The constitution you are writing,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi told Nepal’s parliament last year in August, in a speech hailed as a landmark for the relationship between the two countries, “will be remembered in golden letters in the history of the world”. He said that “It marks the journey of a people from war to the path of the Buddha”. His prophecy has proved spectacularly wrong. Fuel rationing and inflation, brought about by what Nepal says is an Indian trade blockade, has fuelled anger against India across the Kathmandu valley. Nepal’s deputy prime minister held talks on Monday with United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to protest the blockade. PM Modi, in turn, has protested against the killing of an Indian citizen in police action to clear protesters from a border-crossing. Talks between the government and opposition groups representing Nepal’s plains, with deep links of kinship and culture across the border in India, have collapsed, threatening an escalation of violence.
Nepal’s constitution, it is true, gives the citizens of its plains, tied to India by kinship and culture, real reason for concern. The constitution used a geographical area-plus-population formula to allocate seats in the new parliament, designed to enhance representation for thinly populated regions in the hills. This, in the plains, is seen as a step towards disenfranchisement. There are concerns, too, about a constitutional provision barring naturalised citizens born of Nepali mothers and foreign fathers from high office. Madhesis, Tharus and Janajatis also fear that the constitution isn’t explicit in its promise of community-based job reservation. These debates, though, must be resolved by Nepal’s peoples. India, after all, grapples with similar issues. For example, a vote in Kerala counts for more than a vote in Uttar Pradesh — and job reservation remains a fraught issue.
