Bimalendra Nidhi, General Secretary of the Nepali Congress, talks to Aditi Phadnis about the prospects for new Nepal.
After a great change, there is usually a period when all the parties that have brought it about get involved in haggling over tedious detail. Is that happening in Nepal today?
We’ve had an election for a constituent assembly without any bloodshed and the monarchy has been abolished. The Maoists have embraced peace and have joined overground democratic politics after being underground for nearly 13 years. They have come into the mainstream. The first priority was to amend the interim constitution. This has been done and the President is now the Head of State. A constituent assembly is in place with a President and a Prime Minister. It has taken time but it has happened.
Our first priority is creating Nepal’s first democratic constitution, while at the same time, running the government under a parliamentary system. These are the two responsibilities of the constituent assembly. As there is no separate Parliament, it is the constituent assembly which has to perform this function as well. So both these processes will go side by side.
So you have an elected President and Prime Minister. The King has been replaced by a President. Is it now the rule of the people?
All that has happened is while earlier there were three poles — the Maoists; the Nepali Congress and other political parties; and the King, now the King has gone and the Maoists are in the mainstream. But a pole is still a pole.
The republic part of Nepal is now complete with the definition, rights and duties of the President. But the federal part is yet to be implemented. Then we have to reach an agreement about the status of the Army. Earlier there were fears that the King would leverage the Army. This is yet to be resolved fully.
I have ten attributes that we have to achieve in new Nepal. We need to be independent; we need to embrace all communities, castes and creeds; it has to be unbreakable; it has to be a republic; it has to be democratic; it has to be a union but also a federation; and it has to be peaceful, economically powerful and beautiful.
Why has the Nepali Congress elected to sit in the Opposition though there was the option for you to join the government, given that this was the agreement?
Whether in the government or in the Opposition, the Nepali Congress will work to strengthen the democratic republic. It is our party which initiated the process of integrating the Maoists with the political mainstream, offering the peace process, etc. Our remaining responsibility is ensuring the country gets a new constitution.
As for this, there are two issues: one, reconstruction of the state according to the concept of federalism; two, a new system of governance consistent with a multiparty parliamentary system. Whether in the Opposition or in the government, our priority is to ensure the government does this.
In addition, our party has a national agenda. This is to take the peace process to its natural and logical conclusion. We need to see that the agreements reached with various other groups in the coalition are implemented. And then we have to help the government resolve the day-to-day problems of the government.
But if you are asking if the government will frame an economic policy for the next ten years, our answer would be no. That would be an encroachment on the rights of provinces in the future. We will resist encroachment on the rights of provinces by a centralised unitary system. Having said that, this is a national agenda. So whether we’re in the Opposition or the government, this has to be done.
Then why are you in the Opposition?
We have a seven-point basic agenda for Nepal. When I say we, I mean the constituent assembly. This has to be implemented. Under the peace process, certain commitments were made by the Maoists. They said that within 15 days, they would return the property seized during the movement. There’s KB Gurung, a well-known republican. The Maoists had seized his land. It is yet to be returned. The land of Amrit Bohra, a supporter of the Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist Leninist) was taken away by them and was never returned. Binay Dhauj Chand and Sher Bahadur Deupa, former Prime Minister from our party, also lost their land to Maoists. They promised they would give it back 15 days after the constituent assembly polls. The land of over 14,000 farmers has similarly been seized.
Then there’s the Young Communist League (YCL). They call it their youth wing. But these are a paramilitary force and they carry arms. They too have encroached on public land. In Kathmandu alone there are 37 public places which YCL has turned into offices, their ‘barracks’ for training. This is only in Kathmandu. We don’t even know how much land of ordinary people has been taken away across the country. The Maoists promised the paramilitary structure would be dismantled. This hasn’t happened.
They have said the cadres would have to be assimilated into the Army...
The question is whether political cadres will also be assimilated into the Army or just the People’s Liberation Army. And then, there are so many arms of the state: there’s the police, there is the paramilitary, there’s the Army… all that the agreement said was these cadres will be ‘integrated and rehabilitated’. Where and how precisely? What about eligibility? This still has to be worked out. And then, ‘integration’ is not the same as ‘rehabilitation’.
There is the issue of nationalities. How does the Nepali Congress view this?
People are the centre of nationalities. We believe in unity in diversity. The rights of all communities have to be decided on the basis of identity, representation and ownership. This means that we recognise all identities, we believe in participation of all and think all groups must develop stakes in running the system.
But the Madhes feels left out...
Merely inviting a community to a podium and honouring it is not enough. Their rights have to be recognised by the constitution, through their right to inclusiveness and representation.
Will the new constitution recognise Hindi as a national language?
All these issues will be discussed.
The experience in Delhi is that it is the Opposition in Nepal that uses India to articulate its position — Nepali nationalism is defined as anti-Indianism...
There are some people in Nepal who are monarchical. Only they argue the way that you describe: the King and the people who are King-centric. The King, to get over his own troubles, used to make India the target. The people of Nepal are not anti-Indian.
