[Nepalis have a proven capacity
for eschewing brinkmanship and showing flexibility. They have faced situations
more difficult than the one that confronts Nepal
today. They helped their country move from a state of insurgency and civil war
to the quest for an inclusive democratic order. Visionary leadership can again
overcome the clash of interests between the ruling Bahun-Chhetri elite and the
Janajatis, Dalits and Madhesis. It is time for Nepal ’s
political leaders to show this can be done. The quest for a new Constitution
has reached the last lap of a long marathon. This is not the time to stumble
and fall.]
By Jayant Prasad
The long-awaited promulgation of
a new Constitution within the next few days in Nepal
was expected to be the culmination of its transition to a pluralist democracy. The
institutionalization of the gains of Nepal ’s
remarkable peace process should have been a time for celebration, heralding an
era of harmony and progress. The Constitution is meant to reaffirm both the
social purpose and the political commitments embedded in the 2006 Comprehensive
Peace Agreement and the 2007 interim Constitution, establishing Nepal
as a federal democratic republic.
Instead, a revolt is gathering
momentum across Nepal .
The Terai has been on fire. Protests have shut it down for over the past three
weeks. Forty persons and policemen have been killed in the ensuing violence. The
present calamity is man-made, unlike the earthquake five months ago. The
violence this time is because of a disregard for the interests of the Janajati
and Madhesi peoples of Nepal ,
consisting of several disadvantaged and subaltern social groups, including the
Tharus, who are amongst its most marginalised communities.
These groups believe the promise
of a democratic restructuring of the state stands subverted. The six-State
federation model initially put on the table in early August by the ruling
coalition, and supported by the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) [UCPN-M],
as also the later version that added a Province, reflect political parsimony
and gerrymandering that would effectively disenfranchise the Janajati and
Madhesi communities.
Repression not the solution
Repression cannot be the right
response to political disaffection. This can only increase alienation and cause
irreparable long-term damage to Nepal ’s
national cohesion. The plan to ride out the protests by a display of force
might, instead, lead to a bigger movement, as happened at the time of the Jana
Andolan of 2006 and the Madhesi agitation of 2007.
The Jana Andolan unseated the
monarchy. The Madhesi agitation persuaded the late Girijababu (Girija Prasad
Koirala, the then Prime Minister) to guarantee a federation in Nepal ,
and delimit the Constituent Assembly (CA) seats in the Terai and the mid-hills,
proportionate to the population. In early 2008, he enabled an eight-point
agreement accepting the Madhesi people’s call for “an autonomous Madhes and
other people’s desire for a federal structure with autonomous regions.”
The social and political
contracts he helped create must not be cast away. Prime Minister Sushil Koirala
must respect the legacy of Girijababu, at whose feet he learnt his politics, and
embrace an inclusive discourse. If not, Nepal
might again face troubled times, and the half-hearted republicans and closet
monarchists, together with other regressive elements, might drag Nepali
politics irrevocably backwards.
In pushing ahead with voting on a
contested Constitution, the ruling coalition in Nepal
might be on the verge of squandering the gains of their electoral victory of
November 2013. Excluding the 26 nominated seats in the 601 seat Assembly, the
Nepali Congress (NC) won 196 seats, followed by the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified
Marxist-Leninist) [(CPN (UML)] which won 175,
together constituting a comfortable majority. The victors should not fall
victim to a sense of triumphalism. They won not because the Janajati and
Madhesi voters rejected their own empowerment, but because the Maoist and
Madhesi leaders did not deliver on their promises.
The Cabinet’s cosmetic invitation
to the Tharu and Madhesi leaders for a dialogue, without the commitment to
compromise, was like using the wick of a candle to light an electric bulb. When
Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with Mr. Koirala on August 25, he called for
restraint, an end to violence, and restoration of social harmony. He reiterated
that Nepal ’s
political leadership should resolve all outstanding issues through dialogue
between all political parties through a process of consultation involving all
the parties. This was not done.
Democracy in Nepal
has had fitful progress. The overthrow of the Rana oligarchy in 1951, following
King Tribhuvan’s dramatic evacuation to Delhi
and triumphal return, did not immediately result in popular rule. The Interim
Government of Nepal Act of 1951 limited the Cabinet’s authority. First King
Tribhuvan, and from 1955 his son and successor, King Mahendra, continued to control
the key levers of government, making the country’s politics palace-centric.
The lining up of political
leaders at the Narayanhiti Palace
The first large-scale people’s
democratic movement in Nepal ,
known as Jana Andolan-I, brought down this regime. King Birendra quickly
adjusted to the new contingency. A new Constitution was promulgated the
following year; parliamentary elections held in 1991, 1994, and 1999; and local-level
elections in 1992 and 1997. Democratic consolidation was prevented by palace-inspired
intrigues, and from 1996, by the added challenge of the Maoist insurgency.
After King Birendra’s patricidal
killing in 2001, his successor, King Gyanendra, dispensed with democratic
accountability and concentrated executive authority in his hands. Based on the
twin demands of democracy and social justice, a second wave of the people’s
movement erupted in April 2006 that swept out the monarchy from the Nepali
political system.
The demand for an inclusive
democracy was not simply superimposed on Nepal ’s
emerging democratic edifice as a distemper that could be dusted off — the inheritance
of Jana Andolan-II and the Madhesi movement of 2006-07 embedded this idea in
the very foundations of the new republic.
At the very first meeting of the
CA, on May 28, 2008 , all
members present, excluding four from Rashtriya Prajatantrik Party-Nepal, declared
Nepal to be a
federal democratic republic. With their common adversary — the monarchy — gone,
the clashing interests of the major parties came to fore. They expended much of
their energy in the making and unmaking of governments. This caused political
fragmentation, especially within UCPN-M, which split into two, and the Madhesi
parties, which multiplied in four years from three major parties into thirteen.
CA members were not involved in the shaping of constitutional debate. The
social capital accumulated by civil society in 2006-07 was largely frittered
away. Compromises and consensus-making became impossible.
Differences on the nature and
form of federalism cut to the heart of Nepal ’s
political predicament. The first CA’s Committee of State Restructuring
recommendation of 14 Provinces was considered profligate. An independent High
Level State Restructuring Recommendation Commission then recommended 10
Provinces. Divergence on the number, names, boundary delineation, and division
of powers between Centre and Provinces continued to hold up progress.
No return to a unitary order
Despite the marginalisation of
forces favouring inclusive federalism in the 2013 elections, attempts to revert
to what journalist C.K. Lal describes as “the old unitary and exclusionary
order” will not be politically sustainable in the long run. The lesson from the
present agitation is that unless the new Constitution is equitable, and
encapsulates the values emanating from the womb of the people’s movements, Nepal ’s
quest for democratic governance might again run aground.
First and foremost, the Nepal
Army, a force of the last resort, must be pulled out from the Terai districts. Nepal ’s
Human Rights Commission has asked government to do so, while urging the United
Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) to keep their agitation peaceful. In a stunning
indictment of the police, the Commission noted that protesters who died or were
injured had been shot in the head, chest and stomach, proving the “excessive
use of force,” and violation of humanitarian norms.
The triumvirate with a combined
majority in CA that can ramrod the draft Constitution through — the NC, the CPN
(UML), and the UCPN-M — must eschew the temptation to promulgate a Constitution
that is widely unacceptable.
Between the completion of the
clause-by-clause voting and the adoption of the Constitution as a whole, they
must revisit the process and seek the broadest measure of consensus. For a
Constitution that has taken over seven years to negotiate, imposing an
artificial deadline is incomprehensible.
The oldest and the newest
Constitutions in South Asia , those of India
and Bhutan , had
the signatures of each and every member of their Constituent Assembly and the
National Assembly, respectively. It will be a pity for Nepal
to promulgate a Constitution that does not bear the signatures of all or nearly
all of its CA members.
The differences affect just five
of the 75 districts of Nepal ,
which is already assured of a federation. The effort now should be to reduce
the remaining differences on the number and boundaries of the States to the
barest minimum and remit the remaining issues to a commission.
Nepalis have a proven capacity
for eschewing brinkmanship and showing flexibility. They have faced situations
more difficult than the one that confronts Nepal
today. They helped their country move from a state of insurgency and civil war
to the quest for an inclusive democratic order. Visionary leadership can again
overcome the clash of interests between the ruling Bahun-Chhetri elite and the
Janajatis, Dalits and Madhesis. It is time for Nepal ’s
political leaders to show this can be done. The quest for a new Constitution
has reached the last lap of a long marathon. This is not the time to stumble
and fall.
(Jayant Prasad is a former Indian
Ambassador to Nepal .
Currently, he is advisor, Delhi Policy Group and visiting fellow at the
Research and Information System for Developing Countries.)
