On a scorching summer day of 1991, a group of politicians belonging to various ethnic groups gathered on Kanti Path, Kathmandu. They wanted to get their new ethnic party registered at the Election Commission (EC) of Nepal. But the EC didn’t consider their party as “eligible for contesting the general elections” due on May 12, 1991.
“We were treated like secessionists,” recalls Bhadra Kumari Ghale, one of the key leaders of the ethnic party which never got a chance to contest at the polls. “Some politicians, including the then Prime Minister K. P. Bhattarai, accused us of trying to split the country into pieces.”[break]
One of the obvious reasons why the EC didn’t acknowledge the ethnic party – formed by the likes of Khagendra Jung Gurung, Kaji Man Kandangwa and Bhadra Kumari Ghale – was its manifesto in which Nepal was split into 12 autonomous states. Later, some leaders of the rejected party joined their hands with Gore Bahadur Khapangi and MS Thapa whose ethnic party was moderate in its approach.
Unlike the rejected ethnic party, Khapangi’s and Thapa’s Rashtriya Janmukti Party in its manifesto didn’t delineate provinces.
Keshab-thoker
In 2013, as Nepal heads to another election to the Constituent Assembly (CA), two new ethnic parties – one headed by former CPN (UML) leader Ashok Rai and another jointly led by the likes of Dr Chaitanya Subba and Pasang Sherpa – don’t seem bothered about whether they will be allowed or not to contest the polls. Unlike the rejected ethnic party of the 90s, the Federal Socialist Party (FSP) and Social Democratic Party (SDP) are less likely to face any hurdles irrespective of how many states they split the county into in their manifestos.
In the last two decades, especially between the first People’s Movement of 1990 and the April Uprising of 2006, the unthinkable has become thinkable. The issue of federalism – once viewed as ‘communal’ or ‘secessionist’ – has become virtually acceptable to almost all major political parties. Even the CA, before its demise, had passed a model of federalism that splits the country into 14 states. And even major political parties like the Nepali Congress (NC) and CPN (UML) acknowledge identity as a base for carving out federal states in Nepal.
Today, unlike in the ’90s, no one dares accuse the supporters of identity-based federalism and rights to self-determination as being secessionist. And the aspirations of Nepal’s ethnic peoples for federalism have grown like never before. While the likes of Khapangi tried to garner votes by delivering anti-Bahun speeches in the ’90s, most of today’s ethnic leaders have matured; and they also have clearer goals on their crosshairs.
“In the ’90s, Nepal’s ethnic movement was still in a nascent stage,” observes Balkrishna Mabohang, a noted indigenous activist. “Now, the timing seems ripe and the agenda seems stronger than ever before.” According to Mabohang, the People’s Multiparty Democracy, a political ideology propounded by the charismatic CPN (UML) leader Madan Bhandari and the NC’s socialism, were undefined in the early ’90s, and a section of ethnic activists were still hopeful of the mainstream political parties. “Now, most ethnic leaders are clear that they will never achieve their goals by depending on (mainstream) parties.”
Former CPN (UML) leader Bijaya Subba, who is now one of the Vice Chairmen of the FSP, echoes Mobohang’s view. “Let alone the CPN (UML) and the NC, not even the UCPN (Maoist), which claimed to have championed the cause of indigenous communities, is honest to ethnic identity-based federalism,” says Subba. “Whatever the UCPN (Maoist) said on and after the night of dissolution of the CA (28 May, 2012) was just a drama. In their meetings with the NC and CPN (UML) leaders, the UCPN (Maoist) leaders never pushed for identity-based federalism. When the dissolution of the CA appeared imminent, they ostensibly stood by identity-based federalism, fearing that they may lose future elections if they stopped talking of identity-based federalism.”
Journalist Bhawani Baral, who has written several books on federalism with a focus on the concept of Limbuwan, says even the Maoists were completely indifferent to the sentiments of Nepal’s indigenous nationalities in the early years of the Maoist insurgency. “Only when they realized that they wouldn’t win the war without the support of ethnic and indigenous communities, the Maoists floated the agenda of identity-based federalism and rights to self-determination,” says Baral.
In the past, the voices of ethnic emancipation was suppressed either by providing some handpicked indigenous leaders with ministerial berths or charging them with conspiracy to divide the country. Over two decades after the political changes of the ’90s, however, the state is no more in a position to subdue the aspirations of identity-based federalism, come what may.
With the Parliament itself declaring the country as a federal democratic republic, the state can’t get rid of the issue of identity by dubbing ethnic parties as secessionist, as it did in the 1990s. And the idea of appeasing indigenous communities by handpicking some leaders also doesn’t work, as today’s ethnic movement – unlike during the Panchayat era – is polarized, and even fractured, like never before.
However, fractures and fissures have clearly weakened the new wave of the ethnic movement, fueling speculations over their sustainability. Unfortunately, fractures seem to have been caused by the struggle for leadership rather than political ideology. Although Dr Subba, one of the 13 presidents of the SDP, claims that they couldn’t join the Rai-led FSP owing to differences in the interpretation of Marxism, many believe that the real bone of contention was none other than the question of leadership. The fact that the FSP created multiple posts of Vice Chairman and the SDP boasts of 13 presidents shows what the real cause of division is.
“Had ethnic leaders and activists formed a strong and united party, several regional ethnic parties would’ve joined,” says Baral. “By failing to avert fractures at the very outset, both of the new ethnic parties have turned out to be just two forums of those discarded by the NC and the CPN (UML).”
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