Some of them argued that it would be wrong to federalize Nepal along ethnic lines given the dynamic nature of ethnic identity. Others -- mainly academics from the ethnic communities -- contended that the country must opt for such a federation to avoid separatism and violent conflicts in the future.[break]
“Because ethnicity is a social and historical product, there is no fixity or permanence to it. Ethnicity is also a fluid, in-the-making, human endeavor,” stated Dr Chaitanya Mishra from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Tribhuvan University in his paper entitled "Ethnic Upsurge in Nepal: Implication for Federalization".
Mishra argued that an ethnic-based federation is likely to lead to a host of negative consequences including civil strife, long-drawn-out disputes and even violence.
But academics including Krisha Bahadur Bhattachan and Mahendra Lawati countered the argument and pointed out the need for federalizing Nepal along ethnic lines.
“Avoiding ethnic federalism may invite violent conflict in Nepal,” argued Lawati who is associate professor at Western Michigan University in the USA. He threw his weight behind the 14-province ethnic-based federalism endorsed by the CA committee on state restructuring. He argued that it is wrong to say that ethnic-based federation marginalizes other communities in a particular federal unit.
Foreign scholars who have done extensive research on Nepal, on the other hand, stated that ethnicity is not a stable identity and sees massive changes with the passage of time.
“Ethnicity is not a thing, it is something we create, and it is something we perform. But it is not unreal,” said Professor David Gellener from England.
He said that settling the issues of the preferential rights, as demanded by the ethnic communities, is a very difficult one.
Gellener, who is an expert on Nepal, stated that the issues of the Dalits and other backward sections of society have been overshadowed by the discourse on ethnic federalism.
He pointed out the need for accommodating the issues of the minorities, but he declined to prescribe a particular federal model for Nepal.
The foreign scholars did not explicitly say that ethnic federalism is not workable in Nepal, but they argued that implementation of such a federalism is problematic and pushes other vital issues including the causes of the poor, women and women into the background.
Similarly, Professor James F Fisher, an expert on Nepal from the US, also argued that the conventional understanding of ethnicity as consisting of clear-cut, bounded, easily identifiable cultural groups is grounded on fundamental error.
He gave examples of the Tharus who share no symbolic and structural sets, Thakalis who are undergoing internal contesting of their own culture, Sherpas who are divided among Khumbu, Helemby and Sherpaized Tamangs, and Magars divided mainly into Kham and Kaike.
“Constructions of ethnicity can be simultaneously new and retrogressive (reestablishing categories along primordial lines from the time of Prithvi Narayan Shah), as traditional, flexible, permeable, malleable and fluid ethnicity is being replaced by rigid, stable, static, and solidified reifications of it,” he argued.
Related story
Govt urged to recruit employees on the basis of ethnicity to im...
_20230205122050.jpg)
-1200x560-1779450784.webp)
