Armed Police Force, an alternative police force of Nepal, has recently informed that it will mobilize the Industrial Security Force (ISF) as soon as the government adopts the ‘The Directives Relating to Customs, Revenue and Industrial Security.’ It is good news for fledgling industrial sector of Nepal, in a sense that something is certainly better than nothing.
For more than a decade now, industrial security has been a main concern for Nepal’s industrial and business sectors. The facets of insecurity are many. Industrialists and business people are often kidnapped, killed, threatened or extorted. Factories and businesses are forced to close down. Barriers are created for products reaching the markets, etc. This has had a very crippling effect on industrial growth, investment climate and overall expansion of the economy. As the result, the contribution of manufacturing sector to country’s GDP has gone down in the recent years and all along has remained far below its potential, much lower than the agricultural and service sectors.
In our context, industrial security is a complex issue since the insecurity stems out from a multitude of sources, mainly from the politically protected powerful formal or informal outfits. For this reason, a number of measures of industrial security of bureaucratic nature announced by different governments during last one decade have neither protected the industries nor the industrialists.
Therefore, more important than a force to be set-up, at first place, there must be a political commitment and honest implementation of the same if an effective security were to be provided to the sector. As long as the political parties, specifically some top leaders of major parties, continue to protect and nurture the criminal gangs and notorious dons, any security force of proposed nature will be rendered ineffective in no time. That is what has happened so far. Similarly, the violent activities that take place in the name of trade unions affiliated to these political parties is another headache, which in fact has in recent years forced a number of industries and businesses to close down permanently. In addition to it, frequent strikes and blockades very often organized by this or that political party are other main reasons of insecurity.
If the country is indeed determined to provide industrial security, it must first come in the form of political commitment of all reckonable political forces. They must be able to reign in their respective trade unions so as to prevent them from acting as ‘licensed criminal organizations’. Rampant impunity is another equally alarming phenomenon. Even if one is caught with reasonable evidence of involvement in criminal activities that jeopardize the industrial security, he is hardly punished. Political protection, corruption or legal loopholes set them free sooner than one could imagine.
Undoubtedly, an effective industrial security is possible only when the overall law and order situation of the country improves, political forces stop impeding the justice and making their unions an extortion apparatus. But, at the industry level, right of ‘hire and fire’ to the employer would give another level of security to the industries. This will put all those elements at bay who claim to be workers but never work in the industry but in the political front.
Equally crucial is an industrialist and businessman being true to his profession. If the business people align themselves with this or that political force, or habour political ambitions, they are naturally opposed by the rival political forces. It is no secret that a large number of businessmen clandestinely finance the political parties and leaders, not only because of compulsion but as an ‘investment’ at their free will. These activities certainly do not help to consolidate their security situation. For the proposed force to be effective or mere functional, political commitment on the part of parties and professionalism on the part of industries are minimum prerequisites.
