"We Are Abandoned" (Former Prime Minister B. P. Koirala speaks with Theodore Jacqueney just before returning to Nepal from medical trip to the USA, January-February 1978)
Jacqueney: Mr. Prime Minister, you are known to be a champion of freedom and the democratic process and have repeatedly called for democracy in Nepal. What is your concept of democracy for your country?
Koirala: To be very clear, my concept of democracy is democracy as it used to be understood in the nineteenth century liberal democracy. This means that there are three basic elements of democracy.
One is that the people have democratic rights freedom of expression, freedom of organization, freedom of the press, and freedom of conscience sp that people can practice whatever religion they want. Briefly, civil liberties The second feature of democracy is that sovereignty of the state belongs to the people of the nation as a whole; the administration of the state should be in the hands of the representatives of the people. This means that government must be formed on the basis of the widest franchise, and the government should be responsible to the parliament that is elected by the people. And the third feature of democracy is that the judiciary must be independent.
Now, in our context in Nepal, democracy takes another dimension: Democracy alone, without economic development, becomes meaningless. On the question of economic development, democracy is also necessary. In conditions of acute poverty, when there is not enough capital for development purposes, democracy alone is that institution that can get people involved in the process of development. Our slogan is: "We need democracy for development purposes also."
This is very important, because there is a misconception among some Socialist that since people live in conditions of poverty, real need is food and shelter and the eradication of diseases and that liberal democracy is of secondary importance that priority should be given to economic development. This is a misconception, according to our analysis: We can not eradicate poverty unless we motivate the people. Our capital is the people. We don't have machinery, and we don't have financial capital; we have labor. So we have got to motivation our people for development purposes. And that motivation can be provided only by institution that are democratic and responsible to the people and reflective of the aspirations of the people. This is the best way to provide the leadership that can involve the people in the developmental process.
Jacqueney: Mr. Prime Minister, to what do you attribute your passion for democracy?
Koirala: My father was a rebel He died in prison. My father became a rich man through his own efforts. Art then he thought it was time for him to think of the people. He started opening schools and hospitals, an undertaken; that was not liked by the feudal rulers of Nepal. And he wrote to the Rana (King) ruler saying that there is a vast gap between the small minority of rich people and the rest of the population. To dramatize this he sent a parcel of torn clothes from the back of a poor peasant to the ruler, with a covering letter saying that he should compare his own royal robes with the torn, tattered clothes of his poor subject and understand the gulf that separates the ruler from his own people.
The ruler became enraged, and a warrant of arrest was issued against my father when he was about thirty or thirty four years old. I was three or four years old at the time, and we had to flee the country and be refugees in India. That is how I started imbibing the movement for democracy. My father had to struggle hard to maintain our family in India, to keep us alive; but he still joined the national liberation movement of India. I received my political training at home. Then, after the Rana ruler died, his successor permitted us to return to Nepal. Then I knew what it was to be a Nepalese subject. We had no dignity. No honor. It was my sense of honor that led me to political life. That is why I always emphasize that our political struggle has a spiritual dimension also.
So first of all I was brought up in a democratic political posture in the family. And secondly I was the injustice of the tyrannical, authoritarian system, which not only reduced people to poverty and deprived us of fundamental political rights, but deprived us of the right to live ad human beings. I have been in prison, in India and Nepal, altogether about fourteen years. In India, of course, it was for democratic rights and for India's independence. But in Nepal the question before us was whether we wanted our dignity, our honor, or not. If we wanted to live with dignity, we had to be in prison. It was a simple choice.
Jacqueney: Many Westerners believe that in the Third world those leaders that seem to be democrats seem most often to come from countries that existed under British colonial rule. Nepal, on the other hand, has never had any colonial masters. Were there British influences on your ideas concerning democracy, either directly or indirectly, through Indians?
Koirala: You have to understand that Gandhi's movement was possible only under British rule. No other dictatorial authority could have permitted Gandhi to exist. Although India was not a fully democratic country, the British did give a modicum of freedom to the Indian people. There was freedom of the press, there was freedom of expression, freedom of organization. And the British court maintained a semblance of independence. There was rule of law. These were ideas of democracy that I also learned in reading books on British history, which was taught in India, and through watching the British imperial system work in India.
Jacqueney: You said you believe that democracy is indispensible for development. Would you elaborate on this?
Koirala: It is like this: What are the resources for our development purposes? We would accept outside aid, but that can only have a marginal impact on our development. Our development starts when we mobilize the people. We have manpower, and land. We have to mobilize his manpower. You know, every year Nepalese migrate to India to the rune of a few handed thousand, seeking jobs. We export human beings rather than goods. So this human material is not being used in our development. In our country we want to have small industries that will be labor intensive, where we do not need too much capital, where we can employ many people, rather than employ a small number of people and big machines. We have to improve the productivity of land without introducing machines, but improving the plow, improving the breed of the cattle that pulls the plow, and so on.
So democracy for development. We say that we want democracy not only for political rights and democratic rights but also for the purposes of mobilizing people, getting people involved in the process of development, getting people involved in the process of the formulation and implementation of policy.
What is being done today is that experts trained at Harvard and at London universities economics departments prepare a very good plan at the top. Then the plan is sent to the districts. The districts authorities issue some kind of fiat for implementation. And the people are asked to work on that plan. No local leadership is created. It is through a bureaucratic machinery, with a psychological antagonism between the bureaucracy and the people. And the people start thinking that the job of development is the responsibility of the government, with participation by the people unwelcome. That is why, despite all the aid that has been received, there has been no development.
This is our conviction: wherever there has been authoritarian rule, development has been slowed. Even if you Compare China with India, I don't think that India lags very far behind China on the levels of development that India has achieved. In some sectors, of course, China has developed faster, because their development is army-oriented, their industry is army-oriented, they wanted to make their army a powerful instrument of greatness, so I think in the engineering sector oriented to the task of military might they may be more efficient in China. But there are other aspects of development where I think the development is faster in India, even though we read news reports about increasing poverty in India; and even though India has always had the leadership she should have got, leadership that can motivate the people.
The mistake of India has been that of a poor country wanting to adopt the model of Russia and America, It should have adopted the model given by Mahatma Gandhi: small scale, agro-industry, industry catering to the needs of village folks. This is what we want to do in our country. Industry that takes care of the tools of production, like improving primitive designs of the plow, improving the breed of the cattle, the need of the people to clothe themselves, improving their energy resources, like the conservation of cow dung for energy purposes.
America has been a very bad model for Third World development. There is an attraction to American styles of life, so everyone thinks that model to adopt is America. And whatever they may say, many Third World leaders have this model in mind. The first to conceive of a different model was Gandhi in India, and Jaya Prakash (J.P.) Narayan today; and now there are thinkers coming up, in England people like the author of the beautiful book Small Is Beautiful, E.F. Schumacher. He coined the phrase "intermediate technology" for the Third World, technology that does not need great infusions of capital. That is the model we will adopt, not the American model, which we can't afford in our country.
Jacqueney: Many people now believe that for the Third World electoral constitutional democracy is irrelevant to development, a useless luxury. How do you respond to those arguments?
Koirala: Very strongly. This usually is the propaganda coming from those in power who want to perpetuate themselves in power; and there are, unfortunately, unthinking intellectuals in prestigious campuses who subscribe to this kind of stupid argument about development. I can't understand how a dictator, who is not responsible to anybody, not even to this people, can develop faster than leaders drawn from the people themselves and responsible to them by periodic free elections. As long as Indira Gandhi was a dictator, or developing into an authoritarian ruler, there publicists, professors, and writers who thought that she was doing the right thing, that what she was doing was needed.
According to our conception, democracy and economic development are not contradictory concepts, they are complementary concepts. As a matter of fact, economic development starts from politics. If you have appropriate political instruments that are responsible to the aspirations of the people, only then can you start thinking about development and serving the people. Otherwise it is all humbug.
And then, secondly, who is to decide who will be that authority who will have dictatorial power to develop? Not professors from Harvard University. They are not going to select them. It will be some man riding on a white charger, who will say "I am destined to develop the country, and the powers must belong to me." It is a very simple question: Even if we agree, for the sake of argument and I want to emphasize that I don't agree that a poor country needs an authoritarian rule, who will be that authority? Who is going to protect the people from the authoritarian power? Whoever has the longest sword? We will have to measure the length of the sword to decide who will have to measure the length of the sword to decide who will have the maximum power in the state. I react very strongly to this kind of propaganda. And unfortunately there are intellectuals who make these kinds of arguments for the Third world.
Ultimately we must ask the basic question: What is the objective of development? Is the objective to improve the statistical numbers on a piece of paper? Or is the objective to make a man happy? If making people happy is the objective, how can you make them pappy by depriving them of their elementary human rights? Russia has not made faster economic development under authoritarian rule then if democracy had been introduced after the overthrow of the czarist regime. Even during the czar's time the development was about as fast as it was during Stalin's time in Russia. West Germany has developed faster than East Germany. And I think that India has developing faster than Pakistan, even though Pakistan has been receiving massive economic aid from outside. Per capita aid is very much greater in Pakistan than in India Moreover, you cannot present this problem to poor people this is insulting the dignity of people of the poor nations, to present the issue as a choice between poverty and democracy.
Jacqueney: Have you ever had any conversations on these subjects with any leaders of Third world dictatorship in the course of your political life?
Koirala: I have, but not with many. Many of the Third world leaders with whom I did talk about these subjects were themselves democrats, like in Burma before the military takeover, so these question did not came up in the context that they would now. But one example that would interest you was when I was in Iran in 1960. I spoke with the Shah of Iran, and I told him I was prime minister then that monarchy should not be dictatorial, it should be constitutional, and the people should be permitted to select the government of their choice,
Jacqueney: And what was the Saha's response?
Koirala: He gave the usual explanation of dictators: He said that his people were poor and uneducated and therefore not fit to enjoy democratic political rights. The Iranian people do not know what is good for them, he said. He said things must progress, but they must progress very slowly. He also said, "You should not ride on a fast horse."
Jacqueney: I don't understand exactly?
Koirala: He was being prophetic. I rode a fast horse for democracy and two or three months after the meeting with the Shah I was toppled. As I recall, I met the Shah in 1960, perhaps in October or so. I did not have much occasion to meet with many Third World leaders after this (koirala was in political prisons in Nepal for eight years T.J.). But I did meet with Indian leaders and with Pakistani opposition leaders.
Jacqueney: I understand that the new young king of Nepal released you from prison and permitted you to come to America for medical attention. Once your operations here are completed I know you intent to return. What do you expect, and what are your plans?
Koirala: I had a ninety-minute interview with the king before I left Nepal. That is the only time I met him. He was a young boy, a student in England, when I was Prime minister. I got the impression that he is a well-meaning young man, and if there were no pressures from his contrite, he would go along with development along democratic lines. This impression is based only on one interview; I may be wrong, but I carry a very good impression of the king, and I expect that he will gradually liberalize the administration. I do not expect that at one go he will introduce democracy, but he has realized that if Nepal has to exist as a nation or develop as a nation, it must also develop democratic institutions, and the very fact that he met me and permitted me to come here is a good indication. It is a political gesture don't you think so?
And then we must make very clear because here to discuss politics is to discuss terms of getting to power. I am discussing whether we have an understanding with the king that when I return home I would be put into power, getting back into the chair of the prime minister: It is not that way.
We want basic human right to be established for the people. We are not at all interested in getting into power without getting specific sanction from the people so we are not in the race for getting into the seat of power. We are for democracy. And if through the democratic process we get into power, then we will be. But getting back into power is not our prime objective. We won't want to get to power willy-nilly, at all costs, at all costs, by fair means or foul.
We feel strongly that unless we develop economically, unless the people are motivated, unless there are democratic institution our state cannot exist as an independent state, sandwiched between two great powers of Asia, both developing at a very fast rate. We cannot just stagnate, vegetate, tucked away on the slopes of the Himalayas. We have just remained as a seventh century kingdom. We have got to develop. We must think in modern terms, and we must think in democratic terms. I think this message must have been realized by the king, and by everybody in Nepal who has the interest of the country at heart.
Jacqueney: I understand that, as you have recuperating from the throat operations you have been through, you have been invited to visit with some American senators, congressmen, State Department official, and others. What do you say to such Americans, and what do they say to you?
Koirala: I told them that you to the opposite of helping democrats in the Third world. I give the example of the Shah of Iran. You Americans put him on the throne. You know the story: He had fled his country. The CIA put him back on his throne. And ever since he has been suppressing the democrats in his country. Now the alternative to the Shah is not democrats but Communists, because the Shah of Iran has seen to it that all Iranian democrats have been killed. But as long as the Russian regime exists on his border he can never wipe out all Communists. So in Iran you have been helping to finish off all the democrats and create a real danger of a Communist revolutionary government controlling a great deal of petroleum against you.
You should thank us we, Third world democrats. For myself, I do not want any other help from Americans, except the expenditure of breath. I want worlds from the leaders of America that you want to see democracy in country. Show your commitment to your own ideology of democracy! We do not need your military or financial assistance.
We hope that when President Carter takes a stand on human rights, he does not mean it in a cold war context but means precisely what he says. Congressmen, senators, other officials if they will just say that they want democracy in Nepal. Let they write to the king, privately maybe, or publicly, and my battle is won. I have also told them this whenever I have met with. They will be amused by my seemingly hostile attitude toward both the United States and the Soviet Union, because both seem to be interested in introducing Communist authoritarian rule to the world. Russia does this positively, and America negatively, by supporting unpopular dictators to whom the only alternative are the Communists.
In Vietnam you did not help the democrats, with whom you could have stabilized the situation. Instead you stabilized the dictators. There was a very strong democratic movement in Vietnam. You Americans thought there were only the Communists in Vietnam, that the other democrats did not exist. South Americans have told me that we should create a Communists movement in Nepal so that America would be interested in helping us. What has your government been doing all these year helping all these dictators? Having put the Shah of Iran back on his throne, you are now placating him because he might go to Russia. Let him go. But you have created a situation where democrats are of no consequence in Iran.
The story repeats itself. Before Indira Gandhi was defeated people here in America thought that she was the only hope. Some Americans supported her for imposing authoritarian rule. It pains me to say that Jearned men in prestigious American universities write about "soft states" and "hard states" and "authoritarian states," and play with ideas without understanding the ideological basis of dictatorship all over the Third World. People like me are fighting those dictatorships everywhere, with their backs to the wall, but never receive international understanding from the democracies. When democrats are shot down like dogs in the Third World, no voices of protest are raised.
Jacqueney: What can Americans do now to help in Nepal?
Koirala: Let Americans write to the king, private individuals, senators, congressmen, artists, writers, people in public life: Write to the king, publicly and privately. Be polite to the king: Call him "Majesty". Tell him that democracy must be restored.
Citation: B. P. Koirala, "We are Abandoned," in Sushil Koirala (ed), Democracy Indispensable for Development 5-16 (Varanasi: Sandaju Publications, 1982)
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