The Future Of Nepal: Are Its Days Numbered?

By Akhilesh Pillalamarri

Nepal has been without an effective constitution or political system since the abolition of its monarchy in 2008, despite an interim constitution. As TheDiplomat previously reported, Nepal has tried for years to successfully draft a permanent constitution. Violent protests broke out a few days ago in anticipation of Thursday’s deadline for the Constitutional Assembly to finish their work. To nobody’s surprise, Nepal failed to produce a constitution by then (yet again).

Despite constant negotiations, attempts at compromise, and even advice from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Nepal’s politicians have failed to come up with a constitution for several years. There is nothing to indicate that this is likely to change any time soon. The problem lies in the fact that there are two irreconcilable positions among Nepalese politicians. The first position is taken by the majority alliance of the Nepali Congress Party and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), which together hold more than two-thirds of the seats in the assembly. This party wants Nepal, a multiethnic country, to be a unitary state. This would, in effect, concentrate power in upper-caste Nepali speakers, who form only 44.6 percent of the Nepali population. The alternative proposal, mooted by the Maoists and regional parties, would see Nepal become a federal state with ethnic-based states. Additionally, they want the constitution to be formed on the basis of consensus rather than majority. India seems to lean toward this position.

Nepal consists of roughly three ethnic belts. The terai or plains form the southern belt and border India; half of Nepal’s population lives there and is virtually indistinguishable from the Hindi, Maithili, and Bhojpuri speaking population of the Indian states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. The central belt of Nepal is the hilly belt (pahad), which forms the bulk of Nepal and is the dominant political region of that country. This region is inhabited by ethnic Gorkha or Nepali speakers (Nepali is related to Hindi). The northernmost belt, the mountainous belt borders the Tibet region of China and consists of ethnicities that have religious and linguistic affinities with Tibetans.

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