The sociology of social unrest

During the Constitution drafting process that took nearly ten years, Nepal’s various ethnicities and religions tried to define their status vis-a-vis the state. They laid down their demands, they struggled, and then forged compacts.

When the Constitution was finally promulgated in 2015, these agreements between individual groups and the state were given a rough roadmap. However, the new statute could not address the divisions between various communities and ethnicities.

Despite its diversity, Nepal does not have a history of serious sectarian, religious or communal conflict. The Constitution’s preamble accepts pluralism and tolerance. Every group is guaranteed the right to demonstrate its faith as long as it does not infringe on the right of another group.

Authoritarianism and democracy are two opposing poles of any political system. They are governed differently, and their internal structures are disparate. Authoritarian systems exist only if the status quo is maintained, while democracies are always in dynamic flux.

This is why democracies cannot always guarantee stability, and there will be voices using the very freedoms the system guarantees them to agitate for a dictatorial regime. This can seem contradictory, but in Nepal’s present context they are complementary.

The evolution of Nepali society has seen insurgency, interaction and intermingling, and democracy has allowed tolerance of different belief systems.

In the past, the monarchy tried but could not fully address the cultural aspirations of the country’s ethnicities. During the Panchayat, the geopolitical need of the time was to strengthen national unity and identity through a unitary state.

Today’s royalists are using the current political disarray and public dissatisfaction to evoke nostalgia for strongman rule. In politics, there can be smoke even without a fire. The ex-king’s project is to terminate the pluralism ensured by this hard-won Constitution.

There are indications that reactionaries are trying to fish in troubled waters. In the past four years, Birganj has started marking Hanuman Jayanti in honour of the monkey god of the Ramayana, and it has always been accompanied by tension with adherents of other faiths.

Last week, violence flared again during the procession, and the city was shut down with a curfew for two days. Although restrictions have now been lifted, the city is still licking its wounds.

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A religious procession has to be sensitive to the neighbourhood it is moving through, it cannot provoke those from other communities who live there. The administration is responsible to ensure that things do not get out of hand.

This was obviously not done. There should have been strict guidelines about the route of the procession, a ban on openly carrying weapons of any kind, and against provocative slogans directed at another religious group. These rules should have been pre-agreed and strictly enforced.

Another factor that poured oil on the fire was live video reporting on social media of the procession that magnified the agenda of the organisers. Such ‘reporting’ by ‘journalists’ sensationalised the violence and helped spread it with fake videos, disinformation and hate speech.

Sharing such content also spurs copycat violence and prevents resolution. There are signs various groups are trying to mix politics with religion and with extremist rhetoric. There should be forceful and immediate legal action against such elements to nip the unrest in the bud.

Local problems need local solutions. Outside interference may complicate attempts to extinguish the fire. The silent majority of citizens do not want violence and turmoil, they want peace and reconciliation.

Any political force that tries to exploit the Birganj unrest to further its own narrow interest elsewhere will ultimately reap the whirlwind.

Chandrakishore is a Birganj-based political commentator who writes this monthly column BORDERLINES in Nepali Times. @kishore_chandra