Opinion
Counterfeiting progress
Identity-inclusive federalism is the only way Nepal will have long-term stabilityPramod Mishra
We have two kinds of pluralists/multiculturalists and monoculturalists in Nepal: fake and true/real and alleged. But because the medium has become the message in the media-driven world, the way the spinners spin these terms, real pluralists become ekal pahichanbadi (single-identity proponents) and real monoculturalists successfully
project themselves as pluralists/multiculturalists. As a result, true pluralists suffer the stigma of being single-identity proponents while real monoculturalists triumph from successfully spinning tales as pluralists. To make the distinction between fake and true pluralists and monoculturalists is not to say that the fakes will always remain fake and can never become real, or vice versa—in the case of either pluralists or monoculturalists.
Pretend pluralists
Let me explain with examples. I call the Nepali Congress (NC) and the CPN-UML fake or pretend pluralists. You can call them by another name, such as lip service pluralists. Indeed, both the Congress and the UML, right since 1990, paid lip service to pluralism. Bahujatiya, bahubhashik, bahusanskritic (multi-ethnic, multilingual, multicultural) were terms first introduced by the Congress and UML in the 1990 constitution and in public discourse after the advent of the multi-party system. Practicing tokenism, they introduced multi-language news reading through Radio Nepal, even increasing the number of ministers and other political appointees. They no doubt deserve credit for this.
But to give them sole recognition would be unfair to the Panchayat system and the Mahendra-Birendra kingship. A Rai, Limbu or Biswakarma here and a Gurung, Tharu or Jha there was always appointed a zonal commissioner or minister during the Panchayat system. But this tokenism neither benefited the marginalised nor elevated their dignity and self-respect in the classical Hindu regime that the Ranarchy had instituted. And the Panchayat, under the leadership of the monarch, not only perpetuated this but made it structurally instituted by introducing a modern system of governance, especially land management and district administration.
In an expanded form, the Congress and UML gave continuance to this tokenism after 1990 while calling the tokenism multi this or multi that. When the UML and Congress used the word ‘multi’ in their manifestos, as in ‘multi-identity federalism’, they used the term ‘multi’ or ‘pluralist’ precisely in that earlier sense—that people of many languages and ethnicities live in mixed settlements all over the country. Indeed, they were right in stating the fact of multi-ethnic and multilingual habitation. What they did not do is make explicit the invisible, systemic or structural single-identity of the Nepali state.
Single identity of the state
What is the single-identity of the Nepali state? It is its Nepali language in which non-Nepali speakers are made to take civil and security service exams, appear in interviews and made to participate in public discourse as the normal language in a formal sense at the centre. And non-Nepali speakers are made to speak this language at district headquarters and made fun of at their imperfect command of the language, rather than making government officials speak the language of the people in the districts and penalising them when they can’t.
It is like asking Tamils from Tamil Nadu in India to speak and write in Hindi in the Union Public Service Exams and making rural Tamil folks speak in Hindi in their district offices. Even P Chidambaram, the Harvard man in the Indian cabinet, does not speak Hindi nor do most government officials from South India. Yet, nothing stops them from full participation in the Indian state structure.
The single-identity of the Nepali state also means a near monopoly of the network of hill caste Hindus in the state system—civil, security, judiciary and politics—which creates a web of inclusion and exclusion in recruitment, tenure and promotion, including an unfriendly and hostile environment for those whose number or culture and language are not considered national or of importance.
Inclusive of identities
The identity-inclusive federalism that the Maoists, Madhesis and Janajatis advanced came as a response to this fake or token pluralism of the Congress and UML, and against the real monoculturalism, monolingualism and single-identity of the Nepali state. But what happened instead was they got defined as single-identity federalists rather than real multiculturalists and true pluralists.
One must also point out here that many among the ekal pahichan federalists, such as in Limbuwan (although not so much in Tamsaling, Tamuwan and others) began to see themselves as Greater Limbuwan advocates, invoking some vague history rather than basing their judgment on present reality to advance their demands. So, for example, they were unwilling to let Jhapa and Morang be named as Kochila and insisted on a Limbuwan identity.
So for this and many other reasons, the real pluralists lost in the election even though at heart, they wished for a truly pluralist polity. And those who hid the single-identity of the state and portrayed their own monoculturalism as pluralism won the election by a two-thirds majority. There is something to be said about the art of spinning terms and concepts for immediate political gain. Surprisingly, even the Maoists, great believers in the power of propaganda, failed in this game.
The point of this piece is that both the true and fake pluralists need introspection and self-examination—and to face the truth. A win or loss in one election based on spinning tales will not always remain a win or a loss. The purpose of the entire exercise of the second Constituent Assembly is to produce a constitution that will create a just and non-discriminatory society—structurally. And this can be achieved in many ways. Identity-inclusive federalism is but one. This is the only way Nepal will have long-term stability.