A Buddhist legend tells the story of a time when society was thrown into chaos . At that time, people gathered together and elected one of their own to restore order in society . In return, they agreed to give him (the chosen person) a portion of their produce . The ruler thus elected was called the Mahasammat, or the Greatly Chosen One. This concept that the ruler's authority arises from the consent of the governed is considered one of the earliest explanations in the world . This idea was presented many centuries before John Locke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau formulated the theory of the social contract .

Last Bhadra, Nepal also experienced its own 'Mahasammat' moment . A youth-led movement overthrew the tired political system, and then the Falgun elections gave Walendra Shah a mandate that rarely any government in Nepal has received . The people gathered together . They elected their representatives . The social contract has been renewed.

After a hundred days, it is not unusual to raise questions about the implementation of that social contract. Governments are rarely evaluated on the basis of what they inherited. Rather, they are tested more on the basis of the decisions and choices they made when political capital was abundant.

The first hundred days have not failed to deliver commendable achievements. The budget has presented the most bold package of tax and regulatory reforms in a generation. Unnecessary government agencies have been abolished, investment procedures have been simplified, the number of ministries has been reduced, and the recommendations of the Karki Commission have been implemented, albeit selectively.

But there is another side to this achievement. The true character of a government is first revealed by the commitments it has made. The government had passed a 100-point reform agenda in its first cabinet meeting. The government’s policies and programs reiterated that. The budget was expected to ensure the necessary resources for that. But that did not happen.

Capital expenditure has remained the same for the past decade. Provinces have received even less resources than before. The three basic documents of the government – ​​the Hundred-Point Reform Agenda, the Policy and Program, and the Budget – do not seem to be moving in the same direction. The government, which has not been able to coordinate its commitments with each other, has not yet been able to clearly define its governance philosophy and policy direction.

The government often looks more like the administration of the Kathmandu Metropolitan City, which is trying to run a federal republic than a new political force. The inherent tendencies of the working style when it was the mayor of the metropolis are still the same – prioritizing executive decisions over parliamentary processes, making decisions public via Facebook before informing the relevant officials, and giving more importance to direct communication over institutional discussions. These tendencies may have yielded effective results in the Kathmandu Metropolitan City. However, such tendencies do not seem suitable for a federal parliamentary democracy. Nepal is not an extension of Kathmandu Metropolitan City. It is a state of a different nature, which requires a different way of thinking, a different style of working and a different political sensitivity for its successful operation.

The Prime Minister has been absent from Parliament since he took office. He did not respond to the discussion on the government's policies and programs, nor did he participate in the debate on the budget. The Finance Minister took on the responsibility of responding on his behalf.

Winston Churchill had said, 'Parliament is the place where the Prime Minister is made.' Narendra Modi spent most of the first hundred days of his term in the Lok Sabha almost regularly. Manmohan Singh used to explain the justification of difficult economic decisions through Parliament.

Absence in parliamentary democracy is a statement in itself. A Prime Minister who repeatedly chooses not to attend Parliament is silently changing the definition of the position, which the Constitution does not give him the right to change.

The tendency to issue ordinances also reveals a lot about the character of the government. This government has issued ordinances on the Constitutional Council, the cooperative sector and institutional restructuring at a pace that mirrors that of previous governments. Ordinance rule had become a habit after the parliament was considered an inconvenience rather than a constitutional institution. The Nepali Congress cannot escape its role in institutionalizing that practice. But the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) cannot ignore its own manifesto, as it had expressed a commitment to end the misuse of ordinances.

After a hundred days in power, the party that came to power criticizing the old factors is now using those old factors more openly than the old parties (which it removed from power).

The Mahabharata teaches an important lesson here. Before the war, Duryodhana chose Krishna's Narayani army. Arjuna, however, chose the unarmed Krishna. One chose the means, the other chose the idea, value and leadership with which that means is connected. No new political party that comes carrying old institutions automatically gives birth to new politics. This is also the main lesson of these hundred days - the debate is no longer between the old and the new. The real question now is who has the means and what ideology, value and leadership stand behind it.

It is necessary to understand the coalition that brought this government to power in more depth. Its parliamentary power comes largely from Madhesh, Karnali and the Far West. But the debate over the initial budget, the formation of the Council of Ministers and the provincial assemblies have indicated that those regions are once again gradually being pushed to the sidelines from the state's priorities.

Whether this is intentional or not, the trend is familiar. A similar frustration was evident after the 2046 BS people's movement, when the perception grew that the Congress-led government was looking at Madhesh as a base for electoral support rather than as an equal partner in nation-building.

According to political scientist Frederick H. Gage, the same economic and cultural forces have been shaping Nepali politics in successive regimes in Nepal since 1825 BS. The question that arises now, as this government completes its hundred days, is whether the same forces have begun to shape the federal system as well.

A federal democratic republican system rarely ends in a dramatic moment. It often gradually erodes and becomes so commonplace that citizens stop appreciating its value. Just as a fish that has lived in water understands the importance of water only after it is taken out of it, we too need to understand that we should not come to a situation where we realize the importance of our federal constitutional system only after it has begun to decay.

Finally, it is important to note an important aspect. The public face of this government's economic agenda is not Prime Minister Balendra Shah, but Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle. This situation is not unprecedented. In India, Rajiv Gandhi also placed similar trust in Manmohan Singh to guide the country's economic direction. But it raises a question - where is the real power center in the cabinet? It is rare to find examples of governments successfully moving forward with two parallel centers of power for a long time without paying any coordination costs.

The democratic movements that transformed Nepal and the Gen-G uprisings of last year were not motivated solely by anger at injustice. They were driven by an even more powerful belief. The belief that a more rational, accountable, and people-oriented state is possible. Revolutions are not sustainable simply because people reject the existing system, but rather because they have the courage to imagine a better future. That imagination, that hope, and that belief are the strongest foundations for change.

That was the promise of the Bhadra movement. Young Nepalis did not just take to the streets to change the ruler; they took steps to change the way politics is done. They believed that protectionism and access politics could be replaced by efficiency, impunity could be replaced by accountability, and institutions could become more important than individuals.

It would be a bit hasty to conclude that that promise has been completely broken in a span of 100 days. But it is not too early to question whether that promise has been fulfilled. The government's responsibility now is to prove that the public's trust in power was justified. The trust shown by the people can only be honored if it can translate the hope, trust and aspiration for change into real achievements.

Political mandates are assets that erode over time. Even after 100 days, this government seems to have spent only a small portion of its political capital on essential reforms. It has yet to courageously address complex issues such as the powerful group of contractors, the cooperative crisis, or the necessary structural reforms in land administration, education and the police system.