During this whole period, very few experts, political leaders and civil society actors spent any effort in observing and analyzing the history and nature of Nepal´s social composition let alone learning from international experiences on managing diversity in federal systems. The discourses on future federal system were, therefore, dominated by those who interpreted federalism as a means of achieving autonomy and right to self-determination by Nepal´s indigenous ethnic groups. Thus, Nepal´s historic opportunity to explore the measures for restructuring the unitary and centralized state structure was largely wasted during the past two years. Rather than discussing practical solutions to our real problems, we were fighting over ambiguous jargons through the useless clichés that mean many things in general but nothing in specific.
Nepal is not only a unitary country; it is highly centralized, too. The state administration of Nepal is still largely dominated by the hill Hindu high-caste males who continue to secure their leadership position in almost all spheres of political, economic and cultural life. The domination of a certain group in the state structure, which exists from the beginning of Nepal as a modern state, has caused systematic marginalization of all other groups such as Madhesis, non-Hindus, ethnic and indigenous communities, low castes, and women. In addition, the unbalanced and parochial approach for economic development adopted by the former rulers has created poverty and deprivation in Nepal´s Far-Western region. The historically structured economic and political inequalities have been exacerbated by the attitude of the past rulers who denied linguistic and cultural rights or recognition to Nepal´s indigenous groups. Our major challenge to institutionalizing democracy and promoting economic development, therefore, comes from the nature of our traditional state structure, which was/is inherently biased in favor of a particular community or a group.
In the case of Nepal, the demand for federalism and the political consensus in favor of this system comes from the realization that federalism provides opportunities to mange diversity existing within a country. Countries that adopted federalism in post-conflict situations have designed their federal structure and political institutions focusing primarily on the objective of managing diversity. In most of the federal democracies, the rights of indigenous minorities, marginalized communities and linguistic groups are constitutionally guaranteed. As an effort to manage diversity, the constitutions of most of the federal countries ensure political representation and cultural, linguistic and religious rights of the ethnic/indigenous communities in such a way that these rights enable them to participate in political decision-making process at various levels of government. In brief, federal system provides plenty of opportunities to create mechanisms for social and political inclusion based on the principles of equality and democratic rights.
However, the argument that the only way to transform the centralized Nepali state into federalism is to draw provincial boundaries along vague and contested ethnic settlements is seriously flawed. South Africa very cleverly and successfully got rid of this risk during its constitution-making process and even does not define the country as federal. In the recent constitutional reform process, Kenya decided to do away with both federalism and the idea of drawing sub-national boundaries along ethnic lines, and re-designed the state structure with 47 county governments. Nigeria is still battling with the past legacies of ethnicity-based state structure, which has given rise to protracted conflicts between ethnic groups. If we choose to ignore these evident experiences of other federal countries, we will be inviting unwanted ethnic conflicts in Nepal, which will take decades to resolve.
The nature of ethnicity-based debates in regard to Nepal´s future federal system is such that the evident fact that Nepal is a country of minorities with no territorial ethnic concentration is easily ignored. Creation of autonomous ethnic states without considering the pattern of distribution of natural resources is considered justified. The challenge of establishing the required infrastructure for provincial capitals is underestimated. The possible future conflict that may result from the resentment of minorities within an ´ethnic autonomous province´ is hardly discussed and considered. The fact that securing right of representation exclusively to the members of a particular ethnic group is against the fundamental principle of representative democracy and directly interferes with the rights of other groups living in the concerned province is considered as an excuse to deprive ethnic groups from their rights. The fact that the term right to self-determination is a misnomer and it only refers to the right of the whole population of a country is systematically shrouded by occult interpretations. The ethnicity-based debates center on the issues of protection of minorities and positive discriminations that require additional measures.
Time has come for us to stand up against these dogmas. Our objective of restructuring the centralized state structure should not be guided by hollow emotionalism. The future federal structure can be sustainable only when we consider the rights of ethnic and indigenous groups along with their social, political and economic rights. Dealing with ethnicity purely as a cultural category is not going to solve the problems of Nepal´s ethnic minorities who suffer from political and economic deprivation. The task of eliminating the sources of political and economic deprivation includes designing measures, which can ensure authentic participation of all indigenous ethnic groups and minorities in decision-making processes. Establishment of provinces only for certain ethnic groups is a measure that is potentially dangerous for the future of Nepal as a federal democracy.
sanjeev.pokharel@gmail.com
Related story
Book review: Analyzing political economy of federalism in Nepal
_20230205122050.jpg)
