Democracy For Nepal: Madhesi Enpowerment In The Larger Nepali Context

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Madhesi Enpowerment In The Larger Nepali Context

हिन्दी: देश के उप राष्ट्रपति मोहम्मद हामिद अंसारी पटना में पूर्व मुख्यमंत्री सत्येन्द्र नारायण सिन्हा(छोटे साहब) की 94वीं जयंती पर आयोजित व्याख्यानमाला श्रंखला पर पूर्व सांसद किशोरी सिन्हा और मुख्यमंत्री नीतीश कुमार के साथ (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

There are 30 million people in Nepal. I am saying 20% are Bahun Chhetri, 20% are Dalit, 30% Janajati, and 30% Madhesi. There are 100,000 bureaucrats, 100,000 soldiers, and 100,000 police officers. Because history has been unfair, most of them are Bahun Chhetri. Assume 90% of them are Bahun Chhetri, or 270,000. Rectifying that mistake would definitely help. But the bigger opportunities are in the private sector.

In my model there are six million Bahun Chhetri, that many Dalits, nine million Janajatis, and nine million Madhesis. If you manage to restructure the state fundamentally, hypothetically speaking, you end up with 60,000 Bahun Chhetri on state payroll, 60,000 Dalits, 90,000 Janajatis, and 90,000 Madhesis.

But that still leaves out 5,940,000 Bahun Chhetri, 5,940,000 Dalits, 8,910,000 Janajatis, 8,910,000 Madhesis. Not everyone can get on state payroll. If you right size the government (that means downsizing) to something like 10,000 soldiers, 50,000 police officers, and 50,000 bureaucrats, the opportunities to put members of this or that community on state payroll are even less.

So where will the rest go? In countries like Nepal and India there tends to be a huge informal sector. There is a small public sector, a larger private sector, and a huge informal sector.

The purpose of putting people on state payroll is not to provide livelihoods to members of this or that community. The purpose is to run a small, lean, agile, effective government. But the understanding has to be that most of the people will get taken care of in the private sector. And so it is the purpose of Nepal Sarkar to foster the private sector.

The whole political debate in Nepal misses this point. If you follow the debate it feels like these 300,000 people on state payroll are the be all and end all. There are 29 million and 700,000 other people that we are not yet talking about.

It is important to move fast, be done with this federalism thing, and move on to issues of rapid economic growth. The debate has to move on to talking about Nitishism, my name for what Nitish Kumar has done in Bihar. Nepal has to get down to the business of providing strong basic law and order, build roads and bridges to connect all parts of the country, build schools and health care centers, train teachers and health care workers.

People acting dishonest on federalism are doing a great disservice to the country and its peoples. Obviously they don't love the country. Or they would not be acting dishonest. तपाईंले बुझेको नेपाल के हो?