205 + 100 MPs At Most

I am pretty happy with the map I drew a few days back.

6 Geographic States With Geographic Names



The next question obviously is, how do you constitute the national parliament.

The two Terai states would end up with something like 55% of the population and so should get 55% of the MPs.

How many MPs total? If a large country like India has about 500, a small country like Nepal should be able to do with 200. So, say, 205 is the Lower House, and 100 in the Upper House.

Once you figure out which district gets how many MPs, then there should be reservations. 10% of the constituencies should be reserved for Dalits. As in, only Dalit candidates may contest. These should be the 22 constituencies with the largest shares of Dalit populations. Eight of these 22 should be reserved for Dalit women.

Every third constituency should be reserved for women. 20% of these for Dalit women, 30% for Madhesi women, 30% for Janajati women.

First past the post for the Lower House.

For the 100 seats in the Upper House, it is all proportional. So a party that gets 30% of the votes gets 30% of the seats, and so on. The list has to be submitted beforehand. As in, you can not change the list ex post facto. And the list should be inclusive of the DaMaJaMa. As in, one third women, 10% Dalits, and so on. One third women meaning every third name on the list is a woman.

205 + 100 = 305.

This would be the national parliament. It could be made that the entire parliament elects the Prime Minister, and not just the Lower House.

Every elected leader in the country at local, state and national level will form a pool. That pool will elect a president who would be the constitutional head and the Commander In Chief of the Nepal Army.

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6 Geographic States With Geographic Names

Fundamental Microfinance

English: Roadside billboard of Deng Xiaoping at the entrance of the Lychee Park in Shenzhen (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I am a huge fan of microfinance. But it has to be reimagined. It is one of the three basic ingredients, the other two being education and health.

A country like Nepal can not afford to only educate the kids, although it currently does a poor enough job of that as well. But adult education has to step in. You use the same school buildings, but perhaps in the evenings and during weekends, for adult education. Everyone, child or adult, needs at least 10 years of schooling. And you should be able to pick up no matter where you left. And you should have the option to move at your own pace sometimes. Perhaps you put FM radio to use. People could tune in at a certain time of the day to listen into lessons. There is one frequency for the first grade, another for the second grade and so on. Lessons should be available in your primary language. The Chinese have proven beyond doubt that you don't have to learn English first before the world opens up for you.

People like Mao and Fidel Castro have done impressive work in basic health. You provide basic training to a large number of workers who then fan out to where the needs might be. There is a fundamental need to take up this work with revolutionary zeal.

But a left leaning country like Nepal where even the so-called right of center party like the Congress calls itself "socialist" sometimes tends to not grasp entrepreneurship well. You can educate your people all you want, you can turn them into fighting shape in terms of health, but unless you can create jobs for them they are going to rust with disuse. You are going to pump up a population that is all ready with nowhere go to.

Left leaning political leaders should cultivate a healthy respect for entrepreneurs who might be millionaires. They are like hens that lay the golden egg. You don't kill those hens. You don't get in their way. When they create more wealth for themselves, they pay more in taxes. You can use that tax money to serve the poor all you want.

But then entrepreneurship goes way beyond people who establish and run big factories. Small businesses are all the rage. Even in a country like America the vast majority of new jobs get created by small businesses.

And then there are micro businesses. I am talking raising goats to sell, or cultivating vegetables to sell, small businesses that you could start with a hundred dollar loan. Access to credit should be like a right, just like basic education and health.

But then sometimes it is hard to create any meaningful business with just a hundred dollars. China does not have a track record in microfinance, but it has lifted more people out of poverty than anyone else. And they have done that by creating jobs at large scales through large scale factories.

Very few rich people choose to become entrepreneurs. I like to say being an entrepreneur is kind of like being gay. It is assumed perhaps one per cent of the population is biologically gay. So if very few rich people are entrepreneurs, it is erroneous to think all poor people are inclined to entrepreneurship.

Another dimension to microfinance would be that you would have something like a right to a hundred dollars in business loans every year, but you would also have the option to pool your resources. So 100 individuals should have the option to bring together 100 dollars each into a pool of 10,000 dollars for a one per cent share each in an enterprise led by one entrepreneur who perhaps ends up employing most or all of those 100 people.

If you make room for the fact that 5-10% of those loans will fail that you will happily write off, I think that could create a lot of small business action. And you will end up with a lot of workers who are also part owners in enterprises. That is key. Deng Xiaoping started by letting Chinese farmers own small plots of land. The sense of ownership is key. The right to property is a fundamental human right, like free speech. And the act of exercising free speech takes some practice.

Completely state owned enterprises are not simply failed Soviet era ideas. Modi proved in Gujrat they can outperform the market if they are kept free of political interference and are allowed to run on meritocratic guidelines. It makes sense for some companies and some enterprises to be 100% state owned. As long as they perform is all that matters. What is dead weight is companies that are state owned and run losses year after year.

You can also have companies that are partly owned by the state. You can have companies that are partly owned by foreign investors.

There is no one size fits all. The key point is entrepreneurship has to be nurtured. It has to be allowed to flourish. There does not seem to be only a left or right way of doing it. State owned enterprises can work. Private companies can fail. Small business owners can create jobs. Large companies can stagnate. The job market is and should be a dynamic situation. As long as the cat catches mice is all that matters.

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Nepali Angels

(written for Vishwa Sandesh, the leading Nepali language newspaper in NYC)

I have an impressive track record as a Nepali in New York. I was the only full timer among the 200,000 Nepalis across America to have worked full time for the democracy movement back in 2005-06. It was not journalism, it was political work. It was digital activism. Then I did full time work for the Madhesi Movement a year later. Again, I was the only full timer among the 1,000 or so Madhesis that might be spread across America. That number is so discouraging. It is worse than the Madhesi representation in the Nepal Army, in the Nepali bureaucracy at large. A 1,000 to 200,000 ratio is not healthy. Madhesis are 40% of Nepal, but there is not proportionate representation in the diaspora any more than there is in the Nepali state apparatus. I have little patience with Madhesis with the Panche mindset, even for Madhesis with the Congress mindset. There is too much internalized prejudice going on.

Federalism has not happened yet. State restructuring has not happened yet. The agenda is very much alive. Although I personally feel like I have moved past all that to shift my focus to matters economic. What would be the lifestyle of someone who feels Nepal now needs to focus on economic development like a laser beam for the next 30 years?

Social justice for the DaMaJaMa - Dalit, Madhesi, Janajati, Mahila - is important in its own right, but it is also important because Nepal can not realize its full economic potential unless there is full blown social justice.

If the last election was a mandate for geographic federalism, I stand for Ek Madhesh Do Pradesh. Nawalparasi and west, Surkhet included, because Bhitri Madhesi is still Madhesh, could be a state called Western Terai. Chitwan and east, Udaypur included, could be Eastern Terai. Of course Jhapa and Morang will have to be part of it. You can’t take Surkhet, Chitwan, and Udaypur out of the Terai. Taking Morang, Jhapa, Kailali, Kanchanpur out of the Terai is outlandishly out of question.

Two states in the Terai, and four in the hills would work for me.

The more challenging part of state restructuring is where you eliminate several national ministries, where you downsize the Nepal Army to maybe 10,000 soldiers so as to open up funds for more teachers and health care workers, where you downsize ministries, because a federal setup should end up with at least one third fewer bureaucrats at all levels combined than what we have today. Federalism is supposed to be more efficient than the unitary state.

NRNs argue for dual citizenship the wrong way. They make it sound like they are these deprived people who need to be given their due rights. The truth is NRNs are the cream of the crop even when they go to some place like Qatar to do menial work; you have to at least be enterprising to be able to do that. The case for dual citizenship is that you put that arrangement in place so as to maximize the inflow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) into Nepal. I took up Ram Sharan Mahat on this topic the last time he was in the city, and he did not seem to see the connection, and the dude is Finance Minister. Dual citizenship for NRNs truly is the magic bullet that would transform the Nepali economy. In this age of globalization all of the two million Nepalis spread across the world have to be thought of as ambassadors, and not just the less than 100 officially appointed ones.

And that brings me to the cream of the crop among the Nepalis in NYC. I have approached most of them for angel investing into this or that idea. You angel invest so an idea gets fruition enough that it is able to tap into the capital markets in this money capital of the world. But it is like the cream of the crop lack imagination. They don’t seem to connect the dots any more than Ram Sharan Mahat.

There is economic growth, and then there is economic revolution. Growth is around 5% whereas revolution is when you can make the Nepali economy grow at double digit rates year in year out for 30 years. That requires radical thinking, like angel investing.

A high school classmate/housemate of mine in Munich, Germany, across the pond, a biotech guy, recently wired 5,000 dollars to me to invest in my tech startup’s first round, and I am going to help him raise money for his biotech startup’s second round. What goes around comes around.

I highly recommend angel investing.

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Two Geographical States In The Terai

English: a aerial view of field in terai in Nepal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Inner Terai (Bhitri Madhesh) is part of the Terai, hence the word Terai in the name. Surkhet, Chitwan and Udaypur are part of the geographical Terai. And they have to be part of the Terai states.

The time for Ek Madhesh Ek Pradesh is over, and the fragmented 30 Madhesi parties are to blame. But now it is time for one Madhesi party and two geographical states in the Terai.

Tharus are Madhesis. Muslims in the Terai are Madhesis. You can not argue Madhesi women are not Madhesi just because there might be sexism in the Terai. Dalits in the Terai are Madhesis, although it can be argued they face enormous social difficulties.

Nawalparasi and west, Surkhet included, could be one state: Western Terai. Chitwan and east all the way to Jhapa, Udaypur included, could be Eastern Terai. Two states.

The discussions on federalism in Nepal has to start with these two purely geographical states in the Terai. The people of Nepal have voted the NC and the UML into power. I believe that is a mandate for geographical federalism.

That is a mandate for honoring the geographical integrity of the Terai. You honor that and creating four states in the hills becomes easier.

Inner Terai is not called Inner Pahad. You can't take Surkhet, Chitwan, and Udaypur out of the Terai. If you do just because they are Pahadi majority districts (and by Pahadi I mean cultural Pahadi) that would be like saying the rest of the Terai should go join Uttar Pradesh and Bihar because of cultural similarities.

Jhapa and Morang have large Pahadi populations, but that is no reason for them to not be part of the Terai states.

Ek Madhesh Do Pradesh.

I would want more and more people from the hills to migrate to these two Terai states because these two states have become so very vibrant, economically speaking. That would strengthen the national unity.

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Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Terai

Laloo Yadav (Photo credit: bbcworldservice)

Nepali speaking Nepalis from the hills talk of Nepali speakers in places like Sikkim, Darjeeling, Assam and elsewhere as their own, and I don’t begrudge that. Cultural bonds are healthy. But by that same token, people in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh feel like my own to me. There are shared cultural bonds.

In my case, it goes way beyond that. I was born in India. My mother is Indian. One of my sisters is married to an Indian. I am as likely to dial the Indian country code as the Nepali country code. Main Laloo Ka Aadmi.

Nepalis who manage to come over to NYC are free to not work for Indians, but more than 95% freely choose to work for Indians. So it makes little sense for them to talk hate speech against Indians, which is the exact same hate speech they use against Madhesis. If Indians are your American dream, for you to talk hate speech against them is not only ungrateful, it is your problem, not theirs. I think that attitude, which is a mental sickness, is the primary reason why the overwhelming majority of Nepalis stay stuck in the jobs they start out with in the city. They prevent their own upward social mobility by engineering unhealthy attitudes towards Indians.

After democracy was reinstalled in Nepal in 1990, the Congress swept the Terai. All my relatives in Mahottari and Dhanusha became Congress supporters. My family was one exception. My father contested for parliament on a Sadbhavana party ticket. But that was preceded by the enemy behavior Basu Risal’s brother, the Vice Principal at the school, and Chiranjiwi Wagle’s cousin, a teacher, acted out against me at Budhanilkantha School. They were not alone. It was a rude shock to me. It took me years to come up with the vocabulary to describe my experience. You can see water with great clarity, but if you don’t know the word for it, what will you call it?

When the Sadbhavana party split for the first time, Hridayesh Tripathy, Rajendra Mahato, Rameshwar Raya Yadav, Sarita Giri, and others formed the Nepal Samajwadi Janata Dal. Tripathy was General Secretary, I was a Vice General Secretary. Technically speaking I was senior to both Rajendra Mahato and Sarita Giri at the time in the party. That was right before I came to America for college.

Over a decade later I became the only Madhesi in America to work full time for the Madhesi movement when it took off in 2007. Upendra Yadav and I had never communicated one on one before. But when he landed in Los Angeles a few months later for the ANA Convention, his first question to the people who went to receive him was, “Where is Paramendra Bhagat?” They took him to the hotel, he again asked, “Where is Paramendra Bhagat?” They ended up flying him over to NYC. I was with him pretty much every hour during the four or so days he was in the city before he flew over to Nepal.

The electoral setback of the Madhesi parties in the recent elections to the Constituent Assembly I have taken in stride. The pendulum will swing again. You can’t be 30 parties, and say Ek Madhesh Ek Pradesh, and expect the people to buy that. There is space for only one Madhesi party in Nepali politics. All 30 parties will have to become one. I believe they are working towards it. That act of unification alone will take their vote share from the current 25% to 35%. Post unification that one Madhesi party will sweep the state elections in the Terai.

Sushil Koirala’s performance has been poor. And some of the key UML leaders in government act nakedly corrupt, and are supposedly with open underworld ties. I already foresee a strong anti-incumbency wave against the NC and the UML in the next national election the country will see, which should be some time in 2015.

I want the NC to perform well. I want the UML to perform well. That elevates the standard of democracy in the country. If the NC and the UML perform well, the only way the Maoists and the Madhesis stand a chance of a comeback is if they do even better. That political competition is a good thing. But I have been disappointed by Sushil Koirala and Bamdev Gautam. Forget development, I am not sure they are even going to deliver the constitution on time.

What Nepal needs is a Modi, a Nitish Kumar, someone who will focus on the economy like a laser beam. Sadly I don’t see a personality of that temperament in Nepali politics right now. It will take a good constitution and a few national elections for the system to throw up such individuals perhaps.

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