Submit your Article

With the 1949 Revolution, China avenged its centu­ry of humiliation. A new China was born—the line in the 1943 propaganda song, “there would be no New China without the Communist Party” was, we have to admit, quite prophetic. But the euphoria was short-lived because the New China was far from perfect. Disasters, one after another, resulting from Chairman Mao’s ambitions and mistaken understanding of ground realities, led to loss of millions of lives. Everything was in shambles. In 1974, Premier Zhou Enlai, while he was receiving treatment for cancer in a hospital room in Beijing, was also finalizing a plan to realize the dream of a modern, rich and powerful China with Li Xiannian, Ye Jianying, Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping. Although the deliberations to make China a modern socialist power by 2000 had been going on since the early 1960, Chairman Mao’s frequent mood swings made everyone fear their political and personal survival and the agenda took a backseat.

It was Hua Guofeng, Mao’s “chosen” successor, who made it possible for Deng to carry out future reforms

Finally, on January 13, 1975, Pre­mier Zhou presented his plan at the Fourth National People’s Con­gress. China needed foreign trade and technology to recover from a series of socialist misadventures, the latest being the ongoing Cul­tural Revolution (1966-1976). While delivering the speech stat­ing the need for modernization in four key areas—agriculture, economy, science and technolo­gy and national defense, or Four Modernizations— Zhou knew it well that he would not live to see its implementation and was not even sure that the plan would be implemented as it was the craziest of times and nobody had a clue where China was headed.

And there came a sign from the most unlikely source—heav­en (tian). The devastating 1976 Tangshan earthquake was seen by many as signaling a change, as major natural calamities preced­ed dynastic changes in Chinese history. Soon after, Chairman Mao went to see Marx, euphe­mism for death then. Zhou had already gone to meet Marx a few months before the Chairman had his chance.

The story of what happened after Mao’s death has been told and retold many times. The popular version credits Deng for everything good that hap­pened thereafter. Deng played a huge role in China’s growth, no doubt. But it was Hua Guofeng, Mao’s “chosen” successor, who made it possible for Deng to carry out future reforms. But Hua is confined to obscurity in many accounts.

As Ezra Vogel explains, it was Hua who abandoned radical Mao­ism, arrested the notorious ultra-left Gang of Four members includ­ing Mao’s actress-turned-revo­lutionary wife Jiang Qing, and established the Special Economic Zones to attract foreign invest­ment, and who reluctantly rein­stated Deng. Deng, however, proved to be a better politician than Hua. In a few years, Deng had him sidelined and replaced by his loyal, Hu Yaobang.

Shortly after his political come­back, Deng formally launched the Four Modernizations in 1978. The revolution was postponed for 100 years to signal to the foreigners that China was now prioritizing political stability and economic growth, and to assure the Chinese people that the era of nonsensical socialist adventure was now over.

Deng’s change of course

Deng was not dogmatic. As a young work-study student in France, he had seen the good side of capitalism (of course some scholars rule out this interpreta­tion, while others swear by it). The chaos resulting from Chair­man Mao’s misguided policies made him find a way to fuse good traits of capitalism with socialism.

He also had a personal reason for doing away with the ultra-left ideology, as Merle Goldman has argued.

A group of Red Guards had thrown out his son, Deng Pufang, a student of physics, from a third-floor window at Peking University. The guards were the youth who felt they were following Chairman Mao’s call to destroy the reaction­aries and rightists. (Some claim Deng Pufang tried to kill himself by jumping off ). Deng Pufang sur­vived but he wasn’t given urgent medical care, and he remains paralyzed as a result. Deng’s other children were sent to rural areas for reeducation and he himself was sent to a tractor factory and was paid so little that he had to cut down on his favorite indulgence, smoking.

While craving a morning smoke at the workers’ dormito­ry in Jiangsu’s tractor factory, Deng must have realized that he himself as well as millions of Chinese had had enough of the leftist misadventures. Not long after, when he got the Mandate of Heaven, the plan was already there and the time was right to change China.

And Revlon met the revolution­ary Iron Brigade Women who in the 1960s shunned all signs of feminism and declared make-up un-revolutionary and feudal. Colonel Sander’s crispy chicken was happily consumed by the comrades opposing US imperi­alism. The old comrades who had spent some time in France during their youth under the work-study program realized they had not fallen out of love with the taste of croissant after all. Everybody got what they wanted in Deng’s China, except people like Wei Jingsheng, who want­ed the “fifth modernization”, i.e., western-style democracy.

Heaven is never wrong.

 Despite big promises, the all-powerful Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has failed to make any substantial impact in his nine months in office. For many, this communist government is being overshadowed by the nine-month minority communist government led by late Man Mohan Adhikari in 1994. For his few popular programs like social security allowance and Aafno Gaun Aafai Banau (‘Lets build our villages ourselves’), the Adhikari government is still remembered with respect. Oli could have done far better than Adhikari. But despite recently rolling out a rather popular social security scheme of his own, Oli is fast losing momentum. PM Oli has a rather naive mindset on pressing issues like federal tran­sition, constitution amendment, party unification, transitional jus­tice, impunity, diplomatic relations, development drive and other pub­lic issues. Successful management of the federal transition is a major responsibility for this government. But PM Oli does not seem keen. For instance, provincial governments have failed to give business to their houses in absence of minimum pol­icy and resource support from the federal government. In case of local government, there is no system to maintain check and balance.

Constitution amendment is another long overdue commitment Oli government made to Madhes-based parties

As a result, there is widespread corruption in local level govern­ment. Further, PM Oli is still reluc­tant to form the ‘natural resources and financial commission’ which has constitutional mandate to distribute resources equitably among the three tiers of the government.

Constitution amendment is another long overdue commitment Oli government made to Mad­hes-based parties. In reality, there have been no negotiations in nine months regarding what to amend. The reluctance on the both sides, the government as well as the Mad­hes-based parties, to push the issue of constitutional amendment has only helped fuel the popularity of radical forces like CK Raut.

Following the parliamentary elec­tions, communist party leaders had promised immediate party unifica­tion, which in their words was going to end intra-party groupism and factionalism, and they would then be able to focus all their energy to national development. But nothing of the kind has happened. What we rather see is that intra-party groupism and factionalism have intensified in the ruling Nepal Com­munist Party.

It is yet to be seen how the issue of transitional justice will be resolved and impunity addressed. PM Oli has not set a good precedent though. For instance, the lingering and unresolved cases of Gangya Maya Adhikari and Nirmala Pant suggest justice for common Nepalis, thereby ending the culture of impunity, is not high on PM Oli’s priority.

Oli had created much hype for successfully ending the reign of transport syndicates and bringing big contractors under government control. But it turned out that rather than removing syndicates and con­trolling unscrupulous contractors, it was the Oli government itself that was being controlled by these syndi­cates and contractors.

Again, in nine months, PM Oli has created much noise but failed to deliver much. Above all, populism and propaganda characterize his regime. In August, the prime min­ister had inaugurated a biogas plant in Biratnagar. Then, in October, he inaugurated Sajha-operated electric buses. Both these things were done with great fanfare. But the bio-gas plant was shut after a month while the electric buses were not operated for a single day after their inaugura­tion. Also, one has to question if the prime minister’s time is best spent inaugurating this or that project rather than in delivering on his elec­toral promises.

We can thus argue that in nine months the popularity of PM Oli and his government has fallen sharply. It’s difficult to be hopeful under such circumstances. Surrounded as he is by brokers and contractors, the chances of PM Oli redeeming himself are slim.

All major political parties in Nepal have intellectu­al wings, or so they say. But in reality, very few poli­cy ideas, let alone good ones, are generated within party struc­tures these days. Shrinking space for intellectual autonomy both in and outside the party in gen­eral further compounds this problem. As a result, the policy environment remains seriously compromised, allowing political hustlers to peddle half-backed ideas that serve particular interest groups rather than the general public. This is becoming a serious problem for our young federal republic.Our parties have to introspect on their structures and institute necessary changes, including their intellectual wings, if our third attempt (post-1950, post-1990 and now post-2006) at insti­tuting meaningful democracy is to bear fruit. Our major parties have not undergone the kind of mod­ernization Samuel P. Hunting­don discusses in his seminal book Political Order in Changing Societies. Parties are still stuck in this mindset of fighting against a totalitarian regime. Democracy has come and gone in Nepal, in part due to the inability of the victorious democratic forces to adapt to the task of governance. Governance is a complex process that calls for the right culture, autonomous institutions and dis­persion of power.

In our latest election cycle held for the three tiers of gov­ernment, Nepali Congress per­formed badly largely because of its unwillingness to change the narrative of that previous era. While the left parties offered a vision of prosperous Nepal, even though without specifics, Nepali Congress chose to raise the spec­ter of totalitarianism of the left forces. The public was simply tired of the nearly seven-de­cade-old fear mongering.

This was clearly a triumph of hope over fear. But unfortunate­ly, for a government that has been given a two-third majority to deliver on that promise, we haven’t seen the kind of clarity and drive towards modernization that is necessary to execute an ambitious vision of prosperity in the new federal set-up. On the contrary, all signs point towards regression under the misplaced notion of a strong government. A strong government doesn’t mean concentration of power or, in our case, a super prime minister—it means decisiveness enabled by an informed policy environment; it means delegation of authority with clear oversight and account­ability mechanism.

Prime minister undermining his ministers by emboldening secretaries to defy them sets a bad precedent. Ministers need to be given space to perform and get relieved of their duties when they fail to do so—a prime ministerial prerogative, no doubt. A clear test of the government commitment to modernization is whether it builds institutions or undermines them.

In the long run, a party can deliver and thus continue to remain in power only if it keeps generating new ideas. And this can only come from debate and contest of ideas, not simply by toeing a line. All of our political parties need to modernize, but in our case, there are few aspects that need extra focus.

Working culture: Our polit­ical culture remains stuck in a bygone era with all the trappings of a feudal system. Leaders do not like to be held accountable and expect the party rank-and-file, and increasingly, even the intellectuals, to be subservient. It feels like we removed one king only to be replaced by hundreds of minor kings, each with a sense of entitlement of emperors.

Party structure: If there are to be reforms in governance, reforms are necessary in the party structures, too. There can­not be a modern government without a corresponding modern party apparatus.

Competence and qualifications: Spending several years in jail for democracy cannot be the only qualification and justification for giving someone a key government position. Training and experience need to count besides the time one has invested in politics.

Individual discipline: Last but not the least being self-disciplined is the key to inspiring same level of rigor in others too. A minis­ter can only push his colleagues in the ministry for results if he/she shows high level of consisten­cy and commitment towards a common goal.

But it would also be unreal­istic to expect our senior lead­ers presiding over a traditional party structure and culture to suddenly push for modernization of the government.

My body became stiff and I felt acute pain in my shoulders. Although I had back pain every now and then I had seldom experienced such excruciating pain in my body. My heart was beating unusually, my body trembled and my hands slipped from the keyboard of my laptop due to sweat. There was a ton of work left and I could clearly see that I could not turn out a decent assignment by the due date; I suspected an anxiety attack and Google confirmed my suspicion. Interestingly, the anxiety attack sub­sided with my partner offering to help me with the assignment. We all have experienced anxi­ety at some point in life and it is but a normal human experience. Unfamiliar situations like first time away from home, first date, first presentation, first job interview, to name a few, can cause anxiety. Anxiety can result from all kinds of situations like getting married, becoming a parent, appearing in an exam and not all discomforts led by anxiety are counterproductive. Anxiety can sometimes be benefi­cial as expressed by Dahal (2016) in Understanding emotions, “a little bit of anxiety before an exam or pre­sentation can keep her focused and yield better results but too much of it can make things worse”. So the question arises: when is anxiety beneficial and when does it become a problem?

Normal anxiety is intermittent, the stressor is rational and the anxiety goes away with removal of the stressor whereas it becomes a problem when it tends to be chronic, irrational and interferes substantially with life functions. Problem anxiety may manifest as avoidance behavior, incessant worry, difficulty with memory and concentration and takes a toll when it becomes intense and affects the regular functioning of an individual. What’s worse? Problem anxiety if not dealt with properly may lead to anxiety disorder.

The restructuring of governance through the newly promulgated constitution allows us to revisit the status of mental health

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders pub­lished by the American Psychiat­ric Association, which is widely accepted worldwide as the reference for classification of mental disor­ders, defines anxiety disorder as “the presence of excessive anxiety and worry about a variety of topics, events, or activities. Worry occurs more often than not for at least six months and is clearly excessive”.

www.webmd.com describes anxi­ety disorder as an umbrella term that includes panic disorder, social anx­iety disorder, specific phobias and general anxiety disorder. The exact causes of anxiety disorders are hard to tell but they can be linked with changes in an individual’s brain, changes in their environment and even the genes they inherit. Anxiety disorder may severely impact areas of life related to the stressor for anx­iety and may expand beyond these areas to other aspects of life and functioning. The good news is it can be managed and treated. Realizing that you have an anxiety issue is the first step to change.

A few simple but helpful tips that might help to manage the symp­toms of anxiety are cutting down on caffeine intake and eating right, exercising regularly and sleeping adequately. Talking to a professional can help identify the stressors of anxiety and deal accordingly. A number of medical and psychologi­cal conditions can also cause exces­sive anxiety, e.g. prevalence of heart diseases or extreme time pressures and excessive workloads.

A mental health professional can investigate if medical illnesses are causing the symptoms of anxiety. These professionals use question­naires and other tools for testing prevalence and intensity of anxiety disorder. There are various treat­ments used to deal with anxiety disorder which may be a combi­nation of one or more medication (including antidepressants) and psy­chotherapy (counseling, cognitive behavioral therapy).

The biggest reason preventing people from seeking professional help in anxiety related issues is probably the stigma associated with poor mental health. We superficially and quickly associate mental health issues with complete loss of mental balance and rush to label seekers of mental health services as ‘paagal’ or ‘baulaha’, words that have severe negative connotations and cause stigmatization and ostracization of the individuals so labeled.

Matrika Devkota (2011) in Psy­chology International flags that individuals with severe mental disorders, as well as their family members, are targets of stigma and discrimination to the point where they hesitate to come forward for appropriate treatment.

He says although there is an increased awareness of mental health in recent days, there are also numerous challenges to get­ting mental health care in Nepal including inadequate mental health professionals and treatment facili­ties, inadequate budget and admin­istration for mental health services, and absence of consumer or pro­fessional organizations advocating mental health issues.

The restructuring of governance in Nepal through the newly pro­mulgated constitution allows us to revisit the status of mental health in the country. It is a time where practitioners and policy makers can collaborate for a new Nepal where all its denizens have access to ade­quate mental health services. Social Workers can play a big role to raise awareness on mental health, to fill the gap for trained professionals and to advocate for the cause.