March 8, 2008
Kanak Mani Dixit
is a journalist and civil rights activist in Kathmandu and editor of
the Himal Southasian monthly magazine. To read more about Dixit, and to
read my interview with him, CLICK HERE
This article was first published in The Hindu Newspaper: "India and Nepal's Constituent Assembly:The Indian government is duty-bound to prevent the criminal-militant nexus from using Bihar and Uttar Pradesh as a base from which to threaten the Constituent Assembly process in Nepal."
The citizens of
Nepal go in for Constituent Assembly elections on April 10, to put in
place a 601-member House that has the dual responsibility of drafting a
new constitution and serving as Parliament during the interim. The
Constituent Assembly is a necessary condition for the country to
achieve political stability, sustainable peace and a return to
pluralism, nine years after the last general elections. In between, the
population has suffered the Maoist 'people's war', a dirty reaction by
the state, the autocracy of Gyanendra, an unprecedented people's
movement that rejected royal autocracy and Maoist violence, and
heightened identity-based assertions that continue to this day. The
hope is that the Constituent Assembly will define a democratic
constitution that will simultaneously address the many conflicting and
complementary demands of marginalised minorities and, at long last,
provide stable politics as a platform for economic progress.
India
too seeks stability in this country that runs along the northern
frontier of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, and it has done its bit as an
interlocutor in the recent past. Having facilitated the discussions in
New Delhi in the autumn of 2005 that brought the Maoists to an
understanding with the parliamentary parties, New Delhi is now asked,
specifically, to rein in militants who have been engaged in bombings
and targeted killings in Nepal's Tarai plains while taking refuge
across the open border. These militants - most importantly the one
known as the Janatantrik Mukti Morcha-Jwala Singh - hold the ability to
destabilise the country as it goes in for elections.
Meanwhile,
the Indian intelligentsia should be alert to attempts by Hindutva
forces, especially political elements along the borderland, to force
their agenda on the Nepali people. This January, L.K. Advani of the
Bharatiya Janata Party launched a blistering attack on the UPA's Nepal
policy and advocated a Hindu monarchy, while exaggerating links between
Nepal's Maoists and Indian naxalites.
To be sure, there are
more than enough extremist threats to the polls from within Nepal.
Having come to open politics barely two years ago, the Communist Party
of Nepal (Maoist) is capable of widespread intimidation during its
first electoral exercise, to try to stave off humiliation at the ballot
box. The polls could also be destabilised by a welter of violent
newborn groups. Many of these are receiving encouragement, if not
support, from the royalists, who believe (correctly) that the political
parties will use the Constituent Assembly to do away with the monarchy
once and for all.
While the Maoists, militants and
arch-conservatives within Nepal are to be tackled domestically, it is
the responsibility of the Indian authorities to halt the ongoing
activities of the JTMM-JS, which over the past two years have operated
with impunity from Indian towns such as Sitamarhi, Raxaul, Darbhanga
and Gorakhpur. The State governments in Patna and Lucknow must not
allow local politics to wreck Nepal's return to normalcy. It must also
insist that the Madhesi militants lay down arms and talk to Kathmandu,
or at the very least submit to a ceasefire. New Delhi has the clout,
and should put it to good use when so much is at stake.
Madhes rises
The
mass upsurge of the People's Movement of April 2006 sought peace and
pluralism, and mandated the writing of a new constitution to redraw
state-society relations. What is known as the Madhes Movement of last
winter was a spontaneous uprising by the people of Tarai-plains origin
who have long felt excluded amidst the highlander identification of the
nation-state. 'Madhesi' is an amorphous term referring to caste
categories of the eastern Tarai in particular, but the movement
represented a historic demand of plains people for inclusion in the
national mainstream. And indeed, the mass mobilisation of the Madhes
Movement has changed the face of Nepali society, and new political
forces have emerged to take advantage of the space that has opened up.
Prime
Minister Girija Prasad Koirala was unable to countenance the
identity-led nature of the agitation in the Tarai, heretofore a docile
vote bank for his Nepali Congress party. He was therefore slow in
addressing the Madhesi demands, which referred to recognition and
compensation of those killed during the previous year's agitation,
proportional representation in state organs (including the army),
changes in electoral laws to enhance Madhesi participation, and so on.
As the government procrastinated, the demands became more strident and
even unrealistic, including self-determination and the declaration of
the 500-by-20 mile Tarai plains as a single province - 'Ek Madhes, ek
Pradesh'.
Though riding a wave of anti-Kathmandu sentiment
across the Tarai, the most critical weakness of the Madhesi leadership
was perhaps that it tended to represent the eastern-Tarai caste
categories. It would be difficult to maintain the pan-Tarai momentum
for long, because, like the country taken as a whole, the plains too
are divided by language, faith, caste, class, religion, indigenity and
point of origin.
As time went on, it became clear that quite a
few among the Madhesi leadership were seeking consortium with the
royalists of Kathmandu, as well as the Hindutva forces across the
border. Hindu-right organisations in Nepal have a limited base, and for
long drew their influence and power by proximity to the royal palace.
But combine the Indian fundamentalists, sections of Madhesi militants,
royalist politicians and the criminal gangs of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh
acting in loose concert, and you suddenly have quite a vicious brew to
upset the election cart.
At the Narayanhiti royal palace,
Gyanendra seemed energised by the turn of events, which included
strikes across the plains over the month of February and what amounted
to an economic blockade of Kathmandu Valley by the Madhesi activists.
He sent emissaries to meet with Hindutva and BJP stalwarts in India in
a bid to revive the flagging fortunes of the monarchy. For a while, a
couple of weeks ago, it suddenly looked as if the Constituent Assembly
would be held hostage by the BJP-Congress rivalry within India, with
the former all set to loudly proclaim the restoration of the Hindu
monarchy in Nepal as a political plank.
Fortunately, while the
role of other Indian entities and organisations cannot be vouched for,
at this stage the Foreign Ministry in South Block played its card in
favour of a pluralistic, representative evolution in Nepal. By
extending the tenure of Indian Ambassador Shiv Shankar Mukherjee until
after the April elections, the Manmohan Singh government also sent a
message committing its own agenda and standing to the holding of
elections on schedule in Nepal.
The polls having already been
rescheduled twice before, the polity would have been unable to sustain
another postponement, which would in all likelihood have led to a
right-wing, militarist shift in government. With the Koirala government
becoming suddenly flexible in negotiations, the Madhesi leadership
known to favour a poll postponement had no option but to call off the
agitations in the Tarai. By the end of February, all the credible
political forces had been dragged and cajoled into election mode, and
the people of hill and plain alike were finally certain of being able
to exercise their franchise.
Towards April 10
The
sovereign, elected Constituent Assembly is as close to a magic wand as
the Nepali people can hope for. It is certainly one that they deserve,
to deliver them from the extreme instability, political violence and
the democracy deficit of the last decade. The economy is currently at a
standstill, even while the northern and southern neighbours grow at
near double-digit rates. The people of Nepal have not had a whiff of
the so-called peace dividend, nor any post-conflict rehabilitation to
speak of, almost two years after the 'people's war' ended.
For
the 601-member House, the challenges of constitution-writing, as well
as government formation, will be enormous. To begin with, the
legislators must rise above the extreme populism that has gripped
Nepali politics like a malignancy over the last two years, and the
lists of party candidates are not inspiring. Besides, the modalities of
the Constituent Assembly's functioning have not been discussed and there is the possibility of great confusion and anarchy immediately after the elections. That
is clearly an urgent matter to be discussed in the days ahead, but for
the moment the job is to protect the elections from two quarters: those
parties inclined to participate but influence the polls through fear
and intimidation, and those forces within and without who will try to
disrupt the elections through killings, kidnappings and bombings.
Fortunately, we know the potential spoilers. The
Nepali intelligentsia and civil society must keep an eye on the
domestic forces - royalist politicians, militants, criminals as well as
the unruly ranks of the CPN (Maoist) - to prevent an election
derailment. India's opinion-makers can help Nepal in its return to
normalcy by watchdogging the Hindutva-inclined monarchists so that they
have no scope to interfere in the affairs of a neighbour. The Indian
government, meanwhile, is duty-bound to prevent the criminal-militant
nexus from using Bihar and Uttar Pradesh as a base from which to
threaten the Constituent Assembly process. A peaceful, prosperous Nepal
will reverberate in the Ganga plains as well.
