Looking at the political divide between the Madhesi parties, it is difficult to comprehend how they can justify that they are there to uphold and promote Madhesi interests and help Madhesi people. For Madhesi politicians and especially those claiming to be Madhes leaders, they must establish that decisions they are taking are in support of Madhesi cause and are in a manner that would add clout to their bargaining with political groups, which are opposed to Madhesi people’s rights as citizens.
How does the conduct of Madhesi parties—now and historically—measure up to meeting their obligation of protecting Madhesi rights and bargaining to improve their status? Looking at recent history, Madhesi parties had the best chance of cashing in on the achievements of Madhes movement four years ago, by way of putting up a common front against the status-quoists and well-recognized antagonists for the Madhesi cause.
However, Madhesi parties divided themselves between camps and gangs, depending on who promised them the largest attractions for personal gain, mainly in terms of the share of cabinet posts and opportunities for nepotism. Not only many prominent Madhesi politicians aligned themselves with non-Madhesi parties long-recognized to be opposed to Madhesi interests, inter-party disputes among Madhesi parties appeared much more intense than between Madhesi/non-Madhesi parties with the leader of TMDP Mahanta Thakur losing his seat in Constituent Assembly (CA) election of 2008 to another Madhesi party. Expectation, on the contrary, was that Madhesi parties would make peace with each other and form alliances that would help them face up to the non-Madhesi parties.
Another setback for Madhesi cause came just a year after the CA election—in June of 2009—with the split of Madhesi People’s Rights Forum (MPRF) which, in my view, did more damage to the Madhesi cause than Madhesi party disunity during the CA election. As is widely known, MPRF split was caused supposedly for the reason that one group of party leaders was leaning toward democratic forces and another favoring alliance with left-wing parties. The underlying reason, however, was unashamedly personal—Bijay Gachchhadar just wanted to steal the leadership of MPRF from its founding President Upendra Yadav.
Gachchhadar was a fugitive from Nepali Congress (NC), had no record of standing up for Madhesi cause, and is alleged have headed mafia groups and corruption gangs. He chose to switch over to MPRF prior to the CA election just to save his neck. With Madhes movement then in full swing, Gachchhadar rightly sensed that he would lose his electoral seat in Madhes if he fought as a NC candidate. Yadav, fully aware of Gachchhadar’s questionable background, didn’t object to his joining MPRF so close to the election date for the simple reason that Gachchhadar would win seats for him if he fought the election under MPRF banner. Gachchhadar did succeed in winning seats for MPRF but him being a recent convert to the Madhesi cause knew that he didn’t have the right credentials for heading Madhesi movement. His sole objective for initiating a split in MPRF was for personal gain even though he knew fully well that his actions will seriously compromise the gains of Madhes movement and undermine Madhesi unity.
Madhes movement has lost its focus and appears faltering under the weight of greedy politics and personal ambitions of its prominent leaders. This is because the leaders have sidelined the movement’s core objectives.
The recent split of TMDP is driven by a similar intent of greed and personal vendetta of its leaders. Mahendra Prasad Yadav and Ram Chandra Kusawaha allegedly misused their positions as ministers which led party President Thakur, well-recognized for his clean political image, to replace them with his other lieutenants in whom he had more confidence. It may be that Thakur acted abrasively in sacking Yadav and Kusawaha but this didn’t merit a split in the party given the longer-term consequences for Madhesi interests. But it didn’t matter to Yadav and Kushwaha who wanted nothing other than to retain their cabinet positions and privileges that come with it.
Looking at Thakur’s own contributions for the Madhesi cause, it is true that he left a senior position in NC to back up Madhes movement but his personal interests in making the switch was very apparent. If, indeed, he chose to leave NC to serve Madhesi interests, he would have joined Madhes movement without pre-conditions and without causing divisions among Madhesi population which, obviously, he did by establishing his own party. In all fairness, we can then say that despite Thakur’s NC seniority, he would have served Madhes’ interests best if he had accepted Yadav’s leadership of the movement and carried MPRF banner. But his sheer arrogance and undeserved claim for leadership of Madhes movement proved costly for him personally—in terms of his electoral loss—and, more importantly, his actions played a pivotal in fracturing Madhesi unity.
Finally, looking at Yadav himself, he must be credited for standing up for Madhesi rights by taking an immense amount of personal risk. He established the MPRF with a name that aptly captured the essence of his movement. As, until now, the Forum is still not a political party, doesn’t adhere to an ideology, or advocates no regime change. As the name suggests, it is just a forum for the promotion of equal citizenship rights for a specific group of people who have been denied such rights for the reasons of ethnicity and place origin.
Probably, Yadav shouldn’t have politicized his Forum and, instead, taken it forward as a civil rights movement in the same way Martin Luther King had led civil rights movement in America half a century earlier. However, he chose to become political by making the Forum a political party and seeking a mandate in the election. This choice wouldn’t have been that wrong if he had paid more attention to his civil rights commitments than opting to become a political leader. At the end, Yadav turned out to be just like any other politician, which was far removed from the civil rights goals he had set for Madhesi people and risks he had taken to pursue it.
A losing battle
Madhes movement has lost its focus and appears faltering under the weight of greedy politics and personal ambitions of its prominent leaders. This is because the leaders have sidelined the movement’s core objectives, which were to put up a united front to end the discrimination of Madhesi people and safeguard their rights as equal citizens of the state.
It is hard to believe how any of the existing Madhesi parties can claim to be serving Madhesi people’s interests when they do not see eye-to-eye on critical concerns of the Madhesi people; on the contrary, they seem to be working on cross purposes, in an attempt to undermine and overcome each other. Looking at the intra- and inter-party feuds of Madhesi leaders, there is little hope that their confrontational stance will change any time soon and that Madhesi battle can be fought under a common banner with a clout.
Give such pessimistic outlook for unity among Madhesi parties, it can be expected that Madhesi people may opt for reprisal by throwing their support behind national parties, if for no other reason than to teach the wayward Madhesi politicians a lesson that they can’t take Madhesi people for granted and act in any manner they wish. The leaders must perform and deliver for them to deserve Madhesi people’s support and not just for the reason that they carry Madhesi label.
Looking at the history of Madhesi politics, there are very few instances of Madhesi leaders who are recognized for putting up their Madhes agenda ahead of personal interests, while there are dozens of pahade leaders of Madhesi origin who are remembered for their genuine help to the Madhesi people.
Aside from the honesty and goodness of heart, many of these ethnic pahade leaders of Madhes earned public trust and approval because they were ethnic pahades. The logic was that pahade leaders from Madhes were well-connected with central leadership, which they utilized for extracting concessions for Madhesis while ethnic Madhesi leaders had no such clout. My own assessment is that panchayat administration took full advantage of the public mistrust of ethnic Madhesi leaders who were purposely sidelined for leadership positions and not relied upon for drawing public support. Such exclusion was discrimination no doubt but there is evidence that Madhesi politicians fully deserved it.
The main reason Madhesi movement seems to be losing steam is that Madhesi leaders are not ready to unite for the common purpose of getting a fair deal for Madhesis. Such unity does not necessarily mean that they become one single group and establish one single Madhesi party; to assert unity for a common cause, they can form a caucus or come together as a pressure group to help increase their bargaining power. There have been some instances of Madhesi leaders opting to create such a common front, most recently during the early rounds of election for prime minister after Madhav Kumar Nepal’s resignation in June 2010. However, this show of unity proved short-lived and fell apart at the first sign of stress.
It is not hard to see that Madhesi leaders are divided in too many ways—by way of ideology, caste, region, level of arrogance, self-pride and contempt for others—which make their Madhesiness count for almost nothing. There is no evidence that pahade leaders have played a spoiler role in weakening Madhesi unity. The harsh truth is that Madhesi leaders are themselves against such unity, for no other reason than to enjoy the privileges of leadership—genuine or fake.
In the circumstances, there is no reason for mainstream national parties to be concerned about Madhesis’ complaints alleging unequal rights and unfair treatment. They are too divided a group to force change in the age-old governance system of the country. They are suffering from their own self-inflicted wounds and there are no outside groups to blame for holding them back.
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