A new chapter for the Nepali Congress: Reflections at a moment of transition

As the Nepali Congress, having remained at the centre of Nepal’s modern political history for eight decades, moves toward its 15th general convention, the present moment invites both remembrance and reflection. It also offers an opportunity to ask what the democratic tradition represented by the Nepali Congress has meant to Nepal, how the country it helped shape has changed, where the party stands today, and what that tradition will need in order to remain relevant.

No political tradition in Nepal has been more closely associated with the country’s struggle for democracy, the expansion of political participation and the making of its modern political institutions than the one the Nepali Congress represents, and the Congress led that struggle at each stage, setting its democratic demands, sustaining its movements and giving its gains institutional form. Its significance extends beyond the history of an organisation: it forms part of the larger story of how Nepal came to understand citizenship, representation, constitutional government and the possibilities of democratic politics.