Nepal’s transition to a pluralist democracy faces a final challenge —
failure of the three major parties to accommodate the legitimate
demands of Janajati and Madhesi groups for true federalism.Greater
consensus and not the imposition of an artificial deadline can help
overcome it.
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 institutionalisation 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 — for
attention and office — undermined their standing. Monarchy played
musical chairs with the Cabinet, with 10 of them constituted and sacked
in eight years, until a new Constitution was adopted in 1959. NC’s
impressive victory was rewarded with a dismissal the following year,
with the Prime Minister jailed, political parties outlawed, and
multiparty democracy replaced by a party-less Panchayat regime that
lasted 30 years.
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.)
