Public Awareness

Civil Liberty

Democratic and Humanist Values of a Secular Society

It is very important for us - all Nepali people and particularly the political leaderships and headships of the civic community to understand the ‘Humanism’ and how it had influenced the democracy, and sustained its fundamentals to this modern time. Such an intellectual conception will help us have vision to achieve our dream to create a new democratic Nepal.  There can be no willpower if there is no conception therefore there can be no way for our dream to come true. We must conceive from past and present on thing that is most pragmatically an existence, which surrounds us to be flourished if nurtured carefully.

It was in sixth century B.C.E. humanism was developed in ancient Greek. Humanist Anaxagoras, influenced the development of democracy, freedom of thought, and the exposure of superstitions. However humanism can also be traced back to the Warring Era of Confucious's time (551-479 B.C.E.). But, its western philosophies have widely influenced movement, particularly the secular humanism.

Humanism is a broad category of ethical philosophies. These philosophies establish dignity and worth of all humans based on their ability to determine right and wrong by universal human qualities of rationality. This means given the freedom and opportunity humans can think rationally. Humanism necessitates a commitment to the search for truth and ethics through human means in support of human interests. Humanism support human self-determination thereby rejects the validity of transcendental justifications, such as dependence on faith, the supernatural, or the divinely asserted texts such as Bible, Koran, Vedas or Puranas. Humanism endorses universal morality based on the commonality of human conditions. It insists that the solutions to human social and cultural problems cannot be supernatural or enchantments of the divine miracles. 

From the perspective of the humanism and democracy Nepali people as humans have been prevented to have right to self-determination for centuries. They were caged and restricted from rational thinking not only by the two hundred and fifty years feudal oligarchic establishments but also by the caste system as social stratifications and people’s dependence on faith and traditions of superstitions. Our political problems thus far for establishing democracy have been our own social and cultural regressions and stringencies that have failed to rationalize its solutions through genuine concern for democracy.

These facts have been pinpointed many times at our own mindsets that have been hindering political changes.  These elements have been clearly identified as weakness not only of our political party leaderships, but also of ruling elites, legal experts and media managements. The headships of civil society of Nepal and leaders of ethnic movements have been calling it unfortunate. But many political party leaders, ruling elites and legal experts are used to put cap on these changes saying, “it is not possible in our society – ‘how can we trust people who have no expertise?’” arbitrarily without even giving a benefit of doubt for human rationality.  However, it is by getting opportunity people have expertise.  

Still over fifty percent people’s life for the resolutions of social and cultural problems is overruled by the faith, traditions of the superstitions, and the expectations of divine miracles. Therefore, there is no presence of the humanist school of thought to address social and cultural problems with human rationality. Those schools of thought such as Buddhism, which denied the existence of divine in its original arguments, have little influence even in its own cults in this time. Buddhism believes in void or none existence of self as descended from divine self. Therefore, the humans themselves with their own ability to self-determination must address the solutions of their social and cultural problems. But, if the right to self-determination to people are obstructed by hook and crook of the status quo (such mindsets) then “what should marginalized and deprived people do?” under such social and cultural stratifications. As a matter of fact, it is a question of universal morality from the point of view of humanism, and such obstructions might have been committed systematically as human rights violations against humanity.       

Nepal is basically a feudal traditional society that has kept its majority of population illiterate still over fifty percent. Its traditional practice and values have Hindu superiority practically dominated by the hierarchical caste system of rituals, rites and animal sacrifices. It has one hundred and two castes and fifty-nine ethnic groups of people. Resolutions to social and cultural problems are sought through the hierarchical caste system with its rituals, rites and sacrifices. It is true to this time that majority of marginalized and deprived people (lower caste Hindu, ethnic group of people and women) have ever been caged with their mindsets and have never been literate. 

It seems as if the so-called democratic political parties are caged similarly with their own mindsets. But the current political developments indicated that over fifty percent of people are awakened not to seek their social cultural problems through the status quo of tradition but through their own human rationality by getting involved in the politics of the nation. The ten years Maoist insurgency might have played a significant role in awakening people for or against the communist ideology. 

But if people are changing their attitudes of dependence in traditional resolutions for their social and cultural problems then the seed of humanism have been sown. It is a hope that people are struggling to use their intrinsic human ability of rationality or power of thinking.  Once people see the necessity they will invent their own valuable tool of human rationality.

Democracy of those so-called democratic political parties who stick to their feudal traditional status quo to obstruct the right to self-determination of people of Nepal will not succeed. If people do not have right to self-determination in their own constituencies then what for do their votes count? If their state or province (city or village) governments have no autonomy but are centrally controlled then where do people participate in nation building process? The resolutions to these issues can only come from a rational human mind that has vision to see brighter future in the light of socio-political pragmatism for real progress of humanity of Nepal.

The so-called only Hindu state of the world had no respect to its own ancestors’ schools of thought most of which were religious humanist or educational humanist. For example, Nyaya philosophy advocates four sources of knowledge – perception, inference, comparison and testimony. Logic in Nyaya is a valid way to obtain knowledge to gain release from sufferings or social and cultural problems. Nyaya is a sort of educational humanist school of thought. However, the fundamental objective of all Vedic schools of thought is to liberate mankind from its ignorance. So, where were those rulers of past and where are the contemporary political party leaderships now?

People are moving nation rapidly towards political changes even though they may not have clear humanistic point of view for the methodology of getting resolutions for social and cultural problems. Social problems are mainly health, education and economics. But Nepal has a specific social problem of caste system as a social hierarchical stratification that determined social and economic status of a group of people, basically the problem created by the Hindu religion.  A culture exists and grows because of its language, art and way of life and so on.  The cultural problems exist if one religion based homogenous tradition politically prevents other to exist. This means it restricts minority people’s civil liberty and rights from their daily life practice. What rationality does such restriction have? From humanist point of view none except for the vested self-interest of the groups of ruling elites. In Nepali scenario the groups of ruling elites are upper caste Hindus.   

Democracy without the guarantee of civil liberty and right of all sovereign citizens of the nation will neither flourish nor get nurtured. Civil liberty and right of all sovereign people of Nepal cannot be established in a democracy that tries to tumble in a feudal oligarchic system of governance nor in a totalitarian or one party system of governance. The governance structure and its logistics that can guarantee the civil liberty and right of the sovereign citizens of Nepal is the federal system that has at least ternary tier of governments – federal (central), state and provincial (city or village) governments with their autonomy for self-governance. Right to self-determination is the liberty and right of the autonomous local governments that a democratic constitution must have provisions. 

If the leaderships are still not capable of determining our choice for restructuring the state mechanisms with the most efficient system for democracy as responsible political party leaders then there is problem with their mindsets. They are philosophically empty enough to be corrupt with the lack of universal morality based on the commonality of human conditions.  Democracy will not function with the party politics of power unless it is considerably restrained with some off limits. It will for sure drop dead without accountability to people.  From humanist point of view republic setups, and federal government structures and mechanisms have become essential mandates of democracy in Nepal in which people can establish their dignity and worth of their human ability to determine right and wrong by universal human qualities of rationality.

Dedication:
This web site www.nepalcivilsociety.org is dedicated to the Civil society of Nepal. It is to honor the work of all members of Civil Society of Nepal  who dedicated their lives to the Liberty of People of Nepal. The purpose of this web site is to promote the movement of Civil Society as part of Nepali culture with the objectives to protect civil liberty of people of Nepal through public awareness.

Individuals who are interested to contribute in processing information for Nepal Civil Society works on this site in English and Nepali are most welcome to join the design and development of this website. Please contact Anon Liberty (Who is Anon Liberty?) at anon@nepalcivilsociety.org