Relation To The Central Government
In the early 1970s Bhaktapur, like all settlements of more than 10,000 people in Nepal, was treated as a "Nagar (town) Panchayat ." It was administered as part of a complex four-tiered system of representative councils called panchayat s, which was an attempt to form a connection between the strong, relatively autocratic central government at Kathmandu, centered on the king and his immediate advisors and peripheral political or potentially political structures. The system starts with village or town panchayat s, which, in turn, send representatives to a district panchayat , which is supposed to be more important for administrative purposes than the village and town panchayat s below it or the zonal assembly above it made up of representatives of the various districts amalgamated into larger zones. In the early 1970s Nepal had 3,860 village panchayat s, 16 town panchayat s, 75 district panchayat s, and 14 zonal assemblies. The zonal assemblies, in turn, elected some of the members of a national unicameral legislature, the Rastriya[*] (National) Panchayat . Of the Rastriya[*] Panchayat 's 125 members, 90 were elected by the zonal assemblies, 15 by seven "Class Organizations" (e.g., Farmers, Youth, Labor, Ex-Servicemen, and Women), and four from the "Graduate Constituency" made up of college graduates. The king nominates an additional 16 members. (For the panchayat system and its development, see Prachanda Pradhan [1973], Sinha [1972], K. P. Pradhan [1968], Rose and Fisher [1970], and Joshi and Rose [1966].)
Following the restoration of the Shah dynasty in 1950 there were a series of tentative oscillating experiments in the extension and retraction of decentralization and of participatory democracy. In the early 1970s the central government was strong. As Rishikesh Shaha (1975b , 73) wrote:
The new Panchayat system does not reflect any real decentralization or de-concentration of political and administrative power. . . . The Village Panchayats, the Town Panchayats and the District Panchayats have been given limited taxation and administrative powers. Their administrative functions include assisting development programs, supervising and managing the village, the district or the municipality owned or controlled property, and maintaining certain records and statistics. The Village Panchayats are
granted judicial jurisdiction in minor civil and criminal cases. The claim that the new Panchayat system represents decentralization of political power and functions is completely invalid in as much as the central government's ultimate authority is maintained intact by granting the Panchayat Ministry discretionary power to suspend or dissolve a Panchayat and replace it with a provisional Panchayat authorized to exercise the same powers.
Even within the terms of this sytem the town panchayat is comparatively insignificant. The village panchayat includes a Village Assembly, "a legislative body charged with the power to ventilate grievance; to question the . . . members of the executive body; . . . to move a resolution of . . . no confidence [against] the executive. . .; to make decisions regarding taxes" (K. P. Pradhan 1968, 107). However (Pradhan 1973, 151):
In the case of Town Panchayats no direct relation between the elected members and the town people are established. In the case of Village Panchayats, there is a Village Assembly which at least twice a year makes the Panchayat members answerable and responsible for the projects initiated by the assembly. In many ways, Town Panchayats are weak bodies. In the deliberations of the District Assembly, Town Panchayats are particularly weak and become a target of attack for the village people who have an overwhelming majority of representation m the District Assembly.
The town panchayat helps to identify problems of certain kinds and helps implement centrally originated decisions. Greatly limited by the funds made available to it, and by the requirements and decisions of the district and central administrations, the town panchayat is responsible for maintaining and developing local facilities and services.[4]
The city of Bhaktapur was divided into seventeen "wards," as they are called in official English translations, for the purposes of panchayat organization.[5] The wards elect the town council, the Nagar Panchayat, which, in turn, selects two of its members as executive administrators. In the early 1970s the activities initiated by Bhaktapur's Nagar Panchayat were limited, concerned mostly with repair and maintenance. The Town (Nagar) Panchayat was intended as a device for encouraging participation in centrally directed modernization, and was, as Joshi and Rose have put it for the panchayat system in general, "an attempt to rationalize administrative process by creating viable institutions in areas where a serious lacuna had previously existed, thus providing the basis both for a modernized administrative system and for agencies through which economic development programs could be implemented" (1966, 400).
Decisions were usually made for town projects by the Home and Panchayat Ministries of the central government, often in consultation with Bhaktapur leaders. After the decisions were made it was the responsibility of the Town Panchayat to help carry them out. The formal local political leadership of Bhaktapur could not be said to involve much power. It was minimally significant for the organization and movement of the daily life in Bhaktapur. This may well change in the future as the traditional sources of order in Bhaktapur break down and as the city becomes more "modern." For the time being, however, at the city level Bhaktapur has little effective local political control. There is plenty of politics within some of the component units of the traditional city organization, but that is another matter.