Tag: Madhesi

Modi’s Neighbourhood Policy: Chronicling Four Wasted Years

Instead of soundly running foreign policy through sober, institutionalised mechanisms, it is the misuse of foreign affairs to build a personality cult that has been at the root of the Modi Diplomatic Disaster in South Asia.

On May 26, 2014, while the media applauded and Indian, South Asian and world opinion welcomed Narendra Modi’s innovative move to invite heads of state/government from all South Asian governments to the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhavan to witness his coronation – sorry, his taking the oath as the next prime minister of India – I was perhaps alone in being frankly appalled.

For it seemed such an imitation of the Delhi Durbar summoned in 1911 by the Laat Sahib, Viceroy Lord Hardinge of Penhurst, to pay obeisance to George V, King-Emperor of India. It was perhaps at that moment that I first realised that Modi was not so much a PM but an EM – a master events manager who could hoodwink the brightest and the best to think this invitation represented policy when all it amounted to was chutzpah and glitz.

Yet, instead of feeling insulted, it seems this bevy of South Asian leaders were so thrilled to be invited that they were ready to sit out the function in the blistering May heat because they thought Modi represented a new beginning in India’s relationship with her immediate neighbours.

Pakistan

The first to be conned was Nawaz Sharif, the then prime minister of Pakistan.

Modi began his odyssey of serial hugging by first grabbing Nawaz Sharif to his ’56-inch chest’ while simultaneously assuring him that the stalled India-Pakistan dialogue would receive a mighty impetus in the new golden age of South Asian cooperation that was dawning.

For his part, Nawaz Sharif so enthusiastically welcomed the initiative that he forgot to put the standard clichés about Kashmir into the text of the joint statement. And although he drew some flak at home for this lapse, the overall sentiment in Pakistan was that Modi was the best thing that had happened to them since at least Morarji Desai.

I was intrigued at this enthusiastic welcome for a hardcore Sanghi, and so availed of a visit to Pakistan a fortnight later to check on what made them so euphoric about the change of regime in India. I traced it to what one might call the Nixon syndrome. Intelligent, well-informed Pakistanis, including former foreign minister Khurshid Kasuri, patiently explained to me that even as it took a hardcore right-wing Nixon, who had made anti-China ranting his political stock-in-trade, and was, therefore, able to “sell” to his core political base his sudden and startling outreach to Mao Tse Tung, so would a tough RSS-type like Modi do far better than his predecessors in making a deal with Pakistan that would stick.

I tried to say that any forward movement with Pakistan would undercut and undermine the anti-Muslim fuel on which the Sangh parivar’s engine runs, but my Pakistani friends brushed the point aside. Modi, the Deliverer, had, they believed, arrived!   

It was announced that the India-Pakistan composite dialogue (by whatever name called) would be resumed with an initial meeting between the foreign secretaries of India and Pakistan in the third week of August 2014. My Pakistani friends appeared to be winning the argument.  It seemed that out of prejudice against Modi and the BJP, I had misread the situation.

Then, on August 8, an innocuous item appeared in the papers, tucked away deep in an inside page, that, in the preparation for the resumed dialogue, the Pakistan High Commissioner, Abdul Basit, would be meeting at Pakistan House, New Delhi, with a delegation of Hurriyat leaders. This, by then, had become so routine that not even Arnab Goswami had his nightly dose of apoplexy. A decade earlier, the first BJP premier, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, had given the green signal for meetings between the Hurriyat and Pakistani notables in New Delhi after it had been explained to him, and he had agreed, that the credibility of Pakistan maintaining dialogue with Delhi rested on giving the Pakistan public at least the appearance that its representatives were keeping the Hurriyat in the loop.

Pakistan’s High Commissioner to India Abdul Basit. Credit: PTI

High Commissioner Basit had scheduled the get-together on August 18, that is, the eve of the Indian foreign secretary’s departure for Islamabad. Suddenly, foreign secretary Sujata Singh received instructions from up high to summon the Pakistan HC and tell him in no uncertain terms that if he went ahead with meeting the Hurriyat she would not be taking off for Islamabad. And with that, the unconsummated honeymoon ended. As whimsically as the process had begun in May 2014, equally whimsically it was terminated less than a 100 days later.

And the whimsicality continued at the Kathmandu SAARC summit in November 2014. In an act of calculated discourtesy, Modi ostentatiously held a magazine in front of his face as Nawaz Sharif passed by him to go to the podium to address the meeting. Then, as Barkha Datt discovered, he had a secret tryst with Sharif in a hotel room arranged by Sharif’s business partner, Sajjan Jindal.

The personalisation of foreign policy had begun, ending the well-established institutionalised practice of trained diplomatic experts carefully preparing the ground before the last leg of the trek to the summit begins. This personalisation has proved the bane of four years of foreign and neighbourhood policy under Modi. The external affairs minister, the hapless Sushma Swaraj, has been marginalised as never before, while the nuts and bolts of everyday diplomacy have been outsourced to a retired spook, with the Foreign Secretary reduced to acting as the policeman’s handmaiden.

There followed the Ufa summit in the Russian Federation the following year. With no preparatory arrangements made whatsoever, Modi had his next meeting with Sharif. Triumphantly, Modi and his coterie flaunted a joint communiqué that announced a visit to New Delhi by Pakistan’s National Security Adviser and de facto foreign minister, Sartaj Aziz, the very next month – August 2015 – to kickstart a resumption of the India-Pakistan dialogue.

PM Narendra Modi with Pakistan PM Nawaz Sharif in Ufa, Russia. Credit: PTI

Disruption followed almost immediately because Team Modi started publicly claiming that this was an unprecedented Modi victory because only terrorism would be on the agenda, not Kashmir. Inevitably, a huge row broke out in Pakistan, leading, as day to the night, to Sartaj calling off the visit. Flop Number Two.

Modi then sat briefly on a sofa with Sharif at the Paris Climate Change conference. There followed a flurry of activity. The two NSAs met in Bangkok and hastily put together a road-map. Sushma Swaraj was briefly resurrected to fetch up in Islamabad for the Heart of Asia conference and mutter a few sweet nothings.

Suddenly, a few days later, as Modi flew out of Kabul on Christmas Day, it was announced that his flight was not heading to Delhi but landing at Lahore – another personal triumph for ’56 inches’ of diplomacy.  The sheer drama of it had our ever-triviality obsessed media falling over themselves. What a Great Man this Modi, spontaneously dropping in on his great chum Sharif to wish him on the birthday he shares with Jesus Christ and giving his blessings to Sharif’s grand-daughter on the eve of holy matrimony. Again, no prior preparation, just personalised stuntsmanship masquerading as statesmanship.

In consequence, within a week, a helpful police official gave a lift to a bunch of Pakistani terrorists searching for the way to the hopelessly insecure air force station at Pathankot. A horrified India awoke on New Year’s Day to the news of yet another Pakistani terrorist attack – this time on a highly sensitive military complex.

Soldiers on the top of a building at the Indian air force base in Pathankot , a day after the end of military operations against militants in Pathankot. Credit: PTI

Either the Sharif government was complicit – in which case advance intelligence inputs should have been obtained, and discreet diplomatic soundings made, before precipitately bursting in on the Sharif household. Or the Pak government was not complicit, in which case breaking the dialogue before it had begun was a self-goal that left India-Pakistan relations hostage to any nut-case Pakistani seeking 72 houries in the next world by slipping across the border and rubbing out a couple of kafirs. Of course, the third possibility was that the Nawaz Sharif government was just not in control, in which case why drop in on a clueless Prime Minister?   

Instead of soundly running foreign policy through sober, institutionalised mechanisms, it is the misuse of foreign affairs to build a personality cult that has been at the root of the Modi Diplomatic Disaster in South Asia. Nothing has been achieved because the ground has never been carefully prepared. A sudden summit is fine to start a process. But what should follow is a carefully crafted process of discreet preparation that quietly settles most issues, leaving, by mutual agreement, one or two points open for the two heads of state/government to resolve when they meet – of course, to wild applause from their countrymen and women.

But as Modi wants all the credit for himself, he remains a general with no foot soldiers, and so comes a cropper each and every time he makes a dramatic gesture in the name of diplomatic innovation. He is unable to see foreign policy beyond the photo-op.

The next major development in India’s tortured relations with Pakistan came in the wake of Uri with Modi’s “surgical strike”. It was reported that terrorist “launch pads” in Pakistan had been taken out. (Launch pads? Surely launch pads are for ballistic missiles? Since when have abandoned Bakarwal huts been elevated to “launch pads”?) And with what results?

Modi recently claimed that the strikes so scared the Pakistanis they wouldn’t even come on the phone line to talk to us! But if the surgical strikes did scare the daylights out of the Pakistanis, then would the PM kindly explain why ever since more Indian civilians have been killed in cross-border firing and more jawans martyred in the last two years than in the entire decade of Dr Manmohan Singh’s government? Why has there been more cross-border infiltration? Why more terrorist incursions? Simply because the surgical strikes, however dramatic at that moment, seem to have deterred nothing since. They have only aggravated Pakistan’s disproportionate retaliation.

We are no nearer the resolution of any issue with Pakistan than we were on 26 May 2014. It is only once the government changes, hopefully after the next Lok Sabha elections, that responsible diplomacy might have a chance.

Nepal

The next target for Modi’s ministrations was Nepal. He landed in Kathmandu a few weeks after the swearing-in ceremony in the forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan.

What a reception he was accorded! All along the road, everywhere he went, the cutest children in the world – who are undoubtedly the children of Nepal – were lined up waving Indian and Nepali flags: “It was roses, roses all the way/With myrtle mixed in his path like mad” (Robert Browning). Modi and his team, continuing his election campaign even after becoming PM, repeatedly underlined that Modi had arrived in Nepal within weeks of becoming PM whereas his predecessor had not visited Nepal even once during his decade-long tenure.

What was not mentioned was that through the period of Dr Singh’s term, Nepal had not been able to stitch together a constitution and, given what appeared to be a virtual three-way ethnic divide between the dominant Khas-Arya, the Adibasi-janajati and the Madhesi-Tharu, overlaid (at least in the Indian perception) by issues between the Paharis and the plainspeople of the Terai, it would have been highly imprudent for an Indian PM to be seen or portrayed as taking sides in the ever-shifting sands of the country’s fractious politics that had seen nine PMs come and go in as many years.

Modi, on the other hand, had every intention of meddling in Nepal’s internal affairs, as was shortly to be revealed – and that too with the naked aim of influencing the then upcoming state assembly elections in Bihar, a state that that celebrates its roti-beti relations with the plains region of Nepal, the Terai. For it was known to all and sundry that Modi would be undertaking a second visit to Kathmandu just a few months later – in November 2014 – for the SAARC summit. So, having beguiled the Nepalese with his goodwill blitzkrieg on his first visit, he then asked to make his second visit in November by road, going first to Janakpur, the birthplace of Sita, and also taking in the Muktinath temple in the vicinity of Mustang before finally reaching the Nepalese capital for the SAARC summit.

Modi speaks to the media as Nepal PM K.P. Sharma Oli stands next to him during his visit at Janaki Mandir in Janakpur in May 2018. Credit: Reuters

At first, the Nepalese government played along, but as further demands began pouring in, first to hold a public rally in Janakpur, followed by the distribution of ten thousand bicycles to Nepali girl students, many of whose parents would shortly be seeking bridegrooms in Bihar, the Nepalese awoke to the horror of being used as cats-paws in an Indian state election. They turned down Jankapur, they turned down Mustang, and they turned down the proposed road journey that would have been trailed by truck-loads of BJP followers pouring into the Terai, and asked Modi to land directly in Kathmandu like all other South Asian leaders coming for the Summit.  

In November the following year (2015), he got the opportunity he was seeking to avenge himself. After nine years of internecine wrangling among parties and factions, that saw prime ministers and governments come and go through the revolving door of Nepal politics, the Nepalese Constituent Assembly suddenly closed ranks and, by an overwhelming majority, adopted a constitution. A vast majority of the Madhesi representatives voted for the motion, especially as they were assured that the incoming Parliament would continue to function as a constituent assembly for any amendments any member might wish to bring for the consideration of the House. 

Nevertheless, Modi, furious that he had been thwarted, sought to prevent the constitution, as adopted, from being proclaimed. He even had the temerity to send his favourite foreign secretary, relabelled as the PM’s “special envoy”, to bully the Nepalese legislature and government into postponing the proclamation of the Constitution till Modi’s desires had been fulfilled. It was a most egregious example of gross interference in the internal affairs of another independent state.

Little wonder, the Nepalese were astounded, then shocked, then appalled at his blatant violation of their sovereignty. How would we have reacted to, say, Mountbatten fetching up in Delhi on January 24, 1950, to order us to not go ahead with proclaiming our constitution two days later? Given the special envoy’s manner, bearing and message, one Nepal newspaper compared him to Lord Curzon!

Modi’s outrageous demand was rejected – and the Nepalese went ahead and ceremonially proclaimed their hard-fought Constitution, as scheduled.

Team Modi retaliated almost instantly. They both encouraged and were complicit in a vicious months-long blockade of land-locked Nepal that disrupted supplies of even essential food items and medicines, as also of petroleum products, adding immeasurably to the misery of the ordinary people of Nepal who were still recovering from the trauma of the earthquake that had devastated their country a few weeks earlier.

Modi seemed not to realise that in his Nepalese counterpart, K.P. Sharma Oli, hardened by 14 continuous years in prison from 1973 to 1987, he had more than met his match. Oli responded by ratcheting up Nepal’s relationship with China, signing ten agreements with Beijing, including a trade and transit agreement that ended India’s monopoly control over Nepal’s external communications, and opening the way to a railway that would connect China with Nepal through Tibet. Oli then went on to conciliate his Nepalese communist rivals and consolidate his long-standing relations with the people of the plains.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his Nepalese counterpart K.P. Oli. Credit: PTI

While other parties squabbled and bickered over petty issues, Oli single-mindedly worked towards victory in the three tiers of election promised by the constitution in sequence at the local, provincial and federal level – this despite being ousted from the premiership in a political coup in which several Nepalese commentators suspected an Indian hand.

At each of the three levels, Oli triumphed, with the plainspeople in all but Province no.2 widely supporting him. Thus he emerged as the undisputed leader of Nepal, uniting the communists into a single political entity and hence assured of retaining his office for at least another five years.

Modi has had to bow to the inevitable. He has visited Nepal to “reset” India-Nepal relations, relations that needed resetting only because he had so thoroughly wrecked them in the first place. The mood in Nepal was succinctly summed up in a placard that said, “Welcome, Modi, but we haven’t forgotten the blockade”.

Bangladesh

With Bangladesh, the summum bonum of the relationship is Modi doing no more than signing an agreement earlier negotiated by previous governments, on the demarcation of the land boundary, including the hotly contested Teen Bigha enclaves. The far more important Teesta river issues continue to fester.

But the worst negative development is the amendment to the Citizenship Act the Modi government is attempting to push through to fulfill Modi’s wholly communal promise to allow non-Muslim Bangladesh-origin immigrants to secure entitlement to Indian citizenship while placing severe discriminatory restrictions on Bangladeshi Muslims, especially as this is bound to rebound on wholly legitimate Assam-born and Assam-resident Muslims, whose share in the state’s population is the second-largest (after J&K) of any state of the Union.

The move has not only severely divided the Barak valley of Assam from the Brahmaputra valley, political temperatures in the Brahmaputra valley have soared to the point that a repetition of the horrors that preceded Rajiv Gandhi’s Assam accord of 1985 appears to be on the cards. Even the BJP CM of Assam is openly distressed. Bangladesh, of course, is seething. Unless this wholly unwise move is stoppered, India-Bangladesh relations are sure to plummet.

Moreover, the wholly Hasina-centric and Khaleda-phobic bias in our Bangladesh policy has not been even marginally reset, entailing the danger of an unraveling of India-Bangladesh relations if regime change were to occur – an ever-present possibility in a democracy (and even worse were there to be a coup).

Bhutan

Doklam has signalled the inflexion point in our relations with Bhutan, the first South Asian country Modi visited with much hype and fanfare. While Modi’s musclemen skewed up the tension, our professional diplomats were mercifully left to their devices to defuse the situation. Wuhan represented Modi’s acceptance of the inevitable. The Chinese are now at Doklam to stay. But in the meanwhile, we have given Bhutan such a fright that India-Bhutan relations have, perhaps forever, lost the even tenor that has characterised our relations with this key neighbour since Independence.

Satellite map of Chumbi Valley, Doklam region. Credit: Scribble Maps

Satellite map of Chumbi Valley, Doklam region. Credit: Scribble Maps

Bhutan, especially after Modi’s bumblings, is itching to free itself of its abject dependence on India, especially in matters of international relations. As a bright young new generation Bhutanese commentator, Tenzing Lamsang, has remarked, Bhutan’s existential dilemma is that it has to “avoid both the fire from the Dragon and the Elephant tusks in our soft underbelly”!

More disturbingly, our economic relations with Bhutan are also fraught with raging, if muted, argument over hydroelectric projects, their management and their pricing.

In 2008, Dr Manmohan Singh, on what the Bhutan press hailed as a “historic visit” to Bhutan, won all hearts by dramatically doubling the promise to Bhutan of “5000 MW by 2020” to “10,000 MW by 2020”. The impact of this doubling may be measured by recalling that the current Chukka (1800 MW) and Tala (1400 MW) projects are generating 60 percent of Bhutan’s government revenues and about a quarter of the country’s GDP. Ten thousand MW more of hydropower would take Bhutan into the South-east Asia league!

While work was initiated on ten identified hydropower projects to give teeth to Dr Singh’s promise, under Modi so many unilateral reservations and conditions have been sought to be imposed on Bhutan that, effectively, the “10,000 MW by 2020” pledge has been whittled down to “6467 MW by 2022”.  It hasn’t helped either that Piyush Goyal and his successors in India’s power ministry have been proclaiming India’s imminent self-sufficiency in power. What then, ask the bewildered Bhutanese, will we do with our only real development resource, the electricity we generate from our rivers?

Such shameful backtracking has been brought about by Modi’s India switching the funding pattern from 60% grant and 40% loan on easy terms to 30% grant and 70% loans at augmented rates of interest; insisting on four of the projects (Chamkarchhu, Khorongchhu, Wangchhu and Bonakaha, planned to generate 2120 MW) from being Bhutan-owned enterprises (as in the previous case of Chukka and Tala) and becoming instead joint ventures with Indian PSUs holding 51% of the stake and securing “more managerial control”. There is thus a deadlock on terms of financing.

Also, where the 2006 protocol to the inter-governmental agreement on the massive Sunkosh (2560 MW) and Kuri Gongri (2640 MW) projects solemnly and unambiguously categorised these as “inter-governmental projects”, Modi’s cohort has been demanding that the these two key projects (that are not run-of-the-river but reservoir projects and, therefore, a guarantee of year-round electricity supply) be put in the category of India-dominated joint ventures.

To add insult to injury, disquiet in Bhutan reached fever pitch when the Modi government, without consulting Bhutan, issued on December 5, 2016, its Guidelines for Cross-Border Trade in Electricity (CBTE). The guidelines

– curtail the types of investment permitted in hydropower projects in Bhutan if the output were to be sold in India (the main export market for a country whose major hope for development is hydropower; it also effectively debars Bhutan’s sovereign Druk Holding and Investments from investing without a majority-holding Indian partner in their own hydropower sector, while closing the Indian market to Bhutan’s own Punatsangchhu I&II power);

– insist that Bhutan keeps its tariff at the lower end (India buys Chukka and Tala power at about a sixth of the price it charges Indian consumers!); and

– restrict Bhutan’s entry into the Indian energy trading market to secure higher prices for its electricity (to forestall any further development of Bhutan’s initial success in competing in the Indian energy market for118 MW Nikachhu electricity)

Bhutan hydropower potential could change around its position in South-Asian economics. Credit: Radio Free Barton/Flickr, CC BY-SA

Little wonder then that the gentle and ever-courteous prime minister of Bhutan found himself obliged to mildly protest that Modi’s Guidelines “essentially restrict” Bhutan’s options for the development of its hydropower potential “and give the Indian government a strong say over Bhutan’s hydropower future”.

Does this not sound like Dadabhai Naoroji denouncing colonial economic policy in the House of Commons circa 1890?

Of course, an alternative (if smaller) market for Bhutan’s electricity is Bangladesh, a nation whose development needs make it so desperate for power that, under the overall aegis of the SAARC Framework Agreement for Energy Cooperation, Bangladesh offered to fund the 1125 MW Dorjilung power project and buy the entire output to be transmitted to Bangladesh through India. Modi put his foot down on such trilateral cooperation. So much for friendship with neighbours!

Under Modi, we leaned on Bhutan to sign the South Asia Motor Vehicles Agreement even after the Bhutanese Parliament had rejected it. The retaliation came when Bhutan refused to sign up on the Bhutan-Bangladesh-India-Nepal connectivity accord that the Modi government was determinedly promoting.

Unless we shed all machismos and start treating Bhutan as a fully sovereign, independent country, we run the risk of Bhutan going the Nepal way.

Sri Lanka

Despite having tried to acquire a high profile in Sri Lankan affairs with a view to contributing to a resolution of the island’s deep ethnic divide between Tamils and Sinhalas that spills over to Tamil Nadu, India remains a sidelined player. This, of course, is largely owing to  the Modi government’s total inability to win the confidence of any section of the Sri Lankan polity. Indeed, as a perceptive observer of the Sri Lankan scene, has remarked, “every stakeholder in Sri Lanka looks at India with suspicion, both behind and beyond our shoulders”.

It is a measure of the hollowness of the claims initially made that, as the new face of India, Modi was going to prove the prime mover and shaker of Sri Lankan affairs, that India has been rendered redundant in the heroic long-term effort made by the Maithripala-Ranil government, under the umbrella of its National Policy for Reconciliation, and principally through the Office of National Unity and Reconciliation headed by former president Chandrika B. Kumaratunga, “to change the hearts, minds and attitudes of people of all communities, beginning with school children, University students and adults”, as also innovative initiatives like “Women for Reconciliation” to help war widows in the Tamil areas of the North and East, and Sinhala military widows in the south of the island.

Additional assistance to the Sri Lankan Tamil population has, of course, been announced by Narendra Modi on his visit to the North and East, but that does not amount to even icing on the cake. Merely popping up in exotic locations not visited by earlier Indian PMs does not amount to foreign policy.

The Chinese, meanwhile, have moved into Hambantota and not all the “Quads” in the world are going to displace them. The Indian Ocean is no longer our domestic lake. Perhaps it never was.

Maldives

And that assessment is reinforced by the happenings in the Maldives. We have a government there that dislikes India quite as much as it loves the Chinese. Modi stands hapless before this “factuity”. Where once India’s Rajiv Gandhi was begged to come to the armed rescue of a besieged Maldivian government by the president himself (and acted with alacrity to save democracy from a military takeover even though he was in far-away Harare at the time), India under Modi counts for zilch at the very cross-roads of the Indian Ocean. China has arrived and the same Modi’s India that aspires to “Great Power” status in the world cannot make even a blade of grass move in its own backyard.

Ever since President Mohammed ‘Anni’ Nasheed was ousted in 2012, India has been in a dilemma as to whether to deal with the ground reality in the Maldives or continue searching in the sky for a rainbow to appear. The 2018 presidential election approaches and, barring a miracle, the Yameen regime will continue, especially since every possible contender is either barred from standing or locked behind bars. India’s preferred Maldivian, ex-president Nasheed, continues to seek asylum in the United Kingdom, and his Maldives Democratic Party therefore continues to stagnate in the doldrums. 

Prime Minister with President of Maldives, Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, in New Delhi. Credit: Ministry of External Affairs.

Prime Minister with President of Maldives, Abdulla Yameen Abdul Gayoom, in New Delhi. Credit: Ministry of External Affairs.

Also, although the Commonwealth and the US have made threatening noises about democracy being murdered in the Maldives, [resident Yameen has simply walked out of the Commonwealth and cocked his snook at the US.

As N. Sathiya Moorthy, the ardent observer of the Maldives scene has remarked in an article in the South Asia Journal, Maldives has “once again reiterated even in its very own context the limitations of international diplomacy and big power politics to control and conduct events and developments in smaller/tiny nations than had been possible in an earlier era”. If that is the reality that the Western powers are having to swallow, can Modi’s India do better? Hardly – for sovereignty cannot be encroached upon except in extremis.

To protest the overthrow of democracy in the Maldives, Modi dropped his intention of including the Maldives in his South Asian neighbours tour programme. It was an empty gesture. The playing out of domestic politics in Maldives in the last four years has so marginalised India that it is difficult to say whether it is we who are isolating the Maldives or the Maldives who are isolating us!

It thus becomes imperative to answer Sathiya Moorthy’s burning question: has India under Modi “overdone its ‘pro-democracy’ position on Maldives to the point of making it look anti-Yameen and pro-Nasheed even more?” Until India objectively assesses its real capacity to influence political developments in the Maldives (at present, near zero), we will continue to lose influence and every step backwards by India will be matched by two steps forward by China.

SAARC

SAARC, and hence South Asian cooperation, have suffered continuously under Modi’s watch. He won a Pyrrhic victory by sabotaging the Islamabad summit but everyone else wants the summit to be held – and that too in Islamabad, not elsewhere – so what the point Modi was trying to make remains obscure.

The forecourt of Rashtrapati Bhawan witnessed on 26 May 2014 a grand spectacle. The spectacle has proved empty of content. The only hope of South Asian solidarity lies in a change of government a year from now. Till then, one can only pray that things will not go from bad to even worse.

Mani Shankar Aiyar is a member of the Congress party and a former MP and minister in the erstwhile UPA government (currently under suspension).

The Real Reason Behind PM Modi’s Trip to Nepal This Week

Barely a month after Nepal prime minister K.P. Oli made a three-day visit to India, Modi is set to make a reciprocal visit on May 11 and 12 to take stock of pending India-Nepal initiatives and visit two temples.

New Delhi: Within a month after Prime Minister K.P. Oli’s visit to Delhi, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Nepal for a reciprocal two-day visit on May 11. The prime minister is scheduled to take stock of pending India-Nepal initiatives and visit two religious sites.

Oli had chosen India for his first foreign visit in his second term in early April.

The prime minister will leave by helicopter for the Nepali city of Janakpur on May 11 morning. While the details are still being worked out, if the PM leaves from Patna, the journey would be a two-hour chopper journey.

The Nepalese prime minister will also be in Janakpur to receive Modi at the Janaki temple. After that, the two prime ministers will launch a bus services to Ayodhya and the Ramayana tourism circuit project before attending a civic reception.

In the forenoon, Modi will travel to Kathmandu where he will get a ceremonial reception. He will be meeting the Nepali leadership, including former Nepali prime ministers Sher Bahadur Deuba and Pushpa Kamal Dahal. The two major Madhesi parties, who have now formed the government in province 2, have also been given time to meet Modi.

On May 12, he will travel to Muktinath for a visit to a temple. Nepali authorities have already banned trekking and flights along the popular Thorong La pass to address security concerns. He will return to Kathmandu for a civic reception, before returning to Delhi.

According to sources, the quick reciprocal visit by the Indian PM is the result of PM Oli’s insistence. “When PM Modi had spoken to Oli to congratulate him on becoming PM, the latter had urged him to make an early return visit. The prime minister’s willingness to make this visit so soon shows a certain comfort level with the Nepali leadership and his keen interest to build trust,” the source said.

The emphasis on “trust” is a result of Oli’s antagonism towards India for allegedly being behind the 2015 ‘blockade’ and keeping the Madhesi agitation simmering. India had also been suspicious of Oli leaning towards China, with talks of opening the border and transport links across the Tibetan plateau into Nepal.

Modi’s trip to Nepal this week would be the first time that he has travelled thrice to a South Asian country.

Sources say that the main purpose of the visit is to build on Oli’s visit – “principally to carry forward the new initiatives and implement pending proposals”.

With a stable government in Kathmandu, India is hoping that the implementation of many development projects which were stuck due to issues from the Nepali side like land acquisition and forest clearances will be accelerated.

“Our hope is that we will receive greater coordination and cooperation from their end,” said sources.

The two prime ministers will jointly inaugurate the 900 megawatt Arun-3 hydropower project, which costs around Rs 5,800 crore.

During Oli’s visit, one of the new initiatives was an agreement on the use of inland waterways, so that land-locked Nepal gets another transport link.

Sources said that the process to amend the Treaty of Transit has begun to include the use of waterways, but is unlikely to be finalised during this visit.

Meanwhile, India is looking forward to completing modalities to sign an MoU with Nepal over the next few months for conducting a survey for the ambitious Kathmandu-Raxaul rail link.

Nepal to Hold General Election on November 26

The election timing is in line with Nepal’s first republican constitution that requires a new parliament to be in place before January 21, 2018.

The election timing is in line with Nepal’s first republican constitution that requires a new parliament to be in place before January 21, 2018.

FILE PHOTO: Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba signs the oath after swearing-in ceremony at the presidential building in Kathmandu, Nepal, June 7, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar/Files

FILE PHOTO: Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba signs the oath after swearing-in ceremony at the presidential building in Kathmandu, Nepal, June 7, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar/Files

Kathmandu:  Nepal will hold a general election on November 26, the government said on Monday, hoping to conclude a turbulent journey to democracy a decade after a civil war and the abolition of its 239-year-old monarchy.

The election timing is in line with the Himalayan nation’s first republican constitution, drawn up in 2015, that requires a new parliament to be in place before January 21 next year.

In a blow to the government hours after the announcement, lawmakers rejected a government proposal to amend the constitution and meet some of the demands of the ethnic Madhesi minority community living in southern plains bordering India.

“Our demands are only defeated, not dead,” Hridayesh Tripathi, a Madhesi leader, told Reuters. “We will try to enlist enough support for our demands before the parliamentary elections.”

Madhesis are demanding greater participation in the central government.

Law minister Yagya Bahadur Thapa, confirming the cabinet’s decision on the election date, said Nepalis would celebrate their democratic rights. “This is going to be a big festival. There is no doubt about that,” he said.

Elections to seven state assemblies, set up under the new constitution to establish more of a federal system, would be held at the same time, he added.

The election will mark a personal triumph for new Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who was fired by Nepal‘s last monarch, King Gyanendra, in 2002.

The king had called Deuba “incompetent” for failing to contain a Maoist insurgency and hold elections.

Nepal has been in turmoil since a decade-long Maoist conflict ended in 2006 and the monarchy was abolished two years later.

One of Asia’s poorest countries, with nearly a quarter of its 28 million people living on less than $2 a day, Nepal has seen nine different governments since then.

The instability has stifled growth and unnerved investors. Two devastating earthquakes in 2015 dealt a further blow to efforts to stabilise the economy in a landlocked country with the potential to generate significant hydroelectric power.

Heavy monsoon rain in recent days has brought floods to Nepal‘s lowlands and killed more than 130 people.

Political developments are closely watched by neighbouring giants China and India, which jostle for influence.

Nepal is also in the middle of phased local elections, the first in two decades, with a final round set for September 18.

(Reuters)

Nepal Holds Second Round of Crucial Local Election

The poll is an attempt to restore democracy at the local level hit by the civil war and years of instability after the monarchy was abolished.

The poll is an attempt to restore democracy at the local level hit by the civil war and years of instability after the monarchy was abolished.

A mark is pictured on the hand of a voter as he holds a walking stick during the local election of municipalities and village representatives in Thimi, Nepal May 14, 2017. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

Kathmandu: Nepalis began voting in the second round of local elections on Wednesday, a key step towards holding a general election later this year that would complete a near decade-long democratic transition after the abolition of its monarchy.

The latest round of voting covers parts of the restive southern plains that border India and there are concerns about possible violence after Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), a group that dominates the area, said it would boycott the vote and called for a general strike.

In 2015 and 2016 scores of people were killed, mainly in clashes with police, in protests by the local ethnic Madhesi against a new constitution that they say leaves them marginalised and favours those living in the hills of the Himalayan nation.

The Madhesis are demanding a unified homeland, and greater participation in state organs, including parliament, the judiciary, bureaucracy and the national army.

“Elections cannot be held before our demands are met,” said Hridayesh Tripathi, a RJPN leader.

The local elections – the first in Nepal since 1997 – mark an attempt by the government to restore democracy at the local level hit by a decade-long civil war that ended in 2006 and years of instability after the monarchy was abolished in 2008.

“This election will empower local bodies and open the floodgate of social and economic prosperity,” President Bidya Devi Bhandari said in a statement.

Television channels showed lines of voters carrying umbrellas bearing candidates’ pictorial symbols including a glass, torch light, house and rhinoceros, but no names.

The first phase of municipal polls was held on May 14 and a final round is set for September 18 after the end of the monsoon rains. Local polls serve as a barometer of public opinion ahead of parliamentary elections expected before the year end.

(Reuters)

Second Phase of Local Elections Finds Nepal Severely Divided

Some Madhesis continue to demand a constitutional amendment before participating in the polls, but in much of the rest of the country, there appears to be little solidarity with their cause.

Some Madhesis continue to demand a constitutional amendment before participating in the polls, but in much of the rest of the country, there appears to be little solidarity with their cause.

A CPN-UML protest in Nepal. Credit: Puja Sen

Kathmandu: Once again, Nepal’s Terai region is simmering with protests. The recently formed Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), a coalition of six Madhesi parties, has been leading protests in the southern plains of the country since the national government announced that the second phase of local elections will be conducted on June 28.

The first phase of elections took place successfully in three of the newly delineated provinces on May 14 – marking the first time in 20 years that the country has held local elections. The decision to split the elections into two phases was significant. It was based on the understanding that before the later phase, the current coalition government would honour the constitutional amendments that the Madhesis have been demanding. Now the government has announced a third phase in which elections will be held for the plains-only Province 2, seemingly as a concession to RJPN.

The constitution itself has been deeply contested. Promulgated shortly after an earthquake devastated Nepal in 2015, the constitution was met with immediate protests in Terai. About 60 people, most of them civilians, lost their lives in the police crackdown that followed. The Kathmandu media at the time did little to accurately reflect the situation in the plains, choosing instead to put greater focus on the India-assisted economic blockade and its effects in the capital. This cavalier attitude was noted in the Human Rights Watch report titled ‘Like We Are Not Nepali‘, which documented the months of agitation that took place in the plains, noting that these events received scant coverage in the rest of the country.

Key to understanding the Kathmandu-Terai conflict is the question of federalism. How should a new democratic republic devolve power? How should it carve new states? Madhesi and other indigenous actors feel that the 2015 constitution reneged on promises made before, that is after the Comprehensive Peace Accord and a Madhes andolan fought to include the word ‘federal’ in the interim constitution. These were promises of federalism based on ethnicity, proportional representation and more egalitarian citizenship laws. To hold local elections without fulfilling these promises is now being seen as a move to entrench a constitution that is not acceptable to many.

Indeed, people in the Terai speak of the 2015 agitation with a mix of pride and bitterness. Pride for forging a civil rights movement, and bitterness because all of it – the lives lost, the hardships suffered ­– might have been for nothing. And yet these questions of nationality and belonging that evoke such heightened feelings in the Terai are being received very differently in other parts of the country. Some of this difference is a reflection of Nepal’s great diversity – of geographic terrain, unequal access to resources and the graded quality of citizenship across the country. What kind of democratic aspirations do the people of Nepal have? Why are they at loggerheads? And what is at stake here?

§

In the first weeks of April, the town of Musikot Khalanga in the mountainous Rukum district of mid-western Nepal was buzzing with a different kind of energy. Preparations for the local elections were on in full swing. Nearly 800 young men and women from neighbouring villages were being trained by the local police in the empty open-air courtyards of village schools. These trainees were to assist in the upcoming electoral activities. The excitement in the streets and homes was palpable.

The energy in Rukum is a testament to how well this region is integrated within the electoral system. This notwithstanding its geographical distance from the capital – 280 kilometers that take at least two days to cover. It may not be obvious today, but it was in the remote regions of Rukum that the Maoist insurgency began. The insurgency spurred a ten-year war that eventually overthrew the monarchy. Even as scars of the war are fresh in living memory, most people in Rukum feel its promises will be realised with the local elections.

Local police conducting training in Rukum district. Credit: Puja Sen

When I met Bimal Kumar Jha, the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML) president of the district committee of Rukum, at the Asian hotel in Musikot, he discussed the challenges facing parties such as his own and Nepali Congress. He argued that the crucial difficulty in this region was “how to create a reasonable opposition to the Maoists,” which is seen as their natural constituency.

When asked about the constitutional crises in the southern region of the country, he seemed sure the juggernaut of local elections would make Madhesi leaders fall in line: “This constitution is not for particular parties or for particular people but for everyone. And if they refuse to join the process, somebody else will fill the vacuum.” Evidently in Rukum, the anxieties of the Madhesi people seem even more remote than in Kathmandu. There appears to be no ambivalence regarding the constitution, and thus perhaps for that reason, little solidarity with the south.

A further six hours from Musikot, at the Jhumlawang village headquarters, the terrain gets rougher and harder to negotiate. The villages of this area have only one health post and a couple of schools. But although development is slow paced and requires painstaking coordination from Kathmandu, the people do not experience any pressure to prove they are really Nepali. They are focused on and energised by the prospect of seizing administrative control of local affairs. One hour away at Sima village, the story is much the same.

On April 15, the Maoist Centre party members gathered at 11 am to discuss campaign strategies and to file their nominations. But the meeting didn’t start until 3 pm as one of the candidates they wished to nominate, Dilman Roka from Kyangsi village, was running three hours late. This is not unusual given the distance people have to travel by foot and the volume of daily responsibilities in these mountains. As the party members waited, there was a vigorous discussion about campaigning efforts, punctuated by anxious remarks about how time was running out. This was in mid-April, at a time when the government was yet to split the elections in two phases. As of today, Province 5 is yet to go to vote.

Even as the questions that define politics in Rukum appear removed from those in Terai, there are noteworthy connections. On November 30, the recently installed Nepali Congress-Maoist Centre cabinet had proposed an amendment that, had it gone through, would have seen the hilly regions of Province 5 be parceled out and amassed to the adjacent Province 4, thus creating another purely plains state out of Province 5.

Both the opposition CPN-UML and various Madhesi groups rejected this outright. The CPN-UML, in particular, led agitated protests in Kathmandu all through December, making it a plank to push their brand of hyper nationalism. During these protests, the CPN-UML aggressively upheld the ‘sanctity’ of the 2015 constitution, attempting to naturalise the document and accord it a consensus it had not – and has not – yet achieved. At one point, agitators prostrated themselves before the current map of Nepal with its seven provinces intact. At a protest in the heart of Kathmandu, I met Vijay Paudel, polit bureau member of the CPN-UML. Paudel told me, “We want himal, pahad and terai to be present in every state. Our bottom line is that they should not be separated. This is being suggested by New Delhi to keep us divided.” The CPN-UML won an overwhelming number of seats in the recent local elections in Kathmandu, including the mayorship, indicating perhaps that this populist brand of nationalism has found success.

§

Meanwhile, in the Terai towns of Birgunj, Rajbiraj and Janakpur, tire burning, lathi marches and sporadic violence began to escalate once it became clear that the Centre was not likely to amend the constitution before the second phase. In order to prevent obstruction, many RJPN leaders have now been arrested.

When I was in Birgunj earlier this month, people told me they had no objection to local elections per se. They were eager to participate, but the issue of the constitutional amendment remained paramount. Brijeswor Prasad Choudhury, a social worker and retail shop owner, said, “Sometimes we don’t feel like we are Nepali. Is there something wrong in being Madhesi?”

Parties across the board in Madhesh find themselves in a peculiar position where they have to simultaneously jockey for political power, while continuing to dissent parts of the present constitution. The latest face of this contradiction appears to be Upendra Yadav, president of the Federal Socialist Forum Nepal (FSFN). In a surprising volte-face, Yadav, considered to be the architect of the 2007 Madhesh movement, decided to both contest polls in the first phase and affirm his party’s participation in the second. This move broke FSFN’s alliance with other protesting Madhesi parties. It also broke another Madhesi coalition – Sanghiya Gathbandhan that was at the forefront of the 2015 agitations – leaving the RJPN coalition as the only political coalition that is demanding constitutional amendment before elections.

Surendra Kurmi, vice president of the RJPN in Parsa district, tells me why his party continues to ask for amendments first and elections later. “People remain dissatisfied with the constitution. On that front, nothing has changed since 2015 when the young and old, Muslims and Tharus, all came out in lakhs to protest. Now the only difference is Madhesh people are fatigued”. Omprakash Sarraf, also a member of the RJPN, concurs with Kurmi. Even on a pragmatic level, he says, it makes little sense to go into local elections when it appears that the game is rigged: “With our participation at this stage, not only will the issue be considered over, but we would not even get votes.”

Nepalese Madhesi protestors in Birgunj. Credit: Puja Sen

With the acquiescence of leaders such as Yadav, those who continue to resist local elections without the amendments have been accused of holding the democratic process hostage. Bhagyanath Gupta, a firebrand Madhesi activist, has little patience for this argument: “And what kind of democracy is this right now? What kind of constitution is there in the world where the central government decides the date of the election, and not the election commission? That two men decide to make themselves prime minister for nine months each? This is upside down logic. If there is a danger to democracy, it is not coming from people who are asking for greater inclusion.”

Indeed, the high politics of Kathmandu’s Singha Durbar is the force field against which the Madhesi demands are straining. In July 2016, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ of the Maoist party (CPN- Maoist Centre) and Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress struck an agreement that ousted CPN-UML’s K.P. Oli from the premiership. In this ‘gentleman’s agreement’, Prachanda became prime minister for nine months with the support of the Nepali Congress. Honouring his end of the bargain, Prachanda relinquished control of the office to Deuba on June 7 after overseeing the first phase of the elections. Deuba is now the presiding prime minister, the third time in his political career, responsible for overseeing the next phase of election.

A section of the local leadership in Terai that wants to be part of national and local political processes finds itself dealing with an existential crisis. The Madhesi cause is certainly facing fragmentation as national pressure mounts on the RJPN to facilitate, and not obstruct, the elections. Monica Singh, a prominent member of the Baburam Bhattarai-led Naya Shakti Party, will not boycott the elections but does say, “Even if you cant see it on the street these days in the form of protests, every person is in agitation. If we go into elections without constitution amendment, we will certainly be deprived of development. How can we answer the families of martyrs who died in 2015. Our participation will be a compulsion, and will be done without excitement, as if under a shadow.”

There are others still in Madhes who believe that elections, whatever their circumstances, is the way for marginalised groups in Madhes to realise their powers. Karima Begum of the Sanghiya Samajwadi Forum is a former state minister for agriculture. She says: “No one works for the poor. We have had to fight very hard to be taken seriously. We have so far had to fight empty handed. We do not have power in the form of governance and administration. We need power in whatever form.”

§

Nowhere in the world would a process as formative and foundational in the life of a nation-state as the adoption of a constitution be easy. However, Nepal, with its diverse polity, deep inequalities and successive political configurations – from a partyless panchayat system to a constitutional monarchy to the republic that it is now – is a particularly tough setting for consensus building. And yet, progressive and transformative social and political change has for decades been brought forth by strong people’s movements here.

Nepal has to decide what its hard won democracy will mean for its citizens. Will its democratic experience be enacted simply as a set of formal rules, driven by dry proceduralism? Or will it continue to evolve a dynamic and inclusive system, allowing the constitution to become a living document whose guiding spirit is social justice? How this is answered may determine what kind of social fabric the country will be able to foster for its people, from Himal to Terai.

Puja Sen is a Kathmandu-based journalist.

Sher Bahadur Deuba Elected Nepal Prime Minister

The three-time PM takes over at a crucial time in Nepal, which is holding the first local-level polls in 20 years, resisted by Madhesi groups.

Sher Bahadur Deuba takes up the post for the fourth time. Credit: Reuters

Kathmandu: Sher Bahadur Deuba, a veteran politician known for his close ties with India, was on Tuesday, June 6, overwhelmingly elected the prime minister of Nepal for the fourth time, taking over the reigns of the country at a time the Himalayan nation navigates through a political turmoil.

Deuba, the president of Nepal’s oldest party, the Nepali Congress, was elected the 40th prime minister of the country’s young democracy, following a voting in the parliament, during which he secured 388 votes out of a total of 558 votes cast.

He was the only contender in the election.

The 70-year-old succeeds Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, who last month resigned to honour a power-sharing deal.

Deuba is likely to form a small cabinet tomorrow which will be expanded in a few days and some of the Madhesi parties are also likely to join the coalition.

He takes over at a crucial time in the politics of Nepal, which is holding the first local-level polls in 20 years, but one that is being resisted by Madhesi people. The inhabitants of the southern Terai region who share cultural ties with Indians have been demanding more political representation.

Deuba, who was awarded an honorary doctorate degree from New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2016, is said to enjoy the confidence of prominent Indian leaders, and that could potentially aid him in arresting the growing disenchantment among the Madhesi community.

He played a key role in amending Nepal’s new constitution promulgated in September 2015 to address the demands of Madhes-based political parties. Deuba also played a key role in bringing the parties on board for the second phase of local-level elections, now scheduled for June 28.

Deuba, who has been elected to the parliament from far-western Dadeldhura district, has promised to amend the new constitution to fulfil the demands of the Madhesi people.

During Deuba’s previous term as prime minister in 1996, Nepal and India signed the historic Mahakali Treaty for shared utilisation of the waters of the river by the same name.

Deuba served as the prime minister from 1995 to 1997, from 2001-02, and from 2004-05.

Nepal’s then king Gyanendra Shah took power through a coup detat in October 2002 and removed Deuba from the post.

But he had to restore him in 2004 after weeks of street protests. Deuba was again removed from power by the king in 2005, when he was also imprisoned on charges of corruption.

Addressing the parliament before the voting today, Deuba said he would accord priority to complete the local polls and conduct provincial and parliamentary elections by March next year.

He said he would also prioritise the amendment of the constitution to address the demands of Madhesi people. “My other priorities will be economic reforms and rapid development of the country and for that I would focus on developing infrastructure such as electricity, transportation and irrigation,” he said.

(PTI)

Nepal’s Narrow Window of Opportunity May Be Fast Closing

Nepal is at a crossroads. An immediate political settlement with the Madhesi parties will help the country avoid widespread electoral violence, the possibility of foreign powers calling the shots and the eventual failure of the constitution.

Nepal is at a crossroads. An immediate political settlement with the Madhesi parties will help the country avoid widespread electoral violence, the possibility of foreign powers calling the shots and the eventual failure of the constitution.

Activists take part in a rally to support ethnic Madhesis during a demonstration in Kathmandu, Nepal on March 9, 2017. Credit: Reuters

Kathmandu: The unprecedented merger of six small Madhesi parties on April 20 had promised so much. The combined outfit, called Rastriya Janata Party Nepal (RJPN), now has 25 MPs in the 601-strong national parliament, making it the single largest Madhesi force in the country.

There were many reasons for this merger. One was that Upendra Yadav, who has been the most influential Madhesi leader since the 2007 Madhes Movement, has been trying to consolidate his own strength by bringing together like-minded forces. Likewise, Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar, another influential Madhesi leader, has been quietly building up his strength with mergers with other smaller parties. He now commands 19 seats in parliament.

Yadav currently leads the Federal Alliance, a group of 28 minor Madhesi and Janajati outfits. Although this alliance includes the six Madhesi parties that are now under the RJPN umbrella, other Madhesi leaders have long bristled at Yadav’s leadership of the alliance. The RJPN constituent parties felt that they were being overshadowed by Yadav’s growing political clout. Gachhadar’s burgeoning alliance was also a threat.

The other reason behind the mergers is the parliament’s recent decision that only those political parties that get at least 3% of votes in future elections will be called ‘national parties‘. This designation comes with perks such as the provision of spacious party secretariats and monetary benefits from the state.

If another Bill that is being discussed in the parliament is also passed, most of these smaller outfits will not even be represented in parliament; the Bill proposes that the political parties that get less than 3% of total votes will be left out. Since all the major political forces in Nepal seem to be in favour of this Bill, there is now greater pressure on smaller parties to consolidate.

Also read: What Are Nepal’s Madhesis Fighting For?

Yet another reason for political consolidation in Madhes is pressure from the grassroots. Common Madhesis had voted enthusiastically for Madhesi parties in the first constituent assembly election in 2008 – giving the three biggest regional Madhesi parties 84 seats out of a national total of 601. But they were greatly dismayed by the power-centric politics of these Madhesi outfits, as nearly all the major Madhesi parties later fractured in their mad scramble for power. The Madhesi causes they championed were also conveniently forgotten.

As a result, in the second constituent assembly election in 2013, the three biggest Madhesi parties that emerged from the election between them secured just 45 seats.

Now, as the country enters another electoral cycle – the new constitution stipulates that three sets of elections (federal, provincial and local) must be completed by the January 2018 deadline – there is great pressure on these Madhesi parties to once again unite and together fight for the Madhesi cause. They are also said to be under immense pressure from ‘outside’ (read: India) to consolidate.

As important, the Madhesi parties must have felt that their fractured strength did not allow them to negotiate with Kathmandu from a position of strength.

Politics of boycott

The Federal Alliance and the constituent parties of the newly-created RJPN had, even before the merger, announced that they would not just boycott but actively disrupt the local election slated for May 14. Following the merger, there was an oral agreement between the RJPN, the Federal Alliance and the ruling Nepali Congress andCommunity Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) that the constitution would be amended to meet some demands of Madhesi forces and that the Madhesi forces would then take part in the May 14 vote. Following the agreement, the RJPN and the alliance thus rolled back their plans to disrupt the local election.

Chief among their demands has been a revision of federal borders so that the hill areas of the country are completely separated from the Tarai flatlands, in order to break the monopoly on the power of hill-centric politicians. They also want revisions in the constitution on language provisions, citizenship and in the number of local level units in Tarai-Madhes. Yet, despite their latest agreement with the ruling coalition, it is far from certain that this agreement will be honoured and the Madhesi parties will take part in the May 14 vote.

The Community Party of Nepal-Unified Marxists Leninists (UML), the main opposition, has nearly a third of the seats is the 601-member parliament. So it will be practically impossible to amend the constitution with two-thirds vote without UML’s approval. But speaking in the parliament on April 24, K.P. Sharma Oli, the combative UML chairman, ruled out any kind of ‘dangerous’ amendment of the constitution. But it is also inconceivable that the RJPN and the Federal Alliance will agree to go to election without the favourable amendment of the constitution.

One option would be to defer the election. But neither Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ nor Sher Bahadur Deuba, the leader of Nepali Congress and Prachanda’s chief coalition partner, is in favour of this. When he became prime minister in August 2016 Prachanda had a tacit understanding with Deuba that he would vacate the prime minister’s chair for the veteran Congress leader after nine months. Prachanda fears that he could be seen as a political failure if he can’t hold local elections on May 14. Deuba, on the other hand, wants Prachanda to quickly be done with the local election so that he may then get to become the prime minister. Besides, the Election Commission has indicated that if there is no election on May 14, it will have a direct impact on the other two elections.

The current plan is to hold local elections in two phases: the first phase on May 14 in three hill provinces and the second phase, a month later on June 14, in the four remaining provinces. Holding the second phase in base areas of Madhesi parties will also give them enough time to prepare.

But even for this there first has to be a prior agreement with both the Federal Alliance and the newly created RJPN. And these outfits won’t agree to go to election unless they get a credible face-saver in the form of amendment of the constitution in line with their demands.

The other option is to hold all three sets of elections in one go sometime before January 2018. Doing so, says the Election Commission, will be impossible. The Supreme Court has also ruled out any such extension of the election schedule. But if there is broad political understanding on the country’s future political course, the count could yet relent.

Danger zone

Perhaps the most dangerous option is for the government to push ahead with the May 14 election without amending the constitution. Even though the Madhesi parties have rolled back their protests targeting the May 14 vote, they say they will revive their protest plans if there is no favourable constitution amendment.

Thus the option of two-phase election, with the first phase on May 14, is still the most desirable. It won’t be wise to postpone the May 14 election as there is great public support for it, even in the Madhesi plains. This is because there has been no local election in Nepal since 1997. In the absence of elected office-bearers at the local level, people have had to face great hardships in getting even basic services like the making of birth and death certificates. As the unelected local bureaucrats are not accountable to anyone, corruption has flourished. The culture of sharing the spoils of corruption in the absence of elected officials has also meant that local-level development works that have a direct impact on people’s day-to-day lives – like the construction of small drinking-water and irrigation projects – have stalled.

Also, the local level units envisioned by the new constitution will have vastly greater power than the ones they replace. For instance, they will now be able to make their own school syllabus in locally-spoken languages. They will have their own police and courts, and run their own schools and hospitals. This is why people are excited about the impending local election that promises to bring governance and service delivery to their doorsteps.

Any future local election will also be inclusive. As many as half of all those elected in local elections this time will be women and marginalised communities will also be more represented.

It will be cruel to postpone the May 14 election and extinguish the great hope people have pinned on it. They fear that if the May 14 vote is now postponed, their long and at times painful wait for elected office-bearers will be prolonged indefinitely.

In their hearts perhaps all Madhesi politicians know that people are in favour of a timely election. This explains their ‘expansion campaigns’ right across Tarai-Madhes in the past few weeks; the behind-the-scenes jockeying for candidacy in Madhesi parties ahead of the May 14 election; and, of course, the latest mergers. These parties, in other words, are also silently preparing for elections, even though they might not admit to it openly.

Stark options

There are already signs that the latest agreement between the government and the RJPN could fall through. Under UML pressure, the government has withdrawn its proposal to increase the number of local level units in Tarai-Madhes, which was among the key agreements between the government and Madhes-based parties. RJPN now accuses the ruling coalition of betraying it and is again threatening to boycott the local election.

Both UML and Madhesi parties sticking to their guns does not portend well for Nepal. UML would do well to give up its ultra-nationalist, polarising stand. It’s portrayal of even genuine Madhesi demands as constituting an existential threat to Nepal’s existence is greatly exaggerated and only complicates the prolonged political crisis.

The Madhesi outfits, for their part, should not constantly shift goalposts and thus needlessly complicate negotiations. They must also realise that in Nepal’s polarised polity, any progress will be incremental and they cannot expect immediate settlement of all their issues.

Nepal faces a stark choice. The alternative to an immediate political settlement and timely local election – widespread electoral violence, the rise of extremist forces, the possibility of foreign powers calling the shots and eventual failure of the constitution – are too scary to even contemplate. Crucially, none of these options are even remotely beneficial for the democratic parties who are currently trying to secure a negotiated settlement from within the new constitution.

Biswas Baral is a Kathmandu-based journalist who writes on Nepal’s foreign policy. He tweets @biswasktm.

Watch: In Conversation With Baburam Bhattarai, Former PM of Nepal

Siddharth Varadarajan and Baburam Bhattarai discuss the recent political developments in Nepal and India-Nepal relations.

Siddharth Varadarajan, founding editor of The Wire, and Baburam Bhattarai, former prime minister of Nepal, discuss the recent political developments in Nepal and India-Nepal relations.

Siddharth Varadarajan: Baburam Bhattarai, thank you very much for talking to The Wire. We want to discuss Nepal’s recent political developments as well as India-Nepal relations, and I want to start with going back two years – September 2015 when the constitution was finalised. You were chairperson of the Constitution Committee that settled the final draft. That should have been a moment, when the document was finalised, that should have been a moment of great celebration but we saw very quickly that there were protests, divisiveness and an entire period of instability also ensued. Looking back with the benefit of hindsight, do you think things ought to have been done differently? What went wrong and how would you have handled things if you had a second chance?

Baburam Bhattarai: I fully agree with you. It would have been a great moment of triumph and happiness for me to promulgate the constitution through the constituent assembly because within the Maoist movement, I was the one who pushed forward the tactical line of making the constitution through the constituent assembly to achieve the objective of republicism, federalism, secularism and inclusive democracy. But unfortunately, in the first constituent assembly, we failed to make the constitution. And in the second assembly the power equation was changed. The old forces were in favour of all this progressive agenda, they were in the two-third majority. So I as a chairman of the Constitutional Committee, I had the privilege of trying to reach out a consensus among top party leaders. But unfortunately, because of the number game I couldn’t succeed to achieve consensus on all the issues. On certain issues, we reached an agreement, but on the major issues of federalism we couldn’t reach an agreement because federalism was an issue basically raised by the Madhesis and Janajatis, the two groups who were basically excluded from the state system for about 250 years. So these people wanted real federalism with identity and autonomous states. For this I tried my best, but ultimately, I would say, I failed to create any consensus, so on this issue I kept my reservations and immediately after the promulgation of the constitution I resigned from the assembly and I am championing this cause and other issues especially the directly elected presidential system. I still believe given the electoral system we have adopted in Nepal, parliamentary system plus the proportional representative system, this hodge-podge won’t give any political stability. That’s why I wanted directly elected presidential system. On this issue also I had my reservations.

SV: There are lots of positive aspects in the constitution that was finalised. Without a doubt, in many ways, a very advanced document. But the question of federalism remains unresolved, even a year and a half later. If I come to the present, the government of Prachanda, your erstwhile comrade, your erstwhile party leader as it were. He is now in power and he formed the government with the promise of resolving the federalism issue, passing the amendments that the Madhesi people want to be passed – that hasn’t happened yet. Now we have local elections announced for the middle of May. Do you think that in the face of the boycott that many of the Terai political players have said they will enforce these elections will go ahead? Or do you think it’s wise to go for elections before the amendments, or should some effort be made to pass the amendments first?

BB: In fact, the federal restructuring of the state is one of the core issues raised during the Maoist insurgency. In Nepal there are three major clusters of nationalities. One is the Madhesi Tharus, the other one is called the Janajatis and the Khasariya groups. These three are almost one-third in population. But in the power sharing arrangement, more than 80% of power is dominated by the Khasariya groups. That’s why the Madhesis, Tharus and Janajatis want real restructuring of the state, which is justifiable. So Maoist insurgency raised this issue, later on the Madhesi movement supplemented it. But it is very unfortunate that comrade Prachanda, who was my erstwhile comrade, at the last phase of the constituent assembly he virtually changed his stand and sided with the Nepali Congress and the UML [Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist)], and on this issue I differed with him. I still believe without taking the Madhesi, Janajatis and the Tharus on board, which constitute about two-third of Nepal’s population, we can’t have stability and peace in the country. So in that sense, without bringing these people on board by amending the constitution to cater to their demands, I don’t think it will be possible to hold the election and it isn’t desirable also.

SV: Many Nepali political analysts say that as a result of a political backlash to the demands of the Terai-Madhesi people, leaders like K.P. Oli of UML have become very popular and that in some ways they are pandering to the idea that federalism will weaken Nepal’s unity and integrity and is somehow an anti-Nepali demand. How do you see Oli’s rise in the political firmament? What do you think are the key sources of his political strength today?

BB: You see there is disturbing phenomena all over the world. Anti-inclusion agenda has been monopolised by certain section of the ruling elite in many of the countries, including the USA, and Mr. K.P. Oli, under a left banner, is pursuing the most rightist, regressive agenda in Nepal. See, he’s just pandering to the passion, or the so-called insecurity of the ruling elite who refuse to share power with the excluded sections, the Madhesis and Janajatis. He’s trying to consolidate the Nepalese elite who feel leaderless after the abolition of the monarchy. So that way he may gain. But ultimately, it will prepare a ground for continued instability in the country which will be very harmful and dangerous, so that’s why people like K.P. Oli need to be discouraged and politically confronted.

SV: In a very crowded political landscape in Nepal, you took the bold step of pushing for a new party, Naya Shakti. You say this represents a new kind of politics, a new kind of initiative in Nepal. What made you choose this path as opposed to fighting for your line within the Maoist party, or seeking to influence existing parties? Why did you feel that the creation of a new party was necessary?

BB: There are two or three things that led to this conclusion. Firstly, all over the world, the old ideology of the left and right is not working. Both neoliberalism and the state socialism are under tremendous crisis, and there is a search for alternative ideology and political thought all over the world. Although in Nepal also the old binary of left and right is not working, so we want to find a new political thought or ideology which is suited to the 21st century and the current condition of Nepal. That was one of the points I thought was important. And the second point was that Nepal being a country basically divided into three clusters of nationalities, we need to unify all the three nationalities to maintain the integrity of the country and have peace. For this also the old political parties have virtually degenerated into a chauvinistic group pandering to the passion of the ruling Khasariya groups. And the two groups, Madhesis and Janajatis, have been marginalised.

So I thought… I myself coming from the Khasariya background, I should take the initiative to take all the sections together and maintain the integrity of the country. And thirdly, after the political change in the country, now people are aspiring for economic development. Nepal’s contradiction right now is the advanced form of democratic rights and the retarded form of economic development. That is the major contradiction. Until and unless we embark on a path of rapid economic development in the country, we cannot fulfill the aspirations of the people. Rampant poverty and unemployment is the biggest problem in the country. So to do away with the economic development and prosperity needs to be raised and put in the focus by the political party. And fourthly, the politics and politicians have been degenerated into a quagmire of corruption and misgovernance all over the world, particularly in the South Asian region. So in Nepal also, corruption and misdeeds are rampant in political parties. That’s why we wanted to provide a clean government which will fight corruption. So keeping that in mind, we floated this Naya Shakti party.

SV: Now though the development of the Maoist movement and struggle, including the arms struggle, are obviously an integral part of Nepal’s recent history, and one could argue that the constituent assembly and constitution, and all the progress that has happened in the past seven to eight years wouldn’t have happened without that struggle. There are many people who say that they are attracted by Naya Shakti, and by your leadership, but they want you to in some ways repudiate your past, repudiate your People’s War. One has even heard some liberals say, “Baburam must apologise for People’s War”. What’s your comment or response to these kind of demands?

BB: In the context of Nepal, the Maoist movement in Nepal needs to be judged separately. It was not just a class-based movement. In the condition of Nepal, democratic revolution was not complete even by the end of the 20th century. So to do away with the feudal order led by the monarchy, we had to organise an insurgency, and Maoist tools, at least for me, was more desirable and useful to do away with the monarchy and complete the democratic revolution.

To that extent, the Maoist insurgency or Maoist People’s War was the need of the hour to fight against the autocratic system. People, at times, have to take to arms. That has happened elsewhere also, in Nepalese history also. Nepali Congress raised arms against the Ranas. And the UML raised arms against the panchayati autocratic system led by the monarchy. So Maoists had every reason to raise arms against the monarchy. That is one different phase of the movement. That is now over. So instead of repenting on that, or repudiating that, we should preserve the democratic gains of that movement. Because of that we have got this republicanism, federalism, secularism and inclusive democracy. We should move ahead. That’s why.. but the new agenda I just told you of good governance, development and inclusiveness, for this Maoist ideology I don’t think will be useful anymore. That’s why this needs to be developed further. I would say not abandoning it but developed further to suit the conditions of the 21st century and the conditions in Nepal.

SV: Turning now to India-Nepal relations, we noticed around the time the constitution was finalised, fairly negative reaction from the Indian government side. Was this largely driven by the fact that the Madhesi demands for federal structure that included them fully was not recognised or do you think India was responding to the enshrining of secularism as a principle in the constitution? Explain to us what your understanding is of the Indian policy in the months after the constitution was adopted in Nepal. Why was there such a negative reaction?

BB: During my current visit to New Delhi, I had tried to make a point strongly with my friends I had met in New Delhi. Times have changed. But the political thinking both in New Delhi and Kathmandu has not changed. It is the time to review the overall gamut of relations between India and Nepal, and to restructure our relationship to suit the demands of the 21st century. So Nepal should know the core aspiration or need of India. And India should also realise the core aspiration of the Nepalese people. So in my understanding, India’s core concern is security and strategic issues and Nepal’s core concern doesn’t fully accept or respect the sovereignty of Nepal and doesn’t contribute towards the economic development of the country. So if that is so, which I believe is true, then both sides should sit down and resolve this issue.

SV: Which is why you have this formula. Recently you said that Nepal should look after India’s security interest and India should look after Nepal’s economic interests. Concretely what does that mean though? We know for example that the Indians will say Nepal should be more receptive to hydro-electric projects which will benefit Nepal and will benefit India, which Nepal has traditionally resisted. So concretely what is this formula you are proposing? How would it operate?

BB: So one point I was trying to make was because of this trust deficit between these two countries, minor issues like the timing of the promulgation of the constitution or particular person heading the government in Nepal, have been raised by India and has been rightly seen as an interference in Nepal’s internal matters. Instead of doing that, New Delhi should focus on the broader strategic issues, policy issues rather than the minor macro-management issues. And Nepal should also be sensitive to the genuine security and other concerns of India. So that’s why I suggested India being an aspiring regional power and a future global power would have a certain strategic and security aspirations from Nepal.

So Nepal shouldn’t hesitate to give a clear-cut commitment on that because we have to deal more with India though we are a sovereign and independent country. We should have good relations with both our neighbours India and China, but everybody knows we have to deal with India more. So if that is so, without antagonising China or taking due care of the genuine security interest of China, we should be more sensitive towards the genuine security interest of India. So from Nepal’s part, we should be able to do that. And from India’s part, Nepal being an independent, sovereign country for so long, India shouldn’t be seen as hesitating to respect and honour it. They should do it. And then mainly the current aspiration of the Nepalese are rapid economic development, for that India’s cooperation in the development of hydropower and other resources, and investment needs to be duly taken care of by India.

SV: The allegation that some Nepal political leaders make pretty much from all the mainstream UML, Maoists, maybe even Congress that the Madhesi movement is instigated by the Indian government; that India is trying to use the Madhesi card to weaken Nepal’s sovereignty. How much credence would you give to these kinds of accusations, or do you think it is just part of the right-wing nationalist narrative within Nepal?

BB: The federalism issue was raised firstly by the Maoists and then the Madhesi political parties, later on supported by the NC and the UML. So it has occurred from within Nepal. It has been the agenda of the political parties within the country. But when they failed to resolve it, then India was seen as supporting this cause. So this was used by a section of the political parties in Nepal to brand all these progressive agendas as ‘India-driven’. So in my opinion, I think this is not true. This agenda of republicanism, federalism, secularism and inclusive democracy are the Nepalese people’s agenda raised by the political parties, and India should not be seen as instigating it, and India should not instigate it as well. Because if India’s core concerns are security and other concerns, they should come out frankly with its interests. Instead of doing that, India should not been seen backing one group against the other. So I think that needs to be corrected by India. And from the Nepalese side, our internal issues should not be sidelined and accused as if they were raised by outside forces. I see this tendency of branding all the progressive agenda as ‘anti-national’ and ‘foreign-inspired’ is very harmful to the country.

SV: My final question Mr Bhattarai, we’ve seen in the last week the victory of the Bhartiya Janata Party in Uttar Pradesh and the election of Yogi Adityanath as the chief minister of UP. Obviously this is an internal matter of Uttar Pradesh and India, but to the extent to which Yogi Adityanath has been quite active in raising certain Nepal issues, he’s been a backer of restoration of the monarchy, he’s been a backer of the idea that Nepal should be declared a Hindu rashtra. Do you feel that the influence of Adityanath may be felt across the border in Nepal now that he’s chief minister?

BB: I don’t think it will be proper for me to comment on the internal political electoral issues of India. Even if chief minister Adityanath had some otherwise thoughts about Nepal, that won’t prevail because on foreign policy matter, the Centre takes the lead. And I think the state government will have to follow that. So I don’t think it will have any major impact. Personally, people can have different opinions. In a democracy that happens. But I don’t think that will have any serious fallout or ramifications in Nepal.

Even After Violence in Madhes, India Wants to Keep a Low Profile in Nepal

New Delhi does not want to go beyond routine diplomatic phrasing, as it does not see a need to put the Nepali government under extra pressure.

New Delhi does not want to go beyond routine diplomatic phrasing, as it does not see a need to put the Nepali Congress-Maoist government under extra pressure.

File photo of protesters standing near burning tyres as they gather to block the highway connecting Nepal and India, during a general strike called by Madhesi protesters demonstrating against the new constitution in Birgunj, Nepal November 5, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

File photo of protesters standing near burning tyres as they gather to block the highway connecting Nepal and India, during a general strike called by Madhesi protesters demonstrating against the new constitution in Birgunj, Nepal November 5, 2015. Credit: Reuters/Navesh Chitrakar

New Delhi: Even as there are grave worries that violence in Terai signalled rising frustration in the Nepali plains, India is unlikely to raise a hue and cry over the killings of four Madhesi activists, and will likely break its silence this week with boilerplate diplomatic statements.

On Monday, March 6, police opened fire at members of the seven-member federal alliance, United Madhesi Democratic Front (UMDF), who were agitating at a public meeting of the East-West campaign of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxists Leninists (UML) in Saptari district. Four Madhesi protestors were killed in the police firing during clashes between the Terai parties and the UML activists.

During the two-day strike called by the Madhesi parties, life in Terai came to a standstill, as Madhesi Morcha activists ensured that markets and schools remained closed, burnt tyres and attacked the UML party office. The house of chief election commissioner Ayodhee Prasad Yadav was also vandalised. In the capital, the Madheshi parties gave notice to the government of being ready to leave the government

The United Nations, US embassy and UK high commission have already issued public statements, expressing concern at the violence and the deaths of the Madhesi activists, and have called on security forces to exercise maximum restraint. But, even three days since the violence – the most serious clashes in Terai since the end of the border ‘blockade’ in 2015 – India has remained conspicuously silent.

With the Nepali opposition continuing to play up the ‘foreign hand’ as backing the Madheshis, Indian officials have considered it “prudent” to remain mum rather than act as tinder in an already over-charged political landscape.

Therefore, when India’s new official spokesperson Gopal Baglay, a known hand in Nepal, gave India’s first response four days after the violence, it is largely on the same lines as that stated by other foreign governments this week.

“It is a matter of deep concern to us that lives have been lost. We have urged all parties, all concerned to exercise restraint. We will continue to remain engaged with all side,” he said on Thursday.

About the “constitutional process,” Baglay said that leaders in Nepal should hold discussions in a “peaceful manner, consultations with everyone concerned and in a way to reach and inclusive arrangement”. The word ‘inclusive’ has been an old catchword in Indian statements about Nepal’s political process.

“For us, peace, stability and progress of Nepal is of paramount importance and we will continue to make efforts together with parties in that regard,” he added.

India’s reserve is actually not surprising. New Delhi has been largely silent as the Nepal government pushed and pulled in different directions over the constitutional amendment Bill over the last three months. Even when it became clear that Nepal government’s priority had changed from passing the constitutional amendment Bill to holding local government polls, which led the Madheshi parties to cry foul, there was no public recrimination from India.

Then Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup had commented last month that India was “supportive of initiatives of the Nepal government,” along with expressing hope that all sides continued to “engage” with each other for a successful conclusion.

India will resurrect this principle of ‘inclusive’ dialogue again when an official response is posted this week.

New Delhi does not want to go beyond routine diplomatic phrasing, as it does not see a need to put the Nepali Congress-Maoist government under extra pressure, even as it already has limited space to manoeuvre politically.

As a fall-out of the police shooting, the UDMF submitted a five-point memorandum to Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on Wednesday (March 8), which included an ultimatum of it being implemented within seven days. The four other points are: the postponement of the local elections scheduled for May 14; approval of the constitutional amendment; provincial jurisdiction of local bodies; and implementing the three-point agreement reached between the Madheshi alliance and NC-CPN (Maoist Centre) in August. In response, the Prachanda government announced an inquiry into the shooting by a committee led by a former Supreme Court judge.

Complicated political circumstances

While observers from New Delhi believe that the government does not face an immediate threat, the violence in Terai on Monday – and the continuing agitation – is a “very serious” complication in the current imbroglio.

There is disquiet that the mood on the streets in Terai is seething again, as radical elements find more favour, with the perception having gained ground that demands of the Madhesis were getting repeatedly “short changed”.

The Madhesi parties had joined hands with the coalition, hoping to have a more favourable dispensation than the previous K.P. Oli-led UML government to meet its demands.

The Nepal government had asked the Madhesis to support the local bodies election in May, with the assurance that the constitutional amendment would be passed before it. Nepal’s second constitutional amendment Bill relates to boundary delineation of provinces, official language, citizenship and representation in the upper house of parliament.

Most of the Madhesi parties already had to do expend some political capital in reconciling with the Prachanda government’s version of the Bill, as they had lingering concerns on certain provisions. Having reluctantly come on board, they then found that it was just a mirage.

The Madhesi parties had also been aggravated at the report of the Local Bodies Restructuring Commission, which had recommended that Madhesi-majority areas should have just 35% of the local bodies. This is a sore point, since as per government figures, Madhesis and Paharis each account for half of Nepal’s total population.

The proportion of local bodies for Madhesis is important, as the top elected officials of these rural and urban bodies will form the electoral college for the National Assembly, the upper house of parliament.

The Nepal cabinet added 21 more local bodies in the Madheshi-majority province 2, with an assurance of more additions later based on a political consensus. But this restructuring has run into legal hurdles, with a challenge submitted before Nepal Supreme Court.

With both the constitutional amendment and the local bodies issues currently obstructed, Indian observers have been worried at the rising levels of frustration in the plains, especially among the youth.

The Madhesi leaders’ space to strike any political deal are hedged in due to “anger” in the Terai. “Look at their main demands. Nothing is moving. If the moderate Terai leaders compromise, they will be completely marginalised,” said a former Indian government official who had witnessed the developments in the Himalayan nation in an official capacity.

On the other side, the principal opposition, UML, has hardly any motivation to soften their position. Oli believes that the party has found the winning formula of ‘hill nationalism’ to ride them to power at the Centre.

A possible option would be postpone the local elections, as the Madhesis had demanded. This would give some time to Dahal to quickly pass the constitutional amendment and put a cap on the volatile situation.

While the need for local elections is urgent, as they have not been held for 20 years, some quarters believe that the constitution will not “collapse” if the local elections are postponed but the federal elections are held on time by January 2018.

According to analysts, even Oli may not oppose the postponement of local polls as his sight is firmly set on the parliamentary elections. With elections to local bodies fought mainly on micro issues, the nationalism plank may not yield returns to the UML at this level.

At the same time, Oli has been determined to show that UML also has support in Terai, where it won over 36 seats in 2013. He has been rather contemptuous of the Madhesi parties – whose splintered existence has meant that they have not been able to get enough votes to taste electoral success. Madhesi parties got 13 seats in the 2013 parliamentary elections, down from 43 in 2008.

However, a move to postpone local elections could run into trouble within the ruling coalition, as Prachanda is supposed to give up his post as prime minister to Nepali Congress president Sher Bahadur Deuba after the polls as part of an understanding. A postponement of local elections could, therefore, put pressure on the strength of the coalition.

Further, the passage of the constitutional amendment through parliament would require Prachanda to forge new links. This could either be with Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik chair Bijaya Kumar Gachhadar and former foreign minister Kamal Thapa of the pro-monarchy Rashtriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) – even though the Maoist leader would require all his political acumen to get both of them to make a U-turn and let the constitutional amendment Bill sail through parliament.

With Thapa having recently emerged stronger after internal party elections, there is a view that the RPP, despite its Hindutva agenda, could be the best route, as per well-informed observers. On Wednesday, Thapa announced the postponement of the party’s political campaign due to the Saptari incident. 

A day later, Dahal managed to bag RPP for the ruling coalition . Thapa is joining the government as deputy prime minister, with efforts being made to lure Gachchadar.

Four Madhesi Deaths in Police Firing Further Complicate the Crisis in Nepal

The Constitutional condition of elections at federal, provincial and local levels by January 2018 is beginning to look very difficult

Riot police in Nepal run for cover as Madhesi protestors hurl stones at them. Credit: Reuters

Riot police in Nepal run for cover as Madhesi protestors hurl stones at them. Credit: Reuters

The police firing on March 6 on Madhesi protestors, in which three died and one succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday has further split an already divided society. The protestors were trying to disrupt a mass gathering of the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxists Leninists (CPN-UML) in Saptari district of eastern Nepal. Details of what happened on that day, why things unfolded the way they did, and who was responsible for it, depends on whom you ask.

The basic outline of the sequence of events is clear enough. The Madhesi Morcha—an alliance of small Madhes-based parties that has been protesting against the new Nepali Constitution since it was promulgated in September 2015—had made it clear that it would not allow UML to hold it planned election rally in Saptari, which lies at the heart of the proposed province 2 in the new federal setup. This is because UML, and especially its chairman, KP Sharma Oli, is seen as ‘anti-Madhes’. Oli is the leader of a party that is most strongly opposed to amending the constitution to accommodate Madhesi demands and he is someone who has in the past made statements that have hurt the sentiment of Madhesis.

But UML nonetheless decided to go ahead with its rally, which was part of its campaign for the local election slated for May 14. Madhesi parties wanted amendment before they agreed to any election. But putting off elections indefinitely was not an option either. According to the new Constitution, all three sets of elections—federal, provincial and local—must be held by January 2018. Thus the government of Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, also under pressure from the Supreme Court, had declared the first of the three elections, for the local level, without the consent of Madhesi parties.

Yet Prachanda did try to take the Madhesi parties into confidence before announcing local elections. Three months ago, his government tabled a bill to amend the constitution to incorporate some of the Madhesi demands. But any amendment requires two-thirds majority in the national parliament, which is difficult to muster without the support of UML, which has nearly a third of all seats in the 601-member parliament. The UML is strongly opposed to any amendment of the new Constitution, which the party thinks is already among the most inclusive in the world.

With or without you

UML is also keen on timely elections, with or without the support of Madhesi parties. Its leaders have publicly said that the proposed second amendment of the Constitution is being done at India’s behest and that such an amendment won’t have the support of common Nepalis. The Madhesi parties chafed at the trivializing of their genuine concerns and their characterization as no more than ‘India’s stooges’ in Nepal.

Thus the stage was set for a clash when UML announced, on the eve of the proposed local election, that it would undertake a ‘Mechi-Mahakali campaign’ whereby its top leaders would visit and hold rallies in major settlements of the 22 districts comprising the Tarai-Madhes belt. The stated purpose of these rallies was to “strengthen democracy and national unity” and build a climate for local polls.

So when the UML rally reached Saptari on March 6, the Morcha was determined to foil it. Its cadres surrounded the place where the rally was supposed to converge for a mass meet. As a confrontation was feared, around 2,000 police personnel had been mobilized to prevent violent clashes.

The details of what happened next are murky. UML leaders, organizing a press conference on March 7, accused the Morcha of trying to “assassinate the party leadership by encircling us” the previous day in Saptari. In their reckoning, they were lucky to escape with their lives.

According to the Morcha however, its protests to oppose the UML rally were largely peaceful and even if things had started to get a little heated, there was no need for the police to open fire. It also pointed out how police bullets had targeted the heads and chests of protestors, which would apparently not be the case if they were firing in self-defense. The video images of police entering people’s homes and beating up common Madhesis as they were chasing away protestors surely didn’t help. These events only reinforced the perception among many Madhesis that the Nepali state only belongs to the elite caste groups from the hills who have always ruled Nepal.

Despite the March 6 deaths, the UML has said that it will continue with its mass rallies in Madhes. The Morcha, and the broader Federal Alliance it is affiliated with, has meanwhile given a week’s ultimatum to Prachanda’s government–if the planned local election is not cancelled and concrete steps are not taken to amend the constitution, it will withdraw its support to government.

The coalition government of Prachanda, which includes Nepali Congress, the largest party in parliament, will still have a majority. But if the Morcha pulls out, its legitimacy is sure to come into question. It could also lead to the exit of other crucial coalition partners like the Rastriya Prajatantra Party.

The legitimacy of Prachanda’s government will be in doubt because he had replaced KP Oli as prime minister precisely because the UML chairman was seen anti-Madhesi and as not ready to amend the Constitution to the liking of Madhesi forces. But Prachanda too has been unable to get the parliament to pass the second amendment of the Constitution.

Half and half

The arguments and counter-arguments between the Morcha and the UML have, in turn, divided the whole country, into two distinct camps. Those belonging to the first camp ask how the Morcha or any other entity that calls itself a democratic force can prevent peaceful political gatherings on Nepali soil. Morcha cadres were wrong to try to disrupt the UML rally and when they started lobbing petrol bombs on police, the police had no option but to fire in self-defense, goes this argument. So Morcha is solely to blame for the killings.

Those in the other camp ask why the UML went ahead with its rally even though the Morcha had vowed to disrupt it. And didn’t Oli know how unpopular he is in Madhes, especially in province no 2? Hence Oli and company went to Saptari with a clear plan of inciting Madhesi parties, something which goes down very well among UML’s ‘nationalist’ constituencies.

Meanwhile, the Madhesi parties have declared two days of Madhes bandh followed by a nationwide bandh on March 10. The UML seems as determined to press ahead with its election campaign. More clashes look imminent.

The March 6 killings has also snuffed out any hope of holding local election on May 14, which was always going to be a tall order with so little time to prepare. This raises another troubling prospect. If the three elections cannot be held before the January 2018 deadline, there will be a big question over the legitimacy of the new Constitution. The parliament’s tenure will then expire and there could be a political and constitutional vacuum in Nepal.

The problem right now is that there seems to be no room for reconciliation between the UML and the Morcha, two of the four major political actors in Nepal, along with the Congress and the Maoists, which have been instrumental in cementing the changes after 2006. That was the year monarchy was abolished and a republic proclaimed. But the incident in Saptari showed that it will be well nigh impossible to hold elections of any kind in Tarai-Madhes without the consent of Madhesi parties. Forcing it could lead in more bloodshed.

Amending the Constitution and accommodating Madhesi demands will be anathema to many Nepalis in this deeply polarized country. But what other realistic option is there?

Biswas Baral is a Kathmandu-based journalist who writes on Nepal’s foreign policy. He tweets @biswasktm.