The greater the political support for the new constitution, the greater its legitimacy. This is the reason we had consistently urged the major parties—especially the Big Three—to try to take the agitating Madheshi and Tharu forces into confidence. These efforts to reach out to the protestors in the Tarai belt should continue, even as the Constituent Assembly has on Sunday entered the decisive clause-wise voting phase. Some believe now that the Big Three have chosen to push ahead with the final phase of constitution-making, it marks the end of any prospect of taking the disgruntled forces into confidence. We differ. If the two sides keep talking and if there is broad political agreement, the CA process can always be adjusted by a few days, or even a few weeks. But without such agreements there was a risk, the risk that as the security situation in the Tarai belt got worse, the forces that would not like to see a constitution would be emboldened. These are the same forces who have been trying to instigate the protestors and the security agencies into violent acts. It would be dangerous to give them any more space to play—and hence the urgency.Again, ideally, we would have liked the smaller Madheshi parties and Tharus on board. But even if all their demands cannot be adjusted right now, the constitution can always be amended for the purpose. This line of argument is often seen as part of a ploy by the traditional 'hill elites' to once again dupe the marginalized communities. While some hill leaders might indeed entertain this dubious hope, Nepal in 2015 is a vastly different country than it was in 1990. Even within the establishment Nepali Congress and CPN-UML parties, there is now a significant presence of women, Madheshis, Janjatis and Dalits. Their presence mitigates the danger of the genuine aspirations of these communities being hijacked by the ruling elites. Nor will it be easy to silence them in the expanded democratic space. But their anxieties are genuine, which is why, even when we have a constitution, maximum effort has to be made to adjust their genuine grievances in the constitution.
The momentum the constitutional process has finally been able to gain must not be lost. If we can't have a constitution when over 90 percent of the lawmakers are in its favor, we might never have one through the CA mechanism. Past eight years of the Nepali constitutional process have been characterized by bitter political polarization between the 'old' and 'new' forces. Thus the 16-point June agreement between Nepali Congress and CPN-UML—the old parties—and Maoist and MJF (D)—the new forces that entered mainstream politics after the 2006 change—marked a watershed in the constitutional history of Nepal. For the first time, these new and old forces were able to come under the same constitutional umbrella. So we welcome the voting process in the CA, but also expect the Big Three to continue to reach out to disgruntled parties. It is never too late to have them on board.
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