An Open Letter To NAC

Goal Has To Be To Stay As One Country
तीन लाखले सरकारी जागीर खाने, तीन करोड कता जाने?
Mantra: Economic Revolution

Dear Ambikaji.

Sorry it took me a while, but this is in response to your email that said "NAC is open to new ideas" that was a response to my blog post Democracy, Transparency, And The Nepali Diaspora.

I am glad you took the time to write. Here is my suggestion. (Surfacing)

Globalization and the internet are the two megatrends of these times. People are going to move around. Diasporas are going to be created. The concept of immigration has to be reimagined.

The First Major Revolution Of The 21st Century Happened In Nepal

We Nepalis did something amazing during the April Revolution 2006 and its second chapter, the Madhesi Kranti early this year. We invented nonviolent militancy.

Like I said to Howard Dean not longer after the April Revolution, "Governor, Iraq has 27 million people and Nepal has 27 million people. We have to spread democracy like in Nepal, not like in Iraq."

There have been many theories about who should get credit for the April Revolution. To ask that very question is to not understand the April Revolution and how it was brought about. Everyone anywhere on earth who participated should get credit. The April Revolution was like the physical universe. There was no center. But the primary credit goes to those who actually came out into the streets in large numbers.

The reason I am trying so hard to establish the April Revolution's due place in world history is to suggest we did it, and we can do something equally wonderful for the diaspora itself.

Some say there are 120,000 Nepalis in America, some say there are 200,000. Let's assume there are 150,000. If we had to start from scratch, how would we organize that crowd?

I believe some basic principles will have to be established. I propose two simple ones. One, democracy. Two, transparency.

One person, one vote, one voice: that is what democracy means. Equality is a political concept. All human beings are equal. That premise has to be the starting point.

The barrier to entry for Nepalis to join existing organizations and launch new ones should be as low as possible. The barrier to entry for new and old Nepali organizations in America to join NAC - the closest thing to what we have as an umbrella organization - should be as low as possible.

Organizations may or may not register with the American state. Those who might register might or might not seek non-profit status. It is all good. It is for the individual organization to decide. But no matter what course an organization chooses, one person, one vote is still valid. The concept of all human beings being equal is still valid.

Transparency is necessarily to do with the internet in this day and age. Creating and hosting a website is free at Google Pages. Devnagari script options are available: Blogger, Script. There is no excuse for any Nepali organization in America to not have an online presence.

All organizations should have a web presence. All book keeping of all organizations should be transparent. All decision making should be transparent. All it would take is to take and publish minutes of the key meetings.

Once you bring this about, NAC is going to have many more member organizations. And existing member organizations are going to have to change the way they operate, slightly.

NAC leadership will have to be elected by all member organizations. I don't know if it happens every year or every two years right now. But the only democratic way would be to say each member organization's voting weight is the total number of members it has. And that gets verified by the organization listing all its members and at least one piece of contact information for each at its website, either email address, or phone number or snail mail address.

There are several large and many small Nepali organizations all across America that are not members of NAC. And there are some obvious regional rivalries among the various regional groupings. All those will have to be encouraged to consolidate. And NAC will have to partly take over the ANA Convention to give it added legitimacy. Regional conventions are no problem, the more the merrier. And those are for the regional organizations to do or not.

What I am doing is basically creating a mathematical postulate. What happens when you take democracy and transparency to its logical conclusion? What does the organizational model look like? People have the option to agree, or disagree and express those disagreements right here in the comments section. People might also exercise the option to ignore and continue with the same old, same old. I hope not.

I hope we can start a conversation and bring about some basic changes in the ways we organize ourselves. The most important immediate positive fallout of adopting the twin basic principles will be that forces will be created to make sure many many more Nepalis in America get organized.

Unless we get organized we can not improve our political situation locally. And we should. Why can't Nepalis vote in the city elections in New York? Makes no sense to me.

Our organizations have to become democratic, transparent and mass-based. There is work to be done at home before we can go out there and engage in the conversation that will empower us.

Personally I don't believe I would have any leadership ambitions within a reorganized NAC. My organization Hamro Nepal is a digital, global organization. It is not exactly a diaspora organization, we also have members in Nepal. But we might create a US chapter and become a member organization. My interest is in creating the democratic, transparect process, not in seeking a leadership role. I have neither the time nor the inclination.

A better organized diaspora could also play a more meaningful role in Nepal's economic revolution, to last decades. But my organization's insight there is that as long as Nepal can create a policy framework friendly to FDI - foreign direct investment - it can tap the regional and global financial markets, and so the Nepali diaspora's role could only be marginal, and to that end Hamro Nepal intends to organize an online think tank, to help create that policy framework.

The primary motivation for the diaspora has to be self interest, not some sorry feeling towards the Nepalis in Nepal. The diaspora has to organize because the diaspora intends to empower itself in its local habitats.

To summarize.

1. NAC should reorganize itself as the umbrella organization for all Nepali organizations in America.
   
2. All member organizations must be democratic and transparent.
   
3. The voting weight of each member organization will be how many members it has.
   

I believe the proposal is simple but far reaching, and it has implications for the ongoing national debate on immigration. We have to become part of it. We have to help shape it. We have to seek allies among other communities and groups.

I hope this is the beginning of a meaningful conversation.

Thank you.

Paramendra Bhagat.

PS. And while we are at it, I would encourage you and others to come into the seed money round of my tech startup, I am accepting $500, 1K and 2K per person. I believe my company is the single best thing I can do for the Global South. My projection is 2K becomes 200K in 5-7 years. I am listing this baby on Nasdaq. Food, water, internet access: every human being deserves these three basics. There is a market way of getting there. Evey human being has mindspace arond which the advertising industry rotates. First World ra Third World beech ko khadal purne bhanekai internet le ho.

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