The Road to Cultural Federalism in Nepal

The Road to Cultural Federalism in Nepal

Nepal, the newest republic of the world is in a fragile transitional phase and undergoing lots of historic changes. After overthrowing a 240 year old monarchy backed up by the notoriously brave Nepalese Army, Nepal became the newest republic of the world. While the proposal to divide Nepal into federal states is being discussed among Maoist led coalition government and other political parties, the debate about whether or not to divide Nepal into autonomous federal states with right to self-determination has deepened. With this debate, views have been polarized; one camp believes dividing Nepal into smaller states will compromise the integrity of the nation, while the other camp believes it will help in development and better governance, modeled after the most developed republic in the world, United States.

There are three major debates about the introduction of federalism in Nepal. First: should Nepal be divided into federal states or not in the first place? Second: should federal states be autonomous with right to self-determination or not, which in plain language means should the states have the right to govern their respective states independently of the federal government? Third: should the physical boundaries of those states be determined by cultural differences or should it be purely geographical? After the popular April revolution in 2006 (that overthrew the king), two other revolutions were waged in the southern plains (Madhesh) of Nepal. Both ofMadheshi revolutions’ primary demands were proportional representation and an autonomous federal state with right to self-determination. Similar demands for autonomous states have been raised by numerous other ethnic groups such asLimbuwan Liberation Front, Khambuwan Liberation Front, Madhesi Liberation Front[1], Newa Liberation Front,Indigenous Janajatis and others. These groups have issued threats to launch a full-fledged armed rebellion if an autonomous state for their ethnic population were to be denied. Hence, Nepal should have cultural federalism because dividing Nepal into states based on culture is the only way to meet the demands of the agitating ethnic groups, ensure long-term stability and build a new prosperous Nepal.

As I progress to show that cultural federalism (i.e. federalism based on ethnicity and language as in case of Nepal) is the best solution, I will proceed by considering possible alternative systems first. Broadly speaking, Nepal has three alternatives: 1) Decentralized system with local administrative units controlled by a strong, central authority, 2) Territorial Federalism and, 3) Cultural Federalism. Nepal has the experience of adopting decentralized system of governance multiple times spanning several decades, which proved to be largely unsuccessful, inefficient and ineffective. Nepal is one of the poorest nations on the Earth that faces acute shortage of basic needs such as clean drinking water and electricity for homes; this plight of Nepal testifies for futility and ineffectiveness of decentralized system in Nepal.* Nepalese countrymen spend their nights in darkness, without 16 hours of any electricity daily. Even though Nepal boasts of its tremendous potential to generate hydro-electricity, it has not been able to use even one percent of its capacity. The decentralized system prevalent in Nepal for decades can be held responsible for this underdevelopment since these potential regions were neglected merely because they were relatively far from the capital city, Kathmandu. The decentralized system is not bad of a system in itself but it does not resonate with need and current demand of Nepal.

The largest district of Nepal,Karnali which lies in far-western region of Nepal does not have any roads hitherto. Such neglected regions would benefit the most from a federal system because a federal system is the best way to ensure the optimum use of local resources. A federal system can also formulate policies conducive to regional demands and needs. For instance, the provision of building ropeways could be made a priority in rugged terrains such as inKarnali since building roads is economically and geographically unfeasible. John Kincaid serves to strengthen the above argument by pointing out that federalism provides public services tailored to the diversity of citizen and communal preferences. Nepal needs federalism because only federalism can cater to the needs of geographically and culturally diverse regions of Nepal by allowing local governments to formulate conducive and custom tailored policies for individual states.

In addition, when Maoists begun the armed resistance against the state, one of their major agendas read, “right to autonomy on regional, district and local level should be given…where [an] ethnic community has majority” (Sharma 2002). Maoists do not seem to be very positive about granting autonomy to states anymore but ethnic groups have stubbornly stuck to their demands. The opposition to granting autonomy to the individual federal states is based on the fear that the states might attempt to secede or demand even greater degree of independence in the future. The opposing group argues that this might encourage other states to do the same and weaken the federal government in the long run. Even though this argument appears true, empirical data does not support it. Indeed, federalism has proved to contain ethnic conflicts in several nations, India being a paradigm of this theory (Varshney 1998). This fear has been spread mainly by royalists who think they still have a fair chance to strike back and resume the lost kingdom if they can somehow prove political parties as a failure. Another group that supports this flawed argument is Khas Bahuns, who fear that they would have to give up their (unfair share of) power and sense of superiority under autonomous federalism. But is should be realized that denying federalism will mean further bloodshed and suffering for common Nepalese. In fact, federalism alone is insufficient to meet the needs and demands of ethnic groups; Nepal needs to have autonomous federal system with right to self-determination to ensure stability and achieve long-lasting peace.

If it is agreed on autonomous federalism, the most important question becomes how do we divide Nepal into autonomous federal states then? Should it be purely territorial, cultural (based on language and ethnicity) or mixed? For the sake of argument, let’s assume Nepal decides to adopt territorial federalism i.e. it divides Nepal into numerous states based on geography or territory, like that of the United States. Since Nepal is a multicultural, multilingual and multiethnic country, dividing Nepal into states without taking into account the culture of people in those regions would distribute the ethnic population over several states (Hutt 1991). The biggest problem that would arise in this system is that majority of ethnic groups in any of those states cannot be guaranteed. Firstly, this contradicts Maoists’ proposal which says, ‘…where [an] ethnic community has majority,…’(Sharma 2002). Secondly, not having majority would mean ethnic groups would not have right to formulate policies conducive to their region as their proposals could easily be blocked by representatives of other ethnic groups, should a conflict of interest rise. Moreover, if two groups have large presence in a state none of which have majority, there is always a high chance of confrontation. Stability in an ethnic federal arrangement can only be achieved by ensuring majority of the largest ethnic group in that region. This argument is supported by Hawkes’s statement, “The drive for greater autonomy, or self-rule, can be accommodated through a public form of government where indigenous people are the demographic majority in a region... (Vol. 53)” Territorial federalism does not ensure demographic majority of any ethnic group in a region leaving open the chance of further struggle and confrontation in the future and hence cannot be the best solution for Nepal.

Cultural federalism is a type of federalism in which states have population with homogenous culture, where culture implies language, religion and ethnicity; since Nepal has an 86% Hindu population, language and ethnicity are the only two main cultural factors. Dividing a nation solely on the basis of ethnicity might generate opposition and appear to challenge the stability of such nations. But it has to be realized that every nation’s situation is different. The United States has been relatively stable culturally and for Americans, national identity comes before other ethnic identities, but the case is not the same for Nepal. Moreover, dividing a nation solely on the basis of ethnicity is not something unheard of. Ethiopia has had a decade of ethnic based federalism by now and it has been relatively stable compared to the turbulent state it was in before ethnicity based federalism was adopted (Mengisteab 23). The biggest advantage of cultural federalism is that states can be divided to ensure majority of various ethnic groups in different states. But it should be realized that, “ethnic homogeneity is hardly possible in any territory in multi-ethnic states, due to the diversity and mixture of peoples across ethnic boundaries”, as Adeney points out in his paper on federalism in India and Pakistan; so, even though this division is not the perfect, it is the best known (10-13).

Cultural federalism meets the demands of the agitating ethnic groups, ensures their majority in respective states- a pre-requisite for long term stability and peace, and gives ample opportunities to the cultural groups to formulate policies catering to their needs. Cultural federalism also preserves all the advantages of federalism such as increased competition and innovation among states, greater responsiveness to citizen preferences and optimum utilization of local resources for development (Kincaid 53). A model to divide Nepal culturally and federally, proposed by Vijaya R. Sharma is shown below who issued this proposal after reviewing other worthy proposals including that of the Maoists (see Table 1). Sharma’s proposal divides Nepal into 15 culturally homogenous federal states with more or less similar population and percent of Gross Domestic Product shares (25-27). Even though he makes a conscious effort of avoiding ethnic names for his proposed states which is a well reasoned decision, his proposed state names ‘Hills-1’, ‘Hills-2’ to ‘Hills-10’ and similarly ‘Tarai-1’ to ‘Tarai-5’ would add to the confusion of Nepalese (V Sharma 25-27). They have had more than their share of confusion about several types of federalisms and numerous proposals to divide the country, each one claiming to be the best. Giving unique, characteristic and unmechanistic names to states without associating with any of their ethnic groups would make his proposal better and the most convincing of all.

To prevent Nepal from slipping further in anarchy, leaders need to decide on cultural federalism thereby ensuring stability and starting the marathon of nation-building. Convincing Nepalese people (who have been confused with so many proposals and ideas) that cultural federalism is the best solution is a gargantuan task, a miraculous feat that could only be achieved if all the political parties collectively endorsed it. For now, this dream of all parties collaborating for the welfare of the nation is a fantasy.

Table 1 Proposal to divide Nepal into 15 culturally homogenous states where each color represents a separate state.

Source: Vijaya R Sharma, “Comparative Study of Federation Proposals for Nepal,” Liberal Democracy Nepal Bulletin 2.2 (2007): 28.

Works Cited

Adeney, K. Regionalism, identity and reconciliation: federalism in India and Pakistan.

Paper presented at the Political Studies Association-UK 50th Annual Conference of the Political Studies Association. London, April 2000: 10-13.

Hutt, Michael. “Drafting the Nepal Constitution, 1990.” Asian Survey 31.11 (1991).

Kincaid, John. "Economic policy-making: advantages and disadvantages of the federal model." International Social Science Journal 53.167 (Mar. 2001).

Mengisteab, Kidane. “Ethiopia's Ethnic-Based Federalism: 10 Years after.” African Issues29.1/2 (2001): 20.

Sharma, Sudheer. The Ethnic Dimension of the Maoist Insurgency. Prepared for DFID. Kathmandu, 2002.

Sharma, Vijaya R. “Comparative Study of Federation Proposals for Nepal.” Liberal Democracy Nepal Bulletin 2.2 (2007): 25-28.

Varshney, Ashutosh. “India defies the odds.” J. Democracy9.3 (1998): 36-50.

---

1Madhesi Liberation Front is a joint term for all mainstream Madhesi political parties and numerous underground armed outfits claiming to be operating for liberation of Madhesh.

* It currently faces 16 hours of load-shedding (power shortage) every day.

This paper was written as an assignment for Writing Workshop under the instructor, Dr. Anthony Montalbano during Spring 2009 at Trinity University