As the deadline for the end of the final extension of CA nears, the issue of federalism, and increasingly that of secession, the devil that didn´t dare speak its name until recently, is gaining traction in Nepali politics. Various Madhesh-based leaders have been sharpening their rhetoric on One Madhesh and the consequences of not granting it. On the other side of the divide, the ´Pahade´ leaders of Nepali Congress and CPN-UML have started to air their misgivings about the division of the state along ethnic lines: Creation of ethnic states, their argument goes, would challenge the territorial integrity and unity of Nepal (as President Yadav seemed to be hinting in his Tansen address).
But based on experiences around the world what are the chances of some parts of Nepal seceding?
Let’s consider some facts. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the number of sovereign countries in the world has steadily grown. When the United Nations was created at the war´s end in 1945, it had just 51 member states. The club has now ballooned to 193. Since 1990, 34 new countries have been created. Expect the numbers to keep on their upward tick.
“Within a few decades, we could easily have 300 states in the world," writes Parag Khanna, a Senior Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, in his 2011 essay ´Breaking up is good to do´ in Foreign Policy. "We are gradually returning to the medieval world of thousands of multilayered communities”.
But what has led to this exponential growth in the number of states? One of the main reasons is the disintegration of USSR in 1990, which not only resulted in the creation of 15 independent states within the territories of the former Soviet Union but also spurred the demise of other Communist regimes around the world. For instance, the Communist Yugoslavia, following the developments in its ideological patron, would itself be divided into six independent states.
Within the last decade alone, we have witnessed the creation of three new countries (East Timor, South Sudan and Kosovo; although the UN doesn’t recognize the last of the three). It might only be a matter of time before Belgium breaks down into French-speaking Wallonia and Dutch-speaking Flanders; Scotland´s independence from the UK is also on the cards pending a referendum next year. Conceivably, the two halves of Cyprus could part company.
Khanna believes that "… partitions are inevitable... in an age when any group can acquire the tools of violent resistance, the only alternative to self-determination is perpetual conflict".
It is true that the trend in international relations is to put the "the rights of people" before maintenance of existing state boundaries at all costs. Thus, the newest entrant to the comity of nations, South Sudan, peacefully seceded from Sudan on July 9, 2011 following a referendum. The roots of the secession can be traced back to (northern) Sudan´s consistent policy of marginalization of the south since the country’s independence from Britain in 1956.
Likewise, arguably the second last entrant to the international club is the autonomous region of Kosovo, which in 2008 unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. Much like southern Sudan, people of Kosovo were forced into evoking their right to self-determination as the central government started exerting itself more and more in the autonomous region. Interestingly, in 2006 Serbia had itself separated from the loose confederation of Serbia and Montenegro.
Lastly, East Timor (with an overwhelming majority of Portuguese-speaking Catholics) in 2002 gained its independence from Indonesia (a predominantly Islamic state with Austronesian Bahasa Indonesia as its official national language) after a UN-sponsored act of self-determination.
In all these cases, the populations in the regions that eventually seceded felt their lack of ownership of the national agenda. It isn’t hard to see why various minorities and heretofore marginalized communities in Nepal seek greater autonomy from the historically indifferent center. But could assertion of such rights lead to eventual secession of some territories, as happened with the countries cited above? No matter how remote it might now appear, such an outcome cannot be completely ruled out.
Ironically, the eventual reason the country might stay as one could be (surprise, surprise) India. Ironically because a large section of Nepalis believe the ‘overbearing’ neighbor to the south is forever busy fomenting discord in Nepal. As The Economist (Feb 18th-24th) puts it: “...past Indian arrogance makes neighbors ready to believe anything”, including, in this neck of South Asia, its perceived interest in seeing Nepal break up.
But it is hard to see India supporting (leave alone) engineering Nepal’s disintegration. For all its meddling, India calculates that separatist tendencies in other countries in the region could fuel such trends within its own territories, from the restive North East to the tinderbox of Kashmir. India’s quest for stability in the region far trumps whatever colonial empire-building urges often attributed to the South Asian behemoth.
There is a lot of weight to Indian Foreign Minister SM Krishna’s latest remark that “We [India] will not destabilize or divide a nation” in the region. India’s eerie silence over the alleged coup attempt in the Maldives, where it has in the past militarily intervened to avert such an eventuality, is reflective of the new Indian policy of ‘engagement’ in South Asia.
The catchword for India at this time in its rapid economic transformation is ‘stability’. It is very unlikely to support secession anywhere in the region unless the cost of the support far outweighs the cost of refusal of the right to self determination of a people. In the final bargain, there is little to gain for India in either case.
China supporting secession next door to Tibet is even more inconceivable. If the worst comes to the worst, in light of the growing Indo-China linkages and the two countries’ shared interest in regional stability, Beijing could silently pass the buck to deal with the ‘mess’ in Nepal to New Delhi. Pretty much the same would be applicable to other foreign powers which have in any case found it convenient to coordinate their Nepal policy with India.
Given Nepal’s over-reliance on India for everything from fuel to port facilities, and given the tendency of Nepali leaders of all political stripes to seek its blessings to prolong their stint in power; and irrespective of India’s current policy inclinations vis-à-vis South Asia, if there is heightened instability in Nepal, rest assured, India will step in to return to the more ‘stable’ status quo ante. In other words, like it or not, it will be India that will put in place the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle that will be the future political map of federal Nepal.
The writer is with Republica’s Op-ed bureau. The views expressed in the article are personal
biswas.baral@gmail.com
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