There’s a famous saying in the English: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.” But it appears that the ruling coalition comprised of UCPN (Maoist) and Madheshi parties can do precisely that.
The Maoists should be given credit for pushing the demand of CA polls and in its successful execution. On the other hand, they are also mostly to blame for the CA’s dissolution. While the Maoists were demanding CA polls, their affiliated organizations were declaring the formation of states based on ethnic identity, from the streets! Only the CA could have served as a forum for a declaration of federal states. If the Maoists thought they could get federal states by protesting out on the streets, why did they raise the demand for the CA in the first place?
An important issue such as federalism (whether the federal states should be based on identity and/or capability) should have been discussed in depth before being voted by the CA’s Committee on State Restructuring. Also, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, when he was the Prime Minister, didn’t bother with the formation of the State Restructuring Commission as mandated by the Interim Constitution. By the time the commission came into existence during the tenure of PM Bhattarai, it was already too late. The CA was dissolved by Prime Minister Bhattarai half an hour before its term was due to expire. He declared elections for a new CA, while there was no such provision in the Interim Constitution. Wasn’t this also an attempt to fool the people? Bhattarai also knew all along that only as a member of parliament could he remain the country’s PM. But he still insists that he won’t resign until a successor is selected through consensus.
In the three elections held under the 1990 constitution, most Madheshis voted for Nepali Congress, Sadbhavana Party or Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, with a few seats also going to CPN-UML. The extreme left including the Maoist party was conspicuous by its absence. It was only during 2007 elections that the Maoists won a few seats in Madhesh. But this has not stopped the Madhesh-based parties from aligning themselves with the Maoists, even though they have very little in common ideologically.
It has been 15 years since elections for local bodies including VDCs, DDCs and municipalities were held. Three major parties have been ruling the country in collaboration with the new Madheshi outfits since the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in 2005. While at helm, why didn’t they bother to hold local-level elections, which the Interim Constitution clearly provides for? All ruling parties have to own up to this colossal failure.
The Maoists proposed the formation of 14 states, including 12 in the hills based on ethnicity and two in the Tarai based on linguistic identity. In none of the proposed states in the hills do the groups which give their names to federal units constitute an absolute majority of the local population. In some cases, they don’t even form the largest group. The Maoists also proposed to give “priority rights and right of self-determination” to the group after which the federal units were named, which is against democratic norms and values. What can be the rationale for such a demarcation when many groups in the proposed states languish far behind those after whom the states were to be named?
The Maoists played a major role in making Nepal a secular state and abolishing monarchy. But are they justified in replacing a Hindu state by a secular state on one hand and advocating states based on ethnicity on the other? They have willfully ignored the largest ethnic group in the country, the “Khas Aryas” or Bahun, Chhetri, Thakuri and Sanyasi which had given leadership to Nepal’s unification drive. This group never demanded a state where they would form the majority, something along the lines of “Khasan”. The Maoist rhetoric was that high caste Hindus had imposed their language (Nepali) and their religion (Hinduism) on others. This is despite the fact that in the mid-western and far-western hills, the most backward regions in the country, Khas Aryans make up more than half the population.
A nationwide census was held in 2011, whose results are expected by the end of November. The delineation of new constituencies for any future election (be it in 2012 or 2013) would depend on 2011 census results. But the Maoists wanted elections to another CA polls (to held on November 22), even before the results of the 2011 census would be fully known.
The major blame lies with the Maoists. They are the reason we don’t have a constitution; the most important Maoist misstep being PM Bhattarai’s dissolution of CA without any authority to do so. After the President’s call for a consensus government, there can be no way out except through broad political consensus. What we now have is a constitutional coup with Baburam Bhattarai refusing to budge.
Undoubtedly, Nepali Congress, CPN- UML and Madheshi parties are also not without blame for all that has gone wrong in the country in the last six years; and neither are some of our foreign donors and neighbors. What about those who brokered the 12-point accord between the Seven Political Parties and the Maoists, hoping to “mainstream” the rebels, a model which could then perhaps be applied in their own backyard? What about the aid agency which advocates for inclusiveness in Nepal but has failed to do so while recruiting Nepali soldiers in their native army? What about those countries which base their aid policy to Nepal on ILO 169 without approving or ratifying the treaty themselves? In one way or the other, they are all trying to fool the Nepali people.
The authors are former UN staff and Secretary of Nepal chapter of International PEN, and a Supreme Court Advocate respectively
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