If we can not go forward, then going backward should not be an option

By Shiva Gautam

Discernible changes in Nepal’s political climate following the April uprising seem to be dissipating and slowly metamorphosing into an impasse.

Managing Maoists’ army and arms, dissolution of reinstated House of Representatives and sequence of events to be engineered leading to an election of constituent assembly, and overall modus operandi have been the few serious sticking points between seven political parties and CPN (M).

The downside of going slowly, as suggested here, has increased the risk of political maneuverings from different groups. This might plunge the country into even a deeper crisis. But people may be more willing to go through this than witnessing the repetition of violence of the past.
Maoists seem quite reluctant in accepting seven party alliance’s (SPA) proposal. They probably are not convinced that Nepal Army will not violently crush them once they surrender their arms and ammunitions. Such an act by Maoist could also implicitly imply that Maoists are an illegitimate force and SPA is the only legitimate force. Obviously, the Maoists may not be comfortable with that.

For the seven parties, on the other hand, it may be unbelievable that Maoists will not use intimidation to influence the result of an election especially in the rural areas while they remain armed. They are not sure if Maoists are genuinely in favor of a competitive democracy or are trying to establish a hardcore communistic state in Nepal for which using tantrums as a precursor to their final push.

The seven political parties often project themselves as the only legitimate national political parties and therefore true representative of the people of Nepal. The Maoists are trying to project themselves as an equal partner.

Interestingly, people of Nepal through the April revolution, mandated both political parties and Maoists to work together. We saw the uprising only after the Moist and SPA reached an understanding through 12 point memorandum.

SPA and Maoists are clearly pushing each other away from people’s mandate.

However, such political meandering and maneuverings of insignificant magnitude could finally derail the progress made so far.

Impasses are difficult, but such impasses are the test of true leaderships. Let’s hope the current situation will go only forward. But if the impasse seems impregnable, then I have following suggestions to be considered:

If we can not go forward, then going backward should not be an option. Status quo should be preferred to going back. This will allow time to look for an alternate solution. (In the UN letter case it would have been either do not write a letter at all, or write only after both sides tentatively agree on it).

There are uncertainties and lack of trust between the two sides regarding what might precipitate if one side gives up to the other. We can test the proposal ( e.g. elections) in a small part the country as an experiment. Then we can adjust or fine tune the next step based on the observations.

An idea of adding several members from the Maoists and civil society to the current House of Representatives (HoR) has been recently floated by some. Let this modified parliament function for next four/five years and ready the country for the next step. This tentatively falls under the philosophy of ‘if we can not go forward, then we should not go backward either’ outlined in no.1 above.

If no.3 is a viable option then the cabinet formed at the behest of the new HoR should continue to work on development works along with the process of national integration.

Political structure at the center should be replicated at lower levels, too. In other words. regional and village level public offices should consist of members from Maoists and SPA.

Development budget should be transferred directly to villages. Property (land) tax collected from villages should be used by villages towards their development projects and education in addition to other aids received from Kathmandu.

In the meantime, current negotiations aimed at constituent assembly election, draft of constitution, and election of house of representative should continue and completed before the proposed HoR’s term expires on the fifth year.

Negotiations at all levels should be initiated (i.e. Maoists’ women organizations should talk to SPA’s women organization, Maoists engineers should talk to SPA’s Engineers, Maoists teacher union should talk to SPA’s teacher union and so on). Not only few leaders, but let the whole country negotiate. Is it not this true spirit of democracy?

Send personnel from both Nepal army and Maoists’ army in UN peace-keeping missions abroad. Maoist personnel army should be integrated into Nepal army just before departure. Maoists may need additional training before joining the peace keeping mission. The UN or a third country may bear the extra cost of pre- deployment training

The downside of going slowly, as suggested here, has increased the risk of political maneuverings from different groups. This might plunge the country into even a deeper crisis. But people may be more willing to go through this than witnessing the repetition of violence of the past. If we try hard and allow all to participate in reshaping social, political, and especially economic issues peacefully, then there are good chances of being successful.

(Dr. Gautam is a faculty at the Harvard University.)

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