Govt-Tharu groups talks inconclusive

KATHMANDU, March 10: Talks between the government and agitating Tharu and other janajati groups of the Tarai have ended inconclusively.



The meeting held at Babarmahal in the capital failed to make headway after the agitating groups demanded that a two-year-old constitutional amendment be reversed and three acts already enforced by the government annulled. [break]






According to Laxman Tharu, a leader of the Tharuwan Swayatta Parishad Struggle Committee, the agitating groups demanded that the first constitutional amendment that treated 20 district of the Tarai as Madhes, the citizenship law, election laws and a recently promulgated ordinance for making the government services inclusive be rolled back.



“The Minister for Peace and Reconstruction could not respond to our demands and wanted some time to study them,” said Tharu, responding to a query on why the talks failed. “So the talks ended inconclusively.” Tharu said. Minister Sharma has asked for time to consult with the prime minister and legal experts. He said another round of talks is also unlikely to reach a conclusion.






Minister Sharma, however, said the talks were positive. “The government addressed the demands yesterday and it is ready to address the rest of the demands through dialogue tomorrow morning,” said Sharma, coming out of the meeting. “Some of the demands are linked to procedural complications, some are to be addressed by the Constituent Assembly or parliament.”



Tharu Kalyannkarini Sabha General Secretary Raj Kumar Lekhi said the Tharu and janajati groups of the Tarai emphatically raised concerns over the series of constitutional amendments and promulgation of laws aimed at converting the entire Tarai into Madhes. “We want to replace the term Madhes with Tarai in Article 33 of the Interim Constitution so that the ethnic diversity of the region is reflected in Nepal’s future administrative setup,” said Lekhi.






Lekhi said the agitating groups demanded withdrawal of the recently promulgated ordinance along with the Education Regulations and the Civil Service Regulations. “These acts provide reservations to certain groups, but we want a proportional share for all groups in all state machineries based on their population,” said Lekhi.



There were four groups of Tharus to put forth their demands to the government negotiator. “The government attempted to create divisions among us by inviting individual groups separately”, said Upendra Gachchhadar, a Tharu leader who participated in the talks. “But all of us were one on the issue of stopping the process of converting the entire Tarai into Madhes.”



The Tharu groups claimed at the talks that the citizenship distribution campaign launched by the government a couple of years ago was a ploy to turn the indigenous groups of the Tarai into a minority.