I argued in my previous article (14-state federal map, Feb 8) that the main opposition to the 14-state federal map comes from the Nepali-speaking upper caste because they stand to lose the most. It was no surprise that the association of Brahmins and Chhetris publicly and vehemently opposed this model.
The 14-state federal map will indeed be the beginning of an irreversible change that will transfer power from the upper caste Nepali-speaking group to the rest of the citizens. I argued in my last article that this loosening of grip is the need of the time for a more politically stable, prosperous and just nation. I would like to make a case on how denying a map close to the 14-state federal map is equivalent to deceiving the electorate.
You may recall that the Maoist party was the only party that had a map showing provincial demarcation before the Constituent Assembly (CA) election. Although both Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN-UML supported federalism, neither of these parties clarified the kind of federalism they wanted. Their leadership disliked the Maoist map privately, but made little fuss before the CA election. Even when they did oppose the Maoists’ proposal, they never offered any clear alternative.
Both these parties never produced a map! What they produced before the CA election was a long laundry list of criteria they would take into consideration before federalizing, which, in essence, meant nothing.
We need to ask ourselves why these champions of democracy never clarified their vision on the most significant change that the CA would bring about.
Based on their internal study, NC and CPN-UML realized that the Maoist map was quite popular, and offering a clear alternative to the Maoist proposal would make them worse off. They lacked confidence to convince the electorate that their version of federalism would serve the country better.
Based on their internal study they realized that the Maoist map was quite popular, and both these parties realized that offering a clear alternative to the Maoist proposal would make them worse off. They never had the confidence to convince the electorate that their version of federalism would serve the country better.
Now that the election is over and we have only a couple of months to write the constitution, how fair is it to form a High-Level Restructuring Committee to significantly alter the proposed map. What does it tell us about our leadership?
The worst kind of leaders are those that don’t have a backbone—those that believe in confusing the electorate rather than clarifying their stance. Sadly, many of our politicians believe in confusing the public rather than clarifying. Our political system rarely produces leaders who speak what they believe, and fight for it; and when they do, such leaders rarely make it to the top.
That both NC and UML went to the CA election without a map to the public is a shame. But what is a greater shame is that these parties are now advocating for a federal structure that they did not have a backbone to take before the people during elections.
If this group of upper caste Nepali-speaking men on whose shoulder the future of this country rests manages to alter the federal map significantly, it will be another successful hoodwinking of the non-Nepali-speaking population. This may turn out to be a genesis of another unrest that could last decades.
The 14-state federal map is not a silver bullet to the country’s problem. Many other changes need to be made for the 14-state federal map to succeed. But the spirit of the 14-state federal map is the right one. Significantly altering the structure of the 14-state federal map and giving insufficient powers will make matters worse, because they fall short of people’s aspirations from the revolutions of the last few years.
What most top-level politicians and their advisors fail to grasp is that Nepalis are a lot more politically aware than decades ago. They have access to a number of newspapers, listen to FM radios and news in their mother tongues, and have access to opinions from various political persuasions. They are more aware of their individual rights than a couple of decades ago. It is going to be very hard to cheat this new generation of Nepali citizens. And the repercussion of doing so could be much swifter and much worse.
It is time that we focus on how to make the 14-state federal map work instead of looking for an alternative.
(Writer is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance at Texas A&M International University in Texas, US.)
680anand@gmail.com
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