Nepal: A Republic That Does’nt Come of Age

December 28, 2012 by

By Shastri Ramachandaran*

IDN-InDepth NewsViewpoint

NEW DELHI (IDN) – Multi-party democracy was born in Nepal in 1991 – after a popular uprising forced an autocratic king to make way for a constitutional monarchy. This year, 21 summers after an interim coalition government presided over the Himalayan kingdom’s first multi-party elections, Nepal should have come of age as a democracy, as a republic.

Unfortunately, the nascent democracy never grew up. It remains a stunted, retarded caricature of electoral democracy with institutions such as parliament, the election commission and Supreme Court standing as tragic reminders of their irrelevance. The so-called ‘Republic of Nepal’ is bereft of life breath, namely, a constitution. There is no government, at least not a legitimate one.

The Federal Democratic Republican Alliance (FDRA) government of Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai is an opportune coalition of the Maoists and the Madhesi parties. It has no basis in a constitution (because there is none), in an elected parliament (because there is none) or even in vague alibis such as ‘pleasure of the President’. It has no sanction from the people either. The government is taken to be the government because those who style themselves the government are occupying the governmental structures. In short, the government is hostage to a self-appointed group.

Nepal is a non-democracy if ever there was one.

Moribund, mutilated, dismembered – not anarchy – are the words that come to mind when reflecting on Nepal’s polity. Anarchy is vibrant, seething with chaotic energy, churning with ideas and possibilities, and it holds out at least the promise of something radically new.

The last elected parliament, in 2008, converted itself into a Constituent Assembly (CA) for drafting and delivering a new constitution. Far from attending to this task, there followed a succession of governments and prime ministers elected on the floor of the house. The CA failed to come up with a constitution within the stipulated two years, and kept extending its term until Nepal’s Supreme Court, and President, called an end to this charade. The CA was dissolved seven months ago.

The reason appeared to be differences on some of the provisions relating to federalism. It is a moot point whether the ruling coalition headed by the Maoists and the opposition – each for their own self-serving reasons – scripted such an outcome.

Regardless, after the sound and fury of hostilities died down, the parties realised that they had to begin talking and come to some agreement. Falling back on the fiction of an ‘interim constitution’ – after all some basis was required to break the constitutional, electoral, political and legal impasse – the parties agreed on elections, which was scheduled for November 22. But November 22, like all other deadlines which Nepalese politicians have failed to meet, too, passed the benighted country without any change for the better.

At issue is how to clear the decks for holding elections. Now Nepal’s political parties agree that a new Constituent Assembly must be elected within six months from November 22. Unless a new CA is elected, there can be no constitution. But the interim constitution does not have a provision for electing a second CA. This deficiency can be addressed by “amending” the constitution. The person who can do so is President Ram Baran Yadav. He has already courted controversy by the steps he proposed for resolving the stalemate.

He can invoke his constitutional power to “remove obstacles” – towards holding an election – but on the advice of the cabinet. In the prevalent situation, acting on the FDRA government’s recommendation is fraught with risks. Therefore, President Yadav wants all parties to arrive at an explicit consensus in favour of his exercising this extreme option.

The opposition, comprising the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) party are willing to enable a consensus and clear the way for elections only if they get to lead the government. The FDRA is asking them to come on board the Bhattarai-led coalition and make it a national government. The NC is unwilling to do this and wants Sushil Koirala as the prime minister.

The NC and UML accuse the FDRA of resisting a change of prime minister to thwart elections. The Maoists suspect that once Koirala becomes prime minister with UML support, the two parties will not hold elections to the CA.

What emerges is that all parties want to be in government without elections. All of them are fearful of going back to the people for a fresh mandate. Therefore, none of the parties may hasten to clear the ground of obstacles for holding elections in April 2013.

*The author, an independent political and foreign affairs commentator, has covered events and developments in Nepal for over 20 years. He is co-editor of the book State of Nepal. This article first appeared in DNA-Daily News & Analysis [IDN-InDepthNews – December 17, 2012]

2012 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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Nepal Unprepared for Imminent Earthquakes

November 24, 2012 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Naresh Newar

KATHMANDU, Nov 23 (IPS) – Nepal now ranks 11th on a list of the world’s most earthquake-prone countries, yet it remains one of the least disaster-prepared nations globally.Two major earthquakes in the last two years, one on Sep. 18, 2011 and the other on Oct. 5 of this year, have failed to spur the government into action.

Seismologists have warned that another big earthquake is imminent and disaster experts claim that the population of 30 million will grow more vulnerable on a daily basis unless authorities “wake up” to the dangers posed by such catastrophes.

“In our current situation, the consequences of (a) disaster will be out of control and unmanageable. We have to move fast,” Ganesh Kumar Jimee, disaster preparedness manager of the National Society for Earthquake Technology-Nepal (NSET), told IPS.

Experts are particularly concerned about the 1.5 million residents of Kathmandu city, an earthquake epicenter in which most school buildings, hospitals and government offices are not earthquake resistant.

Over 90 percent of residential buildings, designed by ordinary masons with no input from professional engineers, are considered unsafe.

School buildings suffer from the same problem with an estimated 60 percent of the city’s public schools “bound to collapse”, according to the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC).

The World Health Organisation says that hospitals, too, are highly vulnerable.

According to NSET, over 60 percent of hospitals are at risk of damage in the event of an earthquake measuring anything more than 7.0 on the Richter scale. Most of the country’s 70 blood banks are not earthquake-proof.

In addition, dozens of bridges will also be impacted, thus cutting off crucial supply routes in case of an emergency.

Organisations like NSET and the Nepal Red Cross Society (NCRS) claim that 90 percent of the city’s water pipes will be damaged and 40 percent of electricity lines and electric substations will be destroyed.

Furthermore, Nepal’s many radio stations, which play a vital role in communicating disaster-related bulletins, are unlikely to withstand the impact of an earthquake.

According to IRIN news, these 350 radio stations, 36 of which are located in Kathmandu, are crucial sources of information for the country’s population, 44 percent of which is illiterate and relies on non-print media.

Disregarding all the available data on the urgency of the situation, the government has yet to take serious action on earthquake preparedness.

A lackadaisical attitude towards legislation on preparedness is a major obstacle. A Disaster Management Act has been pending for many years due to political instability in the country.

The Act would help establish a comprehensive Disaster Management Authority that will comprise a professional team of disaster experts, rescue teams, financial resources and equipment.

As of now, the only legitimate body tasked with overseeing disasters like earthquakes consists of a handful of people working in a small disaster unit under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

“Hopefully (these steps) will be taken soon and people will take this issue much more seriously from a risk reduction perspective rather than (focusing on) post-disaster activity," Man Thapa, programme manager of the disaster risk management team for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), told IPS.

The UNDP is working with local municipalities and organising trainings for masons on how to construct earthquake-resistant buildings, which could “help save people’s lives", said Thapa.

Kathmandu at risk

Kathmandu’s dense population of 1.5 million people packed into a metropolitan area of just over 50 square kilometres presents unique challenges.

The number of housing complexes has more than doubled over the last decade, further crowding the already congested city, according to experts.

Earthquakes are nothing new in Nepal, which has witnessed 16 major earthquakes since 1223. One of the most devastating quakes occurred in 1934, killing over 8,500 people in Kathmandu; another, in 1988, caused 721 deaths.

Given the current population explosion and a boom in unsafe, high-rise buildings, the scale of a similar disaster now is unimaginable.

NSET estimates that an earthquake measuring seven or eight on the Richter scale could destroy over 60 percent of the buildings, kill up to 50,000 people, injure 100,000 and render 900,000 homeless.

While awareness about the possibility of a disaster is high, very little is being done to retrofit houses, schools or even hospitals.

“People are still not paying serious attention to the information available,” Pitamber Aryal, disaster management director of the NRCS, told IPS.

When a 6.9 Richter scale earthquake occurred in northeast India on Sep. 18 last year, its impact was also felt in Kathmandu, causing widespread panic.

People began to flee the city in a chaotic manner, paying no attention to the safety tips that had been disseminated online and aired frequently through the city’s many local radios.

Fortunately, the brief earthquake took place at six in the evening, when all the offices and schools had already closed for the day.

“If it occurred during school or office hours, a lot of people would have been injured and killed as a result of the panic,” Jimee told IPS.

“That was a drill exercise for all the Kathmandu residents on how to act during a (disaster)…let’s hope they have learnt something,” he added.

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2012.

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Nepal Faces Critical Days Ahead

June 16, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Shastri Ramachandaran*

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis     
  
NEW DELHI (IDN) – Nepal has ceased to be a Hindu kingdom – and renamed itself into a federal democratic state – but it is far from certain where it is headed. Besides, though located between two turbo-charged emerging economies, India and China, Nepal remains one of the world’s poorest countries with political instability thwarting its economic prospects.

On May 29, a day after the second, extended deadline for delivering a new constitution, Nepal’s constituent assembly (CA) gave itself another three months to do the job it has failed to complete in three years.

The three leading parties – Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML), the Nepali Congress (NC), and the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (UCPN-M) – amended the interim constitution to extend the CA’s term by 90 days after arriving at a five-point agreement.

The agreement includes resignation of Prime Minister Jhalanath Kanal (of the UML) to make way for a government of national unity; completion of the fundamentals of the peace process; and preparation of a first draft of the new constitution. In tune with the earlier pacts with the Madhesi parties, the agreement promises to make the Nepal army more inclusive.

[The three Madhesi parties are: Sadbhawana Party, Madhesi Janadhikar Forum-Loktantrik (MJF-L) and Tarai Madhesh Loktantrik Party (TMLP). The Madhesi are the native people of Nepal who reside in the southern, plains region the Terai which they refer to as Madhesh. Madhesis comprise about 40 percent of the total population of Nepal. Madhesi people are ethnically, culturally and lingually similar to people of Bihar and eastern Uttar Pradesh states of India.]

Once the commitments are met, the parties would seek another three months’ extension to finalise the constitution. Thus, a constitutional dead end has been avoided, and a political crisis managed from recoiling on the discredited elected elite, who have reduced multiparty democracy to a sham.

Whether Nepal’s lawmakers will act with any greater urgency and sense of purpose during the next few weeks than they did during the last 36 months is a moot question.

One slender sign of hope since the end of May is the Maoist leadership agreeing to do away with dual security cover, where the detail comprises combatants of their own People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and men of the state police.

This is a small step but it may be a signal of Maoist supremo Prachanda’s desire to break the deadlock over integration of 19,000 disarmed combatants into the Nepal army. Doubtless, Prachanda, as Pushpa Kamal Dahal is known, has to reckon with the hardliners in his own party, especially in the military wing, who do not want to be subsumed by the peace process.

The success of the present agreement and the progress of the peace process depend on Prachanda prevailing against detractors within his own party. As the biggest winners of the election in 2008, the Maoists have more at stake than the UML and the NC.

The resignation of Khanal as prime minister is a fraught issue. He has been in office a little over two months and people are yet to forget the seven-month charade of 17 rounds of voting that preceded the election of the present government in February 2011. While Khanal says he will resign when an alternative is ready, the Nepali Congress wants him to step down at once.

Similarly, finding a suitable replacement for Khanal may not be easy. The candidate has to be credible, acceptable to all parties and capable of delivering on the five-point agreement in a little over two months. Intra-party factions and personal rivalries can also be expected to queer the pitch.

The first and foremost need is to swiftly decide on a new prime minister – without a ‘tamasha’ (bustle and excitement) like the last time – and get a government of national unity in place. That would be both a test and evidence of the parliamentarians’ commitment to their pledge.

India needs to "help" Nepal along the road to a new republic. This may happen with Jayant Prasad replacing the controversial Rakesh Sood as ambassador to Nepal.

Of late, beginning with the Maoists’ electoral victory, India’s Himalayan diplomacy is notable for its blunders. Much of the goodwill across the political spectrum built up by the likes of Shiv Shankar Mukherjee, Deb Mukharji and Shyam Saran, when they headed New Delhi mission in Kathmandu, has been dissipated in the last three years.

While the new Indian envoy Prasad has an uphill task ahead, the Chinese, who have also named a new ambassador – Yang Houlan – are on velvet. They are not only sitting pretty but gaining ground by the day, sweetening their push for political stability with financial and developmental goodies.

Even so, Prasad has an advantage. His father, Bimal Prasad, the distinguished historian, was ambassador to Nepal from 1991 to 1995. He served the cause of India-Nepal relations well and with distinction. The good memories of his time in Nepal should stand his son in good stead.

*The writer, who recently travelled to Pakistan at the invitation of the Government of Pakistan, is a former Editor of Sunday Mail and has worked with leading newspapers in India and abroad. He was Senior Editor and Writer with China Daily and Global Times in Beijing. For nearly 20 years before that he was a senior editor with The Times of India and The Tribune. Besides commentaries on foreign affairs and politics, he has written books, monographs, reports and papers. He is co-editor of the book State of Nepal. This article first appeared on http://www.dnaindia.com (IDN-InDepthNews/14.06.2011)

2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

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NEPAL: Women Battle for New Constitution

May 26, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Sudeshna Sarkar

KATHMANDU, May 26, 2011 (IPS) – With the May 28 target for a new constitution approaching and Nepal’s coalition government admitting it would not make the deadline, women are pushing for rights they want enshrined in the document.

The campaign made them bear the brunt of a government ban on demonstrations around parliament announced on Tuesday, ahead of a critical ballot battle between Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal and the opposition parties with the beleaguered premier seeking one more year to draft the new constitution.

Even before the ban became public knowledge, riot police swung into action, beginning an assault on the women coming from almost 70 of Nepal’s 75 districts who have been holding peaceful meetings in front of parliament, asking for the protection of their rights.

Police said they had arrested 32 women demonstrators, including some of Nepal’s best-known rights activists like Tulasalata Amatya, president of Shanti Malika, a network of nine organisations working for women’s empowerment.

Others arrested were Rita Thapa, founder of Tewa, a non-government organisation working for the economic self-sufficiency of women’s groups in villages, and Stella Tamang, founder of Bikalpa Gyan Tatha Bikash Kendra Ashram, a school for children from her Tamang community, who are the worst victims of human trafficking.

The demonstrations started on the Nepalese New Year on Apr. 14. Over 40 women’s organisations from across the country gathered on the pavement opposite parliament to sing, dance and address passersby for six hours a day. It was intended to remind the nearly 600 MPs that women existed and that they expected the constitution to be finished by May 28, guaranteeing their rights.

On May 15, when it was clear that work on the constitution was not making any progress, they lengthened the vigil to 12 hours.

"The constitution of 1990 said during elections, political parties would have to field at least five percent women," says Sharada Pokharel, a former MP and president of Women’s Security Pressure Group. "But the last census, conducted in 2001, showed women accounted for 51 percent of the population. So we want the new constitution to give us 50 percent representation in all state institutions."

Women MPs cutting across party lines, even those from the ruling parties, are also supporting the demand.

Jayapuri Gharti Magar is a senior member of the Maoist party, a former guerrilla organisation that fought a 10-year battle against the government to abolish Nepal’s Hindu monarchy. After signing a peace accord in 2006 and contesting elections two years later, it is now the largest party in parliament as well as the ruling alliance.

Gharti Magar’s family members, who lived in the remote western district of Rolpa that was the cradle of the Maoist insurgency, were imprisoned during the "People’s War", while her husband Bibek KC was killed by the army.

This month, for her contribution to the movement, the party nominated her minister for women, children and social welfare. But the 40-year-old refused to take the oath of office.

"We live in a male-dominated society," she says bitterly. "Even the communist parties, which pledge equality for women, are no different."

Gharti Magar said that if women had not participated in the People’s War and the pro-democracy movement against King Gyanendra’s army-propped government in 2006, neither would have been successful.

"So when the parties drafted the interim constitution in 2007, they gave 33 percent representation to women. But no one is actually implementing it. Though there are 33 percent women MPs in parliament as eyewash, there are just four ministers (in a 36-member cabinet)," she said.

Gharti Magar said the caucus of 196 women MPs has petitioned the parties as well as prime minister Jhala Nath Khanal and parliament chair Subash Nembang, asking them to ensure 33 percent representation for women in the council of ministers and all state organs.

"If they still ignore us, we will seek legal redress," she said.

While Gharti Magar is an influential legislator, Bimala Paswan is a daily wage labourer who has come from a landless squatters’ colony in Siraha in the southern lowlands to add her voice to the call for women’s rights.

"We want the right to land," says the 30-year-old Paswan. "We want the new constitution to ensure the equitable distribution of land as part of the promised land reforms, and we want it done quickly."

The other rights demanded by women are the right to land and housing, keeping in mind the plight of landless women who are frequent victims of rape and murder, and wives being turned out of homes by abusive polygamous husbands. They also want domestic violence to be recognised as a form of torture with the state bearing the responsibility of ensuring compensation for battered women.

Despite the setbacks, Nepal’s women, used to long and hard battles for every little right they have, including the right to get a passport without the husband’s approval, say they will carry on with the campaign.

"We are continuing our protests outside the prohibited area," says Dilli Chaudhary. The 38-year-old belongs to the Tharu community, an exploited indigenous group whose members are still sold in bonded slavery.

Chaudhary, a health worker counselling village women in Siraha, is a rarity in a community that sends out daughters as young as 12 years old to work as virtually unpaid slaves.

"It may take time but we are going to win," she says. "The MPs who betrayed us will have to return to their own constituencies one day. Then we will tie a rope to their feet and drag them through the villages, teaching them a lesson they will never forget."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

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WOMEN’S DAY: Nepalese Maoists Abandoned by Party and Family

March 7, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Sudeshna Sarkar

KATHMANDU, Mar 7, 2011 (IPS) – As ‘Flames of the Snow’, a documentary on the ten-year civil war waged by Nepal’s Maoist party played at Kathmandu’s Kumari cinema recently, Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal "Prachanda" saluted women who fought in his People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

"Our People’s War would not have been possible hadn’t thousands of women cadres from the villages come forward," acknowledged Prachanda, the former prime minister.

However, five years after the guerrillas signed a peace accord, fought an election and headed the government briefly, almost 1,200 women warriors have been left out of the benefits meant for former fighters.

"I walked with the PLA during the war, they were my family," said Pushpa Pariyar, bent over a sewing machine at a training centre in Kathmandu. "Then came peace and I was discharged. It’s unfair."

The 17-year-old is among the 4,008 combatants who were ‘honourably discharged’ last year after a UN verification found they had been recruited in violation of international norms. Nearly 3,000 had been inducted as minors, and the rest after the peace pact. Almost 30 percent of them are women.

Pariyar became a Maoist when she was 10. Her father Dil Bahadur Pariyar had joined the rebels and gone underground with them. In 2004, when he tried to visit his family, security forces killed him.

"Hounded by the army, our family split and all of us had to go into hiding," Pariyar said.

Arghakhanchi in western Nepal, Pariyar’s home, is a remote, underdeveloped district that was among the hardest-hit with security forces arresting, torturing and killing people indiscriminately. Pariyar comes from the Dalit community – people thrust to the bottom of the social hierarchy and treated as untouchables.

During the civil war, Dalits flocked to the Maoists, attracted by their doctrine of equality and dignity for all. They were also among those the most victimised by the state.

"I wanted to be somebody and help build the nation," said Pariyar. "But now, here I am, undergoing training in tailoring and wondering what fate has in store for me."

When the uprising started, the PLA fighters were promised they would be assimilated into the national army. Almost 20,000 combatants, who passed the UN verification, are still technically eligible to join the army; however, the ‘dischargees’ do not have that hope any more. After they left the PLA camps last year, some stayed in touch with the party and received erratic financial support. Some simply disappeared.

"There are very significant difficulties for girls when they go back to society," said Desmond Molloy, senior rehabilitation advisor with the UN Development Programme (UNDP). "They face social stigma, as they are perceived as having lived in a permissive and promiscuous environment. Also, many of them married fellow PLA members from different communities and when they return home, many with children, their families are not ready to accept the inter- caste marriages."

Nisha Nepali, 19, left her home in Tanahun district in western Nepal because of the discrimination her Dalit family faced. "I joined the Maoists because I wanted to become somebody," she said. Now married to a PLA soldier from a different community and nursing an eight-month-old daughter, her priority is to conceal from her husband’s family and village that she is a Dalit.

Maya Chaudhary comes from the Tharu community of southwestern Nepal, who, along with the Dalits, joined the Maoists en masse. The Tharus, once a powerful people believed to be the descendants of the Buddha, were displaced by waves of migrants from Nepal’s hilly areas and India across the border.

Chaudhary married Ramesh Bishwokarma, a Dalit, when both were in the PLA. He is still in the PLA camps while Chaudhary, who has a two-year-old son and is pregnant once more, is living with her in-laws in Dhangadhi in farwestern Nepal. Currently, she is seeking counselling from the UN.

"My husband doesn’t look after us any more," the weeping woman told the UN gender officer. "He has stopped sending money. I am ostracised at my in- laws’ place because I am not from their community."

When Rita Shrestha, in her early twenties, went home to her parents after being discharged, they hid her past and sought to get her married. But when a local journalist wrote an article on her past life as a guerrilla soldier, the groom’s family immediately called off the match. For weeks, Shrestha lived in depression.

Of the 4,008 ex-warriors, one man and a woman killed themselves, and there was one attempted suicide. "The discharged combatants have very high expectations, which makes it harder (for them) to accept the new reality," says Molloy. "The Maoist leadership nurtured that expectation and they have to be the ones to tone it down."

The former soldiers are now being persuaded by the UN and its partner agencies to either complete their school education, train for jobs or learn to run small businesses. Donors like Norway and the UK contributed to create a nine million dollar Peace Fund that is being used by the UN for the rehabilitation project. More than half the women enrolled opted for micro- enterprises, but only 2.5 percent women for vocational training.

"That’s because it is not easy for women candidates to get job placements," said Molloy. "Also, they are still expected to look after the children and the home. There is a huge societal pressure on them to conform." However, the diehards among them are still biding their time.

Kamala Shrestha , 23, comes from Sindhupalchowk in northern Nepal, one of the poorest districts. "Security forces came to our village, lined up seven people and shot them," she says. "Some of them had nothing to do with the Maoists…. Within three months of joining the Maoists I got myself transferred to the PLA because I wanted to avenge the people of my village."

Shrestha married fellow PLA fighter Badri Parajuli, who today is a company commander still living in a PLA cantonment. Shrestha lives in Kathmandu valley. "I can’t dissociate myself from them just like that. Besides, there are other ways of serving the party than carrying a gun."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2011.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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INDIA: Red Link With Nepal Fades

February 19, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

Analysis by Ranjit Devraj and Damakant Jayshi

NEW DELHI/KATHMANDU, Feb 19, 2011 (IPS) – With the powerful Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) relinquishing control of its fighting arm, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), the Indian government, faced with its own Maoist insurgency, can breathe more easily.

The Indian embassy in Kathmandu has accused the PLA of providing military training to Indian Maoists in camps set up in Nepal – a charge the UCPN (M) has refuted, terming it as Indian propaganda.

"It is true that there were joint-training programmes in the early 1990s and the porous border between the countries enabled Maoist cadres to slip in and out easily, but the relationship never moved to a strategic level," says Nihar Nayak, an expert on the Maoist insurgency in South Asia at the New Delhi- based Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis.

Nayak believes that with the Nepal Maoists giving up control over the PLA, the chances of building up a "Red Corridor" from Nepal to Andhra Pradesh in southern India have become truly remote.

On Jan. 22 UCPN (M) chairman, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, formally handed over control of 19,000 PLA fighters to a special committee which will decide their future – integration into the Nepal Army or rehabilitation.

Dahal’s action may put an end to the theory of Maoist revolution from "Pashupati-to-Tirupati" – a swathe of the sub-continent populated by impoverished people and home to two of the most well known symbols of feudal Hindu orthodoxy. The Pashupati temple in Kathmandu is closely connected with Nepal’s erstwhile monarchs, while Tirupati in the south Indian state of Andhra Pradesh ranks among the world’s richest shrines.

But, linkages between the Maoists in Nepal, who took advantage of mass poverty and alienation to topple an already discredited monarchy, and their counterparts in India’s large democracy, have remained confined to ideology and mutual sympathy.

According to Nayak, the fact that Nepali Maoist leaders have always been free to visit India was a clear sign that they were never suspected of being seriously involved with India’s Maoists – even after a series of massacres aimed at police forces.

In March 2007 Maoist cadres massacred 55 policemen in the central Indian state of Chattisgarh in what was the first of a series of attacks in the states of Orissa, Maharashtra and West Bengal which left 212 security personnel dead by mid-2010.

"The Indian government is aware of the implications that the success of left- wing extremism can have for its own insurgency," Nayak told IPS. "From time to time the Indian embassy in Kathmandu has alerted Nepal’s home ministry of possibility of cross-border involvement, but no concrete evidence has turned up."

Nepal is currently focused on writing its constitution since it is a means of bringing peace and reconciliation after hostilities that claimed some 14,000 lives, says Nayak. "The Nepalese Maoist leadership is pragmatic and will do nothing to disturb this process."

Such pragmatism, which allowed the UCPN (M) to embrace multi-party democracy, has not been seen kindly by Indian Maoists who still swear by the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist goal of smashing the "old state".

What particularly irked the Indian Maoists was UCPN (M) chairman Dahal’s suggestion to them – when he visited India in 2008 as prime minister – to follow his party’s path. Dahal appeared to be making a point by arriving at the head of a business delegation.

Mumaram Khanal, who quit the Maoist party in 2005 following differences with Dahal, said India’s Maoists feel that their counterparts in Nepal have betrayed the cause of revolution.

Khanal, who edits the leftist monthly ‘Dishabodh’, published in the Nepali language, referred to the "open letter" which the Indian communists sent to their Nepali comrades in July 2009 chastising them for taking a wrong path, and accusing Dahal of "opportunism".

The letter accused Nepali Maoists of deviating from the principle of proletarian internationalism and adopting a policy of appeasement of imperialism.

Khanal points to the formation of the Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organisations of South Asia in 2001 as a mark of the ambitious plans that never came to fruition.

Anand Swaroop Verma, an Indian journalist who has extensively covered the Maoist movement in India and Nepal, claims that the Indians were "prompted by the advice and achievements of the Nepalese Maoists."

In an article published in the Nov. 2009 edition of the India’s ‘Frontline’ magazine, Verma said that the Indian Maoists copied PLA tactics in their attacks in the eastern Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa.

As late as August 2010, The Nepali Maoists were reported to have trained about 50 Indian Maoists at a camp in Sainamaina in Rupandehi District which borders the Uttar Pradesh state of India.

"These allegations are baseless," Ram Karki, a UCPN (M) politburo member told IPS. "We just have sympathy with Indian Maoists – as we have with those elsewhere."

Another UCPN (M) leadersaid while Indian Maoists have visited camps in Nepal "there was no training involved at all".

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

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Filed Under: Asia, Diplomacy, Featured, Geopolitics, Politics, Report Tagged With: , ,

Nepal Uneasy Under Uncertain Leadership

February 14, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Damakant Jayshi

KATHMANDU, Feb 13, 2011 (IPS) – Nepal’s fourth communist and newest Prime Minister has taken his oath of office, but his government is off to a shaky start after revelations he entered into a secret deal to share power with a key political ally and to turn Nepal into a socialist state.

The election and oath taking of Jhala Nath Khanal, chair of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist) or CPN-UML, ended a political deadlock that saw Nepal without a prime minister for more than seven months.

But the relief and euphoria proved to be short-lived, after an agreement Khanal signed with Pushpa Kamal Dahal, chair of Nepal’s largest political party Unified CPN (Maoist), was leaked to the press.

In the seven-point agreement, initially kept secret from even top leaders of both their parties, Khanal and Dahal are to head the government on a rotation basis.

The deal also called for the creation of a "socialist" state and the formation of a separate armed force either of Maoist combatants alone, or of Maoist combatants and government security personnel combined.

Nepal’s two biggest newspapers criticised the Dahal-Khanal agreement. In an editorial, the Nagarik daily said Nepal is headed toward one-party rule as in China, Vietnam and Cuba.

The centrist Nepali Congress (NC), Nepal’s second largest party, also denounced the deal and said it went against efforts to draft a new constitution and various peace-related agreements drawn up since 2006.

But the biggest and most immediate challenge to Khanal comes from within his own party, Nepal’s third largest, and the Unified CPN (Maoist), whose support the new government depends on.

The CPN-UML and the Unified CPN (Maoist) are in disagreement over the allocation of most sought-after ministries such as Finance and Home. The UCPN (Maoist) has announced that it would not join the government unless it was given Home and CPN-UML formally owned up the agreement.

On Feb. 12, Khanal named his party colleague and recently appointed deputy prime minister Bharat Mohan Adhikari as finance minister. Meanwhile, the Khanal camp of the CPN-UL has signalled willingness to address the concerns of the Maoists.

There are also differences over which party should head the politically sensitive Ministry of Defence in post-civil war Nepal.

The message from the Khanal’s own CPN-UML is that they would not recognise the agreement. The Maoist party, on the other hand, has insisted on implementing it.

"If the prime minister forms the cabinet without our consent, we can withdraw our support," said Narayan Kaji Shrestha, vice-chairman of the Maoist party.

Nepal’s Constituent Assembly, also serving as its interim parliament, had been trying to elect a successor to Madhav Kumar Nepal of CPN-UL, who resigned in June 2010.

After 16 rounds of voting spread over six months, Khanal was elected prime minister Feb. 3. There were four candidates in the fray but Maoist chief Dahal withdrew his candidacy in favour of Khanal, arguing he did so to prevent another series of fruitless voting.

The details of the Dahal-Khanal deal remain vague. The NC has objected to the two communist parties leading the government on rotation basis. With the Constituent Assembly’s term expiring in four months, this has raised questions about the intentions of the two parties. The assembly was elected for two years in 2008 and its term was extended for a year on May 28 last year.

"This deal smacks of totalitarianism," Nepali Congress’ Bimalendra Nidhi told IPS. Nidhi said that the two communist parties have demonstrated their penchant to stay in power for a long time. "Their understanding won’t help the politics of consensus, peace process and constitution-writing."

Speaking to IPS, Dina Nath Sharma, spokesperson of the Unified CPN (Maoist), disagreed. "How is this totalitarianism?" Sharma said his party and the CPN- UML want to share power with Nepali Congress. "We have asked them to join the coalition and we will welcome them if they decide to change their mind."

The NC, which has 110 members in parliament, has rejected this outright.

This latest upheaval in Nepal’s politics has overshadowed the breakthroughs that this Himalayan country, which was ravaged by a violent, decade-long Maoist insurgency, has achieved.

On Jan. 22, the Maoist army, numbering close to 20,000 and living in 28 camps across Nepal, was brought under the Special Committee of the government through a formal ceremony in Shaktikhor cantonment in Chitwan district. This move, though delayed, was in line with the Interim Constitution of 2007 and other agreements.

The Special Committee takes over the task of the UN Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), which left the country Jan. 15. UNMIN had been mandated to monitor the management of arms and armed personnel of the Nepal Army and the Maoist army, and providing technical assistance to the Election Commission.

Based on previous agreements, the Maoist combatants are to be either integrated into government security forces, or rehabilitated into society with a livelihood package if they chose not to join security forces. The Maoist and non-Maoist parties have not been able to forge an agreement on the number and the modality of integration of Maoist soldiers.

The polarisation within and between the political parties means one of their primary tasks remains uncertain: writing the constitution.

Pradip Gyawali, a member of parliament and spokesperson of UML admitted there was risk of polarisation in Nepali politics with NC, its recent partner in government, sitting out in opposition.

The parties disagree on nearly all major issues to be incorporated in the constitution -preamble, fundamental rights, federal model, the number and nature of federal states, and distribution of natural resources. But time is running out, since the CA’s term expires in May.

Gyawali told IPS it would be hard to justify another extension of the CA. He suggested a tentative draft of the constitution with basic features.

"It is unlikely that we will write a full-fledged constitution in four months’ time," Gyawali said. "But we can agree on some fundamentals and prepare a draft and leave the rest for the new parliament or another elected body."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

This article may not be republished, broadcast, framed, or redistributed without the written permission of IPS – Inter Press Service. Republication of this material without permission from IPS, the copyright holder, constitutes a violation of United States and international copyright laws and may result in legal action.


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Nepal Moves to Face Challenge of Federalism

January 19, 2011 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Suresh Dhar

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis 

NEW DELHI (IDN) – As Nepal moves towards taking the peace process forward and forming a new government within three months, the landlocked Himalayan country — tucked between China on the north and India in the south, east, and west — is confronted with serious challenges.

Nepal was a monarchy throughout most of its history until the establishment of a Federal Democratic Republic in May 2008, two years after a decade-long People’s Revolution by the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) — along with several weeks of mass protests by all major political parties of the country — culminated in a peace accord.

The ensuing elections for the constituent assembly voted overwhelmingly in favour of the abdication of the last Nepali monarch Gyanendra Shah. A federal republic was set up on May 28, 2008 and the first President of Nepal was sworn in on July 23.

The challenge ahead is that the federal restructuring of the state has emerged as a major and highly politicised demand of ethnic and regional activists in Nepal — and federalism is not simply the decentralisation of political power.

In Nepal it has become a powerful symbol for a wider agenda of inclusion, which encompasses other institutional reforms to guarantee ethnic proportional representation and a redefinition of Nepali nationalism to recognise the country’s ethnic and cultural diversity, explains the International Crisis Group (ICG).

The Brussels-based think-tank says in a new study: "Activists demand the introduction of reservations to guarantee proportional representation of marginalised groups in government and administration. They want provinces to be named after the most numerous ethnic and regional groups and boundaries drawn to make them dominant minorities.

"Some claim to be indigenous to these regions and demand preferential rights to natural resources and ‘agradhikar’ — priority entitlement to political leadership positions in the future provinces."

MAOIST AGENDA

The demand is far from surprising because ethnic and regional demands were important components of the Maoist agenda during the civil war. In fact, in eastern Nepal, much of their support depended on it. State restructuring became a central component of the 2006 peace deal. After violent protests in the Tarai in 2007, federalism was included in the interim constitution as a binding principle for the Constituent Assembly.

But of the three major parties, the Maoists are the only one to give "full-throated support" to federalism and the establishment of ethnic provinces, notes the Crisis Group.

"Identity politics may sit uneasily with their class-based ideological framework but federalism is of great importance for them. Now that the former Hindu kingdom is a secular republic, it is the most important point left on their short-term transformative agenda. Much grassroots support, the loyalty of ethnic and regionalist activists within the party and their wider credibility as a force for change depend on them following through," says the report launched on January 13, 2010.

As things stand today, both the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), UML, have accepted federal restructuring. They have actively participated in drafting a federal model in the Constituent Assembly and there is agreement on most institutional arrangements including the division of powers between provinces and centre.

But this process has been driven by longstanding proponents of federalism within both parties, none of them very influential. It is unclear, therefore, whether there is a wider consensus. While both parties have agreed to federalism in the spirit of bargaining; observers say that neither of them owns the agenda. In fact, behind the official positions they sense significant resistance to it.

The Crisis Group says: "Backtracking on federalism is politically impossible. Both the NC and UML are already struggling to retain cadres and leaders from minority backgrounds. But deferring crucial decisions, or stalling the constitutional process altogether, could be tempting for those opposed to change. The assumption that the Maoists have both the most to gain and the most to lose from the constitutional process could lend wider appeal to the idea."

The risks are hard to calculate, adds the report. The reason: Ethnic and regionalist groups, already suspicious of the major parties’ commitment to federalism, threaten protests and ultimately violent resistance should it not come.

Their eyes are on the May 28, 2011, the deadline for the promulgation of the new constitution. Popular support is most widespread among Madhesis in the central and eastern Tarai and members of ethnic groups in the eastern hills. Many Madhesis are disillusioned with their leadership, but feel reforms are incomplete. The organisational landscape of ethnic activists in the eastern hills may be fragmented for now, but underneath lie strong personal and political networks.

In view of this, activists are getting frustrated and the mood is becoming more militant. With an issue to rally around they are likely to coalesce; a politicised population would easily be mobilised for protest movements, should federalism not come, the report cautions.

IDENTITY POLITICS

What is more, not all want federalism. Popular opposition to ethnic federalism in particular is substantial, by virtue of its association with identity politics. Many Brahmins and Chhetris, the dominant caste groups, fear they will lose out from the introduction of ethnic quotas and federal restructuring.

But organised resistance is limited and fragmented. Open opposition only comes from a fringe of the political left which fears Nepal’s unity.

"Several Chhetri organisations are not against federalism itself but want to defend their group’s interests in the restructuring process. Pro-monarchy groups and the Hindu right are less concerned with federalism than with the republic and secularism. But given the common uneasiness with the redefinition of Nepali nationalism, a broader conservative alliance is a distinct possibility," predicts the Crisis Group.

However, the structure emerging from the Constituent Assembly, federal but with a strong centre, is seen to offer a feasible compromise. If the NC overcomes its aversion to provinces named after ethnic and regional groups, the new constitution will offer important symbolic recognition of Nepal’s cultural diversity, argues the report.

In combination with the language rights and proportional representation in administration and government envisaged, this would go a long way towards meeting popular aspirations among ethnic and regional groups.

The fact that the draft offers little scope for preferential rights beyond proportional representation as well as strong individual rights provisions should allay Brahmin and Chhetri fears of future discrimination. Not promulgating the constitution in time or deferring a decision on federalism, however, could spark serious unrest. (IDN-InDepthNews/14.01.2011)

Copyright © 2011 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Politics, Report Tagged With: , ,

Eradicating Violence against Women in Nepal No Mean Feat

November 8, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IDN

By Shailee Bhandari

IDN-InDepth NewsAnalysis* 

KATHMANDU (IDN/VISIONEWS) – Ten Nepalese women composed the first exclusively female team that first scaled Mount Everest on May 23, 2008. In doing so, they accomplished a unique feat. Equally significant was the message this historic act embodied for all women in Nepal: "There is no peak in the world that women cannot conquer."

The successful expedition to the world’s highest mountain was celebrated in the Himalayan state as the "great leap forward for Nepal’s women". The summiteers — Shushmita Maskey, Shaili Basnet, Nimdoma Sherpa, Maya Gurung, Poojan Acharya, Usha Bista, Asha Kumari Singh, Nawang Futi Sherpa, Chunu Shrestha and Pema Diki Sherpa — have since been availing of their renown to campaign in the country’s schools for equality of opportunities for women.

The importance of this lies in the fact that women have for centuries played a peripheral role in the traditional Nepali society. But now they have won a certain amount of recognition — in the literal sense of the word: both as participants in the ten-year-long civil war led by the Communist Party (Maoist) against the unpopular monarchy and in the popular demonstrations, which in 2006 brought an end to King Gyanendra’s dictatorial rule.

Until the outbreak of hostilities in 1996 the sight of armed women and girls in what was then the Kingdom was almost unthinkable. In the Maoist People’s Liberation Army they were however well represented. They accounted for more than one-third of the combatants. Nepalese women began to be held in high esteem because they were not only deeply engaged in politics but very often the sole bread-earners of their families.

‘AGENTS OF CHANGE’

Guenther Baechler from Switzerland, who played a decisive role as a special adviser of his country to help negotiate a peace agreement, recalls the critical role of women, whom he describes as the ‘agents of change’ who took to the streets in 2006 to demand peace and democracy.

"The issue of human rights violations, impunity, and human security helped to create a nation-wide women’s movement across different sectors, professional groups, parties, and identity groups," says Baechler.

"The movement gave women greater space to raise their voices in the streets of Kathmandu and district headquarters (provincial towns), as well as in the political sphere of the state institutions," adds Baechler in his report titled ‘A Mediator’s perspective: Women and the Nepali Peace Process’. It was published by the independent mediation organization ‘Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue’ in August 2010.

Women missed their goal of being broadly represented in the peace room, but independent women and some female members of the main political parties were able to participate in preparatory talks, consultative meetings, capacity building activities, as well as meetings with the Peace Secretariat which was transformed into the Peace Ministry after the CPA Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA) was signed.

In particular, women were represented in the ‘peace task force’ which was composed of representatives of the political parties, the Peace Secretariat, local facilitators, and international advisers, (facilitated by the ‘Nepal Transition to Peace Initiative’), underlines the Swiss peace mediator.

The women’s movement in Nepal was successful even before the peace treaty of 2006. Their relentless lobbying forced the government to pass a bill in 2002 that decriminalized abortion. In the same year the Nepalese government passed a legislation that allowed women to inherit property at birth. Four years later, the Supreme Court abolished a law allowing men to seek divorce if their partner was infertile. Soon afterwards, women were allowed to give their children citizenship rights.

Also in 2006, a parliamentary decision assured Nepal’s women of 33 percent of jobs in all state institutions. In addition, women engaged successfully for a proportional representation electoral system, which gave them a fair share of seats in the Constituent Assembly.

As a result, the Constituent assembly consists of 197 female politicians who speak with one voice when it comes to anchoring important women’s rights in the future Constitution. Moreover, with Sahana Pradham as the country’s foreign minister, Nepal has the first female on top of the country’s Foreign Ministry.

Besides, since 2009, the parliament in Nepal has enacted a law making domestic violence punishable.

This chain of positive developments in Nepal places the country among a few states that can show progress in the implementation of Resolution 1325 of the UN Security Council. The resolution (which celebrated its tenth anniversary on October 31) calls for the equal participation of women in all spheres of securing peace and the protection of women against sexual and other kinds of violence.

ON THE FRONT LINE

Behind the achievements of Nepalese women are personalities like Binda Pandey, who had in the 1990′s also fought on the frontline for the restoration of democracy. "It is so important that gender equity is included in the new constitution," says the 44-year-old woman and peace activist, who chairs the ‘Fundamental Rights and Directives Principle Committee’. The committee is tasked with shaping the future civil rights in Nepal — and embody these in the Nepalese constitution.

Binda Pandey, one of the 1,000 women peace women worldwide, points to a multitude of problems that have yet to be overcome. "We have so far been successful in advocacy but when it comes to policy making, we still need to build up skills in presenting our points," she says — particularly when it comes to concrete measures to prevent sexual violence against women and to assist the many victims, thus putting a brake on the male-dominated political system.

Nepal’s Supreme Court apparently shares the view and called upon the government in February 2010 to avail of 2010 — which Nepal has declared the year to end gender-based violence — to mull over the prerequisites for setting up ‘kangaroo courts’ that punish the perpetrators of violence against women without unnecessary delay.

It is difficult to find up to date and reliable figures on the extent of violence against women. Provisional statistics have been provided by INSEConline.org, the first Nepalese news portal for the human rights situation in the country. According to these, 225 cases of attempted or executed rape were registered in 2008 in Nepal.

The number of female victims, according to INSEC, was 233. They were between 33 months and 63 years of age; the vast majority — 162 — were 16-year old. In seven cases the victims were killed after being raped. In 31 cases girls and women fell prey to group-rapes.

‘LEGAL VACUUM’

INSEConline crafted a profile of the perpetrators, who were aged between 13 and 79 years and came mostly from the surroundings of their victims. Due to legal loopholes most of them could not be brought to justice. Srikanth Pouder, spokesman for the Supreme Court of Nepal, speaks in this context of a "legal vacuum" and criticizes that there are no measures to compensate the victims of violence or to help them integrate back into society.

Another unsolved problem is the trafficking of young girls who in thousands are every year ‘sold’ by their families as housekeepers mainly to families in India. Many of them end up in prostitution and, according to human rights organizations, are subject to brutal exploitation.

Worst abused are also widows and women belonging to the caste of ‘untouchables’ (Dalits) in rural areas. UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, estimates the number of Nepalese widows at about 800,000. Many are war widows, and 67 percent are under 35 years of age. The loss of their husbands overnight has forced them into social isolation. Discrimination, violence, sexual exploitation and lawlessness often determine their everyday lives.

As the poorest of the poor, widows and Dalit women are often held accountable for deaths and other misfortunes in their surrounding. What it looks like in practice was described last year by a victim from the Lalitpur district, 40 kilometres south of the capital Kathmandu. After several cattle died, the woman was brutally maltreated, imprisoned and forced to eat her own excrement. She was freed only after a forced admission of guilt. She brought the case before a court of justice, but those who maltreated her harshly got off scot free after paying fines.

Women activists such as Binda Pandey keep urging Nepal’s male politicians to publicly condemn gender based violence. But positive responses appear to be more than unlikely. Guenther Baechler has accused the former warring parties in Nepal of misusing the Constituent Assembly as a stage for tactical games and individual power gains.

"The elected women — many of them in the political arena for the first time in their lives — were of course not able to stop this nonsense by the political parties’ powerful male leaders," he bemoans.

* This article is extracted from an independent series of news features, interviews and analyses on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the UN Security Council Resolution 1325. The series was produced for VISIONEWS.NET by the media network of Global Corporation Council as part of a cooperation project of Peace Women Across the Globe (PWAG), the German Women’s Security Council and the OWEN-Mobile Academy for Gender Democracy and Peace Promotion. The project was funded by filia – the women’s foundation, Stiftung Apfelbaum and Stiftung Umverteilen. (IDN-InDepthNews/06.11.2010)

2010 IDN-InDepthNews | Analysis That Matters

This article should not be republished, or redistributed without the permission of the original author or copyright holder.


Filed Under: Featured, Gender Tagged With: , ,

TRADE-NEPAL: Carpet Industry Frayed at the Edges

August 13, 2010 by

Global Geopolitics & Political Economy / IPS

By Bhuwan Sharma

KATHMANDU, Aug 13, 2010 (IPS) – It was an industry pioneer and had even proved itself successful in the export market. But these days Jawalakhel Handicraft Centre (JHC) is barely able to sustain itself on retail sales, and general manager Chimi Dorjee has been reduced to just recalling how things had been when the going was still good.

"Earlier, we used to export quite a sizeable volume of carpets to countries such as Germany and Switzerland," says Dorjee. Now the exports of JHC, which was set up in 1960 with skilled carpet weavers who had just fled Tibet, hires are down to to almost nothing.

Unfortunately, JHC’s fate is shared by the rest of Nepal’s once thriving carpet industry. Leaders of the industry also say that it will take no less than moves from the government itself to revive their ailing businesses.

"We need export-friendly policies," says Surendra Dhakal, executive advisor and chief executive officer of the Nepal Carpet Exporters Association (NCEA), rattling off items in his wishlist for the government. "We need carpet-processing zones. We must be given an environment where we can rest assured that we can make timely delivery of goods. The government must provide us industrial security."

For sure, Nepal can only benefit from a revitalised carpet industry, whose products once made up a third of the Himalayan country’s exports and was its largest supplier of foreign currency.

At its peak in 1993-1994, the industry had 3,000 carpet firms in operation and employed 1.2 million people, directly and indirectly.

And even though the volume of carpet exports was down by 21 percent some six years later, it was still worth some 10.4 billion Nepali rupees (140 million U.S. dollars at current rates).

By fiscal year 2008-2009, Nepal’s carpet exports had been halved to 5.3 billion Nepali rupees (71.5 million dollars) in value. Today, only about 600 carpet firms are still in operation and the number of those whose work have something to do with the industry has skidded to 100,000.

Dhakal says there are two main reasons why Nepal’s carpet exports are no longer doing as well as before: "Almost every second person ventured into the sector, thus hindering the quality of output. The other main reason for dwindling exports was the entry of India, which offered far better rates."

Dhakal points out that almost 500 villages in Bhadohi district of India’s Uttar Pradesh state alone are now totally dependent on carpet-making. He says that with economies of scale and with wages there far lower than here in Nepal, Indian carpets simply come out way cheaper than those made here.

"In Bhadohi, workers charge 1,500 Indian rupees (2,400 Nepali rupees or 32.3 dollars) a month, compared to at least 4,500 Nepali rupees (60 dollars) a month here in Nepal," notes Dhakal.

There is, of course, the global recession to consider as well, which explains in part why Germany, once Nepal’s largest buyer of hand-knotted carpets, has slashed its imports of these from 6.77 billion Nepali rupees’ (91.3 million dollars) worth in 1999-2000 to just 1.45 billion Nepali rupees (19.56 million dollars) in value in 2008-2009.

The irony is that the country that economists and financial experts say caused the global recession in the first place – the United States – is now keeping the Nepali carpet industry from unraveling completely.

Carpet exports to the United States registered a meagre total of 300,005 square metres worth 1.47 billion Nepali rupees (19.7 million dollars) in 1999-2000. By 2008-2009, this had risen modestly to 348,653 square metres, with a total value of 2.18 billion Nepali rupees (29.23 million dollars).

"The reason for that is simple," says Dhakal. "(The United States) primarily imports higher quality 80-knot carpets, compared to Germany where we used to mostly export 60-knot carpets."

"India still has not been able to overtake Nepal in quality carpets," he adds. "But if our government does not take urgent action, India will leave us behind in that category, too."

The problem, though, is that Nepal’s government has been in constant crisis for more than a decade, and has been too busy trying to keep itself from falling apart to attend to anything else – including a surefire revenue-earner like the carpet industry.

Nepal witnessed a 10-year bloody Maoist insurgency from 1996 to 2006 that claimed some 16,000 lives. After the Maoists joined mainstream politics in 2006, Nepal transformed from a constitutional monarchy into a republic.

Since 2008, the country has been struggling to write a new constitution as it fights to overcome inter-party wrangling, frequent strikes, and a challenging law-and-order situation.

In the meantime, those who have been watching Nepal’s carpet industry say it is equally important to create backward linkages, not only to revive it but to sustain it.

"For example, in the last fiscal year, we imported wool worth almost 30 million Nepali rupees (402,150 dollars) primarily from New Zealand," says Milan Mani Sharma, who has been reporting on the carpet industry in the past 10 years. "If we can rear sheep here at home, it will directly reduce our carpet costs."

In the past, the government had tried this route as well. But, says Sharma with a wry smile, "during the insurgency, the Maoists not only disrupted the business, they slaughtered and ate all the sheep."

All rights reserved, IPS – Inter Press Service, 2010.

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