The twin tasks of peace building and constitution writing were synthesized as the goals of these two agreements. Peace was envisaged to be institutionalized by detaching the Maoist party from its coercion apparatuses, and also by integrating part of its former combatants into Nepal Army. Constitution was expected to be promulgated from the popularly elected Constituent Assembly.
Despite their colossal ideological differences, parties worked together until the CA elections. They stood shoulder to shoulder to preserve the gains of their collective efforts, and promised – undoubtedly under the euphoria of revolution - that they would deliver a constitution within two years. With the ebullience of the movement settling down, however, politics reverted to its own divergent ways.
Back then, the incentive for consensus among political parties came from the fear of their common adversary: the monarchy, whose authority to intervene dented ambitions of the centrifugal forces. No sooner was it abolished that we reached a situation when there was nothing that could invoke the sense of crisis among political parties. External powers, however mighty they may be, must honor their limits in crossing the Rubicon.
In the following seven years of the peace process, the first task of transforming transitional peace into a permanent one has met with partial success. The Maoist party, initially unprepared to budge as it wanted to hold its combatants and militia as bargaining chips, eventually ceded ground. More than 15,000 of its former combatants willingly resettled themselves in society, accepting the government’s cash offer. The Maoist People’s Liberation Army no longer exists; neither does the paramilitary wing of the Young Communist League.
The entire peace process, however, also exposed the Maoists to the fratricidal ways of intra-party politics. Had the process culminated in the ‘dignified’ integration of combatants, simultaneously convincing the large support base of the Maoist party that the sacrifices they made would ensure peace dividends for village households, it would have been termed a huge success. Now, integration no longer features high on the party’s agenda. In fact, it never had except for expediency. The combatants, now awake to their doomed fate, realize how hugely they have been cheated by the party in creating the whole integration narrative. To be honest, the entire idea of peace process by army integration has proved to be only a Maoist trick for saving face. The comrades of yore who differed have now chosen to part ways.
But the gains of peace are as true as the fact that it has left no space for the UCPN-Maoist to back pedal. Neither has it given the party any legroom to manoeuvre. This formally ends the peace process here, with or without a constitution.
Then comes the curious case of the Constituent Assembly. Elected in 2008 to deliver a constitution within two years, its original timetable was squeezed. No voices of serious remonstration were heard except those from the margins although the CA went on to giving itself multiple leases of life through four extensions. Hope of the new constitution prevailed even as these extensions considerably risked the erosion of legitimacy.
People were repeatedly told that the constitution was being written, that the thematic committees had completed their reports, and that the contentious issues were being resolved in a sub-committee. On the final day, when people were still kept under an illusion of a constitution, the ailing CA was left unattended in the intensive care unit at New Baneshwor. The ‘doctors’ met at Singh Durbar and Baluwatar discussing ways to save it. At the end, the ‘doctor-in-chief’, who always claimed the CA was his brainchild, deceptively pulled away its oxygen mask just before midnight and forced it to die. Rest of his team members were unaware about this development until it was formally announced.
The fiasco of May 27 was not the result of the parties’ inability to agree, but of the Maoist unwillingness to act on an agreement on federalism, playing on the fear of surging ethnic confrontation as well as for appeasing its ambition to control agendas. This gave the CA the look of an incubator that proliferated various pro and anti fissures in the society. Other parties are responsible in that they allowed the Maoist party to get away with it.
In the build up towards May 27, political equations had considerably been restructured. The pre-CA balance of power comprised of the two-party make: Maoist vs non-Maoist. It immediately went onto become a three-sided battle among Maoists, NC and UML after the CA elections. Further realignments in the CA, prompted by the split of Madhesi parties, brought about four-party power balance, appending Madhesi Morcha in the fray since 2011.
Smaller forces in the CA also increasingly became louder than what their actual size would have guaranteed. Kamal Thapa from the right spoke out against federalism and republic. Chitra Bhadur KC and Narayan Man Bijukchhen from the left kept launching shuttles against federalism on their own. Regional forces from the east and far-west also knocked the doors of Kathmandu with a bang. Most importantly, they were able to drill deep holes in the boat of the federal project. They make up an undeniable element in the national power structure today.
Now that the Maoist party has undergone a vertical split, decisively trimming the might of Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai, new political powers beyond the circumference of the CA have emerged, without whose accommodation the dream of a new constitution seems far-fetched.
The two agreements that railed Nepal on the new political journey seven years ago may not have yet outlived their context and utility. But the time has come to revisit, renew and revitalize them by incorporating a broader framework. These agreements were never designed to produce the kind of solutions we now need. They were sufficient to address the necessities of seven years ago when political actors were limited, milieu was different and the heat of a big movement was still felt.
The two agreements that took Nepal on new political journey seven years ago may still be useful, but they do need to be revisited.
It is high time we rethought and redesigned. Out of the twin tasks, the process peace has only some technical aspects left to fulfil, and the focus has rightly fallen on the constitution. A new agreement on the scale of the CPA or TPA will provide impetus to the current political machination. But the new deal must also elaborate the issues of the future constitution and proposed elections, underlining in unambiguous terms for what and for how many seats such elections will be held, including the ways of prior power sharing.
Parties still have their plates full. Whether or not they can agree in the absence of a superseding power which often bundled them out and threw them into repeated ordeals is what people are waiting to see.
Tika_dhakal@att.net
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