Reading various English-language and Nepali-language news reports and opinion pieces in Nepal, one gets the impression that every educated Nepali wants a harmonious, friendly consensus on issues that matter. At first, this craving for national consensus appears good enough: Nice, patriotic Nepalis sitting around, amicably agreeing with one another, and uniformly reaching some conflict-free consensus.
But ask what those issues are, on which national consensus is needed, and clashing opinions start to spill forth. Soon it becomes clear that the only issues on which harmonious, national consensus exists are the ones no one really disagrees with: Yes, education is a must for Nepali children. But do we go about providing it effectively to all? Yes, an access to basic health-care is a glaring need. But how to go about laying down a realistic path of actions toward that need? Questions like these, which could only be asked amidst debates and discussions, show how limiting the culture of seeking consensus really is.
That, however, should not come as a surprise. After all, everything in Nepal is so diverse that it has always resisted any group's one-size-fits-all sort of consensus. Most educated Nepalis indeed know this. Still, a craving for consensus persists strongly, and [14] years after multiple viewpoints have been allowed in public domain, headlines that shout "National Consensus: Need of the Hour" jump from most Nepali newspapers. It's never clear, of course, just what kind of consensus on what kind of issue is actually needed.
Against this backdrop, I argue that what we continue to need in Nepal is not some easy, fuzzy consensus but assumption-shattering debates on all issues. After all, think: since 1990, haven't we had enough of that longing for never-appearing national consensus? The making of the Constitution in 1990, Arun III, Mahakali Treaty . . . where was the consensus about these and other issues? And haven't we gone long enough - yearning for consensus, while avoiding debates and exposures to diversely conflicting viewpoints?
Consider too, how that yearning has left us as a nation: sensitive to every criticism, unable to articulate and defend our own thoughts, easily offended by disagreeable points of view, and in short, incapable of dealing with the power of ideas when that power should have enlightened the very basis of citizenship in our democracy.
Maybe all this is understandable. After all, it is always easier to avoid uncertainties by hiding behind a veil of trumped-up consensus than confronting them head-on with debates and discussions. For this reason alone, in a democracy like ours, consensus-seekers are often those who get so easily overwhelmed by the multiplicity of ideas that they think they have no choice but to denounce debates as byartha ka kura (useless chatter) and debaters with all kinds of ad hominem attacks while waiting for the interplay of ideas to wind down. What they fail to grasp is that ideas never end in a democracy, and that the only way to weed out bad ones is not to give in easily to some easy, fuzzy consensus, but to keep on debating so that better ideas emerge.
Let me explain this further through this example. In textbooks and popular press, on no issue is there a greater consensus than on the fact that all our Nepali-language writers are indisputably great. Devkota is great. So is Bal Krishna Sama, so is Lekh Nath Poudyal, and ditto for Dharani Dhar Koirala, Shanker Lamichhane and everyone else.
In fact, we are told, again and again, that all of those writers are so great, "so up there" that we, the masses for whom they wrote their novels, plays and poems, should not even dare to debate about or criticize their literary creations. My point is that it is precisely this consensus of fossilized reverence that has sapped, among other things, much of the vigor out of our collective appreciation of Nepali-language literature.
For one may ask, what is so great about Devkota's writings? Or, to what extent did Shakespeare influence nationalist Sama's Mukunda Indira? Could Lekhnath have alluded to something other than the Rana oligarchy in his poem Pijara ko Suga? Questions such as these can never be asked, let alone thought about, when there exist dry and ready made consensus to drive away doubts, uncertainties and a sense of wonder. Through unexamined consensus, works of Nepali literature are, then, viewed -- not as live issues touching all of us, but as dry entities so revered that they end up offering us no hope, no joy, no intellectual adventures and certainly no inspiration.
And the results become too familiar. We may all repeat the trite consensus, that, Devkota was a great writer. But never will we be able to articulate just what is so great about his writings. Is it any wonder, then, that as a nation we are annually reduced to thinking about Devkota only on the day of Laxmi-puja, that too perfunctorily?
Our studies of history and politics are no better. In schools and colleges across Nepal, those subjects are taught as tedious chronological chains of consensus, garnished only by nationalist rhetoric. Prithivi Narayan Shah, Bhimsen Thapa, Balbhadra and Arniko were all great. The Ranas were bad. The Panchayat was wholly bad. And today's political leaders were all paragons of wisdom and courage during their time underground. Again, missing are debates, discussions, arguments and doubts - about evidence, interpretations, and multiple viewpoints that could make studies of our history and politics so intellectually enriching.
Yes, Prithivi Narayan Shah chose Kathmandu to be his capital. But how did that affect the medieval economy of Gorkha? Yes, Bhalbhadra might have been a fighting nationalist. But what made him join the army of a Punjabi king, and later die anonymously in Afghanistan? Yes, the Panchayati system was autocratic. But how are we to go about judging today's supposedly democratic netas who, elected to govern, end up lording over us much like their Panchayati predecessors?
Fortunately, answers to these questions are not ready-made and dry, and - despite what news reports and political pundits tell us - certainly not based on someone's idea of consensus. And that is refreshing. For that tells us that there is room for hope, room for a sense of wonder, room for doubts and debates, and, above all, room for well-evidenced, influential ideas to eventually rise to the top. After all, just as Devkota's uncritical worshippers do not have the last word on what makes great Nepali literature, uncritical followers of B. P. Koirala or, for that matter, Pushpa Lal Shrestha need not be the ultimate arbitrators of just what kind of political-economic system we need.
In the end, however, the notion of easy, fuzzy consensus does not mesh well with that of democracy. For what is consensus, but - as in Nepali's historical case - lumping one uniform point of view of the state on the masses in the name of some purported national harmony? Democracy, on the other hand, is about an equality of opportunity for ideas, no matter how brilliant or imbecile. Granted, when all kinds of ideas are allowed to come to the fore, the truth itself is then disputed. But when that happens, we should then seek it by entering into debates - arguing together so that we can reason together.
Encouraging open-ended national debates, as opposed to giving in to close-minded narrow consensus, on issues that matter remains our renewing hope for the continuing vitality of our Nepali democracy.
(Published in 1998 as a lead essay in an edition of the now-defunct The Kathmandu Post Review of Books. http://www.asianstudies.emory.edu/sinhas/kprb.html)
By: Ashutosh Tiwari
