Speak truth to power

The main threat to Nepal's political stability is likely to come from the failure of the educated elites to cope with internal social forces.

To borrow the words of Edward Said, the intellectual is he who possesses a faculty for "representing, embodying, articulating a message, a view, an attitude, philosophy or opinion to, as well as for a public in public." Such a role has something special about it, a special responsibility to raise embarrassing questions and challenge orthodoxy and dogma. The intellectual cannot be easily co-opted or hired by governments or corporations. Hismissi on in life is to represent all those people who are routinely ignored orthose issues which tend to be swept under the carpet. Intellectuals are on their own and at their best when they attack corruption, and stand up for the weak.

According to the mid-century man of letters Julien Benda, intellectuals are a minuscule group of highly talented and morally equipped philosopher-kings who represent the conscience of mankind. Benda´s treatise, La Trahisondesclercs (the betrayal of the intellectuals) is a scathing attack on those who abandon their roles and compromise their principles. Benda mentions a few names and delineates characteristic features of those regarded by him as intellectuals — Socrates and Jesus, as well as more recent names like Spinoza, Voltaire and Ernest Renon. The image of the intellectual as conceived by Benda is an attractive and compelling one. The intellectual stands out as someone capable of speaking the truth to the powers-that-be without mincing words, an extremely articulate, courageous and angry individual for whom no worldly power, however big and imposing, is above reproach.