Ethnic Federalism-Yes and no

Ethnic Federalism-Yes and no

PRASHAANT SINGH Here is a little story. “There was a country in South Asia that bordered India and China. A vast majority of this country’s population followed a single religion, but they came from different ethnicities, spoke different languages. There was visible mistrust among the populations of this country based on ethnic lines. Politicians were happily fuelling such tensions, indeed creating new ones. They had a parliamentary democracy. They held a free and fair election. The election results brought a leader and a party from one big ethnicity of the country to power as the population from that ethnicity voted almost unanimously for their party. The trouble was that the winning party had no support among the ethnicities dominating the other parts of the country. The capital of the country lay in a territory that was dominated by the ethnicities that did not vote for the winning party. The locals of the capital city refused to accept the election results. The army of the country that was dominated by the ethnicities that refused to accept the election results intervened. A dangerous political stalemate appeared.” [beak] Am I making a paranoid speculation on a possible election-result-scenario in Nepal? No, absolutely not. I am only narrating an actual piece of history that occurred not in a very distant past in our immediate neighborhood – the First General Elections held in Pakistan in 1970-71. Since the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan and its first Governor General, declared Urdu to be the common language for all Pakistanis – both West and East. This was highly controversial as in East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) Urdu was spoken by only a very few. The Bengalis (now Bangladeshis) were grossly underrepresented (some 5%) in the Pakistani National Army as Bengalis were considered not worthy fighters by West Pakistanis. The 1970-71 elections threw the Awami League, a party from East Pakistan, as the clear winners and Shaikh Mujibur Rahman, their leader, as the new Prime Minister of Pakistan. West Pakistanis (now Pakistan) led by Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) did not accept the results. Widespread protests erupted in East Pakistan. Pakistani military led by General Yahya Khan and dominated by West Pakistanis were ordered to brutally crush the protests in East Pakistan. A civil war broke out. Outsiders intervened. Within a few months, the Civil War got converted into a full-throttled Indo-Pakistan war. The combined forces of the Bangladeshi Mukti Bahini (using guerilla warfare) and the Indian Army defeated the West Pakistanis (or Pakistani) forces. A new country – Bangladesh – was created out of Pakistan. The extreme use of ethnic identity-based politics and gross mismanagement of the diverse polity by the then Pakistani and Bangla politicians were the prime causes of the 1971 war that led to the death of hundreds of thousands of Bengali civilians (some say millions died) and converting millions of Bangladeshis into refugees forever. Yet no politician – on either side – ever took responsibility for the genocide and atrocities perpetrated on innocent Bangladeshis. Those of us who love the sight of a United Nepal have several lessons to learn from the above piece of a rather recent history from our immediate neighborhood. To me, the first learning would be that for humans, identity is a must. No ethnic group should be robbed of their right to enjoy their cultural and linguistic freedom. Failing to acknowledge ethnic diversity, worse, trying to crush the aspirations of ethnic groups of living their lives their way, by forcing on them the language, dress code, cultural practices of a dominant ethnicity can only lead to rebellion, and in extreme cases secession, as the Bangladesh story spells out. The second learning is that our politicians on all sides of ethnic discussions must apply utmost care in the choice of tools, words and body language in their deliberations, speeches and acts so as not to conflagrate the ethnic differences for petty short-term electoral interests. Unfortunately, we are surrounded by politicians who are good only in seeking authority while being totally dismissive of their responsibilities. It therefore becomes a duty of the civil society to maintain societal sanity – to keep reminding each one of us that the fight for asserting ethnic identity as a Rai, a Gurung, a Madhesi, a Newar, a Khas-Bahun and so on should always remain within the ambit of acknowledging and respecting the fact that we all belong to one country, and that is Nepal. Let national identity never be questioned, rather a twin identity be created that accommodates ethnicity of a citizen along side his/her nationality. So what is the best way out of maintaining that twin identity of populations in an ethnically diverse country like Nepal where a citizen could be proud to be Rai, Gurung, Madhesi, Bahun or whatever, but at the same time, prouder to call him/herself a Nepali? Federalism, across the world, has come to become one great solution to provide such twin identity. Yet many among us mistakenly see federalism as a mere administrative tool to achieve better effectiveness and efficiency in governance. By that definition, Nepal would have been considered federal a long time ago, during the Panchayat era itself, as we had fourteen zones run by fourteen Anchaladhishes (Zonal Commissioners). Federalism certainly endeavors to achieve efficiency and effectiveness, but it is much more than that. It is about giving identity and honor to the country’s diverse populace. They say good fences make good neighbors. The boundaries between the federal states must take into consideration the ethnic composition (some times from the past too) of a particular ethnic identity in a land. The boundaries should not be drawn arbitrarily. The example of largely straight-line federal state borders of the United States of America (USA) is not an example that can apply to Nepal. The boundaries among the states in the US were largely determined by colonial charters, limits on transportation, the infeasibility of settling areas dominated by Native Americans, and so on. Many boundaries were created using arbitrary straight lines following latitude and longitude due to the sparseness of settlement west of the Mississippi River. Yet, so far as the naming of the states were concerned, even in the USA, twenty-four of the states’ names were based in Native American languages, and not in the languages of Europeans who colonized them. In neighboring India, Pakistan, and most federated countries of the world, the states are named largely based on history, dominant ethnicity, cultural linkages and all. Federalism is never demanded by rivers, forests, farmlands, birds and animals, and therefore dividing the country based on geographical or ecological considerations shuns commonsense and political understanding of the situation. A federation is rather demanded in a country of diverse population by different ethnicities so that they can enjoy their ‘ethnic and national’ twin identity. And therefore, it makes perfect sense that the boundaries and names of Nepali federal states be formed following historical lines acceptable to the local ethnic communities. Ethnic federalism is good in the context of asserting and being proud of one’s ethnic identity. It also helps provide state patronage to the diverse yet unique cultural and historical heritage, and thereby strengthens the ethnic identities in a diverse population. Yet it absolutely does not justify making discriminations of any kind among ethnicities or citizens of different provinces of Nepal to freely move from one state to the others, set up businesses, acquiring properties in a state/province of their choosing, and so on. The extension of the ethnic-federalism logic beyond ‘identity and heritage’ into economic, military, technological or social space of a country is what has brought about hundreds of disasters and wars in the past, as was exemplified by the Pakistan-Bangladesh story. The purpose of ethnic federalism (or any federalism, for that matter) should be to have an internally strong and prosperous and externally robust single nation. Federalism should be seen as a means to national unity and prosperity and not an end in itself.