Trauma and hopelessness pervade but people are getting back on their feet after earthquakes. Panic has subsided in Kathmandu. Tents are being replaced by temporary shelters made of corrugated sheets in villages. Policymakers, Planning Commission officials, and even politicians have joined the chorus: This is an opportunity to build new Nepal out of the ruins. Look at Japan, Chile and Indonesia. If they could rebuild, why cannot we? This at times sounds like a vacuous rhetoric but has also inspired faint hope. The danger is this promise and drive to rebuild could fall prey to lack of constitution. Hence the need for resolving contentious issues in any way whatsoever.The earthquake tragedy could indeed be both excuse and opportunity for those who projected federalism as panacea of all ills to be realistic. It is an opportunity for those who do not take federalism and lack thereof as real hindrance to inclusion, equity and governance (this scribe included) to offer convincing arguments not to hold constitution process hostage forever in its name. It is indeed an opportunity for parties like Nepali Congress and CPN-UML who reluctantly accepted federalism (some leaders in these two parties are more opposed to federalism than even Chitra Bahadur KC and Kamal Thapa, it is another thing that gentlemen confide to journalists only during informal conversations).
This is an opportunity for the leaders to find a compromise solution and move ahead. There are a number of reasons, some deceptively simple, why political parties must 'seize the day,' as CA Chairman Subash Chandra Nembang suggested.
Not because, forgive my pessimism, new constitution will change the character of our political class. The greatest tragedy of our time does not seem to have done so, don't expect anything else will. Or that it will herald new age of development and prosperity. But because it will mark an end to the era in which parties point to lack of constitution to justify their failings. It will mark a beginning of new era in modern politics, good or bad.
So, now is the right time to settle contentious issues. Because, vested interests aside, the parties have stood together for the first time after years. They have mobilized their cadres in the most affected districts and assigned them to build temporary shelters for the victims and construct schools and hospitals. This noble work is being appreciated everywhere. Madheshi leaders got united to help pahadi victims. This rare show of camaraderie should drive constitution process as well. This is the right time also because politicians' involvement in rehabilitation works has changed people's perception about them. They will forgive minor failings.
It's not hard to see vested interest guiding each leader talking about constitution and government change. But there are rewards as well. CPN-UML and UCPN (Maoist), who stood poles apart on constitutional issues, have come to the common ground. Whether it is Maoist giving up on federalism or UML capitulating to Maoists, this break in recrimination and insult between two communist parties marks a welcome departure in politics.
Even radical leaders like Upendra Yadav and Rajendra Mahato—who used to issue veiled threats of violent revolt in Tarai if their demand for autonomous Madhesh states is not addressed in toto—have stayed silent. Perhaps tired of pushing agenda reviled by various sectors, or humbled by great tragedy and deaths of fellow Nepalis in the hills and valley, or sensing that they are too weak to have upper hands in the CA, the duo have given indication, for the first time after second CA polls, that whatever opposition alliance leaders Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Bijay Kumar Gachchadhar decide in cross-party negotiation will be acceptable to them. This is a U-turn from their earlier stand. They might tell their constituencies: 'we could not press the agenda now because of national crisis.' But how about federalism?
One must admit that top leaders have often used federalism as a bargaining chip for power. Rumor among political circle is that UML and Maoist party compromised federalism for power sharing. Even so, there are a number of options to settle federal contention.
Parties have no objection to forming a federal commission for demarcating boundaries of provincial states. They have no issue with allowing provincial assemblies to decide the names. They also have an option to form a separate province under central command comprising five disputed districts—Jhapa, Morang, Sunsari, Kailali and Kanchanpur. They are okay with five to seven states. There is no reason they should not agree to above options, their own.
It is clear that parties lack conviction in federalism. As for the people, it was never an issue, it will never become one. Despite this, parties will get to impress on people that they were genuinely committed to federalism and that federalism was their political conviction but they have more pressing issues of recovery and reconstruction at hands.
It has been proven a number of times that nothing is going to change in Nepal without uprooting government unaccountability, rising corruption, entrenched politics-crime-business network and state apathy towards people's livelihood concerns. As regards identity, one cannot agree more to Nigerian federalism expert Dr Hussaini Abdu. He rightly says we cannot achieve anything by treating ethnicity (the symptom). We must cure the real diseases: inequalities and exclusions. If a state works to address these underlying issues, identity becomes secondary.
No disease can be cured by declaring so and so number of federal states with so and so names. This will be possible only when the real poor, the real excluded, the real marginalized and the real deprived benefit. For this, the political class of various persuasions should feel the pain of the excluded and the deprived. So long as they are also part of crime, cartel, business and politics and so long their only aim is profiting from chaos and uncertainty, the real poor will get nothing, federalism or no federalism.
Prevailing mood among top leaders is settling contentious issues without much ado. Good luck with that. They have no other options either. They can keep pushing federalism infinitely and reach nowhere. They can be content with enshrining federalism in the new constitution and let it evolve. Or they can forget federalism for the moment and instead work for making state mechanisms inclusive, public institutions accountable and functional and government deliverable. The first option is the last thing the people want. The third would be the most suitable but politicians do not dare it. They should deliberate the second option.
Make no mistake. For the next one decade at least, political parties won't be judged by how well they mis/managed federalism. They will be judged largely by their capability to rebuild, and work for real poor and marginalized. Failing on this will end their relevance. If they cannot do it now, they will never. Waste no time. Seize the moment.
Twitter: @mahabirpaudyal
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