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The Department of International Environment and Development Studies, Noragric, is the international gateway for the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (UMB). Eight departments, associated research institutions and the Norwegian College of Veterinary Medicine in Oslo. Established in 1986, Noragric’s contribution to international development lies in the interface between research, education (Bachelor, Master and PhD programmes) and assignments. The Noragric Master theses are the final theses submitted by students in order to fulfil the requirements under the Noragric Master programme “Management of Natural Resources and Sustainable Agriculture” (MNRSA), “Development Studies” and other Master programmes. The findings in this thesis do not necessarily reflect the views of Noragric. Extracts from this publication may only be reproduced after prior consultation with the author and on condition that the source is indicated. For rights of reproduction or translation contact Noragric.
©Sten T. Brand, May 2007 [email protected] Noragric Department of International Environment and Development Studies Norwegian University of Life Science (UMB) P.O. Box 5003 N-1432 Ås Norway Tel.: +47 64 96 52 00 Fax: +47 64 96 52 01 Internet: http://www.umb.no/noragric
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Declaration
I hereby declare that this is my own original work, and applications of all other material are
acknowledged. This thesis has not been submitted to any other University than UMB for any
type of academic degree.
Signature:__________________
Date:__________
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Abstract
Access to information plays a significant role in the success of participatory democracy. Press
freedom is the key to transparency, in that it provides the public with information on
government action and policy, and keeping up with the principles of “good governance”.
What is increasingly important is to explore reasons for why this function sometimes fails and
what the consequences are for the people involved. This study explores the function of the
media as an information provider in rural Nepal in the wake of the Constituent Assembly
election, and how lack of information affects rural people’s attitude and understanding of the
democratic process.
A research strategy combining qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection was
applied to get a deeper understanding of the situation in two geographically and culturally
different districts of Nepal. The strategy consisted of a survey, semi-structured interviews and
field observations. The results were triangulated and conclusions to the research questions
were made based on these results. The duration of the fieldwork lasted from the end of
October to middle of December of 2007, during a period of political upheaval and civil unrest.
The election was carried out on the 10th of April 2008, with only minor disturbances in a few
voting districts across the nation. The Constituent Assembly election marks the end of the
Monarchy in Nepal and new hopes for traditionally marginalized groups such as the lower
cast Dalits and women, who have been deprived of political participation in the past. The
results came as a surprise to many political analysts and opinion makers, the traditionally
large parties such as the Nepali Congress party and the UML suffered an embarrassing defeat,
as the new parties such as the Maoists and the MJF came out on top.
The research result concluded that access to information shapes the villager’s views of the
election in either negative or positive way, that the villagers in general did not know the
meaning of Constituent assembly election at the time of the research. It revealed general lack
of respect for journalist among individuals and groups. It points to the fact that many
journalists are not following ethical code of conducts for media professional, either due to
lack of training or political motives, and finally it gives clues to why the media failed in
forecasting the election result.
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Acknowledgement
The research and the writing for this thesis is over for now, but it could have continued on for
a long time, covering more areas, conducting more interviews and digging deeper into the
effects of information access in the rural area of Nepal. The research in Nepal was a mind
awakening experience that made me cherish every moment of it.
The culture and the people made the conduct of this research pleasant and possible. The
people I have met along the way have given me an everlasting respect of the diverse but
generally accepting culture that Nepal represents.
Special thanks go out to my supervisors, my research assistant, and the Indreni Social Forum.
I am grateful for the help and support my Supervisor Larry Hansen has given me in the
preparation, conduct and writing process of this thesis. His insight and knowledge writing has
challenged me to be constructive and critical in the writing process. I greatly appreciated the
help and support that professor Binod Bhatta gave me as my local supervisor in Nepal. His
lecturing what good research entails has helped me tremendously in the data collection
process, and he also provided me with valuable contacts that raised the quality of the research.
Thanks to the Indreni Social Forum for helping out with accommodation and assistance in the
villages in Nawalparasi district. My greatest support in the field was my research assistant
and translator Ananda Khadka who showed great understanding of the research subject and
dedication in helping me with the data collection. Again I thank you all.
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Abbreviations
CA – Constituent Assembly
GDP – Gross Domestic Product
NC – Nepali Congress Party
SPA – Seven-Party Alliance
SPSS- Statistical Package for Social Science
UNDP – United Nations Development Program
UNESCO – United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNMIN – United Nations Mission in Nepal
UML –United Marxist-Leninist Party
VDC – Villages Development Committee
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Contents
CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1
1.1 Background .......................................................................................................... 1
1.2 Statement of the Problem ..................................................................................... 5
1.3 Purpose of the Study .......................................................................................... 11
1.4 Description of Research Area ............................................................................. 12
1.5 Research Objectives and Questions................................................................... 15
1.6 Significance of study ........................................................................................... 17
1.7 Organization of thesis ......................................................................................... 17
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................... 18 2.1 Why democracy .................................................................................................. 18
2.2. Democratic transition ......................................................................................... 20
2.3. The importance of communication ..................................................................... 22
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .......................................................................................... 30 3.1 Research method ............................................................................................... 30
3.2 Questionnaire design .......................................................................................... 31
Conceptual Framework ............................................................................................................ 32 3.3. Semi-structured interview .................................................................................. 33
3.4. Field Observations ............................................................................................. 34
3.5. Sample .............................................................................................................. 35
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION ................................................................... 36 4.1 Data analysis ...................................................................................................... 36
4.2. Semi-Structured interviews ................................................................................ 49
4.3. Field observations.............................................................................................. 65
4.4. Possible errors and considerations .................................................................... 70
4.5. Conclusion ......................................................................................................... 70
References ............................................................................................................... 74
Appendix ................................................................................................................... 77
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CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background
Nepal is a landlocked country in southern Asia, located between India in the south and China
in the North. It has a population of 28.9 million people. The country has a rugged but diverse
geography; the terrain varies from the subtropical Terai plains in the south to the great
mountains of the Himalayas to the north. The typography is both a blessing and a curse in that
it has provided Nepal with scenic beauty, which attracts tourism and revenue, but also makes
it vulnerable to natural disasters. The rugged terrain also creates problems with
communications and infrastructure. Roads and wiring often fall victim to the landslides and
flooding. The telephone service is poor, and broadcasting in hill and mountainous terrain is
problematic. (CIA 2008)
(ICIMOD 2005a)
Nepal has a great variety of religion, ethnicity and culture. Eighty percent of the population
belongs to the Hindu religion and the cast system, which classifies people based on their
ethnic background and deeply shape people’s life and opportunities even if it is legally
prohibited. The economy is agriculture and tourism based, but the country has great potential
in other sectors like hydro power due to its many rivers and streams deriving from the
Himalayas. The importance of agriculture is also reflected in the dispersed population, which
is predominantly rural, and accounts for the livelihood income of three-fourths of the
population. The hardship of everyday life for most Nepalese is evident in the high number of
unemployment and people living below the poverty line. The poverty line is usually set at one
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dollar a day. Nepal’s unemployment rate was staggering 42 percent as of 2004, and almost 31
percent lived below the poverty line. (CIA 2008)
(ICIMOD 2005b)
With the long list of problems facing everyday life in Nepal it is not hard to imagine that
Nepal is among the least developed nations in the world. The 2007/2008 Development Report
published by United Nations Development Programme ranks Nepal at 142 out of 177 nations.
Life expectancy at birth, literacy rate, GDP per capita, as well as gender disparity is generally
low (UNDP 2007/2008). Reasons for Nepal’s slow rate of development are not only due to
geographical or cultural issues. A long history of power struggle and authoritarian rule has
restrained the nation from following in the developmental path of its more powerful
neighboring countries.
Democracy has a short-lived history in Nepal. It first emerged when the century long Rana
reign came to an end in 1951, but democracy would only last for less than a decade. King
Mahendra dissolved the parliament in 1960, took absolute power and banned political parties.
A couple of years later he introduced a new form of quasi-democracy called Panchayat
system. By that time the banned political parties had gone underground and would not return
until 1990. A coalition of political parties organized pro-democracy rallies and pushed for
legalization of political parties and democratic elections. They eventually succeeded and the
movement would later been known as the people’s movement. A new constitution was written
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and elections were held the following year. Still, the mid-90s saw the start of the “people’s
war”, and an insurgency that would last for ten years, killing thousands of people, and
internally displace hundreds of thousands. (Freedom House 2007)
The new democracy and the new constitution had faced many problems. Intra-party conflicts
were common and a weak government failed in countering the insurgency. The constitution
also labeled the king as head of state. The king’s constitutional power was put to use when
King Gyanendra dismissed Prime Minister Deuba and assumed executive power himself, in
2002. King Gyanendra had been inaugurated the previous year after most of the royal family
had been shot dead by the crown prince, who killed himself in the incidence. Speculations of
King Gyanendra being the mastermind behind the royal massacre were common among many
people in Nepal, and these rumors did not make King Gyanendra more popular among the
people. Pressure by political parties made the king reinstate the Prime Minister in June 2004,
but half a year later the king decided to dissolve the parliament, based on what he called
incompetent governing, and at the same time declaring a state of emergency. He shut down
media outlets and other means of communications. Thousands of party activists, politicians,
and journalists were detained. (Freedom House 2007)
Civil reaction to the kings’ use of excessive power led to demonstrations, but it also brought
former competitors and enemies together. The decade long insurgency ended when a coalition
of political parties, known as the Seven Party Alliance (SPA), negotiated a 12-point
agreement with the Maoist insurgents to bring down King Gyanendra and reinstate
democracy. After nationwide strikes and demonstrations in April 2006, the seven-party
alliance together with the Maoist succeeded and the king was forced to step down (Raj
2006:28). The SPA and the Maoists worked together on a comprehensive peace agreement
that was signed in November 2006. An interim government was established, and a date for
elections was set for June 2007.
In order to hold fair and free election and independent election commission was established.
The independent body consisted of five commissioners appointed by the Prime Minister on
the basis of the recommendations made by Constitutional Council. The function and
responsibilities of the commission was drafted in Article 133 of the Interim Constitution of
2006 stating that the commission was responsible for “conducting, supervising, directing and
controlling Constituent Assembly Election and the Local bodies’ election.” The commission
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was in charge of registering voters and to ensure free and fair conduct of the
election.(Election Commission 2008)
The EC also listed specific responsibilities that were of interest to this research. These
responsibilities was to maintain correct record of voters statistics, make corrections on forms
and voter lists, maintain archive of voter lists and voter cards, resolve election related
problems at the introductory level and present them to the commission for action, undertake
initial proceedings for selection and decision on the election symbols and execute the
decisions, place requests with the training department for election-related trainings if required,
start preliminary efforts on election dates and process, and preparing campaign material for
both print and electronic media. (Election Commission 2008)
The EC also stated that they were committed to inclusiveness, meaning that they were
devoted to focus on inclusion of “the classes or regions that are backward due to economic,
political, geographical, gender, social or other causes and participation of those who have
been left out of the nation's mainstream or those who have been deprived of a role.”
(Election Commission 2008) There is definitely a time constraint in achieving these
commitments considering the limited time the EC had been given before the set election date,
and the result of the research did address this particular issue.
The government had taken actions to make the election inclusive, includes nominations of
candidates for first-past-the post system based on gender, geography and population. The
proportional part of the election consisted of proportional selection of Dalits, the oppressed
class, indigenous, backward groups, Madhesis and others selected by the parties themselves.
In each of these groups a minimum requirement for women representation was fifty percent.
(Election Commission 2008)
The EC had outlined what roles different stakeholder should play in making the election free,
fair and impartial. This includes sharing of information among voters. Voters should
discourage “elements that may have adverse effect on elections”. Civil society should “help
create an environment to cast the vote freely and in a terror free environment.” Civil society
and political parties should help raise awareness about “election procedures. Political parties
should “encourage healthy competition in election campaign,” and “[r]un civil education
campaigns raise awareness among the people on election and voting rights.”
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The EC has published a list of criteria’s that ensures free and fair election including protection
of the voter’s basic freedoms and human rights before, during and after the election is held.
Other elements were voter confidentiality, and that voters have access to information on
political candidates and electoral procedures. That all citizens of the right voting age should
are included in the voter's lists. That civil society can conduct voter awareness programs
freely, and that “the election procedures are free of any temptation, threats, violence, excesses
or punishment”, and voters have access to the polling booths. Political parties should have the
right to have open gatherings and the freedom of expression. The Media should be able to
freely “gather and disseminate news” concerning the election. Observers and mediators are
free to do their duties and the role of the government should be transparent. (Election
Commission 2008) Some of these criteria’s will be directly addressed in the research
questions and objectives section later in the chapter.
The June election got postponed due to failure in negotiations of a revised election act. The
second election date was set for November 22. 2007, but again internal disputes led to yet
another postponement. Many blamed the Maoists for constructing this postponement. They
left the interim government after the other parties refused to agree to their demands for a pre-
election proclamation of a republic and a fully proportional representation in the assembly.
Based on observations made in the field and Nepali news articles, the Maoist walk-out may
have been based on a growing anti-Maoist wave of public sentiments in the wake of the
election date. The opposition to the Maoists had been significant in the Terai area in the south,
were clashes between Maoists and the political party Madhesi Jana Adhikar Forum (MJF)
frequently happened throughout 2007 and is still the centre of conflict. Meanwhile
frustrations and concerns are growing among Nepalese people who had prepared for the
previous election dates, and the disbelief was reflected in polls showing that only twenty-two
percent of Nepalese did not think that the election would be held in April (Prasai 2008).
1.2 Statement of the Problem
To understand the problems facing the democratic changes in Nepal, it is necessary to look at
some recent event that poses challenges for this process. Although the guerrilla war has ended
the political tug of war has been raging on. Agreements have been made making it possible
for the elections to be held. Democratic change needs to follow democratic principles that
will be explored further in the following section.
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Political struggle
The seven-party alliance (SPA) and the Maoist have been struggling to reach agreements on
different important issues. One issue was how to provide representation in Constituent
Assembly Election for ethnic groups and cast, who have previously excluded from Nepali
politics. Another issue was to whether or not to declare Nepal a republic before or after the
election as it had been previously agreed upon. The pressure on the interim government
heightened when the Maoist walked out of the interim government in the wake of the second
election date in November 2007.
At the end of December 2007, the parliament voted on an amendment declaring Nepal a
republic prior to the April election, contrary to what was agreed upon in the peace agreement.
This vote was a result of a three months long tug of war between the NC and the Maoists. The
amendment would be ratified on the first meeting of the new assembly, leaving the king with
his present facilities until April. The amendment was passed by a majority vote, ending the
political stalemate and bringing new hope in holding the election. (Acharya 2007) The seven-
party alliance (SPA) had agreed and signed a 23-point agreement about the composition of the
Assembly. The agreement stated that the Constituent Assembly (CA) shall consist of 240
seats designated for first-past-the post electoral system, meaning electing candidates with the
most votes, and then 335 seats for proportional electoral system in which women and other
disadvantaged will have proportional representation and elected from the parties themselves.
The council of Ministers will in addition nominate 26 seats based on consensus and will
include members of groups not represented through the election. (UNMIN 2007) This
agreement can be viewed as a compromise between the Maoists, that wanted a fully
proportional electoral system, and the NC who wanted a mixed system. The amendment for
declaration of republic was major political victory for the Maoists.
The struggles over electoral system and republic have arguably been a factor leading to the
delays in holding the election. The importance of the composition of the new Assembly is the
key to include previously excluded groups. Ethnic groups and casts, who lack education and
training, will be represented in the new Assembly with the 23-point agreement. The lower
cast Dalits, often referred to as ‘untouchables”, were also the backbone of the Maoist
insurgency that crippled the country for more than ten years. The interim government has
made an effort to include these groups in the new assembly. Giving them a voice will
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strengthen the chance of a peaceful future for Nepal because failure of inclusion will likely
lead to new tensions and risk of conflicts, such as the Maoist insurgency, in the future.
Deciding on the electoral system and composition only, will not make Nepal more
“democratic”, because democracy in itself is only the foundation for opportunities for all.
The success of the system relies on how these opportunities are exercised(Sen 1999).
The Maoist rhetoric among its supports has been strong in blaming the King, the United
States and India in interfering with the election. They are claiming that their opponents are
trying to retrieve the Monarchy, but ever since the royal handover of power to the interim
government, the Kings power and influence has gradually gone astray. Based on observations
and news coverage, the popular support for the Maoists, has ironically been weakened by the
Kings loss of power and influence. According to many analysts the former rebels’ desire for
power and influence will most likely not be achieved by attending parliament politics and that
notion seems to be the reasons for putting off the November election. The postponement
ironically and contrary to what the Maoists’ opposition to the king has only benefited the
monarchy. (Mishra 2007) With election successfully executed there is still a clear and present
danger of conflicts arising when winners and losers are announced. The People’s Liberation
Army (PLA) is still confined to barracks across Nepal but is intact and ready for combat if
they chose to do so, and poses a great threat to the success of the Constituent Assembly. This
will be the greatest test of Maoist convergence to parliamentary politics.
Good Governance
The role of the news media is critical in the time of transition. The news media plays an
important part in providing Nepalese voters accurate information on the political situation,
especially for the disadvantaged groups and women that will have a much greater saying in
this election than in the past. The media has great responsibility in promoting good
governance. Good governance for this research will is based on OECD definition of the term.
OECD lists eight factors that combined make for good governance. Participation is listed as
the cornerstone of good governance. The sixty percent turnout in the CA election is a positive
sign in that respect. Transparency plays an important role in that it provides insight for those
influenced by decisions made by government, and it also implies that information is provided
through easily accessible media. This factor will be thoroughly explored through this research
paper. Effectiveness and efficiency simply implies that results are produced that meets the
needs of society and that use of natural resources are sustainable and protects the
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environment. Responsiveness in terms of good governance is the requirement of the
institutions and its process to “serve all stakeholders within a reasonable timeframe.”
Accountability counts for all institutions, private and public, to be accountable for their
actions to those affected by them. Consensus oriented is another factor listed as a component
of good governance, and it implies that political parties should focus on cooperation and
agreement that will lead to policies that benefits the whole society. The idea is to have a
constructive political process rather than a destructive process that only serves to undermine
the function of government. Good governance also includes equity, inclusiveness and that rule
of law to be followed and enforced. (OECD 2008) The news media plays a role in several of
these factors, making its relevance for this study undisputed.
The Media
The news media can play an important part in strengthening transparency, in that it can
disseminate information on the actions of the government out to the people, holding them
accountable and strengthening the democracy. This however, requires and independent and
viable media that is willing to play its part in this system of checks and balance. Nepali media
has ever since the first people’s movement and the reinstatement of democracy in 1990 had a
tremendous growth in number s of media outlets. The dominant media in Nepal is radio, with
its reach and accessibility it can reach more people than other media sources. Today, there are
more than 200 FM radio stations in Nepal, according to Dhruba Adhikary, the chairman of
Nepal Press Institute. The total numbers of registered newspapers was 4152 by 2006. Most
of these were weeklies and monthlies, and dailies only counted for 274 of the total.
(NepalGov. 2006) Although newspapers have a prominent role in Nepali media, like
elsewhere in the world, it is important to take note of the illiteracy percentage, which accounts
for about half of the population. However, when news is broadcasted on local radio stations,
newspapers are often used as a source for information.
The news media have the ability to educate, to voice people’s concerns, to act as a
“watchdog” that will disclose political wrong doings. It creates a forum for public discussion
and promotes civic culture. Studies have also shown that media plays a vital role in conflicts
and framing of conflicts. The media can act as an agent of conflict management, and that
conflict-sensitive journalism can strive for accuracy and journalistic integrity and at the same
time refrain from unnecessary political advocacy. (Achen 2005) However, the term conflict-
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sensitive journalism might be a new concept for many and can also be misunderstood, as
some of the finding will reveal later on.
A major problem for Nepali media has been the many reported incidents of journalists being
targeted by political groups. The International Press Institute (IPI) made the following
remarks on the condition of press freedom in Nepal in 2007:
“While the end of the civil conflict, as well as the 18 July unanimous approval by the Legislature-Parliament of the Right to Information Act, have been important developments, in the wider media environment, some of the old problems persist and the widespread disrespect for press freedom continues to affects journalists and media outlets. Journalists face threats and violence from a range of different actors, including police, members of political parties, armed groups, the military and strikers. Representatives of the Maoist insurgency have also issued threats as well as kidnapped and even murdered journalists.”(International Press Institute 2007)
The IPI continues by listing several incidents occurring throughout the year. The killings of
two journalists in September and October and the disappearance of another journalist by the
name of Prakash Singh Thakuri. The only murder case that was resolved by the police was
that of Birendra Shah, a journalist working in the Bara district, which also is talked about in
the interviews later on in this thesis. Other killings listed by the IPI was that of Shankar
Panthi, a correspondent of the local pro-Maoist Naya Satta Daily, Prakash Singh Thakuri,
editor and publisher of the royalist newspaper Aajako Samachar, Pushkar Bahadur Shrestha,
editor of the local newspaper Highway Weekly. Besides murders there have been several
incidents of threats, abductions, and beatings. The IPI concludes that all these incidents show
little understanding of the importance of press freedom by the groups who are responsible for
carrying out the attacks. The IPI stated that they were “…concern about the press freedom
violations taking place in the country, particularly as impartial and independent media
coverage is essential for holding free and fair elections and promoting the democratic
process.” (International Press Institute 2007)
The measures taken by the interim government and organizations working for the elections
have not been efficient in preparing people for the polls, and they have failed in keeping up
with their own deadlines. If you add the corruption as another factor contributing to people’s
distrust of politicians and hopes for carrying out a fair election, the situation is, to put it
bluntly, uneasy. Transparency International, which publishes the Corruption Perceptions
Index, ranked Nepal on 131 out of 179 nations. The index is measured based on the degree to
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which corruption is perceived to exist among politicians or other public officials based on
data provided by country experts and businesses. (TI 2007) Newly democratized countries
and developing countries, such as Nepal, are especially vulnerable to corruption within parties
because economic and political institutions are not yet secure. This type of corruption and the
scandals that often follows will over time lead to ”voter cynicism and disillusionment with the
political system, thus threatening the viability of democracy.” (Spector 2005:28)
The purpose of the election is to put together an assembly that will draft a new constitution for
Nepal. The problem with the election and the newly acquired democratic freedoms is the lack
of transparency within the interim government; many people do not know what the election is
all about. The lack of knowledge is true for the areas that have been investigated in this
research, and the majority of the responsibility for the knowledge gap should be placed with
the government and the independent election commission. Other problems are, as mentioned
earlier, the poor infrastructure that is minimizing the flow of information to Nepali voters in
the rural areas, the high illiteracy rate, and cultural notions of class and cast that makes it hard
to realize once own political power and potential.
Democracy is arguably a term that has been misused by regimes that on the contrary do not
want what democracy entitles, freedom of expression. It is important that the meaning of
democracy is clearly defined and understood for the purpose of this study. David Beetham, a
professor of politics at the University of Leeds, presented two main principles of democracy
that could be applied to both direct and representative democracy. These principles are
“popular control” and “political equality”, and according to Beetham, work best in “small
groups or associations” where all members of the group have equal right and freedom to
express their opinions and to vote. In a society for example where the group is considerably
larger, democracy is realized through entrusted representatives who are elected for practical
consideration of space and time. The people exercise control, not over the decision making,
but over the decision makers that they have entrusted in. Beetham says that control that the
voters have over these representatives is in the “decision makers who act in their place, [and]
is mediated rather than immediate.” Beetham elaborates on the issue by claiming that “one of
the criteria of democratic society is that its associational life should be internally democratic,
as well as that is should provide the socio-economic conditions for political equality to be
realized in practice.” (Beetham 1999:28)
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Beetham highlights two very important ideas that seem to be lacking in the two areas that
have been studied in this research. Exercising control over the decision-makers and not the
decision making is the matter of transparency and popular control, and this is a matter of
having basic knowledge of the political system that the voters are a part of. Feedback from
villagers suggests that many believe once they have voted for a politician, their duty is done,
and the politician is left to do whatever he or she pleases. Many villagers have not been able
to comprehend the idea that the politicians they give a seat to in parliament, are their
representatives and should speak on their behalf, raise their concerns and be accountable to
the people that gave them the vote in the first place. What Beetham suggest when saying the
provision of socio-economic condition, he implies having the equal means of making a stand
on political issues. This is a major task to achieve in a country like Nepal, because it would
require major improvement of infrastructure and education. The ideal situation is the situation
were all people, no matter what cast, gender or geographical location should have equal
access to information of political importance so that they can by themselves make a well
inform decision on what political stance they support.
These two principles can and should ideally be enforced by the news media. It is apparent
that a functional democratic system is dependent on a free and responsible press that will
work as a fourth estate. Nepal faces a major problem due to its lack of infrastructure, difficult
terrain, and high illiteracy rate limiting the access of the media to vast parts of the population;
this in turn causes problems in the preparation for the Constituent Assembly election as it
limits transparency and public awareness.
1.3 Purpose of the Study
The king announced that “all power will be given back to the people” after he was forced to
step down in 2006 marking a return to democracy. This research is exploring how much of
this power, if any, have actually been given back to the people, and if not what implications
will it have on the election. This study looks at how far the transfer of these rights has come in
two different geographical areas of rural Nepal in the wake of a Constituent Assembly
election. It will provide survey data from the village level that can be generalized for the two
particular areas, and it will present qualitative data drawn from different actors involved in the
political process leading up to the election.
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The purpose of this study will be to measure what degree newly democratic freedoms have
been provided to the rural poor and disadvantaged groups. The study will explore what
channels of information are available, and how they make sense of the information. The study
will also try to disclose possibly existing information control and manipulation that will
undermine the legitimacy of the coming election. The Nepali constitution of 1990 stated in
Article 16 that: “every citizen shall have the right to demand and receive information on any
matter of public importance” (Yadav 2001). The article and its importance to workings of
democracy is mostly like going to be incorporated into the new constitution that will be
written by the elected members of the Constituent Assembly as Nepal strive to move forward
for democratic change. The study will determine whether or not the right of receiving
information has been protected in the village, in simple terms, asking if the villagers are
getting accurate and informative information on the Constituent Assembly election.
The interim government adapted a list of policies that they would focus on for the three
coming years. This list included human rights, peace and good governance, local development
and decentralization, inclusive development, and regional and balanced development. The
thesis will focus on the human rights, peace and good governance part of the policies
emphasized by the interim government. The actions they include a focused on the mass
communication medium for the purpose of distributing information among politicians as well
as ordinary citizens, also saying that information technology that will be made extensive in
civil services.
1.4 Description of Research Area
The selection of the specific study areas were made in collaboration with my local supervisor,
Professor Binod Bhatta, upon my arrival in Kathmandu. The areas were carefully selected in
accordance with my objectives, which will be described in the next section, and had to follow
strict safety precautions due to the increased violence in certain areas. The goal was to select
two very geographically different rural areas with focus on ethnicity and culture.
The first research area that was selected was Rasuwa districts. This district is located in the
central development region close to the Chinese Tibetan boarder. The research area was
situated between the middle and high mountain ecological zone of Nepal. and has a total
population of 44 731 according to the national census of 2001(Central Bureau of Statistics
13
2001b). One of the major ethnic groups in the area was the Tamangs, who accounts for almost
five percent of the total population in Nepal. They belong to Tibeto-Burman language family
and have a rich culture and history. They mainly reside in the northern part of the Central
Region, are generally Buddhists, and consist of more than seventy ethnic subgroups found all
over Nepal. (NEFIN 2008a) Their distinct language was in some cases a challenge in the
villages that we visited, some of the respondents only spoke Tamang, and my research
assistant could only translate Nepali, forcing us to assistance from bilingual people in the
village. Another issue related to the research was the a report coming from United Nations
office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) reporting on disruption of a
donor supported voter education program by Young Communist League (YCL) in September
just a few weeks before our arrival in the district. (UN 2008)
The three villages in Rasuwa district that were included in the survey research were located in
difficult hilly terrain. This made them vulnerable to natural hazard such as landslides, which
all of the selected villages had experienced. The roads to the villages were destroyed making
it impossible for vehicles to reach the villages. Other challenges we were aware of was that
we were conducting the survey at the end of the millet harvest, so many of the participants
were out in the field, however, the once we asked were happy to take a break from the hard
work and answer our questionnaire, and we got accommodations from the locals so that we
could stay a few days in the field.
Research area 1
Research area 2
14
(Central Bureau of Statistics 2001a)
After completing the survey, we returned to Kalikasthan. Kalikasthan was the biggest village
in the area and was connected to the main road. This village had a temporary VDC office set
up since the old office had been burnt down by Maoists. The VDC secretary was a young man
in his thirties who was more than happy to share his story about what had happened in the
past, and about the conflict and the political stalemate that was going on at the time. The VDC
secretary introduced me to other important people in the area, a Maoist, a local UML leader
and a teacher, which we interviewed for the qualitative analysis.
The second research area was in Nawalparasi, a district situated in the Western Region
bordering India to the south. Nawalparasi lies in the Terai plains. Nawalparasi, like many
other districts in Nepal, is rural and the economy is based on farming. The district has a high
number of people belonging to the Tharu ethnic group living there. This ethnic group has a
total population of about 1.5 million people, and is well known for their farming in the Terai
area. (NEFIN 2008b) Tharus have their own language and customs, which again posed some
challenge in collecting the data. Fortunately, we had help from a local NGO, who assisted us
with people that spoke the language and had knowledge about the area.
The research team was settled in a small highway village called Bhutaha Chowk, and from
there we would travel to the three selected villages. The area is fairly well developed, but we
did run into some problems with a roadblock upon our arrival. As mentioned in the
introductory chapter the areas in Terai has been the most violent, due to ethnic uprising, and
on the express bus that I took from Kathmandu was stopped 3 km away from the destination.
Since no motorized vehicles were allowed to drive on the road, the last leg of the journey had
to be continued on foot before arriving in Bhutaha Chowk.
The three villages were selected based on the villager’s socio-economic status. In Bhutaha
Chowk, we were assisted by the Indreni Development Forum, a local NGO that provided us
with three translators and information on the different sites. The first village was we covered
was Anandanagar, and was one of the poorest in the district. The people living there were
landless had had built small huts out of straw and dirt. We were told that they had just
15
recently built a small road to the village, but there were no electricity. Scattered land
surrounding the settlement was used for farming so that they could grow some food.
The two other villages, Jamunia and Senrari, were a bit further away from our base camp, and
were reached by bus. These two villages lay side by side and were much more developed than
the first village. They had a few shops and tee houses and a large government office within its
perimeter. This office offered us accommodation and a place to stay the night. The villages
had electricity and were connected to a larger road. Life in these villages was clearly different
than up in the Himalayas, which made me suspect differences in the responses from the
participants and the key informants. Due to their improved infrastructure these people would
probably have better access to information and a better understanding of the Constituent
Assembly election. This presumption will be elaborated in the research objectives and
questions section.
The purpose of the study was to find out what mechanisms rural poor use to voice their
concerns and to determine how prepared these people were for the Constituent Assembly
election. It hopes to highlight how well the current government has been in adapting their
listed policies. The research for the study was conducted in two geographically and culturally
different areas described in the section above, and will this research is meant to compare the
situation in the areas and to identify factors of importance. The research tools that we used
were a questionnaire, which will be thoroughly described in the methods chapter. To be more
specific about the purpose and objectives of the research, this next section will clarify what
we are looking for and why.
1.5 Research Objectives and Questions
The purpose of the study is to look at how the grand political scheme works in practice on the
village level, and will determine the impact of these political decisions for in the lives of those
people who are affected by it. My objectives for carrying out this research are to:
1. To prove or disapprove the importance of providing information to the villagers and
its effect on creating political awareness and understanding of the Constituent
Assembly election.
16
2. To see how access to or lack of information affects the villager’s attitude towards the
election.
3. To disclose factors that undermine the villager’s right to accurate information on the
Constituent Assembly election.
Based on the objectives listed above and my presumptions about the situation in Nepal the
following hypothesis was constructed and will either be rejected or accepted at the end of this
study:
“Access to information in the village will determine what attitude its members hold towards
the Constituent Assembly election and their understanding of democracy.”
The research seeks to answer the following key question:
“What impact does access of information have on rural people’s attitude towards the
Constituent Assembly election and their understanding of democracy?”
In addition to the hypothesis and the key research question a list of supplementary questions
that are of interest to the purpose of the study and will help answer the key question are as
follows:
1. Have the villagers received sufficient training to participate in the Constituent
Assembly election?
2. Do the villagers have access to information that will help them make an informed
decision on what candidate/party represents their interests?
3. What actions have been taken to provide political representation for disadvantaged
groups?
4. Does the concept democracy have a different meaning between the different
stakeholders?
5. What expectations do the villagers have of the election?
6. What channels of information are available to the villagers?
7. Can journalists work safely without restraint in the village?
8. Is the flow of information controlled or manipulated? If so, how aware are people
about this, and how do they cope with it?
17
1.6 Significance of study
As discussed earlier in the chapter functional democracy relies on active participation in the
political process by its citizens. The success of the Constituent Assembly will rely on proper
preparation and execution of the election. This study will focus on how the preparation part of
the election has been executed in two culturally and geographically different districts of the
central region of Nepal. It will take into account the villager’s own perception of the ongoing
process of democratic change in Nepal, as well as the perceptions of other stakeholders that
affect this process in one way or another.
It is important to mention that the results from the study cannot be generalized for the whole
of Nepal, but will provide findings that might be an issue, not only Nepal as a whole, but for
all nations that are in a process of democratic change. The result will hopefully shed light on
issues that are important for nations undergoing democratic change and be used as a tool for
planning and executing development projects that seeks to improve access of information
among disadvantaged people in rural areas, and work for the purpose of awareness rising
among the people who needs it the most.
.
1.7 Organization of thesis
The structure of this thesis is designed to first provide necessary background information to
understand and get a clear understanding of the situation that Nepal is in at the time of the
research and what factors have contributed in creating the situation in the first place. The next
step is to state the problems, which then drives the research questions and creates a hypothesis
that then can either be confirmed or rejected based on the results from the research. The next
chapter will focus on the literature and theories that further explains the wider concepts used
and the importance of them in relation to the research. In the third chapter the methodology of
the research will be described, showing how the data was retrieved, the problems encountered
during the research, and what implications does it have on the result of the research. In the
last chapter the results of the survey, interviews and observations will discussed before
making a conclusion for the key research question. These results will answer the research
questions and accept or reject the hypothesis. The conclusion will then provide the research
18
with some basic recommendations that may benefit organizations working for awareness
rising about democratic rights.
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW
In this section literature and theories supporting this research will be review and explained in
relation to the research. Democracy, freedom of speech, and good governance are the main
focus of the research and will be thoroughly explored in this chapter. My research is
deductive in the sense that it presumes that democracy is the best form of governance for
economic development and improving the livelihood of its citizens as it has been described by
scholars such as Amartya Sen and others that will be discussed in this chapter.
2.1 Why democracy
It is important to include the works of Amartya Sen in a development research looking at a
democratic transition in a developing country, because the question if democracy is the best
conditions for development is widely discussed among scholars in the field of development.
The reason why I have chosen to include Sen’s writing on the issue is because I support his
view on democracy and development.
Sen, an Indian economist and a former Nobel Peace Prize winner in Economic Science, is a
strong voice for individual freedom in promoting economic development. His work
“Development as Freedom” highlights the importance of basic political and liberal rights. Sen
outline the importance of democracy in eradicating famine, secure economic rights, and
promote development.
Sen sketches out three different considerations of the importance of democratic liberties, first,
their “direct importance in human living associated with basic capabilities” (referring to
active participation in political and social life), secondly, their “instrumental role in enhancing
the hearing that people get in expressing and supporting their claims to political attention”,
and third, their “constructive role in the conceptualization of ‘needs’”.(Sen 1999:148)
19
Although Sen strongly argues for democracy, in the sense of individual rights and liberties, as
the best form of government, and he underlines its importance in that “democracy has to be
seen as a creating a set of opportunities… and their effectiveness would depend on how they
are exercised”. (Sen 1999:155) This is evident in the observation I collected during my
fieldwork in Nepal. Although, the preparations done by government and NGO’s were lacking,
or at best severely limited, people that had the opportunity in getting information and actively
participating in the local politics but hardly ever did so. Local radio programming transmitted
on some occasion programs on the election issues, and some the villagers had received
election training, but did not share their information with others. Reasons for this political
passivism will be discussed later in this chapter.
Sen argues that democracy is the superior form of government when it comes to development
in that evidently no nation with a democratic form of governance have ever experienced
substantial famines. Famines “have never materialized in any country that is independent, that
goes to elections regularly, that has opposition parties to voice criticisms and that permits
newspapers to report freely and question the wisdom of government policies without
censorship.”(Sen 1999:152)
This research takes Sen’s position in that democracy is in the interest of the Nepalese. The
Constitutional Assembly election is a test of Nepalese’s democratic rights. The research will
look at factors that will affect the results of the election and its importance for those
disadvantaged groups who in the past have had little saying in political matters. The research
seeks to uncover undemocratic factors threatening the legitimacy and principles of fair and
free elections.
Another scholar that seeks to provide evidence that supports democracy as the most ideal
form of governance for increased development and improved quality of life is Professor Yi
Feng. Feng’s work “Democracy, Governance, and Economic Performance” has combined
political and economic science to prove “whether or not democracy or political freedom
contributes to quality of life by providing a useful and constructive political infrastructure.”
(Feng 2003:1) Feng looks at both the direct and indirect effect of political institutions on
economic growth, and presents data that compares the rapid and stable economic growth of
the G7 countries and countries in the Asia pacific with the weak growth of countries in sub-
Sahara Africa and Latin-America in the last few decades. Feng claims that the regional
20
similarities between the G7 and countries in the Asia pacific and that of countries in sub-
Sahara Africa and Latin-America is related to political and economic regularities. (Feng
2003:9) He presents a theoretical model arguing that people’s economic decisions are based
on “the assessment of the political environs for the marketplace”, meaning that economic
growth depends on “three political variables: political freedom, political stability, and policy
certainty” (Feng 2003:14) Feng presents empirical evidence by showing that political freedom
and democracy improves life through promoting economic growth, reduced income
inequality, and improved education. This is a strong argument for the promotion of
democracy in a developing country like Nepal.
2.2. Democratic transition
After establishing why democracy is important based on the writings of the scholars described
above, it is relevant for the research to look at possibilities and implications changing from
autocracy to democracy. Stephan Haggard and Robert R. Kaufman are two scholars that have
analyzed the transition from authoritarian rule to democracy based on extensive literature on
the topic in their book “The Political Economy of Democratic Transitions”. They ask the
following three questions; in what way will “economic conditions affect the capacity of ruling
elites to determine the timing and nature of their withdrawal”. How will “the way in which the
economic and institutional legacies of the transition affect economic policymaking in new
democratic regimes.” And finally how will it “explore the conditions under which market-
oriented reform and policy can reconciled and consolidated.”(Haggard & Kaufman 1995:4)
They argue that it is hard to get political or policy outcomes from economic cleavages and
interests without consideration of the institutional context in which groups operate. Haggard
and Kaufman provides and interesting observation to the debate by claiming that the ability of
political leaders to maintain in power relies partly on economic performance and that accounts
for both democratic and authoritarian leaders. (Haggard & Kaufman 1995:10) The main
difference between authoritarian and democratic rule, according to Haggard and Kaufman, is
that democratic rule guarantees opposition and a system of replacement through political
competition in elections. This system ensures voter rights, freedom of speech and basic civil
liberties, keeping these principles in mind, democratic transitions take place when forces that
operate within these rules forces the authoritarian power to step down. When a new
government “face distributive pressure from groups re-entering the political arena,” as well as
21
questions of loyalty from groups of the old system, the economic legacy of the previous
system and the nature of emerging political institution will determine the severity and
capacity to respond to the challenges that arises in the transition. (Haggard & Kaufman
1995:13-14)
Democracy in itself could be argued to go against social justice because it relies on majority
rule. The political scientist Ian Shapiro has tried to describe how these two concepts interfere
with each other in his book “Democratic Justice”. The way to counter the interference
between democracy and social justice is to place democracy in the center of social relations so
that distribution of authority becomes the focal point and not distribution of assets. The reason
for thinking of justice and democracy in the context of this research is that the democratic
process in Nepal was fueled by injustice and belief in that democratic change would end
autocratic rule that is viewed as the reason for the injustice.
Shapiro asks why democratic justice is important and seeks to prove it by giving examples of
how the concept of democracy has been used by revolutionaries in past revolutions. He points
to the fall of the Soviets Union and the Eastern European communist states, where the
revolutionaries commonly shared resentment to the communist system and used the appeal for
democracy as way to end the system. He points to the end of apartheid in South Africa were
those who fought for democracy identified it with ending apartheid(Shapiro 1999:2). This
idea of using the concept democracy as the means to fight what is seen as unjust is relevant
for what has happened in Nepal with the decade long insurgency and the uprising of April
2006. The fight against autocratic rule by King Gyanendra was organized and fought by
political parties and groups that have labeled their struggle against the king as a fight for
democracy. The implication with this systematic use of the concept is, according to Shapiro,
that “[t]he imperative to get rid of it[ an oppressive system] inevitably shaped their
perceptions of what democracy is about.”, and the problem that arise when the opposition
comes to power is that “[b]ecause democratic ideals are forged out of reactive struggles… on
ascending to power, democratic oppositions bear the antithetical traces of the orders they
replace.” (Shapiro 1999:2) The proposition of what democracy means to those partaken in the
struggle for justice, and how the new government might have adapted some of unjust
character of the old system is included in the field research and will be described in the later
chapters.
22
Like Sen, Shapiro has a sense of what democracy means. They both agree on the function of
democracy in that it is a system of opportunities, or in Shapiro’s own words “a subordinate
foundational good, designed to shape the power dimension of collective activities without
subverting their legitimate purpose.“ Nepal has been through democratic changes in the past
without changing the injustice suffered by large sentiments of its people. This frustration,
Shapiro explains, is due to the fact that “…achieving political democracy does not guarantee
broad advances toward greater social justice” in some cases it might even lead to an opposite
outcome, this in turn leads to popular descent in democratic conviction. The challenge is to
discover a form of democracy that promotes justice. (Shapiro 1999:18-19)
2.3. The importance of communication
Communication scholar Ralph Negrine highlights the role media plays and should play in his
book titled “The Communication of Politics”. Negrine writes about the implications of the
role mass media plays in creating informed and active citizenry. Negrine looks at media’s role
in a historical perspective adding the perspective of the former Director-General of BBC
Charles Curran who believed that the broadcaster’s role was to win public interest in public
issues and in doing so it would increase public understanding. The media had, in his view, a
duty in providing rational and balanced news that would provide voters with basic judgment
on public policies. This role was, according to Curran, necessary for successful democratic
governing.
Negrine argues that Curran’s view of media’s purpose reflects the postwar period in which
public broadcasters had a sense of mission in contrast to the modern commercialized mass
media. The concept “public sphere” represents the structure of the media that provide the
public with relevant information that will affect the public good. The ideal liberal public
sphere is a structure consisting of equally well-informed entities allowing for rational
discussion making and that is capable of resolving differences without using “non-coercive
means”. By well-informed entities, Curran meant, individuals who had received sufficient
information and were able to take equal part in the public discussion. In the real world this is
undermined by corporate and political ownership and influence which often is the reality of
mass media institutions. The public sphere that is created by the mass media institutions is
undermined by the media itself in that it requires the institutions to choose what relevant and
important information is.
23
Negrine discards the earlier thinking of Curran due the changes that took place in Curran’s
Great Britain from the sixties until now. A society that was characterized by “cohesion and
stability” have become much more diversified and that there has been a fundamental change
in the organization of that society (Negrine 1996:4) But the modern British society that
Negrine describes is very different from that of today’s Nepal. Nepal is, not only in a post-war
period, but also in the middle of a process of transition from autocratic rule to representative
democracy, which is also a part of an undergoing peace process. In that respect it is
fundamentally important for the media to create the public sphere in which the citizens are
well-informed and participate in rational discussions, especially ahead of the Constituent
Assembly election which will influence the lives of all Nepalese people in the years to come.
“…the better the media systems are able to produce and distribute information, the better the other parts of the system works and the more likely the citizens can begin to make sense of the world and engage with it. Unfortunately, this particular formulation of the connecting link places responsibility on the media to ensure the successful workings of the democratic process. Little attention is paid to the wishes, desires or requirements of the citizens themselves. Moreover, little consideration is given to changes within the structure and processes of government which not only limit the effectiveness of the media but also raise important questions about the rationale for participation in the political system itself.” (Negrine 1996:6)
Negrine refers to some alarming trends in the western democracy where non-elected bodies
have taken over traditional government responsibilities leading to less control by the elected
representatives of the people leaving the citizens with less power to make decisions and
therefore also undermining the role to the citizens in taking part in the democratic process.
The implications that Negrine refers to is that the relationship between the citizens and the
people in power has become too complex to be illustrate in a simple way. Negrine mentions
what he calls the “supra-national body” the one structure that regulates all domestic and social
activity and is so vast that it is difficult to identify who is responsible for what, this in turn
creates problems for the media that have to keep track of who, where, what and why. Negrine
coins this situation as difficult but crucial, because in this view the media is responsible for
highlighting concerns and issues relevant to the people so that they can put pressure on the
government and other powerful organizations. “In these ways, the media take on a significant
role to articulate, to organize, to voice opinions of the public and to force others to act.” This
role differs from the intended role of the “public sphere” where the main reason is to create a
“forum for rational debate.” (Negrine 1996) What Negrine has described here is what I think
24
of as the fourth estate, the one estate that keeps the others accountable, and is crucial for the
workings of democracy.
Negrine correctly points out that in the modern governance the media has to articulate public
concern in order to keep check on the governing bodies. (Negrine 1996:9) As a consequence
of media’s growing responsibilities, it becomes important to look at the media institutions and
ask if they are ready to deal with monitoring a wider area of governance and foresee problems
that will arise in the future.
Media has been a part of development strategies in the past, but not always able to produce a
satisfying effect. Media was a part of the modernization thinking, by focusing on
modernization the third world could developed faster and catch up with the first world.
Srinivas R. Melkote and H. Leslie Steeves are two scholars in the field of communication and
research who have specifically looked at development communication. Their book
“Communication for Development in the Third World” examines the discourse of
modernization and its practical impact on developing countries. It is a critique of dominant
knowledge systems and what they describe as the truth claim of modernism. The book
explores the scholarship and practice of communication for development and empowerment
in the third world.
Melkote and Steevens clarify the meaning of communication, development and empowerment
in the first chapter in order to have a base for analysis throughout the work. To them
development communication is “communication concerned with the role of communication in
social change” (20), but they point out that this broad definition could also describe other
fields of communication. Melkote and Steeves describes the difficulties of definitions due to
the events of the past decades were
“[t]he end of the Cold War, alongside greater polarization along ethnic, religious and nationalistic lines, increased transnationalization, greatly increased information flow and influence, and a growing consciousness of marginalized groups and diminishing resources have challenged and changed the issues and questions.” (Melkote & Steeves 2001:20)
Melkote and Steeves’ book describes how mass communication and they way we think of
mass communication has radically changed since the days of the simple communication
models, and thereby have added much more sophisticated hypothesis in the field of
communication. Instead of only seeing mass communication as having vast power in
25
informing and influencing the public, scholars are now being more specific in new theories on
the role of mass media.
“New information technologies have inspired new and more elaborate arguments about the power of these technologies in deliver information, set agendas, persuade, socialize, educate, satisfy myriad audience needs, and democratize societies.”(Melkote & Steeves 2001:31)
Still at the same time, some scholars within the field of social scientists are critical to the
isolation of communication from political and economic processes, claiming that there is a
link between communication and culture, “in the idea of communication as shared meaning,
versus information transmission or persuasion”. (Melkote & Steeves 2001:31)
The above idea also emphasize the issue of media in reinforcing dominant values among the
audience that sometimes is provided with the illusion of balance. “There are many textual
conventions that powerful groups use to reinforce dominant messages, conventions supported
by standard traditions and values of media practice.” According to the authors these practices
are for example “making light of non-mainstream views, undercounting those with alternative
views… and an over-reliance on government and corporate resources.” Such tradition stresses
event news over context, focusing on conflict more than consensus and choosing individuals
over groups. (Melkote & Steeves 2001:31-32)
The authors present three different views of development, namely modernization, critical
perspective and liberation perspective. However, they do not support a particular view; rather
they state that they overlap each other and needs to be all considered because they all provide
“valuable insights and arguments.” They also provide their own definition of empowerment in
line with scholar such as Paolo Freire, Rozario and Rowland. The authors define
empowerment as “the process by which individuals, organizations, and communities gain
control and mastery over social and economic conditions; over democratic participation in
their communities; and over their stories.” (Melkote & Steeves 2001:37) This definition is
also helpful in explaining what empowerment means in the context of this thesis, as it is
focused on the democratic participation in the local areas being researched.
According to the authors “empowerment has direct consequence on the objectives of
development communication”, and by this they imply that it is not enough for delivery of
information to promote empowerment. The focus should be on empowerment of
26
“marginalized individuals, groups and organizations,” through grassroots involvement social
change can be promoted on the part of marginalized. Furthermore, the emphasis of
communication should be on the organizational value and participatory social action.
Evidence of the importance of this emphasis is traced in the findings derived from the
research of this thesis. (Melkote & Steeves 2001:38-39)
Melkote and Steeves offers a way of viewing development communication by looking at it
from the liberation perspective. The development communication should support the goal
that the purpose of development is to provide freedom from oppression, meaning that this
form of communication should not be exchange of messages, but “emancipatory
communication”. All people should participate, based on the assumption that “once people
get in touch with their sources of oppression as well as their sources of power, they will be
able to find solutions.” This view draws parallels to the workings of functional democracies
and thus is meaningful for the purpose of the thesis. (Melkote & Steeves 2001:39)
Melkote and Steeves goes on to describe communication approaches from the early bullet
theories to more complex models like the Shannon and Weaver’s model. They also touch
upon theory of minimal effects of the mass media, referring to research done conducted by
Lazarsfeld, Berelson and Gaudet who conducted research on mass media effect on voters in
the 1940 U.S. election This research concluded that even when the majority had somewhat
been exposed to the media messages, individuals were more politically influenced by their
peers and that had little impact on their political decisions. The results also revealed that some
people are more influenced by the media than others, and in turn these people, label opinion
leaders, influenced the opinion of people in their communities. Media, thus, did not directly
influence but rather indirectly influence through the opinion leaders. Other theorist limiting
the effect of the media, according to the authors, was Carl Hovland who researched war
propaganda and discovered that it was generally ineffective due to some defense mechanisms
that was classified as “selective exposure, selective perception, and selective retention.”
Hovland findings was later supported by Klapper that also concluded that “people expose
themselves to messages selectively.” (Melkote & Steeves 2001:109-110)
The authors describe the free flow ideology is commonly used by development agencies and
the United Nations deriving from the period following WWII. Melkote and Steeves critically
looking at many of the modernization linked approaches for development, and the free flow
27
ideology is no exception. According to them this ideology follows the Enlightenment thought
and is consistent with western ideas of individual’s right. Despite the criticism the belief in
free flow of information and its importance has been stated in both the United Nations
Declaration of Freedom of Information in 1946 and in article 19 of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. They correctly point out that the free flow ideology is consistent with
modernization, and that “[t]he key issue is individual freedom to work towards this ability and
opportunity.” (Melkote & Steeves 2001:120) Thinking of free flow of information and its
connection with human rights, although criticized by Melkote and Steeves for having a
western bias, is a fundamental right that is emphasis in the thesis, and more specifically in the
development of political capital and importance in democratic transition Nepal is currently in.
Melkote and Steeves tries to deconstruct what they call the dominant paradigm of
development which they see as equal to the concept of modernity. Some of the biases that the
authors list includes that rationality and progress have become synonymous with economic
rationality and growth due to the vested interest in the developing countries by multilateral
organizations that are controlled by the economic and political elites of the north. That the
standard of living is measured by indicators like GDP and per capita income neglecting non-
material goods, emphasizing consumption of material goods. The history of countries in the
developing world is ignored due to the focus on modernization, thus stripping them of their
culture and history.
Their concern with what they term the dominant paradigm is just, but never the less, more
theoretical than practical and have little impact on the development strategies today. However
they are right when criticizing the top-down approach that has characterized many
development strategies today and in the past. Going back to the function of the forth estate
mentioned earlier in this chapter, these top-down approaches coming from the “intra-national
body” should be traced and questioned by the media so that in turn they are kept accountable
by the people who brought to power in the first place.
Melkote and Steeves talks in-depth about the implications of the “dominant Western
development discourse” and they refer to alternative views such as feminist views, post-
colonialist views, environmentalist views and others, to conclude with an alternative
perspective on development. The alternative should include new goals, and two of these goals
are relevant to this thesis. The first one is the goal of equity in distribution of information and
28
other benefits of development. By this goal they mean that the focus should be on the poorest
of the poor, because to gap between them and the more fortunate needs to be closed. The
other goal relevant to this thesis is the goal of active participation of people at the grassroots
level. This goal is important, observations, result and conclusions from the field supports this
position, as will be describe in later chapters.(Melkote & Steeves 2001:198-199)
An important aspect of communication in relations to development that the authors have
emphasis is that the use of communication as a development strategy is nothing new. It has
been prevalent in the past and was viewed as a major strategy for development in the 50s and
the 60s, but later on disclosed major flaws and unintended results. According to the authors
scholars such as Beltran claimed that the prerequisite for communication strategies to work
was to totally change the social structure of the target society, only then it would be possible
to achieve “human and democratic development”, and that communication was impotent is
some cases because it would always favor the ruling minorities, and mass media was
dependent of these forces and therefore would not act independently. The authors refer to
research conducted in development countries in the 70s showing that the communication for
development strategies had not contributed in modernizing to the extent that originally was
intended. (Melkote & Steeves 2001:206-207)
Melkote and Steeves continues to critique communication approaches in social change and
research based on their Western biases, such as the focus on individuals and not groups that is
more common in other societies. Previous research trying to explore the effect of media
message in the Third World sometimes carried this bias, because in most of the earlier
research the emphasis on the individual as the locus of change made research design flawed.
Radom sample was used pick head of households, not considering groups. (Melkote &
Steeves 2001:210-211) It is worth mentioning that in the research for this thesis focus on
groups has been prioritized.
Another problem with the role of mass media in development was that although that exposure
to mass media has increased the message is usually not development related, referring to
studies done in Latin America and in India showed that very little space was allocated to
development content, most of the content was entertainment related. Because the media is
usually central based, communities speaking a different language or dialects are being
neglected. (Melkote & Steeves 2001:218-219)Observations made in the villages, and
29
interviews with journalists, reveals the same obstacles. Whenever a radio was tuned in it was
usually transmitting music and in both villages being research the issue of radio and
newspaper content in their own language was often mentioned.
The authors touch upon an issue that I have addressed in my research question that of the
knowledge gap and its effect. The authors describes the knowledge gap hypothesis which
states that the segment of the population with higher socio-economic status obtain information
faster than the other segment of the population as more and more mass media sources are
introduced into the society, and in effect widening the knowledge gap between the population
segments. Reasons for the gap were among other factors differences in “communication
skills” usually related to education level. The authors say that the gap had social significance
in that the difference in knowledge level “could lead to greater tension in a social system,
giving rise to greater disparities between sectors of a population.” At the same time
researchers came up with ways of countering the widening of the gap through making
television sets available and encouraging the people to watch the shows, mange the content
simple and easy to understand for all audience, and that the presentation of the information
should be appealing to those of lower knowledge. (Melkote & Steeves 2001:220-222)
The pro-literacy bias is another obstacle for communication in development described by
Melkote and Steeves. They define pro-literacy bias as “the tendency of a communication
source to encode messages in terms of symbols, either written, printed, or verbal, which imply
literacy and numeracy skills on the part of receivers, even when they are known to lack both
skills.” They illustrate this bias by referring to a study done on communication strategies by
an NGO in India, were the researcher discovered several symbols in the messages meant for
illiterate farmers, that required knowledge of the language as used by the literate in the area,
English skills, knowledge of Western calendar, the Metric system, statistical and technical
terms used in agriculture and other fields. (Melkote & Steeves 2001:233-234) The problem of
not being able to comprehend what is transmitted is not only relevant for illiterate farmers in
India, but can also be just as relevant for illiterate voters in rural Nepal. This problem is
apparent to some of the result deriving from the research for the thesis and will be examined
in later chapters.
Being in at the village level supports some of these supports, especially with the effects or
ineffectiveness of government strategies and large NGOs like the UN. As Sen mentioned, the
30
hardest opposition to democracy are authoritarian regimes themselves, but it is democracy
that has improved the lives of people, provided previously discriminated groups a voice,
empowered women, and raised the living standards overall in previously backwards nations.
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY
The importance of the methodology, how and why it was used for this research will be
explained in this chapter. It is important to refer back to the driving question of this research
“What impact does access of information have on rural people’s attitude towards the
Constituent Assembly election and their understanding of democracy?” This question guided
the direction of the research and determined what research method that would be used. In
order to test the hypothesis, provide an answer for the research question and even be able to
answer to some extent the sub questions, a research strategy was formed. This section
describes the methods used to collection data and other relevant information and how it was
analyzed.
Based on the complex nature of the research topic, a combination of quantitative and
qualitative research method was constructed and applied. Due to time and budget constraints,
the method applied was efficient and optimal in providing the research with relevant
information and data. The study area was limited to two culturally and geographically
different areas of rural Nepal. The method seeks to obtain information on people’s
knowledge level and attitude about the undergoing political process, and at the same time
collecting the knowledge and attitude from actors that are involved in the dissemination of
information and preparation of the Constituent Assembly election. These actors include
teachers, politicians, NGO workers, activists and journalists.
3.1 Research method
Using both qualitative and quantitative methods in the same research is called multi-strategy
research (Bryman 2004:541). A logic to this approach is that “it implies the results of an
investigation employing a method associated with one research strategy are cross-checked
against the results of using a method associated with the other”(Bryman 2004:454).
31
The research is also of a deductive nature because it deriving from the theories described in
literature review chapter. The deductive research process follows six basic steps starting with
theory, then the creation of hypothesis followed by data collection and findings. These
findings will then confirm or reject the hypothesis and then be added to the revision of the
theory (Bryman 2004:8-9).
A cross-sectional research design was chosen to weigh the data collected from the two
research areas against each other in order to disclose variation. Alan Bryman, professor of
social research at Loughborough University, defines cross-sectional research design as a
“…design [that] entails the collection of data on more than one case and at a single point in
time in order to collect a body of quantitative or quantifiable data in connection with two or
more variables, which are then examined to detect patterns of association.”(Bryman 2004:41)
The two cases chosen for the cross-sectional research were a cluster of villages located close
to Kalikasthan in Rasuwa district and a cluster of villages in close vicinity of Bhutaha Chowk,
which was a small roadside village in Nawalparasi district. A survey based on collection of
questionnaires among voters in the two areas was needed for collecting the necessary data.
Survey research, according to Bryman, “comprises a cross-sectional design in relation to
which data are collected predominantly by questionnaire or by structured interview on more
than one case.”(Bryman 2004:43) The next step was to construct the questionnaire that would
be used as the primary tool for collecting the data in the villages. The goal for the survey was
to obtain data from listed voters in the selected rural areas that would provided the research
with data that could be analyzed in terms of their knowledge and attitude towards the CA
election and Nepalese democracy in general, and additional information on their socio-
economic status and their access to relevant information.
3.2 Questionnaire design
In order to design a questionnaire that would work as a proper data collection tool, a
conceptual framework was constructed, based on my preconceived perception what
determines the voters capability to make well informed decisions in the election. The
independent variables would be included in the first part of the questionnaire to determine the
32
participant’s socio-economic status. The participants would list their region, sex, ethnicity,
family size, occupation, age, economic status and literacy.
Conceptual Framework
Independent variables Intermediate variables Dependent variables
Gender Policies Voter attitude and knowledge among rural poor and disadvantaged people.
Age Laws
Cast Media
Income Propaganda
Traditions/geography Voter programs
Education Development projects
Ethnicity
Perceptions/affiliations
Family size
The next five questions were asking whether or not the participants had access to different
types of information sources. These questions were followed by nineteen statements where
the participant had to rate to what degree the participant agreed or disagree with the statement.
These questions were to be rated with a Likert scale. The goal of the Likert scale is, according
to Bryman, “…to measure intensity of feelings about the area in question.” It usually consists
of several statements, were the participant are “asked to indicate his or her level of
agreement.” (Bryman 2004:68) The statements were constructed to disclose the participant’s
reliance on different news sources for political information, how they rated their own
democratic rights, how they viewed the medias role in voicing their concerns, how well the
government and the political parties had prepared them for the election, and what attitudes
they had toward to election and the outcome of the election. The next three questions were
simple agree or disagree statements on the same topic. The last five questions in the
questionnaire were open-ended questions were the participants had to answer without options.
The purpose was to disclose issues that we were not aware of. These questions had to be
coded after the survey was completed.
33
The questionnaire consisted of forty variables in which the first fourteen variables were
demographic, twenty-two were statements where the participants were asked to which degree
they agreed or disagreed to the statement. The last five questions of in the questionnaire were
open-ended questions, asking the participants to fill out the answers without being provided
with alternatives for their response. The ideas for these final questions were to disclose issues
that might have been overlooked in the previous section.
The demographic questions were based on the independent variables that presumably would
affect access to information, political involvement, awareness of their democratic rights,
understanding of the political situation and attitude towards the electoral process.
Statement section listed statements relating to freedom of speech, access to information,
purpose of election and how the election would affect them personally. The last part was
designed to disclose other issues that the statement section did not cover. The participants
were given a few open-ended questions related to the topic, and the answers had to be coded
in order to be included in the quantitative analysis later in this thesis.
3.3. Semi-structured interview
A qualitative approach was chosen to get a deeper understanding of the different actor’s
involvement, purpose, and view of the situation on the preparation for the election. The actors
included politicians, journalists, government workers and NGO personnel. The qualitative
approach mainly consists of semi-structured interviews with key informants from NGOs,
government, parties, and media outlets. Other qualitative means have been observations made
in the field and secondary data analysis. A list of general questions on the research topic was
constructed. Bryman describes the context of semi-structured interviews as having “a series of
questions that are in the general form of an interview schedule, but is able to vary the
sequence of questions…Also, the interviewer usually has some latitude to ask further
questions in response to what are seen as significant replies.” (Bryman 2004:113)
The semi-structured interview provides freedom and flexibility to the interviewee and
interviewer; this was especially helpful when interviewing people with different backgrounds
and different roles in the preparation process. For example when interviewing a teacher, as
compared to a politician, the focus would be slightly different. The politicians would be
directly asked about how the party had prepared the locals for the election, while the teacher
34
would be asked about his or her participation in the training program provided by the Nepali
election commission.
My first visit to Nepal had provided me with an extensive network of informants who
included professors, NGO workers and researchers. One of these people was assigned to this
research as my local supervisor, Professor Binod Bhatta, who has many years of experience in
the field of research. The network of informants helped to point me in the right direction and
introduce me to other people relevant to the study. This type of sample is called snowball
sampling and is a form of convenience sampling. According to Bryman “the researcher
makes initial contact with a small group of people who are relevant to the research topic and
then use these to establish contacts with others” (Bryman 2004:100).
Certain criteria’s had to be followed when choosing interviewees. The person interviewed had
to represent a group of people who were involved in the ongoing political process, either
directly or indirectly, like a politician that who are actively running campaigns in the local
community or a teacher who had revived training in preparing locals for the CA election. The
semi-structured interview was design to answer questions that might arise from the
questionnaire. Some of the questions was included in the semi-structured interview were:
“[w]hat can rural poor and disadvantaged do to let their voices be heard and raise awareness
about their situation?”, “[w]hat effect will the latest abductions and killings of journalists have
on the news coverage?”, “[w] hat is the best way to make sure the poor and disadvantaged are
represented in the Constituent Assembly?”, and “[w]hat does democracy mean to you?”.
Asking these types of questions would hopefully provide some of the answers needed to
explain the result from the survey and other research questions asked in the first chapter of the
thesis.
3.4. Field Observations
The observations done in the field was recorded during and immediately after much of the
data collection. An important reason for recording observations was due to the fact that the
outcome of data collection using data collection tools and standardized questions is not
always true. Recorded observations are useful in disclosing errors that might occur. This was
also the case in the data collection for this research, and will be discussed in more dept in the
following chapter.
35
There are several different types of observation techniques in research methods. The
observation method used for this research is an unstructured observation were “the aim is to
record in as much detail as possible the behaviour of participants with the aim of developing a
narrative account of that behaviour.”(Bryman 2004:167) Some of the observations was done
by my self and some were disclosed in debriefing of the data collection teams after
completion of the survey.
3.5. Sample
The aim was to collect one-hundred and fifty surveys from each location in order to
generalize the result to count for all voters in respective regions. The locations were selected
with the help and guidance of a local supervisor, Binod Bhatta, Ph.D. and were based on the
given budget for the research and security measures. The aim was to get two or more First
location was Kalikasthan in Rasuwa district, from were we would travel by foot to
surrounding villages and collect the data.
The questionnaire had been previously tested on 30 respondents in a residential area just
outside Dunche. It was beneficial because it allowed for us to get an idea of how much time
that we would spend gathering surveys and to remove or alternate some of the questions and
statements that did not work out as planned. The questionnaire took about ten minutes to fill
out, which had much to do with us as interviewers sometimes having to explain some of the
statements and that the open-ended section required some reflection from the participants. We
also realized that it would take a lot of time to get close to our sample of three hundred
surveys.
The purpose of the survey was to make it possible to generalize the findings for the voters of
the districts chosen for the research, and in order to do so a method of systematic random
sample was chosen. According to Bryman the meaning of random sampling is that “they
permit generalizations to the population and because they have certain known qualities”
(Bryman 2004:105). Voter lists were collected from the regional voter registration office in
Dunche, from which a system of selecting a random sample was developed. The lists were
divided into villages. Then three villages were chosen that would reflect the diversity of
ethnicity and socio-economic statues of that area. The total number of voters in a village was
36
divided based on the required sample size and the number was used to selected participants,
for example number one, then seven and then fourteen on the list.
The first research area was in Rasuwa district, where we were settled in the district
headquarter, Kalikasthan. In Kalikasthan a group of four local students, with training in
journalism, were coached in conducting the survey in two of the three villages. The students
were split into two groups each responsible for a village, and the most remote village was
covered by me and my research assistant.
Soon after arriving in the village it became apparent that the random sample system that had
been developed would not work. Many of those chosen from the list had moved, were
working in other districts or for one reason or another could not be found. The sampling
method had to be changed on the spot and a decision was made to change the sampling
strategy from systematic random sampling based on voter list, to simply walking from house
to house, started from one side of the village, until we had the required number of samples.
We incorporated a system of picking eligible female voter for every other household to have a
fair number of women represented in the survey. Another problem we encountered when
conducting the survey was that the list contained several errors. People were often listed either
with the wrong age or with the wrong name and some people were not listed at all.
CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Data analysis
The data deriving from the quantitative collection of survey questionnaires in the two research
areas was coded and put into a statistical software package called SPSS, or statistical package
for social science. SPSS is one of the most used packages of computer software for
quantitative data analysis. SPSS is, according to the book “Mass Communication Research
Methods” “…a powerful and flexible program for the statistics analysis social science data,
including communications research data”. (Hansen 1998:316) In order for the data to be
analyzed each variable is given a code in form of a number, that later enables the data to be
analyzed\using the statistical software. The last five questions, that were open-ended, had to
37
been thoroughly reviewed in order to code patterns of answers. The answers were put into
five and six different categories and could then be used in the quantitative analysis. SPSS is
able disclose statistical significance in the collected data, that will be presented in the finding
section, and will support or reject the hypothesis.
The findings deriving from the quantitative survey questionnaire in both locations will be
weighed up against the findings derived from the semi-structured interviews with the
journalists, teachers, politicians and NGO workers in order to differentiate between the two
categories and the perceptions of the situation on the ground. This comparison will help
answer some of the research questions previously stated in the introductory chapter.
SPSS has a multitude of opportunities when analysing the data. I will present simple data of
frequencies in the sample, but also analyze the relationship between variables in the data.
Analyzing the relationship between variables, such as those independent variables (gender,
cast, economic status etc.) and how these affect that of dependent variables, such as responses
to the statements in the questionnaire, will determine what factors influence people’s attitude
and level of knowledge related tot the research topic. Since this is a quantitative study with a
fairly large sample, it is possible to test the statistical significance. The test will provide the
analysis with estimates on how confident the results from the survey are in relations to the
population in question.(Bryman 2004:237) In this case it counts for the populations of eligible
voters in the two districts. The level of significance is important to establish before drawing
conclusion form the results. Conventional levels of significance in social studies are usually a
maximum level of 0.05. This number means that up to five chances out of a hundred that the
result is false. (Bryman 2004:238) In the following results and discussion I have used a Chi-
square test in both multi-nominal logistic regression analysis and crosstab in descriptive
statistics analysis. The Chi-square test is one of several tests to determine significant
relationship between two variables. Chi-square test calculates each chosen cell in the
spreadsheet providing a value or frequency that is based on chance. As mentioned earlier, in
social studies a value of 0.05 is the maximum level of significance.
I used three different methods of describing and analyzing my data from the surveys in SPSS.
One was simple descriptive statistics, which I used to describe the sample through charts
beneath. The two other methods used in SPSS was crosstab and multi-nominal regression.
The crosstab was helpful in describing the relationship between two different variables, while
38
Number of surveys in each area
138141
Rasuwa
Nawalparasi
Male/Female Ratio
46 %54 %
Man
Woman
multi-nominal allowed me to plot in all the independent variables and then relating them to a
dependent variable. This meant that I could compare gender, region, economic status etc.
against all the responses in the survey, and determine which factor played the greatest role in
attitude and level of knowledge. These methods and the following result will help answer the
key research question, ““What impact does access of accurate and informative information
have on the villagers’ attitudes and understanding of towards the Constituent Assembly
election?”, and some of the additional questions listed in the first chapter.
SPSS results and findings
Some descriptive data drawn from
SPSS is represented in the form of
charts to get an overview of the
homogeneity of the sample. The
sample size was almost even from
both areas, although the total
population of Nawalparasi is much
lager than that of Rasuwa and could
lead to some sampling error.
The male/female ratio and the
literacy rate shows that there are
slightly more men than women,
and literate than illiterate,
participating in the survey, which
slightly deviate from that of the
current national levels that show
a small majority of woman and
illiterate than that of men and
literate according to the World
Fact Book, published by the CIA.
(CIA 2008)
39
Economic status
3 % 6 %
42 %
49 %
Ultra poor
Poor
Middle class
Rich
Literacy ratio
48 %52 %
Literate
Illiterate
Age group ratio
43 %
32 %
25 %18 to 30
31 to 50
51 and above
Most of the people participating in
the survey were in the poor and
middle class category. Of the total
sample of 279 participants, 6.5
percent were classified as “ultra
poor”. This category consisted of
landless people, who did not have an
income that could support the
household throughout the year and
were basically reliant on help from
others to be able to survive. 48.7
percent were labeled as poor. The
poor category generally people who
had some land where they could
grow some food, but they relied on
other type of income such as paid
labor to sustain their livelihood.
41.6 percent were in the
middleclass category, these people
had land or other types of income
to sustain themselves throughout
the year, The remaining 3.2
percent were classified as rich,
these were people in the
community that had substantial
income and property.
Since the survey was targeted
on voters. The lowest age was
eighteen. And the participant’s
age were place in categories of
young, middle aged and old
40
Cast ratio
35 %
42 %
23 % Low cast
high cast
other cast
voters. The young voters
were participants from 18 to
30 years old, the middle aged
were participants aged 31 to
50, and the old voters were
participants aged 51 or older.
The representation of all the
groups was quite evenly
divided in the sample.
The cast ratio is somewhat
different from the national
level; in that high cast
(meaning Brahman and Chhetri) is about 30 percent at the national level according to the
statistical pocket book for Nepal. That means that the two other cast categories are about five
percent lower than the national level. (NepalGov. 2006)
The sample described above, although have similarities with the total population of Nepal, is
not large enough to generalize for the whole population of Nepal, but can contribute in
revealing results that might be of concern to Nepalese in general or even in a global
perspective.
Sources of information
Comparing the results from Rasuwa district and Nawalparasi can provide answers to the
questions of the influence of poor infrastructure and access to information. Poor infrastructure
affects the access of information in different way, obviously lack of electricity makes it
difficult for people to have television sets and newspapers do not reach these areas because of
inaccessible roads. The most obvious difference between the two districts is that of access to
TV, radio and newspapers.
Most of the villages we visited in Nawalparasi had electricity making it possible for people to
have television sets in their homes. The situation in Rasuwa was different, most people did
not have electricity and we hardly saw a TV set in people’s homes. Reasons for the difference
41
Sources of information
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
TV
Radi
o
New
spap
ers
Pos
ter/P
amph
lets
Oth
er sou
rces
%
Rasuwa
Nawalparasi
is clearly that the typography severely limits what is possible to build considering Nepal’s
economy and its history of instability, Nawalparasi is flat compared to mountainous Rasuwa.
Mountains also make it hard for broadcasting to transmit to areas located in the shadow of
mountains.
We asked the villagers in the two different areas what sources of information they had
available, and the difference between Rasuwa and Nawalparasi was noticeable. 51.1 percent
of the participants in Nawalparasi had access to television and 38.3 percent said they had
access to newspapers. In Rasuwa only 34.8 percent said they had access to television and only
26.8 percent said they had access to newspapers. Worth mentioning here is that the daily
newspapers that did reach Rasuwa never reached before the day after it was printed, based on
our observations.
These differences in infrastructure favour Nawalparasi over Rasuwa. It also answers the
research question stated in chapter one asking “[w]hat channels of information are available to
the villagers?”, and more importantly it is drawing on the hypothesis stated in the beginning
of thesis:
“Access to accurate and informative information in the village will determine what attitude its members hold towards the Constituent Assembly election and their understanding of democracy.”
42
Do the villagers feel it is important to vote in CA election
One of the questions measuring attitude in the questionnaire stated: “It is important for me to
vote in the election.” This statement was measured using the five options Likert scale, going
from strongly agree to strongly disagree.
Comparing the respondents answers from the two districts, immediately presents a positive
trend in that most people in both district either strongly agree or agree to the statement. In
Nawalparasi 87.2 percent either agreed or strongly agreed to the importance, and in Rasuwa
78.2 percent did the same. What is statistically significant, besides noticing that Nawalparasi
has an overall more positive attitude, is the percentage of negative responses from Rasuwa
district. Using regression analysis in SPSS shows that district is a significant factor in
determining voter attitude. The results were tested both using nominal regression testing and
descriptive analysis with a crosstab test. Both tests came up with a significant Persons Chi-
square number when it came to the location factor. The result could indicate that
infrastructure and the access it provides in terms of information plays a major role in
determining the voter attitude. Using triangulation of both quantitative and qualitative
research results turned out to be beneficial in the case of this result. The key informants
revealed other reason for why voter attitude differs between the two areas, which will be
discussed in the qualitative analysis later on in this chapter.
"It is important to vote in the election"
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Strongly agree Agree N/A Disagree Strongly
disagree
%
Rasuwa
Nawalparasi
Using nominal regression analysis helped find which factors played an important role and
which did not. Before stating the research questions, I did have some presumptions about
43
what factors played a greater role than others. Surprisingly, when it came to this particular
question, Family size, ethnicity and age did not come up with significant Chi-square numbers.
The factor that had the most significant number was literacy followed by region. Economic
status and gender also played an important role. Occupation had some significance on the
outcome.
Factors influencing attitudes towards the media
The literacy factors, besides being important for the voter attitude question, also were
significant in relations to the question of trusting the media. Most literate participants (54.4%)
agreed to the media being biased, as oppose to illiterate (67.8%) disagreeing to the statement.
This difference came up as statistically important in the Chi-squire test showing a value of
0.001. However, 26% of the total participants did not answer the question, suggesting that
there could be some statistical error.
How well prepared are villagers for the election
Going back to the research questions listed in chapter one. Question one asked “Have the
villagers received sufficient training to participate in the Constituent Assembly election?” To
answer this question we have to look at the result for statements related to training and
knowledge about the election. There are four statements in the questionnaire that can help
answer this particular research question. “The government provides me with information on
government action and policies”, “The voter-training program has taken place in my village”,
“I have access to information about all the parties registered for the election”, “I know what
Constituent Assembly Election means”, and finally “What do you think is the purpose of the
election?”
There was no significant difference between Rasuwa and Nawalparasi in the respondents
answer to the question if they knew what the CA election meant. Most people said that they
did not know what CA election meant, but Nawalparasi, did have a higher percentage
claiming to know the meaning (49.2%) as oppose to Rasuwa (40.6%). However, a more
significant finding came to the question if they had access to information about political
parties. The survey result showed that 60.5 percent in Nawalparasi said they had access, as
oppose to only 43.4% in Rasuwa, this came up with a Chi-square significance of 0.005. Both
questions had about 10 percent missing responses.
44
What is interesting in relations to the above findings is that respondents in Rasuwa claimed to
have undergone voter training programs in far greater number than in Nawalparasi. These
voter training programs were either government organized through the regional voter
registration offices or from NGOs working in the area. 37.7 percent of the participants in
Rasuwa agree or strongly agreed to the statement saying they had undergone training, as
oppose to Nawalparasi with only 17.7 percent. The results turned out to be significant in the
Chi-square test. The results from the last question relevant to the research question showed
fairly equal results from both areas with 61.1 percent in Rasuwa saying that the government
provided them with information on government action and policies, as oppose to 69.6 percent
in Nawalparasi. This result might also be slightly skewed due to the high percentage of
missing values were 24.7 percent of all participants gave a neutral response.
Most questions in the questionnaire were closed-ended, which could lead to error in that the
respondents are given statements and optional answers. Therefore, a few open-ended
questions were added at the end of the questionnaire. All the responses than had to be
classified and coded in to answers that could be used in the SPSS analysis. The question
“[w]hat do you think is the purpose of the election?” was an open-ended question, which
forced the participants to come up with the answer themselves. The statistical result from this
question might be the best way to truly know their level of knowledge about the CA election,
and the results did show a significant difference between the two districts.
Very few respondents were able to give the most correct answer, when asked what the
purpose of the election was. The correct answer was “to elect an assembly to write a new
constitution for Nepal”, a boarder line answer showing some understanding was “to make a
new Nepal”. The other options were “to establish a republic” and “to make peace”. The last
category of responses was “other responses”, meaning several other responses that could not
be placed in any of the other frequently given responses. The results show that the
respondents in Nawalparasi have far greater notion of the purpose than Rasuwa. The reasons
for the high number of respondents answering that the purpose is to make a new Nepal could
mean that they have some grasp of the purpose, but it is not clear. Other reasons for this high
number will also be discussed in the qualitative analysis. As shown in the bar chart below,
most respondents in Rasuwa answered “to make peace”, this shows a lack of knowledge about
the purpose but that they do relate the election to something they consider to be overall
positive.
45
Reasons for having the CA election
0 %
10 %
20 %
30 %
40 %
50 %
60 %
To elect an
assembly to write
a new
constitution
To make a new
Nepal
To establish a
republikk
To make peace other reasons
Rasuwa
Nawalparasi
Taking into account all the results shown above and relating them to the research question,
makes it is easy to come to the conclusion that most people do not know the meaning of the
election. The results also provide an answer to one of the additional research question that
asked if the villagers had received sufficient training to participate in the election. However, it
is important to point out that Nawalparasi, besides having less voting training, had far better
results than Rasuwa, again going back to the improved infrastructure and access to
information. The results of the voter training might also be somewhat skewed in that Rasuwa
is a much smaller district than Nawalparasi and it takes longer for the voter training to be
completed in Nawalparasi than Rasuwa.
Access to political information
The next research question is related to the first one, but is aimed more at what the political
parties have done themselves in informing the people. The question asks “[if] the villagers
have access to information that will help them make an informed decision on what
candidate/party represents their interests?” Taking into accounts the lack of sources of
information, especially in Rasuwa, it is most likely an issue that they do not have sufficient
access to information. The result deriving from the question yet again showed Nawalparasi in
a better position than Rasuwa, with Nawalparasi coming up with 60.5 percent agreeing to the
question as oppose to 43.4 percent in Rasuwa. The result was statistically significant with a
Chi-square value of 0.005.
46
Expectations about the CA election
The thesis also asks “what expectations do the villagers have to the election?” Since we have
already established the notion that geographical location holds a statistical significance in
people’s attitude, it is reasonable to look at the difference between the two districts, and what
answer they provided when asked if election will improve livelihood, ensure peace and ensure
democracy. The results are quite striking. Nawalparasi is overall much more positive in all
three questions. When it came to election improving their livelihood, Nawalparasi had a
percentage of 75.2 who either agreed or strongly agreed, as oppose to Rasuwa who had only
57.3 percent. Nawalparasi responded positively, either agreeing or strongly agreeing, to the
question concerning democracy, with a percentage of 81.8 compared to only 37.6 in Rasuwa.
This was highly significant according to the Chi-square test (0.000). The difference in the last
question, concerning peace, showed almost as high difference. With 80.2 percent of the
Nawalparasi surveys either agreeing or strongly agreeing to the statement, as oppose to
Rasuwa with 46.4 percent. This result was also statistically significant.
Manipulation and control of information
The last two research questions that are relevant for the analysis of the survey are the
questions concerning journalist safety and manipulation and control of information. “Can
journalists work safely without restraint in the village?”, “Is the flow of information
controlled or manipulated? If so, how is it controlled or manipulated, and how aware are
people about this and how do they cope with this control and manipulation?” In the survey
we asked the participants to rate to what degree they agreed or disagreed to the following
relevant statements: “My views are being reflected in the news media”, “Reporters care about
the situation of the poor and disadvantaged and reports/writes about it in the news media”,
“Journalists can freely report on any political issue without facing treats or other negative
consequences”, “News media is biased and can not be trusted”, and the open-ended question
“Is the information available manipulated or controlled? If so have how is it manipulated or
controlled? “.
First we used multi-nominal regression analysis to determine what factors that had
significance, again showing that region played the biggest role, but also ethnicity, economic
status and finally literacy. Comparing both district, by using the crosstab function in SPSS,
showed that about half of the participants agreed or strongly agreed to the statement that the
47
news media reflected their views, but again Nawalparasi turning out on top with the most
positive response. Looking at the cast ratio, the higher cast overwhelmingly agreed (60.6%) or
strongly agreed (6.1%) to the statement saying that the media represented their views. While
the two lower cast groups generally were more negative, although there were somewhat
promising responses also almost half (45%) of the lower cast participants agreed to the
statement. Economic status did reveal some interesting findings in that most middle class
participants said that they agreed to the statement compared to the ultra poor were most
answered blank and with a high percentage of people disagreeing.
The most interesting finding in regards to the statement asking if the news media reflected
their views was the between the literate and the illiterate. Results show that 63 percent of the
illiterate respondents agree to the statement as oppose to only 34 percent of the literate. This is
quite surprising, but could also mean that literate voters in the two districts are much more
critical when it comes to the news media, after all they are the once with the ability to read
newspapers themselves.
A similar question was if journalists cared for the poor and disadvantage and reported on them
in the news media. By disadvantaged we meant traditionally marginalized individuals and
groups how have been discriminated against based on ethnicity, gender, religion or cast. The
result revealed that age played a factor in the response to the question. The findings in this
question are similar to the last question, and economic status was interesting because it
showed a vast difference between rich and middleclass compared to the ultra poor. Most ultra
poor implied that reporters did not care for them, while most rich and middleclass thought that
reporters did care for the poor and disadvantaged. The same was true about the difference
between literate and illiterate, and most participants older than 51 said the same. The vast
majority of respondents from Nawalparasi agreed to the statement, but the significant
difference between the two districts was in the negative responses, where only 11.7 percent of
Nawalparasi respondents either disagreed or strongly disagreed to the statement as oppose to
33.3 percent in Rasuwa.
Let us look at what the villagers though of the press freedom in their area, this was interesting
due to the many reported incidents of abduction and even killings of journalists that had been
reported on in the media. The factors that did matter was again region, literacy, and ethnicity,
but also family size. The survey asked if journalists could freely report on any political issue
48
without facing threats or other negative consequences. Over half of all low cast and high cast
respondents agreed to the statements saying that reporters could report freely, while most of
the responses of the other casts turned out blank. What is interesting is that over a quarter all
the respondents disagreed to the statement, which is disturbing in relations to press freedom, it
might have to due with the limited reach of the news in these areas, but also a different
attitude towards what we, at least in Norway, think of as a protected profession.
When we asked if the media could be trusted, the independent variables that showed
significance were region and literacy. The results between Rasuwa and Nawalparasi showed a
significant Chi-square value of 0.002, but it is important to mention that over twenty-six
percent of the total number of participants did not answer this question. However, of those
responding to the question Rasuwa participants are far more negative when trusting the
media. The result showed a percentage of 53.9 in Rasuwa saying that they did not trust the
media as oppose to only 32.6 percent in Nawalparasi. Most literate agreed to the claim, while
most illiterate disagreed to it.
In the last survey question concerning media bias, the question was open-ended, which meant
that all the responses had to be evaluated and coded. The codes were categories of typical
answers given by the respondents. The factors that showed significance here were age,
geographical location, gender, ethnicity and how many times the respondents had voted
previously. What is important to point out in this case, and what was a problem with the open-
ended question in general is that over half of the participants answered N/A in the survey,
which makes the analysis of the rest less significant. However, when so many respondents
say they do not know or refuse to answer, it could either be that they do not understand what
the question means, they are unable to answer it because they might be scared to reveal their
opinion on the subject or that they simply do not care about the question. A reason for this
lack of response is discussed in the field observation section later in this chapter.
Of the people providing answers, the majority said they did not thing that the information was
manipulated or controlled. Women were generally less sceptical than men, and 14.1 percent
of the men, who provided an answered, said that the media was controlled by political parties
or organizations. Over eighty percent of the lower cast thought that there was no control or
manipulation of information which was much higher than the other two cast groups. More
significant was the relationship between the response and age. The older the respondents
49
were, the less sceptical they became. Similarly the younger the respondents the more they
thought that parties and organization controlled or manipulated the information. If the
participants had not voted previously they were much more sceptical, although most of them
(55.9%) thought that there was no control or manipulation, over twenty percent said that the
political parties or organizations controlled and manipulated.
Based on the results discussed above, we can go back and look at the two research questions,
“can journalists work safely without restraint in the village?”, and “is the flow of information
controlled or manipulated? If so, how is it controlled or manipulated, and how aware are
people about this and how do they cope with this control and manipulation?” and try to
answer them. According to the responses from the villagers, it seems that there is no problem
for journalists to work safely in the villages, but the problem is ratter that the journalists are
not in the village to write about issues that are important to them and especially for the ultra
poor who feel left out. The last question is just as hard to make any conclusions about,
because the survey questions related to this research question was often not answered,
especially when it came to the open-ended question. The question that did provided some
clues to what villagers thought of media control and manipulation was when we asked
whether or not media was biased and could not be trusted. The question revealed that in
Rasuwa, which is the less developed district of the two, people are much more sceptical to the
media with over half of its respondents saying they did not trust the media. So in the case of
Nepal news media being controlled or manipulated more has to be disclosed by other means
than the surveys, which we will come back to later in the analysis. On the bright side there
seem to be some healthy scepticism among the respondents.
4.2. Semi-Structured interviews
Including semi-structured interviews in the research was a part of my plan to triangulate
results from the survey with additional information. It would help explain some of the issues
arising from the survey and stated as research questions in chapter one. As mentioned earlier,
key informants were chosen to represent the view of different stakeholders. In the following
section responses provided by these key informants will be compared and discussed. The
semi-structured interviews were conducted in a conversational manner, but with a list of
questions that needed to be answered. Some of the questions asked what the meaning of
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democracy and of good governance was, and what has been done to represent poor and
disadvantaged. These questions attempt to answer some of the additional research questions
that was not covered by the survey, but also add to the explanation why results in the survey
turned out the way they did. The remaining research questions that needed to be answered
using the semi-structured interview with the key informants were:
• “Do the villagers have access to information that will help them make an informed
decision on what candidate/party represents their interests?”
• “What actions have been taken to provide political representation for disadvantaged
groups?
• Does the concept democracy have a different meaning between the different
stakeholders?
• Is the flow of information controlled or manipulated? If so, how is it controlled or
manipulated, and how aware are people about this and how do they cope with this
control and manipulation?
Combining some of the answers relating to the research questions above and the result from
the survey and the observations later on will help answer the key research question asking:
“What impact does access of information have on rural people’s attitude towards the
Constituent Assembly election and their understanding of democracy?”
The Maoists
The first key information from the Maoist party that we conducted interviews with was a
Young Communist League (YCL) leader from Kalikasthan in Rasuwa district, named simply
Nakul, and Mr. Babu Ram Rijal, a local Maoist leader from Bhutaha Chowk in Nawalparasi.
We first wanted to understand their stance and their role in Nepali politics. The YCL was
explained to us to be “a league of youth, fighting against the old system [monarchy]. It is an
independent organization, but in cooperation with the Maoists”, this was according to the
YCL leader, which is an interesting statement, because it does not leave the responsibility of
YCL actions with the Maoists, in that way they can act in the interest of the Maoists but
without holding the Maoist party accountable He also explained that the Maoists would bring
51
a “new system of government run by the people”, and that the revolution would come
hopefully by peaceful means and if not it would be achieved with arms.
The reason for the postponement of the election
One of the questions in the survey questionnaire from the quantitative part of the research
asked what the reason for the postponement of the election was. In the survey most
participants did not answer. We wanted to get an answer from those directly involved in the
political struggle. Both the Maoist and the YCL gave interesting responses that were
somewhat similar Nakul said they that “unless the people are able to know what to vote, how
to vote, and are aware of themselves, the nation, the political parties, we can not have an
election.” Mr. Babu Ram Rijal said that equality was needed before holding election. He also
refers to demands they had posed at the time, the declaration of a republic and a fully
proportional election. His reasoning and defence of this demand was provided with an
example referring saying “if we have two candidates, one rich and one poor, the rich will pay
and win. The government needs to improve the judiciary system, provide security and punish
the criminals. Nakul
These statements seem to support the idea that the Maoists had postponed the election on
purpose. At the same time the results from our survey seemed to support the notion, at least in
the population that was represented by the survey, that people did not have enough knowledge
about the CA election, although the Maoists might have other motives. According to several
news sources in the weeks before the announcement of the postponement had reported that
the Maoist support was on the drawback and if it had been held at the announced date, the
Maoists would not have had the number of representatives in the assembly as they would have
hoped for.
The function of the media and killing of journalists
The YCL said that the function of the media should be to make the nation aware of it self. In
the matter of journalists being abducted and killed both seemed to refer to the same incident
of the Bara journalist who had been killed by Maoists earlier in the fall. Both said that he was
killed because he was a member of a militant Terai group who supplied weapons and were
linked with supporters of the king. The Maoist assured us that they were punishing the
perpetrators themselves, because the people responsible for the killings had not been
following the communist teachings. We asked the YCL leader if it was just to kill the
52
journalist even if the claims were true, but he did not answer the question. When asked why
journalists were so exposed to being targeted the Maoist leader explained that they were not
reporting on the truth and journalists are powerful because they bring the message, therefore
they need to be more responsible. He also added that a Maoist journalist was killed two
months ago and no one knew about that.
Actions for provide political representation for disadvantaged groups.
Refer to one of the research questions asking about what actions have been taken to provide
political representation for disadvantaged groups. The Maoist leader said that they had given
certain provisions for disadvantaged groups such as women and dalits, and they wanted a
fully proportional system, also adding that they empower the women. The reason for the lack
of awareness was due to the failings of the Nepali government, and that they followed the
voice of India and the U.S., who did not want Nepal to develop.
Democracy and the role of the government.
According to the YCL leader, democracy meant “for all people”, providing fundamental
rights and that the government should be governed by the people. In his view “good
governance” should mean a proper understanding between the government and the people and
a connection which he claimed was currently not there. By this the al least touched upon the
question of accountability. The Maoist understood democracy to be a system were
representatives of the people make laws and policies on the behalf of the people and that
“good governance” implied that every person, all citizens, politicians, government etc. have to
work within the boundaries of the constitution and that the laws are made effective and
practical.
United Marxist-Leninist (UML)
The UML is a moderate party in Nepali politics and was before the CA election the second
largest party and a party of the seven-party alliance, it was important for the research to get
their views. in Kalikasthan in Rasuwa, I met with the former VDC president (local
government) who represented the UML party, named Prasad Neupane.
The reason for the postponement of the election
53
The reason for the postponement was due to Maoists bringing new agendas to the table in
order to destroy the election process, and the reason for this behaviour was that the Maoists
knew that had lost the large support they had during the insurgency period. An according to
Neupane, the Maoists would rather have anarchy than losing an election. He also was
concerned with the effect of the postponement because it led to distrust among the people
toward democracy and the political parties, and the only way to repair the trust was by
holding the election. He also added that the peace process has been weakened due to the
postponement.
The function of the media and killing of journalists
The UML leader explained that although the government had said that they had strengthened
the mass media sector, the reality among journalists was the opposite. He said that a large part
of the reason for the situation was due to the insurgency and conflict over the years, and that a
peaceful environment can better provide communication to the people. He asked rhetorically
how journalists can do their job and information be made accessible when there is no proper
security in place? According to Neupane the role of the media is to provide objective and
accurate information to the people. He replied, when asked if he felt that the information was
manipulated and controlled by saying that in the current political situation, he wished for
peace. He blamed the Maoists for influencing the coverage by threats and violence, and that
the current coverage was not following the reality, instead they favour parties.
Actions for provide political representation for disadvantaged groups.
On the issue of representation of disadvantaged groups the UML leader also supported a fully
proportional election system that would ensure representation for these groups. At least on
this issue they were agreeing with the Maoists.
Democracy and the role of the government.
Neupane defined democracy to be simply rule of the people. He said that there has been a lack
of representative members in the parliament, and that it is necessary for leaders to take
mandate from the people. For him “good governance” simply meant a proper way of ruling,
where people were free of complains.
Nepali Congress (NC)
54
The representatives we interviewed from the Nepali Congress party, which was the largest
party at that time, were Visnu Lamichhane, party secretary for Nawalparasi, and Lam Tamang
a local NC politician in Rasuwa.
The reason for the postponement of the election
Both Tamang and Lamichhane said that the responsibility with the postponement belonged to
the Maoists who did not want the election at that time because they did not have strong
enough support at the time. All the political parties were ready to go out into the villages, but
due to the postponement more that 95 percent of the villages were not covered by election
training and political campaigns. Tamang said that almost all people understood the CA
election and were ready to vote by the 22nd of February.
The function of the media and killing of journalists
Lamichhane said that targeting journalists was not new for Nepal, but it had increased. As a
journalist, you should not be afraid, but as a human being you cannot ignore it and it will
affect the news coverage. Tamang emphasized the importance of mass communication in
development of the country. He was concerned with the current state on insecurity journalists
are being targeted by groups that are not being punished, some journalists have been blamed
of biases coverage, but killing them is not justifiable.
Actions for provide political representation for disadvantaged groups.
Lamichhane explained that he thought the media should help raise the voice of these groups,
it was a problem during the insurgency period, but now since the press is free they are able to
raise the voices. The Maoists was against free speech, also meaning they are against “good
governance”. Tamang said that the NC had incorporated proportional representation of all
ethnic groups to be represented by the party. The NC also had a women’s organization within
the party, and 18 women had been elected from the NC to sit in the lower house in the
previous election.
Democracy and the role of the government.
The NC leader form Nawalparasi defined democracy as a system of government, where
candidates are elected by the people to represent them, and “good governance meant that
every citizen have constitutional rights and human rights. Tamang said it meant the situation
55
of a country on with the demand of the people is heard, that secures fundamental rights and
freedom to speak.
The woman’s groups
It was important to get some perspectives from the women’s point of view and we managed to
get two interviews with representatives from women’s groups, one in each district. In Rasuwa
we met wit the head of the government run Women’s office, Branda Gurung. Her office
worked for women’s empowerment, through health education, group formation and training
in income generating activities. The other representative was Mrs. Yam Kala Pandey,
president of the Panchanagar Women Welfare Center in Nawalparasi. The center conducted
awareness programs on trafficing and health issues.
The reason for the postponement of the election
Mrs. Gurung said that the election was postponement because the political parties could not
agree on important issues in time for the election.
The function of the media and killing of journalists
The lack of women representatives in the media was viewed as a problem for women in
general; they had no active voice in the media. The coverage of women’s issues was lacking
and especially in rural areas, due to problems of transportation and founding. Central
newspapers do not print stories coming from rural areas, such as Rasuwa. However, Mrs
Gurung said that local journalist training in the schools were being conducted, and that 12 out
of 20 students partaking in the journalism course in Kalikasthan were women.
Actions for provide political representation for disadvantaged groups.
In the case of the women’s group both representatives, said they did not conduct voter
training specifically for women, but indirectly through women’s empowerment. Mrs Pandey
expressed her frustration about the “male dominated” Nepali society, were men are carefree.
According to her, women spend their whole day in the home and out in the field. There is a
greater lack of education among women and there is no support from men to change the status
quo. Mrs. Gurung said that it was helpful with the provision of al least 33 percent of the seats
in the assembly to women, but also a problem in that there were no top women politicians.
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Mrs Pandey said that the best way to change the situation for women was to hold the
Constituent Assembly election and get enough women representatives.
Democracy and the role of the government.
Democracy, according Mrs. Pandey, meant that the people select candidates for government,
and then government make policy and rule over the people. She thought it was not working
because people were weak and unable to punish those candidates in the government who are
unable to do better for the people and for the nation. Mrs. Pandey’s explanation of “good
governance” was that it gave freedom to people so they can get education, work etc., and that
it implies and understanding and agreements among all parties reducing conflicts in
government. This view touches upon the principle of consensus listed in the World Bank
definition of the term in the beginning chapter of the thesis
The Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF)
In Nawalparasi it was important to get a response from the MJF, who had been in the news
media due to clashes with Maoists , several strikes and roadblocks in the Terai area. The
MJF was a political party representing the Madhesis, an ethnic group that according to
themselves had been historically discriminated against. We managed to set up an interview
with the party secretary Jay Ram Yadav of the Nawalparasi district, which we met in their
party headquarters in Parasi, couple of hours drive from our base camp in Bhutaha Chowk
According to the MJF secretary, at the time of the interview, twenty percent of the people,
mainly Brahmans and Chhetris, in Nepal had power of eighty percent of the resources, and
out of the twenty-seven members of the government only two of them were of Madhesi
ethnicity therefore they had been forced to establish the Madhesi Janaadhikar Forum to fight
for the rights of the Madhesi people
The reason for the postponement of the election
The secretary put the blame of the postponement on the Maoist and the government that was
unable to listen to the voice of the Madhesi people. He emphasis on the Maoists misconduct
by referring to their donations strategies, where they have forced people to donate money and
that this reflected their lack of respect for law and order.
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The function of the media and killing of journalists
The media function in Nepal was criticized by the MJF for negative coverage of their party.
However, they have had meeting and constructive talks with representatives from the media
and the situation was improving. Still, they felt to some extent that they were being ignored,
especially from the central level, adding that he thought that media outlets in Kathmandu
often were biased. The blame for the murder of journalists was put on the Maoists. He told us
that Maoists groups who are responsible for this sort of misconduct usually disguises
themselves as being a part of different groups. An that independent judiciary of the country
are suppose to handle these perpetrators , so when the Maoist and the YCL is killing and then
claiming to take care of the perpetrators themselves it is not justified, adding peace comes
from peace and not from weapons.
Actions for provide political representation for disadvantaged groups.
The secretary stated that women needed more education and equal rights, but due to the
sudden political change there had not been enough time to adjust. Culturally, women have
been discriminated against, but people do change. According to the secretary, the overall
problem for poor and disadvantaged groups was that they were used to a corrupt political
system were they would receive money voting. To counter this problem the MJF were
focusing on awareness programs in the Terai. They claimed to have decentralized their efforts
into smaller units to cover more people with their programs, but the Maoists were for
threatening people and hindering representatives from other parties to go to villages unless
their demands were met.
Democracy and the role of the government.
Mr. Yadav explained that democracy meant or should mean that every citizen of the nation
should have the feeling of belonging and the government should provide equity and equality
to the nation as a whole, and that “good governance” meant peace, security, feeling of
security for all, an end to corruption, and that the people should be proud of their government.
Government Worker
We met with one government worker named Ramji Adhakari, who was working as a VDC
secretary in Kalikasthan in Rasuwa district.
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The reason for the postponement of the election
Lack of political commitment on the part of the political parties was the reason for the
postponement. The Maoists did not follow their previous agreements and presented new
demands. The Maoists had conducted an internal survey showing less support than they
thought they had.
The function of the media and killing of journalists
Adhakari thought that there was a major problem about mass media in Nepal due to
insufficient education, and once people are educated they can take full advantage of the mass
media product, then they can then understand what the principles of good media are and what
freedom entitles. He said that the Nepali law have granted freedom of the press, but due to
threats from the Maoists and terrorist groups this freedom is limited, especially in the Terai
area were there is a lack of local government. Adhakari stated that the media should be the
remedy for bad politics. A problem that Adhakari mentions with the Nepali newspapers is that
they are often in connection with political parties, and used for the purpose of propaganda.
The newspapers are not always following good principles of journalism. He also thought that
the media good play a better role of reporting on the status of the rural poor to bring change.
The local journalists do not visit the poorest areas to report on the condition of marginalized
groups such as the dalits. As of now they do not follow the reality. He summarized his point is
saying that it is a matter of limited geographical coverage, lack of education, journalists being
killed and lack of professional journalists.
Actions for provide political representation for disadvantaged groups.
According to Adhakari the most important way of improving the life of the disadvantaged is
to provide education. Political representation can be improved through the election and the
government is applying a voter education program of teachers so that they can go and teach
the people in the rural areas about the CA election. The political parties need to involve the
disadvantaged groups in politics to ensure that they get a fair representation in the election
that is inclusive.
Democracy and the role of the government.
Because of the condition to day people are starting to realize their freedom and in some cases
they are abusing these freedoms, which are hurting the principles of democracy. People need
59
to be more responsible. There have been many strikes and roadblocks done by several
different groups abusing their freedoms and hurting the society. The election is important for
democracy and political stability in Nepal. It will represent the voice of the people and the
choice of the people.
The Journalists
The two journalists we managed to arrange meetings with was a local correspondent in
Nawalparasi for the large Kathmandu newspaper Kantipur, named Predeep Paudel and
Dhruba Adhikary, chairman of Nepal Press Institute and correspondent for Asian Times in
Kathmandu. Paudel told us that he had background in development/peace journalism, and
explained that there was tow types of journalism. One type was the conventional one, event
oriented and objective, and the other type was peace journalism, conflict sensitive and
concerned with the effect of news.
The reason for the postponement of the election
According to Adhikary the problem is placed with the parties who have not been sincere in
the sense that the mandate was given by the people’s movement, not elected, and was
mandated to lead the country to election. Their incompetence have been showed in the way
they have pushed the election further and further. Another problem is that the aging leadership
in the main political parties, especially the NC leader, Koirala, who is the Prime Minister and
head of state. Koirala who is eighty-five years old is carrying on, similarly to the other head of
parties. These leaders should let the younger generation take over. Adhikary’s opinion is that
a new generation of leaders can get things done.
The function of the media and killing of journalists
Adhikary explained the situation of the media in Nepal. The flow of information was limited
due to the high illiterate rate, giving at least the print media a limited market. Thinking of
Nepali news in terms of breaking news is absurd as of now. The best way of reaching the
masses in Nepal is through radio, which are cheap and portable. The FM radio stations are
doing a great job in covering and transmitting news, even if it is not of journalistic quality, it
is doing the basic job of informing according to Adhikary. Even though newspapers do not
directly reach people, they are often used as information source for local FM radio stations.
The TV has less impact as of today, because they are expensive and requires electricity. The
radio is basically the medium that hooks people to the system, which is good.
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Adhikary gave a brief overview of the progress of new media in Nepal , going back to the
proliferation of the radio stations [when democracy was reinstated in 1990], due to the short
time span there has not been produced a large enough pool of workforce, meaning qualified
and trained broadcasters and journalists. The quality is bound to be inferior in the beginning,
and there is a demand for building institutions were people can get journalism training.
Adding that necessity is the mother of invention, as necessity increases there will be more
institutions like the one he was affiliated with. Today there is at least a dozen institutions like
the Nepal Press Institute.
Another problem that we had noticed when talking with students in Rasuwa was that all of
them said that journalism was too risky and did not pay enough to consider as a future career.
Adhikary agreed, referring back to the stories of abduction and killing s not only committed
by journalists but from other groups as well. Once the situation becomes normal the risk will
decrease and open up the field and relatively safe for journalists. Mr. Adhikary added: “There
might not be enough money but there are young people that are willing to work for a cause,
not looking for big money. We remind the students that this is not an area were you will make
good money, unless you go for any kind of blackmailing business .” He was positive about
the future of the profession based on the responses from his students and the opportunities that
such training gives not only in journalism but in other institutions as well.
We asked both reporters about the distrust of the news media in Nepal. Paudel agreed to this
observation, in his district of Nawalparasi four new newspapers had been established this fall
by different political parties’ right before the election date. He said that many journalists
without proper training and lack of experience were likely to conduct unethical reporting.
Paudel said that the security problem affected the news reporting. If a journalist tried to write
a story on corruption they would face threats and sometimes even risk of being killed.
According to Paudel, corruption was often liked to parties and some of the media was in turn
connected to those parties, making it hard to get the stories out. He mentioned that the story
about the Bara journalist who had been killed by a group of Maoists, and according to Paudel
the reason for the journalist being killed was that he was working on a story about illegal
pouching of red sandalwood how were smuggle over the boarder by a local Maoist group.
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Adhikary brought another issues to the discussion about the journalists falling victims to
violence. In his view it was also related to journalistic misconduct due to lack of training in
the media sector, some people working in the media profession are not following professional
standards. He provided an example saying:
“If there is a public meeting between to rival candidates, and one candidate tells that the other candidate is a liar. A reporter that would publish this claim, without getting a response from the other candidate would run the risk of getting beaten by the other candidate’s supporters. This would happen because the journalist did not provide the full story.”
Reasons he explained was that the reporter did it either unknowingly due to poor training, or
deliberately due to political motives, but h was quick to say that killing a person for that
reason is not justifiable
Actions for provide political representation for disadvantaged groups.
Adhikary said the problem was not that people did not know about elections, they have been
through elections before. They are used to being neglected by politicians, and now they are
using the same ballot paper. The problem is that people do not understand the difference that
this particular election represents. Adhikary emphasized the importance by stating that:
“This is perhaps a once in a lifetime election. It is an election to elect a constituent assembly,
which will write a constitution for this country. Taking ownership and declaring that we the
people of Nepal…”
Another problem emphasized by Adhikary is how information is presented to the public by
the media. People hear about concepts such as first-past the post and proportional election
system without knowing what these concepts are, although they have partaken in first-past the
post in the past, and this could be explained to them. There is also a problem of credibility.
There is a tendency among newspapers to slightly deviating from the right things and keeping
focus. This tendency is to write speculative stories, and to contradict the following days.
The proportional part of the election system and how it works with electing representatives
has to be explained in a proper way, first to the media leaders and opinion makers, then they
will be able to tell the people how it works, which they have not been able to do so far.
“What needs to be done is that in the beginning, you tell that the traditional system is to vote for a candidate of a party, and the new system is to vote for a party that will then find representatives that will represent women, marginalized groups and so on. You have to simplify this to be understood by people who are illiterate. “
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Paudel gave an example of how big of a problem of representation in the media, in
Nawalparasi only three women journalists were working, and the reason for this was lack of
education and early marriage. Language was another problem for the area, many did not
speak Nepali although all FM transmissions were in Nepali, and the newspapers did not reach
all rural areas. We mentioned that villagers had expressed dissatisfaction with the news
because the content did not relate to them, Paudel said that the reason was that most papers
did not have enough pages to cover other issues than hot news, but in the case of Kantipur
they had more and offered topic segments.. Paudel also pointed out that the local government
had not been working together with local organizations to provided awareness training, and
that was one of the reasons for the poor response from our Nawalparasi sample.
Democracy and the role of the government
Paudel listed three reasons for the poor understanding of the CA election. First one was that
people were too busy working, second, was as he had mentioned earlier, the language
problem, and finally, that the public response was generally passive. These reasons were
weakening democracy. Adhikary stated that the ones that have to be responsible are the
government and the election commission, government departments such as the home ministry,
the information ministry, and local development ministries. They must be active, doing their
part of the job. The election commission had the biggest responsibly for the election because
they have the responsibility of educating, telling, assisting, helping 17 million plus voters.
Adhikary added that “preparation is not only printing ballot paper or paining ballot boxes,
more importantly it means preparing the human side. This proportional representation has not
been explained, even to the upper level media people. “
When asked if it would have been beneficial to prolong the period before election so that
people s\could receive proper training, Adhikary said that proper training would take years,
and no preparation would not be fair or give proper representation, or reflect the public
perception. “From another perspective there is nothing perfect in this world, and election is
not an exception. There are events and trends all over the world in different countries, that this
[democracy] is a process were you learn as you move along.” It would provide some basis to
do it better next time.
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Answers provided from the semi-structured interviews
The first question listed in the beginning of this section asked“[if] the villagers have access to
information that will help them make an informed decision on what candidate/party represents
their interests?” Based on the answers provided by the key informant, most villagers would
generally not have sufficient access to information that would help them in making a well
informed political decision. The Maoists said that people were not ready, implying that they
had not received sufficient information. The journalists said that illiteracy, limited reach, and
problems with coverage based on violence from groups towards journalists and lack of
training in ethical journalistic conduct contributed to the poor access. One of the journalists
was also critical in the way the government and the election commission had conducted the
preparation. The MJF blamed the Maoists for hindering access to villages for representatives
of other parties. The women’s group representatives said that women lacked representatives in
the media, and there was no coverage of women’s issues and therefore no one to voice their
concerns. The NC representative said that people in general had been ready to vote on the
22nd of February, but was denied due to the actions of the Maoists.
The second question that was posed in the beginning section was: “What actions have been
taken to provide political representation for disadvantaged groups?” The different
stakeholders had different responses related to this particular question. The women’s group
representatives did not directly work towards such political awareness, but were focusing on
empowerment of women in general through their programs. The government worker
mentioned the government voter training programs. The UML leader and the Maoists focused
on the proportional election system that would ensure representatives from disadvantaged
groups such as women and dalits in the new assembly. The MJF who was a party working in
the interest of a disadvantaged group, the Madhesis, were also for a fully proportional election
system. The journalists were generally critical saying that concepts such as the proportional
part of the election system and what that mean and how it works had to be explained in a
proper manner, first to the media leaders and opinion makers, and then they would be able to
tell the people how it worked. The NC thought that the media should help raise the voice of
these groups but blamed the Maoists for hindering this process. Based on these answers, I
concluded that most of the stakeholders have thoughts about the issue, and some of them
being for a proportional representation system, none of them have direct plans of action to
help disadvantaged groups with political representation.
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The third question aimed differentiating the meaning of the concept democracy between the
parties involved in the political process. The research question asked: “Does the concept
democracy have a different meaning between the different stakeholders?” The answers
provided from the key informants show that they had different perceptions on meaning of the
concept. The Maoists emphasis “for all people”, fundamental rights and governing by the
people, a system were representatives of the people make laws and policies on the behalf of
the people. They said that “good governance” implied that all citizens, including the
politicians have to work within the boundaries of the constitution and that the laws are made
effective and practical. The UML leader gave a similar answer defining democracy as “rule of
the people”. “Good governance” meant simply meant a proper way of ruling, where people
were free of complains. The NC leader form Nawalparasi defined democracy as a system of
government, where candidates are elected by the people to represent them, and “good
governance meant that every citizen have constitutional rights and human rights. The
government worker focused on freedoms with responsibility. The view provided by the MJF
representative was of a different nature viewing democracy as being a state of conscious
among all citizen of belonging to the nation, and the government should provide equity and
equality to the nation as a whole. “Good governance” meant peace, security, feeling of
security for all, an end to corruption, and that the people should be proud of their government.
Based on their struggle and their thinking of democracy, there might be parallels here to the
writings of Shapiro, were resistance groups towards a regime have a tendency label their
opposition to a system as a democratic force. The women’s group representative had a more
passive view of democracy it that people select candidates for government, and then
government make policy and rule over the people. She said that “good governance” implied
an understanding and agreements among all parties reducing conflicts in government. The
journalists viewed democracy in Nepal in is current state as a process that constantly is slowly
improving. Based on the responses from the different groups above, I conclude that views of
democracy is similar among the main political parties, including the Maoists, and their views
of democracy is different from that of MJF, the women’s group, the journalists and the
government worker. The reason for it might be that the mainstream parties have a well
established rhetoric and have been involved in the political processes longer than the MJF.
The fourth and final research question that could be partly answered through the responses
from the key informants and then compared to the results from the survey, asked if: “…the
flow of information controlled or manipulated? If so, how aware are people about this and
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how do they cope with it?” The responses to the question about the media roll and the killings
of journalists would reveal some clues about the situation of the Nepali news media. The
Maoists seemed to think of the media as controlled by other groups and parties, that was the
reason for the murder of journalists. The UML felt that due to the conflict environment, the
media could not carry out their duties and in that way the message was distorted. The UML
blamed the Maoists purposely threatening journalists to control the information flow. The NC
said that targeting journalists was nothing new but was becoming an increasing problem. The
women’s group was concerned with the lack of women representatives and coverage of
women’s issues in the media. The MJF complained about undeserved media coverage of their
party and that the central media was biased. The government worker said that although
freedom of the press was protected by law, violence towards journalists and unethical
journalistic conduct and propaganda is manipulating the information. The journalists were
concerned with the targeting of journalists by groups, and that the training and recruitment of
journalists that causes unethical coverage and even more problems. Based on these responses
I conclude that although the media is not regulated or state owned. It is being indirectly
influenced by certain incidents, such as targeting of journalists, and the fact that the media
profession is lacking in training sometimes leading to unethical journalistic conduct.
4.3. Field observations
After completing the survey collection in Rasuwa district the teams got together for debriefing
and sharing of observations made in the field. The most common observation was that in the
more developed village most of the participants had a more than average understanding of the
questions. Most of the literate people, like local teachers participating in the survey, were
more positive about the election had greater understanding about what Constituent Assembly
election meant. This observation supported the results from the survey. Some of the older
participants claimed to have voted more than fifteen times before, which is not in accordance
with the number of previous elections. Based on discussions with locals, the reason for this
error might have been caused by previously fraudulent voter training programs done by
different parties in the past. All of the research teams were confronted by people asking what
party they were working for. Some people would paraphrase the question asking if
democracy would bring peace to the republic would bring peace, which has been used as
slogans by the Young Communist League and the Maoists. This suggested that the Maoists
and the YCL had been effective in getting the message out. In one of the villages the team had
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spoken with a teacher who had conducted voter training among the villagers for eighteen days
before the postponement was announced.
The villager we had stayed the night with in Betang village, had told us a story about
corruption during a previous election. He told us that a local NC politician had spent six
million rupies in the area to pay villagers to vote for him, and he had won the local election by
a margin of less than fifty votes. This story was confirmed by other villagers in area,
suggesting that this story was widely known among the locals.
The second location chosen for the survey was Bhutaha Chowk in Nawalparasi district. We
were assisted by a local NGO, called Indreni Social Forum, and two local students, who were
trained in collecting data for the research. This time we split up into two teams. Both teams
were used in the first village, Anandanagar, were all the households were covered due to the
small size of the villages. We had some language problems here as in Rasuwa, the locals
spoke mainly Pospari, and therefore we had assistance from two local NGO workers who
spoke the language. We used same method of choosing a female participant for every other
house in the village. For the second and third village, Jamunia and Senrari, we split up the
team, conducting the survey in a village each using the same guidelines we had agreed on.
During debriefing we made some similar observations as those in Rasuwa district. Some
participants had voted more than fifteen times, and some also told about parties coming in and
giving villagers’ fraudulent voter training. The survey teams had also reported on stories of
widespread bribery in relations to previous elections were villagers had received gifts. All of
the participants in the first village were landless people, and these had been promised claims
in the past for the land they had built their village on from politicians campaigning in the area.
These are remarks given by the villagers in Anandanagar:
• “In previous elections the landlord came and gave us money and told us what to vote.”
• “No election has ever helped us.”
• “Politicians came here and asked for our votes, and nothing happened, no one returned
and there is still no electricity here.”
• “Political leaders come and show us were to stamp that is our voter training, no
information, no political issues.”
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Other problem observed by the research team was that the villagers on some occasions
deliberately gave wrong information. On example was a woman we ask about access to radio,
who said she was too poor to have a radio even though we could clearly see a radio sitting on
the floor behind her and we also noticed a radio antenna on the roof of the house. After
discussing the incident with the local NGO people it became clear that this often happens
when new people arrive in the village and the villagers assumes that they are there to provide
them with aid of different character. We had to go back and clarify our purpose for being
there, and that we were not there to provide them with any type of relief except for the
purpose of recording their opinions.
We learned from people in the Jamunia village that six people there had received CA election
training from an NGO, for the purpose of spreading this information to other people in the
villages. We even saw a few election training posters in the houses of some of the
participants. Comments made by people we met in the Jamunia and Senrari included:
• “Politicians do not know politics, how can you expect us to care for the same.”
• “Things were better before, we just pleased the rich people and gave them our votes,
now we do not care anymore.”
• “In some of the Tharu (indigenous people of Terai) communities politicians have
given money, food and cloths, so they would get our votes.”
• “The poor and disadvantaged are not aware of their responsibilities.”
• “It is hard to get the truth because the politicians control the news.”
A local resturant was situated nearby the government office in Jamunia were we stayed
overnight. The tee shop had a radio frequently turned on so that people could listen in on the
shows. Early one morning four people gathered around to listen in on a radio program called
“headliners”, which was a show produced in Kathmandu and featured interviews with key
political leaders. When we asked the shopkeeper why so few villagers, especially the poorest,
did not listen to such programs he replied that they are illiterate, and do not think they should
pay attention to such matters.
In Jamunia I met with a retired government officer who I casually conversed with. He
explained about the newspapers and how they were in connection with different parties.
According to him the Maoists had their own newspapers called Jana Disha, while Kantipur
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was quite neutral and the Gorka Patra was a government own newspaper. His view was that
political parties were not clear about their position, which gave people lack of understanding,
and what was needed the most was education. One interesting point he made was that new
political parties that was formed was based on cast and religion and that this in effect would
split the people.
I also met with a woman by the name of Manju Aadhakari in the same village who was a
member of the UML. I asked her about women’s issues relating to awareness and political
representation. She told me that the government had not done enough for women, making it
hard for women to be involved in politics. She referred to the cultural aspects of women
having marry, that women were not given proper education, and that few women were
involved in professions of any importance.
We had gotten accommodation at the local irrigation office, and here I met a government
worker who had been with the office for the past twenty years. He told me that the problem in
the area was that people were afraid, and if the election was to be held now, it would not be
good. He claimed that only the government had benefited from the postponement. He also
complained about the behavior of people in the village saying that many of them act like
sheep and only do what the others do due to lack of education. According to this government
worker, more and more politicians pay these people money for votes, adding “corruption
prevails here.” He continued by saying that education and not poverty was the problem here
in Jamunia. His comment about corruption reminded me of a story we had heard from several
villagers in Rasuwa about a local NC politician who had spend six million rubies on bribery
to get enough votes.
A day later I talked with a woman named Mrs. Kumari Thapa she said something along the
lines of what the government worker had commented on. According to her, most political
decisions in the villages were made together as a group where everyone came together to
discuss on political parties and then deciding for all. She also mentioned that women who
wanted to be involved in politics are not being supported by their families. Another lady
added that this was the first time anyone had been there to ask these questions.
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As mentioned earlier in the survey analysis, many questions were not answered by the
participants, and that the reason could be fear. Both in the villages in Rasuwa and
Nawalparasi we had problems with people not providing answers. We had been surprised by a
woman in the Betang village, who had turned away from us when we approached here, and
we soon after found out that our local guide was a member of the YCL and that he was the
reason for the woman’s reluctance to answer. The same scenario played out in Jamunia
village where a local member of the Maoist party kept following us around when we
interviewed. We quickly noticed this behavior and split up on the occasion so that they would
not be allowed to jeopardize our results.
The observations helped support our answers some of the conclusions made from the survey
results and the interviews in the previous sections. To the question asking if the villagers had
received sufficient training to participate in the Constituent Assembly election, the survey and
the interviews concluded that they did not have sufficient training, the observation suggests
the same; only in one of the six villages visited did we see traces of voter training programs.
Six people in Jamunia village had been given training so that they could share this
information with the other villagers and that had not happened at the time of the research.
The observation suggested the same result for the next research question asking if the
villagers had access to information that would help them make an informed decision on what
candidate/party represented their interests. The conclusion was that they did not have access
to this information; although some of the parties, mostly Maoists and MJF, had cadres
working in the villages. These cadres seemed to be more interested in controlling the situation
for their own benefit than helping people understand the election process and what parties that
served in the best interest of them. Drawing a conclusion on the next research question asking
what actions had been taken to provide political representation for disadvantaged groups
based on the observation would be that we did not observe any programs in place, except for
the two women’s group we talked with in both areas, but they were not directly involved in
political representation programs. Based on the observations made, the research conclude that
the villagers were generally pessimistic about the election, it is important to keep in mind that
at the time of the field work a new date for elections were not set and the political parties were
struggling to reach agreements on key issues such as the declaration of a republic and election
system. The research question asking what information channels were available in the
villagers varied greatly based on geographical location and the economic status based on the
observation, which was in line with the survey results and the interviews. In villages in
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Rasuwa, we did not observe any television sets and very few radios. The news papers were
nowhere to be seen. The reality in Nawalparasi was different, many more people had radios
and we saw quite a few newspapers in the villages. The question asking if the journalists
could work safely cannot be answered based on the observations, because we did not see any
journalists in the villages that we visited for the survey, which might also reflect some of the
frustration that the villagers expressed about not getting news that were interesting to them,
and that the news was centrally based. The last research question asking about control and
manipulations, confirms the answers based on the survey and interviews. In the field we
noticed that the presence of party cadres made participants in the survey reluctant to answer
our questions and it was hard to avoid these control people.
4.4. Possible errors and considerations
It is important to list the factors that limit the research as have been repeated throughout the
thesis. The data has been drawn from two districts out of a total of seventy-five districts and
the result can therefore not be generalized for the whole population of close to twenty-eight
million people. As an outsider I relied on the interpretation of my research assistant and in
that way the message can have been distorted to some degree either in the process asking the
questions or in receiving the answers. In some instances the participants in the survey
deliberately gave wrong information due to misunderstanding of the purpose of our presence.
This error was disclosed in some cases, but some instances could have gone unnoticed.
Because the nature of the research and the questions asked, some of the key informants may
have sugar coated their answers in order to appear more legitimate that their counterpart.
4.5. Conclusion
The long awaited Constituent Assembly election was carried out on the 10th of April 2008,
seemingly without any major difficulty and with an impressive voter turnout of 60 percent.
(Tighe 2008)The European Union’s Election Observation Mission concluded that the election
had been successfully carried out with only minor problems. According to the mission it
largely followed international code of conduct and was organized in a “professional and
transparent manner”, and the large turnout showed “popular support for Constitutional reform
and a return to accountable and elected multiparty democracy.” (EU Election Obeservation
Mission 2008)
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The minor problems were attributed to a few incidents of violence on Election Day. The
biggest problem, according to the Election Observation Mission, was the tense campaign
environment, meaning sporadic incidents of violence in some cases killings, in the wake of
the election that occasionally undermined freedom of expression, the right of movement and
the right to assembly. This limitation accounted both for political candidates and for voters in
general and was caused by the several acts of violence and clashes between members of
political groups across the country. More importantly the combined effect of these acts as,
according to the observers, “contributed to a general atmosphere of fear and intimidation and
at times seriously undermined the right to campaign freely. According to EU observers there
were complaints of widespread voter intimidation and some attempts at vote buying by
political parties.” The EU election observers described the media environment during the
election as being pressured by political parties that claimed the media of being biased in order
to get more media coverage. The observers also reported on several episodes of assaults on
journalists, including a kidnapping during the end of the campaigning period. (EU Election
Obeservation Mission 2008)
The Election Observation Mission recognized the role of the CA Election Act in providing
protection of women’s rights and other groups that have traditionally been marginalized in
Nepali society. The quota system stated in this Act have guaranteed women and
disadvantaged groups representation they have not been previously given. The problem with
the system, as the observers sees it, is that it “may not necessarily guarantee a fully broad
based representation in the Constituent Assembly as originally intended.” Final comments
made by the observers, related to this research, was that the voter education program,
although ambitious in nature with its broad cooperation with NGOs and public reach, did not
provided sufficient awareness among the public of the CA election. (EU Election
Obeservation Mission 2008)
The report from the EU Election Observation Mission supplements the conclusions made in
the analysis section. These observations were made in the aftermath of the field research
conducted for this thesis, and reveal several similar observations. I asked if the villagers had
received sufficient training to participate in the Constituent Assembly election, and I
concluded that they had not. I asked if the villagers had access to information that would help
them make an informed decision on what candidate/party represents their interests, and I
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concluded that they did not. I asked about what actions had been taken to provide political
representation for disadvantaged groups, and the answer I got from the research was that
disadvantaged groups would get representation through the proportional election part of the
electoral system.
What is different about the thesis research was the key research question stating: “Access to
accurate and informative information in the village will determine what attitude, negative or
positive, its members hold towards the Constituent Assembly election and their understanding
of democracy.” This question was mainly answered by the analysis of the survey results
revealing that the less the villager knew about the CA election, the more negative the villager
were towards the possible benefits of the election such as democracy, peace, and
improvement in livelihood. The villagers with more access to information were much more
positive about the election and possible benefits that the election would bring, but they were
also more critical about the press coverage and bias in the media. Answering this question
was significant in that it show how important access to accurate and informative information
is in building support and understanding of democracy. If people do not understand why they
are voting and what their vote represents in the larger context the purpose of having a
democracy is no longer there.
The election marked a new area for Nepali politics, and contrary to what most political
analysts and the media had predicted the Maoist ended up with an impressive victory. The
weekly Kathmandu newspaper, Nepali Times, featured recently the headline “Welcome New
Nepal” reflecting on the challenges ahead. Not only did the Maoists draw major support from
the rural areas, but they also won in the big cities such as Pokhara and Kathmandu. The old
and well-established parties such as the Nepali Congress and the UML suffered, and the new
parties such as the Maoists and FMJ came out on top. From such a surprising result, questions
arise. How did the so called experts in the press fail so miserably in foreseeing the outcome of
the election? Had the Maoists succeeded with their threats of returning to armed struggle?
One thing is for certain and that is the fact that the Nepali media had failed in covering the
reality on the ground. The research for the thesis revealed some answers to the failure.
According to the responses from the villagers, it seemed that there was no problem for
journalists to work safely in the villages, but the problem is ratter that the journalists are not in
the villages to write about issues that are important to them and especially for the ultra poor
who felt left out.
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Most ultra poor implied that reporters did not care for them, while most rich and middleclass
thought that reporters did care for the poor and disadvantaged. The same was true about the
difference between literate and illiterate. The vast majority of respondents from Nawalparasi
agreed to the statement, but the significant One third of the respondent in Rasuwa felt that the
reporters did not care for poor and disadvantaged. Most literate participants agreed to the
media being biased, and the literate are also the once most qualified to make this distinction
since they were the biggest consumers of the news media in the villages. The survey, the
interviews and field observations for the thesis suggested that the media was overly
centralized. We did not see any reporters in the villages that we visited, and the groups, like
the MJF, complained about biased coverage. These results suggests that the media in Nepal,
with is limited reach in rural areas, are not aware of the reality for rural people living in the
villages and therefore were unable to predict the outcome of the election.
The World Press Freedom Day was celebrated on the third of May and this year it focused on
freedom of expression access and empowerment. The Director-General of UNESCO,
Koichiro Matsuura, delivered a speech in Kathmandu for the occasion that was relevant for
the research of this study. He emphasized on the importance of freedom of the press and the
access to information and how these principles builds into the overall development objective
of empowerment. How giving people information so that they can gain control over their
lives, and making people able to participate in the democracy through engagement in public
debates and holding their representatives accountable, but he added that
“…this flow of communication does not happen automatically. It has to be fostered by a free, pluralistic, independent and professional media, and through national policies founded on four key principles at the heart of UNESCO’s work: freedom of expression, quality education for all, universal access to information and knowledge, and respect for linguistic diversity.”(UNESCO 2008)
These comment bade by the Director-General is significant in the context of Nepal based on
the outcome of the thesis. It highlights issues that not only are relevant in the context of Nepal
but in a global sense. Although the research has shown that communication reach in the rural
areas are very often missing, the journalistic quality is lacking and that for these reason people
have lower expectations and understanding of the democratic system there is hope for
improvement in the future. The election will most likely stabilize the political situation and
strengthen the rule of law, international organization such as UNESCO has being doing
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important work in spreading community radio in Nepal and is still working on this project,
and the provision for marginalized groups such as women and dalits in the Constituent
Assembly will provide these groups with more political influence and raise these groups
political awareness. As declare earlier in this thesis, I hope that the result of the research has
brought up important issues that have implication for political awareness among rural people
and how it relates to access of information, not only for two districts in Nepal, but for all
nations who are in a process of democratic change.
References
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Appendix
English version questionnaire: Voter Survey VDC_______ Ward nr. ______ Name: Gender: Ethnicity: Family size: Occupation: Age: Statues: Literacy: What news sources are available to you? (under line) Television Radio Newspapers Posters/Pamphlets Others______ I get information on the political situation through newspapers
SA A N D SD
I get information on the political situation through radio SA A N D SD
I get information on the political situation through television SA A N D SD
I get information on the political situation through posters/pamphlets
SA A N D SD
I get information on the political situation from others_______ SA A N D SD
I get information on the political situation through friends and family
SA A N D SD
I get information on the political situation from other people in the village
SA A N D SD
My views are being reflected in the news media SA A N D SD
Reporters care about the situation of the poor and disadvantaged and reports/writes about it in the news media
SA A N D SD
Journalists can freely report on any political issue without facing treats or other negative consequences
SA A N D SD
I can freely express my political opinions in the village. SA A N D SD
I can safely attend public gatherings SA A N D SD
The government provides me with information on government action and policies
SA A N D SD
I feel that every person in the village as an equal opportunity to express their opinion
SA A N D SD
The voter-training program has taken place in my village SA A N D SD
It is important for me to vote in the election SA A N D SD
The election will improve my livelihood situation SA A N D SD
The election will ensure democracy SA A N D SD
The election will ensure peace SA A N D SD
I have access to information about all the parties registered for the election
Agree Disagree
Ultra poor Poor Middle class Rich
Literate Illiterate
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News media is biased and cannot be trusted Agree Disagree
I know what Constituent Assembly Election means Agree Disagree
Have you vote in previous elections, how many times?
If not, why?
What do you think is the purpose of the election?
Is the information available manipulated or controlled? If so have how is it manipulated or
controlled?
Why do you think the election has been postponed? Notes:
79