime minister didn’t know? The foreign minister didn’t know? The home minister didn’t know? The army chief didn’t know?

As office holders pledged to protect Nepal’s constitution, the prime minister and his ministers have a moral responsibility to defend, or at least try to defend, Nepal’s territorial sovereignty as it is threatened. Shouldn’t they be held responsible and accountable for this failure?

The failure of responsibility was instead turned into a narrative about India’s belligerence. In response, we rushed to change our constitution but failed to hold the government to account. The parliament failed to hold the government accountable.

India has not responded to Nepal’s call for a dialogue. The world has not responded. Nobody will. The constitutional amendment alone is not an indicator of how passionately Nepalis feel about this. The real measure of our strength and determination will come if we, the people, can demonstrate that we have the power to hold our government accountable for failing us.

To bolster the value of our constitutional amendment, we must get the prime minister and his entire council of ministers to accept moral responsibility for failing to protect Nepal’s sovereignty. We must demand an independent enquiry about who knew what and when, and establish if there was any treason.  

Without the prime minister and his council of ministers accepting moral responsibility for their failures, the constitutional amendment means nothing except a new emblem.

Constitution’s sanctity breached

The constitutional amendment passed easily and with amazing speed within days.

This was a constitutional amendment of symbolism. Why it didn’t happen earlier, or why India’s intrusion was needed to justify, isn’t clear. Constitutional amendments must be about us and who we are—it cannot be a symbol of retaliation.    

There was no public debate. No stakeholder discussion. No assessment of the social, political, or economic implications. Parliamentarians spoke and voted (almost) unanimously in favor. A lone voice of dissent was barred from speaking, ridiculed for being anti-national and threatened with expulsion from her party.

Other institutions should have stepped in to provide counsel. The president could have spoken. The army could have spoken. Provinces could have spoken. Civil society could have spoken. The courts could have spoken. Instead of first demanding accountability, everyone applauded.

A government that had failed to protect national sovereignty legitimized its failure by a constitutional amendment. No other institution objected.

The safeguards of democracy in our constitution all failed. These weaknesses will be exploited again.  

Tomorrow, another government will justify its failure to reduce poverty through a constitutional amendment that will nationalize all wealth that has been in a family’s ownership for more than a generation. Another government will justify its failure to bring prosperity through a constitutional amendment that will nationalize all private enterprises.

“Silly argument,” you say with a dismissive smirk. “Of course, we would never allow it.”

Look at what just happened. We showed how it will be done.   

Love is in the air. Love is all around me. It is written in the wind. It’s in the whisper of the tree, it’s in the thunder of the sea.

You can instantly recognize those lines if you are familiar with western music and literature. As somebody more familiar with the eastern way of living, I find it easier to accept those lines without subscribing to their literal meaning.

No, love is not in the air. It’s not written on the tree, nor in the sea. Ask someone who is planning to hang himself on a tree in the open air. Or someone who is trying to calm his heart in the middle of a thundering sea. The same thing becomes an expression of love for some, and cause of death and despair for others.

Let’s take a more common and comparable example. Two persons reach a very scenic place in a perfect weather together. One may become ecstatic, while the other might say, “Well, it looks good. So what?” They don’t enjoy it equally. Why is that?

Ask the scientists, they will say there’s no difference when different people see the same tree or sea or feel the same air. What they see is light reflecting and entering their retinas. What they hear is soundwaves touching their eardrums. What they feel is an external substance touching their skin. These generate impulses in the neurons, which are carried to the brain where an image is formed. So the process is the same, the mechanics the same. Therefore everybody should feel the air, see the tree, and hear the thunder of the sea in the exact same way.

But it doesn’t happen like that. There is something beyond the neurons and the brain. Along with the neuronal impulses and formation of an image in the brain, our mind comes to work. It starts labeling those images: I like it, I don’t like it, I want more of it, I want it to go away, and so on. A related emotion emerges. We feel attracted to it, start despising it, loving it, or hating it. Sometimes we have a mixed feeling and we neither love nor hate.

Simply put, we know about external objects when light or sound waves (or something like that) form an image in the brain. The actual perception happens not in the brain but in our mind, which immediately starts judging this perception. And instantly our liking or disliking starts. When our mind is in the state of liking, we judge things to be likable. And when the mind is in the state of disliking, we dislike everything. Our mind labels things based on its own present state.

So when we say love is out there, it means our mind is in the state of liking things. When it is at peace and ease, everything around seems lovely. It’s our mind that projects love in the air, tree, or sea. Love is in us, not out there.