Nepal’s NPL lessons

The first Nepal Premier League (NPL) is over. Off the pitch, the tournament offers lessons.

Except for murmurs that the financial story may not have been pristine, the main message is that there is no substitute for professional excellence to ensure success. Whether as a team or as an individual, the trick is to strive to perform one’s best at all times. 

A player has to be completely invested in the game: day and night, even in their dream about how to improve performance. Even players who do not quite make the mark, move on to another profession and excel there.

The cricket team is no place for players who cannot collaborate, commit to teamwork and prove themselves. Now, compare this ethos to the rigid जागिरखाने mentality of most of Nepal’s teachers, professors, doctors, engineers, managers, government officials, politicians. 

Surely, there are a few in all these professions committed to excellence. Maybe 5% in all? OK, stretch that to 10% perhaps. But no more. The proportion among cricketers, on the other hand, has to be 100%.

What is the cost of such mediocrity to households, communities and country? High schools keep incompetent teachers on life-long tenure, not to prepare students for life. 

There can be no sense of personal worth in the modern world, nor social and national progress, without the dharma of doing one’s best. Striving for excellence in our karma is our dharma. 

Expertise and high productivity is gained through engaged and agentic experience. Seniority is not a good criterion either of current performance nor potential productivity. 

Engaged and productive work experience is also what really counts in cricket. Don’t rest on your laurels, as they say.

This is a useful philosophy, especially for government officials. Bureaucrats and politicians have to earn expertise through long years of service in a sector. They must not be shunted from one ministry to another.

Civil servants are not ‘servants’ of political parties. Public administration in a modern democratic polity is based on expertise and professional competence, not a top-down हुकुमी शासान. 

It is like cricket batsmen and wicket keepers rarely if ever become celebrated bowlers and vice versa. Indeed, a fast bowler rarely if ever serves leg spin. Even fielding positions are set for a long period such that a player acquires expertise at a particular slot, like the slip fielder or outfielder. 

Even the best cricket players are hired series-to-series and not on permanent or even annual contracts. Public sector employees should similarly be hired on a periodic, not life-long, basis. Performance assessments must be both frequent and transparent.

The point is to optimise individual and team output. The cricket player is not being paid on a salaried जागिरे basis. They are paid as long as they perform, and the best performers in a team are paid more than others.

We have too many poorly-paid public officials. Those of the same rank ought to be paid differentially based on the assessment of their work. Incremental salary grades ought not to be based solely on seniority. 

Performance is time-sensitive. An old SLC certificate is not worth the paper it is typed on. People and performances change. The division someone got in SLC long ago cannot be a measure of expected performance. 

Excellence is spread out evenly across social groups, including marginalised ones. Virtue and high performance are not inherited through caste, gender, regional or class affiliation. 

Excellence can be partially shuttered and pushed to the realm of potential for some time by means of power, but it cannot be closed off for long. 

NPL players came from all directions, locations, colours, faiths, castes and ethnic groups. That holds true for both the national women’s and men’s cricket teams as well. 

Notwithstanding some social media posts that showed  racism lurks just beneath the surface in Nepali society after the victory of the Janakpur Bolts, the inclusiveness in all teams helped in national cohesion.

Those who are ‘up the ladder’ in Nepali society today must realise that they are there temporarily. Being up is a consequence of a specific historical, political, economic and cultural rather than a permanent, natural, god given order, or individual attribute. 

An individual who is ‘up’ is there largely if not wholly because of membership in specific groups such as a ‘high’ caste, or a ‘higher’ ethnic, gender, or domicile bracket. Conceit about being ‘up’ is wholly unwarranted.

In cricket, a team that is up in the league tables can be down in the next tournament. Similarly, in society it may be wise for groups or individuals that are ‘up’ to be pro-change rather than be the status quo.

This is the only democratic way ahead, the only one that promises the greatest collective and longer run individual gain.

There are many in Nepal today who find refuge in exclusion, in abusing and trolling those who are different from us in colour, location of residence, language. 

There was plenty of that on display during and after the Janakpur Bolt win over Sudurpaschim Royals last week. It was encouraging to see far more Nepalis who celebrated their victory and cancelled the hate.

Either as individuals or countries, we are not islands. Most of us possess much too keen a sense of nationalism. This could be partly because we live between two large, populous and emerging global powers. Most countries, not just small ones, exhibit bloated nationalism.

But international collaboration and competition is fundamental for success in the modern globalised world. This holds true for countries, their cricket or football teams, and for individual players.

Marquee players in the eight NPL teams were from different countries. They collaborated in the larger interest of the sport as well as their own careers, but much less for their own countries. 

Players in teams were from different countries and different parts of Nepal, yet worked together. Each player came to appreciate other players, audiences and people from other countries. They were not bigoted nationalists. 

Hopefully, a tiny seed of tolerance and विशव बन्धुत्व was planted at the NPL and it will germinate in future. In workplaces, schools, universities, and government we can also benefit from working with professional high-quality international workers. 

There is an immense possibility to learn and grow from such collaboration, a condition sorely lacking in Nepal. It is as if most of us have made up our mind that it is unnecessary or even unpatriotic to learn from countries and people which are ahead of us.

The cricket lesson can apply to our insular education, too. Nepal’s universities can learn from institutions across the world, but we do not even make it easy to get visas for professors, academics and researchers to come here. 

Indeed, we do not even encourage universities to seek services from board members of universities in other countries. No citizen of another country can serve in our university boards. It is illegal even for a Nepali citizen who has received a work permit to work in universities in other countries to become a member of the university board here. This is narrow nationalism run amok.

Citizenship is one of the most crucial markers of the modern nation state. All states value citizenship, but it should not become a marker for international apartheid. 

Citizenship is not the be all and end all of our identity, belonging, distinctiveness, professional performance and self-worth. Non-citizens may be barred only from voting, top decision-making positions, and the military. All other professions should be open, just as it was for the NPL.