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Nepal topography. The green/yellow zones hold the Inner Terai valleys. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
(Article sent to Kantipur on August 6, 2014)
A few months after the king’s coup in 2005 I moved to
New York City
from the Midwest. I had no such plans, but I ended up putting full
time work into
Nepal’s democracy movement, and subsequently the
Madhesi movement. I went on to become
Barack Obama’s first full time
volunteer in all of New York City. I also watched Modi’s campaign for
hours each day. To this day I follow Nepali politics pretty closely.
It is a shame that Nepal’s constitution was not written during the
first two years of the first constituent assembly. Nepal’s leaders
failed its people. But here we are with six months to go. Not
completing the task is not an option, because massive economic
opportunities are knocking at the door.
During the Shivaratri mayhem around Pashupati, all you have to do is
go stand in the middle and the crowd will take you forward. China has
been growing at massive rates with no signs of slowing down. India is
about to take off in a similar way. All Nepal has to do is provide
basic political stability, basic law and order, and the economy would
take off for being sandwiched between the two awake giants. This is
precisely the point I made when I got to meet Prime Minister
Sushil
Koirala in NYC a few weeks back.
I think the recent electoral mandate was broadly for geographic
federalism. We should move towards six states: East
Terai (Chitwan and
Udaypur included), West Terai (Surkhet included), Koshi, Bagmati,
Gandaki, Karnali. The primary achievement of the Madhesh Movement was
making sure the number of
MPs from the Terai is in direct proportion
to its population. That has to continue. Beyond that an electoral
system fair to the DaMaJaMa (Dalit, Madhesi, Janajati, Mahila) has to
be put in place.
205 seats in a lower house and 100 seats in an upper house might
suffice. 7% of the 205 seats, or 15 seats should be reserved for
Dalits. These would be constituencies where only Dalit candidates may
contest. One third of all seats should similarly be set aside for
women, or about 67 seats. Of those seats for women, 20% should be for
Dalit women, 30% for Madhesi women, and 30% for Janajati women.
For the 100 upper house seats, it would be fully proportional. How
many votes a party collects would determine how many seats that party
gets. There would be provisions for the DaMaJaMa. One third for women
again, as in every third name on a party’s list should be a woman. 7%
for Dalits again. 10% for Madhesis, and 10% for Janajatis. The parties
must submit lists before the election and make them public. The lists
may not be amended after the election. So if a party gets 10 seats,
the first 10 names on its submitted list get in.
A Prime Minister elected by both Chambers of the House would be the
Executive Chief, free to form his cabinet with people from inside and
outside the parliament, and a president elected by all elected leaders
in the country at all levels, local, state and national, would serve
as the constitutional head, and the Commander In Chief of the Nepal
Army.
The six states would have unicameral legislatures. Every parliamentary
constituency might be split into two state legislature constituencies.
The 75 districts stay intact. There is the central government, there
are the six state governments, the 75 district governments, and the
city, town and village governments. It is important to come up with
formulas such that the state, district and local governments end up
with substantial budgets.
Nepal that is a federal country should have many fewer bureaucrats,
soldiers and police officers than it currently has, because federalism
is a more efficient form of government. A lot of stuff gets taken care
of locally. Downsizing the Nepal Army from 100,000 soldiers to about
10,000 soldiers would free up resources for tens of thousands of
teachers and health care workers. Policing is a state function and so
Nepal Police will have to give way. Several ministries will have to be
eliminated, all will have to be significantly downsized.
Modi during his recent visit said, “Nepal can become a developed
nation by selling power to India.” That is true. Once the country has
a new constitution and there are regular elections to all levels of
government I am sure the country will see plenty of good leaders
emerge who might do for Nepal what
Nitish Kumar has done for Bihar.
An economic revolution would be Nepal growing at double digit rates
year in year out for 30 years. That kind of growth rate is the best
and fastest way to wiping out poverty in the country.
(Paramendra Bhagat is a tech entrepreneur based in New York City. His
global team is working on an Augmented Reality Mobile Game.)