Nepal: Political Laboratory

Nepal, more than anything else, more than a place where I grew up, more than lingering therapy for some past unpleasant to downright devastating experiences as a Madhesi, has been a political laboratory for me. I have imagined new things possible. And I have been disappointed.

It would have been nice to have one third of the constituencies reserved for women. Noone else in the world is doing it. A new constitution should be a cutting edge constitution. But that was not to be. I would also have liked a multi-party democracy of state funded parties, each party getting money in direct proportion to how many votes they collect, and being barred from other sources of funding. But not even the Maoists have gone for this.

I have not been a journalist reporting on events. I have been a digital activist trying to shape events. The distance has been a boon. I would have been less effective in person on the ground. From 10,000 miles away in New York City I have devoured on information sources to suggest actions and strategies to the progressive forces. The progressives of 2005 are the unapologetic regressives of 2015, and so 2015 still feels like 2005 to me, as the cause closest to my heart, equality for Madhesis, is as unfinished as ever as of now.

But the good news is India is waking up. As late as early this year, I was lamenting the word Madhesi does not exist in Patna, Lucknow or Delhi. But now the word also exists as fas as Kerala. The Madhesis for the first time have showed up on the Indian map. Never before have an Indian Prime Minister, an Indian Home Minister, an Indian Foreign Minister taken interest in Madhesis. Heck, I never got the impression they were ever aware we even existed. But that has changed, and that is tectonic. There are as many Madhesis as Jews on the planet today. Jesus was born a Jew, Buddha a Madhesi.

There have been take away lessons for me. I might have failed to shape political events exactly to my liking in Nepal, but I have managed to formulate a political roadmap for India. That India is the largest democracy, and democracy is not India doing America’s bidding, although it is high time America considered India to be the new Britain, its number one ally in the world. Democracy is native to India: the earliest republics were during the early years of Buddhism. America’s original mission of a total spread of democracy gets kneecapped by its original sin: race. The militarism gets in the way. It is too rich and unrelatable by the vast swaths in the Global South. There are not enough semi-educated Muslims in America. India has none of those disadvantages. India is better positioned to carry the torch than is America, although it remains shy. There is a peaceful way to spread democracy. Actually, peaceful is the only legitimate way, it is the most effective way. And there India can take the lead. And there my Nepal experience has not disappointed. If democracy will enter China, it will more likely do so through Nepal than Taiwan. Tibet is China’s soft belly. Tibet is too far from the China proper, and it is too close to Nepal and India. The Tibetan plateau will forever remain vulnerable, until it opens up.

The Law Of Political Entropy (I formulated it) says, a country tends democracy granted there is sufficient flow of information. Democracy is the natural order of things, and it comes from inside the human heart, inside every human heart. But its expression requires a free flow of information, often stenched by autocratic regimes. So powers like America and India that live and die by democracy, or should live and die by democracy, should focus first and foremost on beaming down the Internet to all corners of the globe. Elon Musk is already doing it. The US government should simply become an angel investor and perhaps buy 10% of his satellite internet company for 10 billion dollars. The growth that investment might see will also help pay down some of the humongous American debt. The Chinese might appreciate.

Democracy has to come as a consciousness and a roadmap, and an organizational structure and a leadership flow. Perhaps you start in the diaspora. Once you are ready, and you have an interim constitution at the ready, and an interim Head Of State in waiting, then you seek to shut the country down completely. At least 25% of the people will need to show up in the streets. The interim government holds elections to a constituent assembly within a year of taking over. The only rule for the interim and the subsequent cosntitution is it may not clash with the Universal Declaration Of Human Rights.

This roadmap is the best for the cause of a total spread of democracy, and Nepal has been the political laboratory where I saw it tested on the ground. In this roadmap, the smartphone is the AK-47.

This also means opening wide the doors of immigration in the rich countries. Not only do you need that to prop up your own ageing populations, remittances have been way more effective than foreign aid, and diasporas pick up lessons in democracy and organizing that State Department programs can’t teach, it is beyond their scope. The scale is humongous. Immigration can not, should not be stopped, it should be encourged and managed well. Do not fight it, tame it. Globalization is not just a free flow of information and goods, people also want to move around. That movement brings forth progress. People always seem to want to move from less desirable to more desirable conditions. They know what is more desirable. They move, they soak up, they learn, and then they propagate. They beam it all back to places where they came from. And light spreads. It’s not just democracy, it’s also prosperity. Democracy very appeal is that it makes prosperity possible.

HRW Report
Nepal's Decade Long Political Transition

While Modi Meets A Friend Of Mine

The strongest weapon to shift geopolitical balances isn’t nukes or missiles, it’s technology

Instead of worrying about the rise of China, we need to fear its fall; and while oil prices may oscillate over the next four or five years, the fossil-fuel industry is headed the way of the dinosaur. The global balance of power will shift as a result........... Solar and wind are now advancing on exponential curves. Every two years, for example, solar installation rates are doubling, and photovoltaic-module costs are falling by about 20 percent. Even without the subsidies that governments are phasing out, present costs of solar installations will, by 2022, halve, reducing returns on investments in homes, nationwide, to less than four years.

By 2030, solar power will be able to provide 100 percent of today’s energy needs; by 2035, it will seem almost free — just as cell-phone calls are today. .......

..... Exponential technologies are deceptive because they move very slowly at first, but one percent becomes two percent, which becomes four, eight, and sixteen; you get the idea. As futurist Ray Kurzweil says,

when an exponential technology is at one percent, you are halfway to 100 percent

, and that is where solar and wind energies are now. ........ For decades, manufacturing was flooding into China from the U.S. and Europe and fueling its growth. And then a combination of rising labor and shipping costs and automation began to change the economics of China manufacturing. Now, robots are about to tip the balance further....... China is aware of the advances in robotics and plans to take the lead in replacing humans with robots. Guangdong province is constructing the world’s first “zero-labor factor,” with 1,000 robots which do the jobs of 2,000 humans. It sees this as a solution to increasing labor costs. ...... The problem for China is that its robots are no more productive than their counterparts in the West are. They all work 24×7 without complaining or joining labor unions. They cost the same and consume the same amount of energy. Given the long shipping times and high transportation costs it no longer makes sense to send raw materials across the oceans to China to have them assembled into finished goods and shipped to the West. Manufacturing can once again become a local industry.......

What is now a trickle of manufacturing returning to the West will, within five to seven years, become a flood.

...... In conventional manufacturing, parts are produced by humans using power-driven machine tools, such as saws, lathes, milling machines, and drill presses, to physically remove material to obtain the shape desired. In digital manufacturing, parts are produced by melting successive layers of materials based on 3D models — adding materials rather than subtracting them. The “3D printers” that produce these use powered metal, droplets of plastic, and other materials — much like the toner cartridges that go into laser printers. 3D printers can already create physical mechanical devices, medical implants, jewelry, and even clothing. But these are slow, messy, and cumbersome — much like the first generations of inkjet printers were. This will change........ Late in the next decade, we will be 3D-printing buildings and electronics. These will eventually be as fast as today’s laser printers are. And don’t be surprised if by 2030, the industrial robots go on strike, waving placards saying “stop the 3D printers: they are taking our jobs away.” .... America will reinvent itself just as does every 30-40 years; it is, after all, leading the technology boom. And as we are already witnessing, Russia and China will stir up regional unrest to distract their restive populations; oil producers such as Venezuela will go bankrupt; the Middle East will become a cauldron of instability. Countries that have invested in educating their populations, built strong consumer economies, and have democratic institutions that can deal with social change will benefit — because their people will have had their basic needs met and can figure out how to take advantage of the advances in technology.

Vivek Wadhwa, me saying you are the smartest dude in Silicon Valley...

Posted by Paramendra Kumar Bhagat on Wednesday, October 7, 2015

Foundations Of A New Madhesi Global Organization

I feel strongly that there is a need for a new Madhesi global organization.

Step 1: Invite in members globally. Fill out this form. Membership is free.

Step 2: For the US chapter, I will wait until there are over 100 members. Then an election will be organized. The election will be online and open. Then we have Officers.

Step 3: The conference call will be the primary way to hold meetings. Zero travel. A robust use of social media and online tools.

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Nepali Diaspora: Rethink Time?

America has a special place in the world, and so it does among the Nepali diaspora. The ANA convention that takes place every July 4 weekend, this year in San Francisco, is an event thousands of Nepalis from all across North America make a point to make a pilgrimage to. It is landmark social event. Many look forward to it for good reason. I don't think I will make it, I will likely stay put in New York City, but the oncoming event has made me think again about some of the issues I have thought about before. Why should Nepalis in the diaspora get organized? To what end? How? How much progress have we made? Without expressing disrespect towards those who did the early work, how can we ask the tough questions and level the tough criticisms that will help take our diaspora organizations to new heights?

(1) Homesickness/Bonding

I think the number one reason we talk so much about Nepal in the diaspora is homesickness. It is self interest. Bonding has to happen. The identity has to be claimed and nurtured while the dollar chasing goes on.

(2) Cream Of The Crop

Even those who are not super duper educated are entrepreneurial to have left Nepal. It takes much initiative. Much is asked of those to whom much is given. The diaspora seeks to give back. I think the best giving back would be if the diaspora could invest big time in Nepal. I hope the leaders in Nepal create such an environment. I am for both the service and the profit motive.

(3) Immigrant Rights

Immigrant rights are far behind where globalization has already taken us. We try and get organized to make our modest contributions to the cause of immigrant rights.

(4) Networking

We can help each other out. We can share expertise and experiences. We can pool resources. Although it gets me that not enough of us have gone for hard core entrepreneurial pursuits. It helps our careers here in the diaspora when we network among ourselves.

These are some of the reasons why we need organizations like the ANA. But I have to be honest about something as a Madhesi. To be a Madhesi in the Nepali diaspora is like being a Madhesi in the Nepal Army, or the Nepal Police or in the state bureaucracy in Nepal. You represent a community that is anywhere between 35-45% of Nepal, but is less than 1% of the Nepalis in America. I think it is more like 0.1%. I have felt much more at home giving my time to digital activism for the Madhesi Movement back in Nepal than I have mingling with the Nepalis in America, especially when you routinely encounter the prejudice, the chauvinism, the attitudes, the whole nine yards.

Good thing in Nepal we have a constituent assembly for the first time in history, and we are working to reinvent the Nepali identity because, so far, the Nepali identity has never been inclusive of me and people like me. Maybe the new Nepali identity we will create will.

But then it is that same dissatisfaction that also helps me see the stark fact that the Pahadis on the global stage are powerless like the Madhesis on the national stage in Nepal. Maybe we can empathize with each other. Maybe we can seek and find common cause.

Democracy, Transparency, And The Nepali Diaspora
Alliance Sets The Tone For Diaspora Organizations
White Paper: A Major Diaspora Milestone
A Nepali Diaspora Milestone
Ram Sah: Concern Over State Excesses, And Diaspora Politics
Ram Sah, Ratan Jha, Lalit Jha, Pramod Kantha: Madhesi Diaspora, Pahadi Diaspora
Dalit Diaspora Calls For 20 Percent Reservation
Those In Nepal Should Take The Lead On Logistical Help From Diaspora
Diaspora Dynamics
Diaspora Logistical Help To The Movement
The Nepali Diaspora Contradiction: Would You Like Some Tea?

Some of the deficiencies of our organizations are that:

• They seem to have no desire to go mass based. There is too much living room politics going on.
  
• Too much elitism. No major membership drives. Elected officers end up from the same small group of people who all know each other. It is like a game of musical chairs.
• Not enough transparency and democracy within the organizations.
  
• Not enough use of Web 2.0.
  
• Our sights are too low. There is seldom talk of immigrant rights.
  
• No reach out to create a larger South Asian, Asian solidarity. Too much inward looking.
• Not enough constructive, respectful engagement with our counterparts back home. You can't help people you look down upon.
• The few umbrella organizations are in name only. Most organizations act autonomous. Not enough talk, not enough coordination.
  
• I absolutely don't see the Beer Gorkhali thing on immigrant rights. We almost never bring that up as a topic.
  

I think progress on all these fronts would start with injecting democracy and transparency in the way we operate our organizations. And then we will have to lift our vision to seek equality for us in the diaspora. We will have to forge alliances. We will have to claim the Blac identity, Black Latino Asian Coalition.

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