Challenges of Creating an Inclusive Federal Nepal

Rene Wadlow
President and Representative to the UN-Geneva, Association of World Citizens

Deepak Thapa and Alexander Ramsbotham (Eds.)
Two steps forward, one step back: The Nepal peace process
(London: Conciliation Resources, Accord issue 26, 2017, 151 pp.)

This is a comprehensive and valuable analysis of the efforts to create an inclusive and federal political system in Nepal since 2006. Nepal is a multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-cultural and multi-religious country of 26 million people, some 2 million of whom work abroad in India and the Gulf countries.

From February 1996 to November 2006, there was a People’s War largely led by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist). The Maoists of Nepal have denounced the current Chinese government as ‘revisionist’- socialist in name but capitalist in fact. The Maoist identification is taken from an idealized view of Mao Zedong who stressed that backward rural areas should be the base of the revolution. The Chinese government watched what was going on in Nepal during the People’s War since many Maoists were ethnic Tibetans, and the Chinese government fears the spread of influence to neighboring Tibet. Support to the Maoists came from related ‘Naxalite’ groups - popular revolutionary movements in India.

The People’s War led to the breakdown of the education system, the closure of many shops, and the weakening of the agriculture-based subsistence economy which comprises some 90 per cent of the population. The Maoists appealed to the poor, marginalized and vulnerable, trying to put together a coalition of the marginalized in different parts of the country. However, the Maoists faced the same difficulties as other political movements of developing a coherent program for very diverse peoples with different life styles and interests. Moreover, the country has great transportation difficulties, and thus it is difficult to have people meet together except for those living in Kathmandu and a few other cities.

With the end of the People’s War in 2006, there have been attempts to have a Constituent Assembly in order to draw up a new constitution that would be ‘inclusive’ and ‘federal’ in nature. The Government Plan sets out its definition of ‘inclusive’: “Inclusion means to fulfill the physical, emotional and basic needs of all the people, groups or castes. It has to be achieved by respecting their dignity and their own culture and also reducing the disparities between excluded and advantaged groups and by reducing the gap in the existing opportunities and access. In addition to this, it is to help to build a just society by ensuring rightful sharing of power and resources for their active participation as a citizen.”

Some communities have always been marginal to national political life: the Dalits (low caste Hindus and ‘untouchables’), Madhesis (from the southern Taral plains overlapping with India), Janajatis (a general name for indigenous tribes, but in fact each tribe considers itself as separate), Muslims (largely from what is now India and Pakistan), and women from each society. Some 17 groups were mentioned in the 2015 Constitution as deserving special attention. However, the makeup of these groups is contested by some.

In addition to the difficulties of inclusion, there is the challenge of federalism and federal boundary delimitation. There are no clear regional units for political and administrative purposes. Thus federalism remains the most contested post-People’s War political issue. Opinion has been divided between ‘ethnic’ versus ‘non-ethnic’ federalism. Federalism is associated with the devolution of power to the regions, but there is no agreement as to what areas are regions. There are also those, in particular the Army, which want to retain the centralism that existed under the kings. The Accord study has useful maps showing administrative units at different times in recent Nepal history.

In many ways Nepal needs a new, younger generation of leadership, less marked by the 1996-2006 armed conflict and less tied to ethnic and class interests.