Question: Is it possible to have a democratic forum and still not permit everyone to participate in it? In other words, how can we call a forum democratic if we put a restriction on its access? Is it not contradictory?


Before answering this question in a more technical way, let me paraphrase a story about Mahadev's boon and Bhasmasur's penance. Mahadev, who is also called Ashutosh because of his propensity to be pleased quickly, had a reputation of giving unconditional blessing to anyone provided the person made him happy. Bhasmasur, a sly demon, knew this idiosyncrasy of the god of Gods and decided to get a blessing from him by undertaking a very severe form of penance for many years. Mahadev, seeing his bhakta's sacrifice, ultimately became pleased and asked him if he wished any boon. Bhasmasur asked, "Can you give me anything that I asked?". Mahadev said, "Yes, anything". Bhasmasur then said, "I want a power to destroy the person on whose head I put my hand". Mahadev was about to give this boon to Bhasmasur but Bishnu, who was watching all this from his palace in Baikuntha, understood the malicious intent of Bhasmasur. He knew that Bhasmasur would use the power given by Mahadev to destroy Mahadev hismself. So, he descended to Kailash from Baikuntha and winked at Mahadev. However, Mahadev, being Mahadev, gave the boon to Bhasmasur without considering the consequences. Bishnu then felt the need to rectify this mistake immediately and took recourse in a ruse. He mockingly said to Bhasmasur, "You have been deceived by Mahadev as he has not given you any such power. You can verify it by putting your hand over your head." Bhasmasur did what Bishnu suggested and became a pile of dust in no time.

Yo ta bhayo pauranik kaalko Mahadev ra Bhasmasur ko katha. Do we have any thing similar to that in our time? I believe Arrow's Impossibility Theorem pertaing to democracy is one such story. Arrow in his PhD thesis demonstrated that it is not possible to include everyone's preferences even in a democratic system. That is, even a democratic system, is not necessarily fair to everyone.

From a systems perspective, it is evident that the degree of openness (or closeness) of a system is only a relative one. A completely open system is an ideal system. One must impose boundary in such a system before it can be studied or managed.

Even open source systems in computing need to agree on some fundamental standards. Without such protocols, it is not possible for them to manage their complexity and evolve.

==========================================
Just because that a forum imposes certain restrictions or requirements does not necessarily mean that the forum is undemocratic. As long as such stipulations do not contradict the underlying democratic values, it is entirely possible to impose those restrictions and yet have a democratic system. Since democracy itself is a system, it must have a set of its rules and boundary. The decision where to put the boundary depends on the intended level of organizational complexity though.

M.P.

Glad you brought this up.
Let me answer this in the usual straightforward way.

CURIOSITY about the group in TIME PERIOD 1 is one thing.

It's natural for any regular columnist to be TEMPORARILY curious about what his readers are saying or not saying in any forum, whether closed or open, about his own publicly, freely and openly available article.

[Once the author saw the a part of the the discussion via a forwarded email, he sent -- in a straightforward way -- a short customary 'thank you' email to Nepe for initiating the discussion based on the author's article , WITHOUT expressing any desire to join the group. Nepe can easily back up this assertion.]

BUT

Such curiosity need not implyu the author's desire to join one of those forums permamently from TIME PERIOD 2 onward.

Curiosity therefore does NOT equal desire, in case you are dying to ascribe a
motive for all these discussions here. The discussion is about PRINCIPLEs, not
about personalities and pettiness.

The author had no desire to join permenently because when you have a front-row seat to witness pretty much everything that's going on in Nepal at the moment and have -- much to the chagrin to some -- access to pretty much all of Nepal's leading political and civil society figures, why would you want to join some closed cyber forum composed of people too far from the action? Doesn't make sense, right?

Sort of like -- to put things in perspective -- your visiting Kathmandu recently for two weeks and asking around about me, without, of course, meeting me.

To me, your asking around about me ONLY implied your curiosity about me,
without necessarily the desire to meet me.

I hope the distinction between curiosity and desire is crystal clear to you.

That said, let the group call itself "Anti-King Group", and leave it at that. Such a name would be both honest and courageous and -- to use Nepe's favorite word -- UNAMBIGUOUS.

Then again, honesty and courage are in short supply in most things Nepali,
hai na ta?

oohi
ashu

PLEASE READ:

"The author had no desire to join permenently because when you have a front-row seat to witness pretty much everything that's going on in Nepal at the moment and have -- much to the chagrin to some -- access to pretty much all of Nepal's leading political and civil society figures, why would you want to join some closed cyber forum composed of people too far from the action? Doesn't make sense, right?"

AS

"The author had no desire to join permenently because when you have a front-row seat to witness pretty much everything that's going on in Nepal at the moment and have -- much to the chagrin to some -- access to pretty much all of Nepal's leading political and civil society figures, why would you want to join some closed cyber forum composed of people too far from the action? Doesn't make sense, right?

But in a spirit of democracy, you would want to make sure that in anything that grandly calls itself DEMOCRACY this and DEMOCRACY that, there is at least a democratic procedure for ANYONE to be a member, if they so desire. This, you press for through open discussions like we are having here.

so you applied for the group membership, man.

Now it sounds very bizarre. Are you a member or not? if you are a member, then tetai fight gare bhayo. if not, this fight is because of bitterness???


btw, thanks for referring me your psychoanalysis book. Good to know ya.

I liked the period I - period II analysis, although I seriously think your heavy indulgence into a mahabharat-like explanation would have given you a higher bang per buck had it been used elsewhere.

A simple 'Yes, I had the desire (or curiosity) to join it once, but I am no longer interested' would have sufficed.

And the parallel you draw between my asking about you and you sending, let's accept it, a REQUEST to join the group is weak at best. Here's why: you actually took the trouble to make the request, whereas I asked the person ON THE PASSING if she knew you, as in "Oh, btw, do you know this person?" And, of course, you know why I asked that. And you know that had I not known that person through your email from a friend, I would NOT have asked that question. To put it more simply, I did NOT necessarily have a desire to meet you even in "period 1", let alone "period 2 onward." But you say you had the curiosity to join the group in period 1 and there lies the difference.

The people in ND, as far as my limited knowledge goes -- knowing some of them personally -- are against the Maoists as well, so your suggestion to rename the group to "Anti-King" is not appropriate.

I personally think the group is more closed than it should be, but I am fine with it as long as they get things done, whether they call it Nepal Democracy, Saddam Hussein Club or Daal-Bhat Samuha! Even the king says he is democratic -- and I am sure people in ND are more democratic (however you define the term) than the king himself. How come you have never raised an issue with the king's definition of democracy? (Not saying you are responsible for everything that goes wrong and that you should be raising concerns everywhere, but isn't the king refining democracy putting more things at stake than some bhare-bhure jantakaa chhora organizing a closed group in cyberland?)

Pire,

In mid-December 2005, I tried to read comments about my own article.

Which author wouldn't want to read comments from his readers? I did not know that I had to log in, and someone had to approve of my membership and all that. But the system would not let me be a member and therefore read the comments.

So, I said, the hell with it, and moved on, and forgot all about it.
Never made any request to anyone to let me in.

It's only recently in here on Sajha when Nepe mentioned about the group's
membership process that I was:

amazed,
appalled and
perversely fascinated!

I think the group's membership process pretty much tells us what's wrong with democratic debates Nepal. It's so goddamn polarized that everything is reduced
to "if you are for us totally, you must be against us" level. And that's sad.

Happy being a member ofv this OPEN forum.

oohi
ashu

M.P,

Its from your knowledge. ND is not open to all. It could be called anything. The point here is clear. Its like maoists calling itself democratic.

peace out

M.P says:

"I personally think the group is more closed than it should be, but I am fine with it as long as they get things done."

So let me get this straight.

MACRO:

If Tulsi Giri says the same thing about his cabinet . .. that so long as his cabinet "gets things done how it's constituted is of little concern to anyone else . . . then, that's
NOT fine.

But

MICRO:
if a bunch of "janata ko chora in America" get together to say, in principle, the same thing about their cyber-forum (to decide who to include and who to exclude based on some self-serving criteria in the name of greater Nepali bdemocracy), then that would
somehow be right?

Wah, wah!
Talia, talia!!

****
For the record, I am AGAINST exclusion of any kind in the name of democracy -- whether we are talking about Tulsi Giri's cabinet or in some cyber-forum.

oohi
ashu

PLEASE READ

"For the record, I am AGAINST exclusion of any kind in the name of democracy -- whether we are talking about Tulsi Giri's cabinet or in some cyber-forum."

AS

"For the record, I am AGAINST exclusion of any kind in the name of democracy -- whether we are talking about Tulsi Giri's cabinet or in some cyber-forum. When the initial presmise is wrong, everything that folows thereafter is alos wrong."

oohi
ashu

now I think I am getting a point Gokul made.

If Harvard University doesn't allow everybody to be its faculty member or Gorge Soros's Open Society Institute doesn't allow everybody to come into its premise to work for openness, that doesn't mean either Harvard or Open Institute are undemocratic or un-open. This is still within the framework of democracy and openness; it just is the agreed upon selection criteria of the institution.

Pire,

Wrong analogy.

For their day-to-day operations, Harvard and The Open Society have NEVER made any claim to be democratic institutions.

Both are private and non-profit institutions, with their own institutionally arranged hierarchies in place. That's fine.

****
Democracy = public, open, and that everyone, even the most disliked/irriated person has a chance to do what everyone else is doing with no fear of retaliation or without succumbing to someone else's exercise of arbitrary power.

Democracy is all about learning to tolerate people whose guts you hate so long as they or you do not break the law.

I see the fight for democracy in terms of: Letting EVERY child in Nepal to grow up to
her fullest natural potential to be anything she desires to be WITH few arbitrary (i.e. man-made) obstacles there for her. I have no desire to fight for democracy for the corrupt netas, but for 20 million Nepalis under the age of 40 whose potentials
are yet to be realized for the greater good os us all.

oohi
ashu

And you'll NEVER find our corrupt netas EVER talking about a better future for children of Nepal because most of their their own children are already overseas -- living and working there, with no desire to return to Nepal.

oohi
ashu

>Harvard and The Open Society have NEVER made any claim to be democratic institutions

Are you sure about this? Do they consider themselves to be non-democratic?

Also has this google group also made a claim of being democratic institution? Just to be stickler.

btw, ma neta ko chhora haina, in case you are shooting in the dark. sojhosajho mangale ho, dukha paye afnai dhangale bhairaacha.

Ashu,

As any other definition of democracy, your too is not objective enough.
People have their own perception of Law. For Tulsi Giri, current government is democratic as per your definition. He claims that he has not broken any laws. Opponents say that the govenment has gone against every fundamental norms of democracy.

There is no end to this debate.
For me and some others there is nothing to lose in accepting Tulsi's perception of law. We are enjoying Democracy.


Someone please come up with an objective definition of democracy so that we can decide whether to label someone or something as democratic or not. our discussion would not be conclusive and no one would be convinced on anyone's intelligence.

If Harvard were democratic, the acceptance rate would be 100 per cent. :-)

[Personally, I think Harvard, one of the the world's best-managed corporations (!)
should be a lot more generous and open about sharing its knowledge and resources
with everyone around the world, and it can start by posting all its courses online
like what MIT is doing. But I digress!!]

My rule of thumb: If a group of Nepalis shout the loudest about democracy, look at the CONSISTENCY of their actions in both Macro and Micro cases, and then decide for yourself whether they are for Democracy with a capital D (i.e. for all) or for
democracy with a small d (for themselves only).

Glad to be raising these issues in this OPEN and available to anyone-with-an-Internet connection forum REGARDLESS of their political affiliations!

oohi
ashu

Guess it's too late to partake in this thread if I don't have the time to read all the postings from the beginning? Or would someone care to sum it up in a few sentences so that ppl like me may get a jumpstart? More often than not, I find humongous postings to have little take aways...just costing me time and unnecessary stress on my already delicate eyes...

ashu nepe and arrow. one is a nobel prize winner and arguably the most influential economist of his time. guess who.

The answer is looking at you zalim!

herez a looking at you kid. don't know why i typed that..that was the first thing that came to my mind when mr lonly's response......the second thing that came to mind was ingrid bergman's beautiful face.

SunnyDev writes:

"As any other definition of democracy, your too is not objective enough.
There is no end to this debate."

Yes, public reasoning, as Amartya Sen writes in his latest book, is at the heart of democracy.

And public reasoning, by definition, is open and available to all who are interested.

It's only by CONTINUOUSLY discussing together, arguing together with people from various different political beliefs and persuasions that we can begin to reason
together about democracy.

Unfortunately, there is no off-the-shelf "democracy package; version 5.0"
that we can get, plug it in and play with.

We have to reason things out by ourselves -- at the rate of one discussion at a
time in open, public sphere. That is why, democracy is a MESSY system to begin
with.

[The US, the world's oldest democracy, is, for instance, currently debating whether
the presidental power extends to authorising that spying be done on citizens
in the name of some national security! It's a fascinating debate about the limits
of the executive power in a country that has had 40+ presidents already!]

Yes, the process is unending, but that's 1000 times better than some arbitrary official telling us when to speak and when to shut up or even deciding who speaks and who listens or even deciding who to join club to discuss Nepali democracy and who to be
shut out in PUBLIC non-paid space .

Here's an arctile I wrote years ago, only for those who are interested.

- http://guild.sajha.com/guild/read.cfm?guildid=42

oohi
ashu