The difficulty of agreeing

The euphoria over the 16-point agreement which had been struck on June 8 among four major political parties of Nepal to finalise a draft Constitution, has proved to be short-lived. Voices of protest have begun to emerge, and not just from the Madhesi community leaders, notwithstanding the fact that one of the signatories to the agreement was a Madhesi party, the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-loktantrik. A few Nepali Congress leaders too have gone on record to express their dissatisfaction with the draft document. This leads to the question: Should the Government still persist with its version or factor in the demand that a clearly-defined federal structure must necessarily be part of the ConstitutionIJ A confrontation is brewing, and not just among the political parties. Ever since Nepal's Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the 16-point deal, less than a fortnight after it was formulated, the ruling Nepali Congress-Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-leninist) coalition has been itching for a fight. In defiance, the Government has gone ahead with the draft Constitution, and appears determined to adopt it in the Constituent Assembly, where it has a majority. But it is not the numbers game here that can settle the issue. The discontent over what is being seen by many Madhesis as a ‘sellout' of their interests, can singe both the ruling and the opposition parties in the coming weeks, and lead to public unrest. It is in the interests of politicians that they arrive at a middle ground. The Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-loktantrik may well in the coming days revise its stand if it is faced with growing protests. After all, it has the self-mandated task to promote the interests of the community, and if it is perceived to be failing in that, it could well lose political ground to rival Madhesi parties, of which there are many. 

It's a vexing dilemma, and especially for the Maoists, who have in recent years tied up with the prominent Madhesi parties to present a united opposition to the ruling coalition. The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda' has been fighting shoulder-to-shoulder with the community’s various leaders in favour of a clearly defined federalism based largely on ethnic considerations, to be included in the Constitution. Since the UCPN(M) too endorsed the 16-point formula, it is now at a crossroads. If it continues to back the deal, it stands to lose large sections of Madhesi support; if it doesn't, it will be branded as a political opportunist and a back-tracker. For most outsiders — and to Indians in particular — the repeated failure of the parties in Nepal (that too for years) to frame a Constitution acceptable to a vast majority of their people, is incomprehensible. But Nepal has had a complicated socio-political history that does not provide for easy solutions. One can only hope that the present deadlock is resolved before it turns into a full-blown confrontation spilling out on the streets.