Baburam Bhattarai, Facebook,
18 August
These are the main points I made during a program called ‘Identity and Federalism’ in Itahari on 15 August.
Federalism is a method to institutionalise a capitalist/socialist, democratic, republican system of governance after the end of tyrannical slave/feudal era.
Nepal is currently in transition after the end of feudalism and it is critical that we restructure governance from autocratic monarchy to federal democratic republic.
Federalism is a tool with which to end racial/national marginalisation and head towards capitalist/socialist development while decentralisation is mostly used to make administration convenient for a centralist government. Even though the NC and UML keep talking about federalism, they are unwilling to rise above a preference for decentralisation, which is why the first CA could not write a federal democratic republican constitution.
The term ‘ethnic’ (jaati) denotes a stable human community or nation/nationality which has been developed through time, common language, residence, economic activities, cultural practices, worldviews, and national character. But in the Nepali language, ‘ethnicity’ is commonly used to mean race, which is confusing and provides opportunists a chance to fish in muddy waters.
In Nepal, no one community/nationality has a clear majority and none of their individual nationality has developed to the standard of claiming a separate nation-state. Nepal is a victim of monopolistic international capitalism, so the type of federalism the country is likely to adopt will be different from the ones practiced in the former-USSR, USA, India or China (even though China has more Hans than any other group and the minorities have autonomy to some degree).
Federalism automatically includes issues relating to identity.
State identity is single just like a person’s identity and names are single. In Nepal’s case, the old tyrannical ruling elite has been trying to continuously and consciously wipe out the identities of victim communities/nations.
No one can interfere against the wishes of the communal/nation al identity of a community/nationality on linguistic, regional, or historical grounds.
In Nepal, the claims of Newars for linguistic/communal identity, those of Seti-Mahakali and Karanali for regional/historical identity, and the communal/national identities of others are completely valid.
All proposed states have mixed populations, but even if a state is named after one victim community/nationality, other residents need not be scared. For example, Limbuwan, Kirat, Magarat, Madhes etc are names used throughout Nepal’s history.
There is a qualitative difference between ‘Limbu State’ and ‘Limbuwan State’ or ‘Magar Pradesh’ and ‘Magarat State’. ‘Limbu State’ refers to a state based on the Limbu ethnicity, whereas Limbuwan refers to the ancestral residence of the Limbus, which is also the place of residence of other communities. There is no question of one ethnic group getting right of residence and chasing others away.
Traditional forms of communalism and ethnic superiority must be discouraged and unity of proletariats must be stressed.
We mustn’t do anything to undermine the territorial integrity, independence, and sovereignty of Nepal.
Read the original Nepali