The Democrats

This is the best of the three crowds. It is not any face on the map: it is rather the ideal of democracy that has oomph. Although there are some faces that really stand out: foremost of course being BP Koirala. Talking democracy in 1990 or 2000 is much easier than it must have been five decades back, and BP talked democracy back then.

BP had his fair share of comrades, not least among them being his brother Girija himself whom he lovingly referred to as a "hawaldar," someone more useful as a freedom fighter than he ever was as Prime Minister.

Krishna Prasad Bhattarai did a great job as interim Prime Minister. He had this great way of diffusing tension and taking along disparate people for a ride.

In the UML camp, Madan Bhandari stands out. His theoretical contribution to bringing his hard core communist party into a multi-party framework might not ring a lot of bells for the democrats, but it was a big leap for the communist camp. Too bad he did not stick around to cultivate his ideas further and to apply them with tools of power.

Gajendra Narayan Singh is a major symbol for the DaMaJaMa crowd, or at least for the largest component within it. His work remains unfinished business.

Old faces must go, new faces must come into place. That is necessary for the democratic process.

But now the talk has to be about tomorrow.

In a way it is tragic where the country is today. On the other hand, it is also a golden opportunity to create a new Nepal. It is possible to put Nepal on the political cutting edge so as to unleash its economic potential.

It is homework time for the democrats. There have to be free-flowing discussions, but there also has to be unity for the common bedrock of democracy itself.

Like Jesse Jackson would say, "Movement Time!"

Talk about new faces, I think Girija himself has identified two of them!

Gagan Thapa and Narahari Acharya both have clarity of vision. They are more in tune with the sentiments on the ground than most others. It is a litmus test for a democratic party as to if it will make room for these two or sideline them. And it is also a challenge to the political skills of these two to prove that they can walk the walk in intra-party politics, because that is one of the things you do for the democratic ideal you have wedded yourself to. Bill Clinton says politics is a contact sport. You have to get in the mud. Or like John Kennedy once noted, "Mothers want their sons to become president, but they don't want them to become politicians in the process."

An out of power party has to necessarily be transformed before it can reclaim power. And that transformation is not easy. You have to pick fights along the way.

Bill Clinton had to reinvent the Democratic Party before he could become president in 1992, Tony Blair had to do the same with Labor in Britain.

A Nepali Congress that can not introduce internal democracy inside the party is not going to be the foremost voice for democracy in the country.

And the Nepali democrats actually have it easy. Aang Saang Su Kyi is in jail in Burma. Benazir Bhutto is in exile. If you can't do it under the given circumstances, when can you? The 1990 movement was conducted in more difficult circumstances.

If the democrats do enough homework and well, they are back to occupying centerstage.

Nepal will have to establish democracy, and then Nepal will have to export that democracy elsewhere in the region.

Food, water, democracy: every human being needs and deserves these three things.

And that Nepal is a global concept. The Nepali diaspora has been a big part of the movement. The social fermentations that take place among the diaspora also has a positive impact on the process of social transformation in the country.

The impact is also to be felt economically. A democratic Nepal will be able to tap into its diaspora to make possible rapid economic growth.