TI: Can you describe the events surrounding your arrest? What are your strongest memories of that day?

DRP: On 19 January, I returned home from my morning walk. I saw a police van outside my gate and some security personnel in plainclothes inside. They told me politely that they had come to “take me away” as per the order “from above”. They did not produce any papers or charge me with anything. They wouldn’t tell me where they were to take me either. Some friends who had arrived (Ashish Thapa of TI Nepal, who lives nearby, was also attracted by the police van) advised me not to cooperate in an unlawful detention. I reasoned that the rule of law had no place here and went with the police. They took me first to a nearby station where I was kept all day without any knowledge of what was to happen to me. Later, in the evening, they moved me to a makeshift prison inside the National Police Academy. There, in two rooms, I found myself in the company of seventeen political leaders and some civil society colleagues who had also been rounded up that morning. This was some comfort.
This was not the first time I had been arrested in the current struggle for democracy. I was arrested together with many friends and colleagues on July 25, 2005 when, as a part of the programme of the Citizens’ Movement for Democracy and Peace, we protested in the street against the government’s lawless law. We were released the next day. Similarly, and in the context of a comparable programme on Human Rights Day, I was again arrested on 10 December, but only for a few hours. The difference this time was that I was arrested at my house, when I was not breaking any law, not even “their law”.

TI:Was your imprisonment directly related to your work on anti-corruption? What were the charges under which you were arrested?

DRP: On 1 February 2005, King Gyanendra declared a state of emergency and arrested many political and some civil society leaders. One of the reasons he gave for his action was his intention to control corruption. Knowing how dictators routinely exploit corruption to serve their ambitions for power and privilege, and aware of King Gyanendra’s own dubious business record, I was suspicious of this claim from day one. Fearing that Transparency International might be hoodwinked into cooperating with the despotic regime, I immediately started warning the Secretariat about this. At the time of the King’s declaration, I was in the United States. Upon my return to Nepal in March, I joined the political struggle against the coup d’état. To me, anti-corruption and democracy are inseparable. Accountability requires structures and processes that are possible only in a democracy where people can question and try and punish their leaders in the media and in elections. I would like to believe that the founder of Transparency International, Peter Eigen, contacted me in late 1992 to invite me to join the movement because of my record of struggles for human rights and democracy, apart from whatever he had heard about me and my public career.

The government would not acknowledge any of this, of course. That evening of 19 January, I eventually received a piece of paper that said that I was charged with the crime of “spreading misinformation”, and thus “threatening national security”.

TI:Can you describe the time you spent in jail? What were the conditions like? What were your most frequent thoughts?

DRP: I was in “the Academy” for 41 days. On the afternoon of 2 March, some police officers told me to pack my things because I was to leave immediately. The pleasant thought that I was possibly being released from prison did not occur to me even for a second. Earlier that day, they had come with the same message for two of my colleagues. The authorities were executing their plan to separate us from one another and keep us incommunicado. The authorities feared that we were “too powerful” even in prison and might plan something together to feed the struggle against the despotic regime.

That day, I was moved to another police barracks and kept in isolation until 25 April when, thanks to the power of the people peacefully demonstrating in the streets and villages throughout the country, I was released, together with all political prisoners. During this period, I was not allowed to see anyone but very close relatives and representatives of the United Nations Office of Human Rights Commission. My wife was in the United States through most of this period visiting our daughter and her family, including a newborn grandson. She came back in mid-March and became my daily visitor. The authorities did not seem to know that my new place of confinement - the police barracks – was close to my house. There I could have at least one meal cooked and brought from home that helped me maintain my spirits. The food in prison, especially in the first station, was hardly edible. Yet, it is hard to complain about it, because the men and women in the police force eat lesser meals all the time.

TI: What prompted you to join the anti-corruption movement?

DRP: In 1990, Nepal acquired its first democratic constitution. (I was arrested and sent to prison during that struggle, too). Following the adoption of the constitution, I briefly became the country’s finance minister. From the social and political conditions in Nepal and the experiences of many other countries I understood one thing. I knew how difficult it would be to institutionalise democracy and make governance work for the welfare of the people. Corruption was not going to leave us just because we had a new political order. If not handled properly, the vagaries of electoral politics and the influence of the feudal, patron-client relations in the country could be more lethal in a democracy than in an authoritarian regime.

TI:What challenges do you face in your daily work of fighting corruption, and have these changed over the years?

DRP: To me, the campaign against corruption is closely related to social movements for securing political freedom, equality, rule of law, opportunities for involvement in productive endeavours and social justice. Together they constitute what we call “development”. The ultimate sources of the challenge to anti-corruption are the same as those for all such agendas for change. The vestiges of the feudal social order get in the way, as do the difficulties in resolving the contradictions between the need for political financing and clean governance. Most importantly, perhaps, we in the anti-corruption struggle are ourselves not fully free from many of the weaknesses afflicting society at large. I was lucky to have been invited by Peter Eigen to join the anti-corruption movement when TI was still at a planning stage.

TI:Is there a link in Nepal between the temporary collapse of democracy and corruption?

DRP: The governments elected under Nepal’s 1990 constitution were an immense disappointment to the people. The leaders lacked vision and reflected the same political culture in their behaviour as the regime they replaced. They easily succumbed to pressures and attractions for feudalistic privileges and perks that would come their way. Corruption increased with the increase in the scale of public expenditure and inflows of foreign aid. Despite the unique provision of a constitutional body to investigate and prosecute abuses of authority, impunity became the order of the day. The nouveaux riche in politics, bureaucracy, the army, police and business flaunted their wealth merrily, adding to the disgust and disappointment of the people who were looking forward to a new era of development in post-1990 Nepal.

However, this is not necessarily why democracy collapsed. In any country, the disappointment and apathy in the people merely create an environment for a potential dictator who would find one way or another of fulfilling his ambitions any way. With King Gyanendra on the throne, this is what happened in Nepal. As the king assumed full powers of the state, an atmosphere of corruption and corrupt acts grew, notwithstanding his establishment of a commission nominally intended to control corruption but in fact used to intimidate and victimize those who were challenging it.

TI: More generally, is there a link between human rights and corruption?

DRP: Corruption is a threat to human rights because it perverts the important institutions and mechanisms of the state that are created to assure the rights and services that citizens can lawfully expect from the state. Unfortunately, human rights as an issue are not explicitly recognised in anti-corruption campaigns. In fact, in our zeal to see corrupt people brought to justice, we sometimes ignore such fundamental principles such as presumption of innocence in some of our debates on anti-corruption strategy. This can happen because the anti-corruption campaigns are often ambivalent about the value of democracy, given the bitter experience of institutionalising it in the developing world. In the TI movement, democracy is accepted as one of our core values. But we have yet to operationalise it in planning and programming.

TI:Do you think there is new political will to tackle corruption after recent events? What is the feeling of the Nepalese people?

DRP: The people joined the political movement initiated by the Seven Party Alliance with an uneasy feeling. They knew full well that the leadership and the behaviour of the parties had not changed much from the time they governed ineffectually and corruptly. We could only hope that the parties and their political culture and their sense of public accountability would change for the better, given the bitter experience and suffering in the despotic regime. Much hope is also placed in the possible emergence of youthful leadership that can inculcate new values and commitments in the parties currently saddled with the baggage of history.

The priority at the moment is the successful conclusion of on-going talks between the Nepal Communist Party (Maoists) and the government, leading to the election of the constituent assembly. We have to make sure that corruption as a factor in political, social and economic development receives due consideration in this process. It already hurts to see corrupt politicians playing their familiar roles in the parliament that was restored with the sacrifices of the masses.

TI:What concrete recommendations on fighting corruption would you make to the new government?

DRP: In short, the battle against corruption is about inculcating new values in society and in politics. To lead the process, first and foremost, the political parties must learn lessons from their own experiences. The undemocratic and unrepresentative institutional structures and mechanisms of the parties and the underlying political culture must change. For this to happen, the anti-corruption campaigns, among others, should coalesce and work together with younger generations in the parties, and help them play a new and innovative role in the organisations and programmes of the political parties. We should similarly work with youth across society.

One of the problems facing political parties in Nepal is similar to the enduring challenge faced to this day by political parties in “advanced democracies”. It is about the conflicts involved in political financing and in the business-politics nexus that can flourish at the cost of efficiency and justice. We have to tackle the problem together through exchanges of experiences and the “learning by doing” processes.

TI:What can Transparency International do as a movement to support you in your anti-corruption work?

DRP: I stress the inter-related nature of the issues of social change of which corruption is one part and democracy is another. Transparency International could consider debating such inter-relatedness of social problems to support its strategic planning for the future. The vital role, however, belongs to TI Nepal. Just as we hope to restructure the state and its policies under the new constitution, TI Nepal may also need to restructure and reorient itself from time to time, in order to harness its potential and meet the challenges and opportunities. We need younger people in the movement, and in leadership positions, who are more committed to the campaign and can bring with them not only their youthful energy but also dreams that only they can dream.