If the views aired by UML lawmakers and central committee members during the interaction over the last three days are any indication, the task of developing a coherent official view on the future model is going to be a hard nut to crack for the third-largest party.[break]
The party gathered its lawmakers and central committee members at a training hall at Bode, Bhaktapur for a two-day residential interactive program. It continued at the party´s parliamentary party hall at Singha Durbar on Tuesday. It will continue again after a gap of a couple of days.
During the interaction, Parshuram Meghi Gurung, chief of the party´s Federal State Affairs Department, presented a concept paper on the issue, proposing an eight-province model and a 12-province model for discussion.
Some leaders found the proposal of Gurung, who prepared the models after holding separate discussions in the five development regions, more scientific and objective.
Party leaders said Gurung´s proposal seemed more practical because while adopting two broad bases -- cultural identity and economic viability -- for delineating the provinces, he has defined cultural identity as a combination of beliefs, language, tradition, attire, religion and geographical and historical continuity.
According to the leaders, they plan to finalize Gurung´s proposal after accommodating feedback aired during the interactions and endorse it through the party´s upcoming central committee meeting, with a view to developing a uniform view for the party.
Some leaders however are not very optimistic as lawmakers and central committee members aired their views from the perspectives of the communities they belong to.
"It is natural if a leader representing a downtrodden and suppressed community speaks in favor of that particular population," politburo member Prithivi Subba Gurung, who leads the caucus of lawmakers representing ethnic and indigenous communities, told Republica. "But this time, unlike in the past, even leaders from groups who represent the traditionally ruling classes lobbied in favor of their own communities, which sounded unusual."
According to participants, some leaders indulged in arguments and counterarguments mainly from the perspectives of their own ethnic or cultural groups.
While Subba Gurung, Pasang Sherpa, Rajendra Shrestha, Bir Bahadur Lama and Dal Bahadur Rana put forth their views emphatically in favor of ethnic-based federalism, some others including Krishna Prasad Sapkota and Yogesh Bhattarai stood against. Sapkota and Bhattarai argued that it would be an injustice to deprive the new generation of Brahmins, Chhettri and others of the Aryan race merely on the ground that some from their groups ruled for some time in the past.
"My point is that politics in the name of caste and region simply can´t work in this age and we have to go for principled politics," said Bhattarai. He argued that there was no point declaring the country secular, which was done immediately after the people´s movement of 2005, if the country is to be federated on the basis of ethnicity.
According to Bhattarai, a majority of those who aired their views fervently objected to the idea of giving preferential political rights to one ethnic or indigenous community which is dominant in a province, as recommended by the Constituent Assembly´s thematic committee on state restructuring. They also stood against the concept of right to secede in the name of self-determination.
Lawmaker Krishna Prasad Sapkota said the argument that the Brahmin community always ruled the country was wrong. "History has it that it was the Gopal Dynasty that ruled during the initial age, then it was the Lichchhavi Dynasty, then Kirant, Malla, Rana and then Shah, who ruled the country. When did Brahmins rule the country?" Sapkota asked.
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