The indefinite strike called by the Madheshi Front and Tharuhat Struggle Committee in the Terai region of Nepal against the biased new Constitution has continuing unabated for last three months. During the strike, the Madheshi and Tharu people also imposed economic blockade by enforcing sit-in programmes at the main custom points, including at Jogbani-Biratnagar, Bhitamore-Janakpur, Raxaul-Birgunj, Sunauli-Bhairahawa, and Rupaidiha-Nepalgunj, along “no man’s land” of Nepal-India border. Over and above, more than a million people in Terai formed human chain all along the Postal Highway (Hulaqi Sadak) from Mechi river in the east to Mahakali river in the west covering over 1,100-km long distance to exhibit their solidarity and also as a sign of protest against the Constitution.
In fact, the Madheshi and Tharu people had a lot of expectation from the new Constitution, but it dashed their hopes by giving continuity to the exclusionary policy of the Nepal Government. No measure was taken to bring the excluded ethnic communities like the Madheshis and the Tharus in the national mainstream by promoting their participation in administration, judiciary, legislative, security, banking and other State mechanism. Virtually, the new Constitution proved more regressive than any of other six Constitutions promulgated in Nepal in last seven decades.
As per the provision of the Constitution, foreign women marrying Nepalese men would be given only naturalised citizenship. Even the children born to such women would be given only naturalised citizenship. Accordingly, people with naturalised citizenship will not qualify for important positions in the Government bodies. For all practical purposes, they will be treated as second-class citizens. Also, the Constitution overlooked the problem of statelessness in Terai, where 40 per cent of the people have been denied citizenship.
In order to end the centuries-old discrimination towards them, the Madheshi and Tharu leaders demand due share in the entire State mechanism on the basis of their demographic strength, apart from removing the discriminatory treatment with women and children in citizenship issue. Madheshis, Tharus and other Janajatis in Terai constitute 51 per cent of Nepal’s total population of 28 million. And therefore it is natural that they want half of electoral constituencies in the House of Representatives (lower House of Parliament) in the Terai. In addition, they also want half of total seats in the National Assembly (Upper House of Parliament). The bottom line is the establishment of only two undivided states in Terai — one from Jhapa to Parsa in the east and another from Chitwan to Kanachanpur in the west.
Though the strike of the Madheshi and Tharu people is launched on Mahatma Gandhi’s principle of non-violence, the security agencies of Nepal, including the Army, committed excesses in controlling the agitation. As such, nearly 50 people have been killed and thousands have been injured. A substantial chunk of population from Terai has also crossed border to take asylum in India.
Nepal is severely paralysed due to the strike and the situation is going to aggravate further if no tangible effort is made to resolve it. Many of the trucks laden with goods, especially the fuel tankers, have been stopped by the Madheshi and Tharu agitators at the border before entering into the Nepalese
territory from India. This has created acute shortage of essential goods such as medicines, cooking gas, petrol, food and other items. Besides, most of the transport services, industries, educational institutions, health facilities, Government offices, corporations, banks and private business are closed in Nepal.
However, even under the new political dispensation in which KP Oli has become Prime Minister, there is no serious effort to end the crisis, though dialogue with the agitating groups has begun. As of now, Oli’s image is more of a conservative rather than a liberal in addressing the demands of the agitating groups, which in itself is a challenge. Besides, the Government has poor track record of implementing past agreements with the Madheshi groups. In 2008, the Government of Nepal duly signed an agreement with the Madheshi leaders to provide them autonomous single Terai province from Jhapa to Kanchanpur. But later on the Government back-tracked from its own commitment and did not implement the agreement. Another challenge with the Government is the lack of people’s faith in the new Constitution as there was no participation of the Madheshis and the Tharus in the entire Constitution making process. As if this was not enough, the new Constitution was written by turning down Nepal’s Supreme Court verdict and also the provisions of Interim Constitution 2007 in regard to the formation of federal States.
Unfortunately, the privileged hill elites of Kathmandu have accused India of imposing economic blockade on Nepal with the intention of diverting people’s attention from its own inactivity. But India has refuted the allegations of imposing any official or un-official blockade on Nepal.
Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that the Madheshi and Tharu people engaged in agitation in Terai have all the moral support from the people across the border in India with whom they have blood relations. There is hardly any Madheshi in Nepal who don’t have blood relations in Indian side of the border. Estimates are that some 40 per cent of the members of legislative Council in Bihar (India) have their blood relation in Nepal.
It is a reality that many of the border inhabitants in Nepal find the people across the border in India closer to them than their own countrymen in the hills. In the same way, the border inhabitants in India find the border inhabitants of Nepal closer to them than the people in other parts of India. Because of this unique relation, the Madheshis staging sit-in protest at the Miteri bridge at Raxaul-Birgunj border crossing point are being provided free food by the fellow border inhabitants in Raxaul (India). As per the news report, 50,000 of the Madheshi agitators are being provided food by the people in Raxaul each day for which they have been collecting donations in the surrounding areas. Similarly, those Madheshi and Tharu people who have taken asylum in border districts of India such as in Sitamardhi and Madhubani have also been provided all possible support by the Indian border inhabitants.
Since the current economic blockade in Nepal is imposed by the Nepalese Madheshi and Tharu people, in essence it is self-imposed in nature. Its solution is internal, rather than external. Any effort to resolve the present crisis on foreign soil such as in New Delhi or Beijing without taking the Madheshi and Tharu people into confidence is bound to fail. If the ordinary people in the Terai and hill regions are suffering due to the actuate shortage of essential goods, it is the Government who should be blamed.
(The writer is Executive Director of Centre for Economic and Technical Studies (CETS), Kathmandu, Nepal.)
