Officially the former kingdom of Nepal has become the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal. But the country hasn’t been federalized yet.
By Bipendra Basnyat
Just came out of an evening of brain storming about Naya Nepal; the idea was to discuss some of the scholarly articles on how can Naya (New) Nepal be “federated”. In other words how can our country be demarked into various states/political regions and can they be socio-economically viable? To figure out what makes sense and what does not? It was indeed a great idea of all the people involved in organizing such an event and a way for us to “Speak Out our Mind”. More than any thing else it was a great opportunity for Nepalese staying abroad to pass on their concerns to the legal entities of Nepal. I applaud the organizer Washington Nepali forum and United States Institute for Peace for providing us this opportunity.
I felt like we are still really back in a game where we are trying to weed out our differences of being from different caste system. Some one complains about being left out in the past whereas other talk about possible exclusion of minorities, yet again. It was a general consensus that Naya Nepal is needed but no one really wants to see new neighboring states with people that they have not seen before or moved in just because they seem to be under same ethnicity.
I don’t feel ashamed to confess that being a graduate student I do not know how the federal system works in Nepal; and what kind of political division are planners making. I know from media that there has been a general consensus to autonomies states based on their ethnicity, but is it just for name sake? Does Limbuwan State will only have majority of Limbus and only Limbu speaking people can dwell in such state. I know this is not true; at least I hope that this is not true. If this indeed the case, then need to educate people about it and the name “Limbuwan” is just a name; has no significance to the other people already living there and that area was historically Limbu dominant.
Have any engineering thoughts been put into demarking the states? I have a fear that if conditions of existing infrastructures are not considered in demarcation then while Kathmandu is planning on building Skyscrapers; a state in western Nepal might be scrambling to make a Jholenge pool (suspension bridge) or even fighting hard to provide a basic need of food and shelter. If enough thought is not provided into existing physical resources then we might just increase the economic gap between states. A prosperous neighbor is good to have, but then they make my house look smaller in the neighborhood.
There are lots of people with reservations and fear about the new structure of Nepal. Fear of inadequate resources, fear of isolation and fear of ethnic violence. I know this is out of question now but there were people who even questioned about necessity of new political structure or should we look into empowering the existing system without redrawing new map of Nepal.
I know there are more questions on my write-up than answers and that’s because I belong to millions of Nepali people who have not been answered in the past. Rather imposed of the new rules and regulations. Hope this does not happen this time along as I like to think that our new constitution will be so strong that we don’t need to go into its amendment every fortnight.
Let us spread the word around, lets educate and uplift our fellow citizens where were left out in the past and unite to make our voice stronger; let the people of Nepal be more thoughtful than they ever have been. Let our future generation be proud of this Naya Nepal. I believe that we can change Nepal, a change that’s direly needed.
This entry was originally posted at NayaNepalNews. UWB received the article from the writer in email.
United We Blog 
Comments
9 responses to “Federalizing the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal”
I think we’ve heard this word “Naya Nepal” just too much now. It has now started to hurt now. What is this “Naya Nepal” anyway? increase in prices? unavailability of fuel? uncertainly future of the country? the same of politics and the ( ) politicians? will we head to a better and developed nepal ever? or will we have to listed to this word only? is there any solid ground as to a really certain “Naya Nepal” or not?
hare bhagwan kasto jhare article yar… atti bho… pugyo… pachena yar… yesto website ma ta alik gatilo article post hunu parne ni…
plz note: blog.com.np – we will be looking forward for some quality content from you guys, at least.
May be some day Nepal will be Federal Republic of Nepal in true sense. It will not happen in near future. But it is definitely possible to change the names of some Anchals (zones) without changing the district borders. Zones will be renamed (with addition and deletion of districts) either by language or by ethnicity. For example, we could have Marathi Anchal, Bhojpuri Anchal, Rajbansi Anchal in the south. We could have Newar Anchal by combining Kathmandu, Lalitpur, Bhaktapur and Kirtipur. In the similar manner we can have Gurung, Kiranti and other Anchals. This is easiest way to have federal flavour in Nepal. By this government structure will not change and it just acknowledges the historical, ethnicity and language in Nepal to its own people and to the world.
I hope I just stirred some curiosity to the readers and I hope readers will come up with their own ideas of changing zones to federal by combining different districts.
Just outta curiosity…..
has sajha.com been hacked ?
Levels of federalization:
First: Nepal……………………………………………………….
……………………………………………………..
Second (development based): 3/4 regions (kind of states) based on cities, those have one big city ( around 3.5-7 mill. people) each- kath, biratnag., nepaljung,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, each states have 2/3 small cities (around 2 mill. people) , 5-10 mini cities (1.5 lakh) and 100s of micro cities (1000-25000 people) ……………………………………………………………
……………………………………………………………….
Third (based on culture, language etc): as required…………………………………………………………….
…………………………………………….
Fourth (based on govt’s responsibility to deliver services to public): as required, should be larger than local bodies we have today…………………………………………..
………………………………………………………………………………..
………………………………………………………. people, goods, services should move freely all over nepal, nepalese should be able to buy, invest, live freely all over nepal…
……………………………………………….. guarantee of security, rights
Regarding head of state:
…………………………………………………… there should be two….. one is president (executive like pm we have) and …………… another …need a title…(ceremonial).who will be symbol of unity, appoints (oath taking) head of independent bodies like judges, election com. , human right, anti-corruption, auditoral dept. etc…………
…………………………………………. if you want new……… think new………………………… decades old, outdated, failed ideas should not be considered as new.
ceremonal head should be for 2 yrs from different gender, cast (aulternately)……………………………………….
and why should people elected be second from ceremonal
This Fedral nepal is bullshit. This is not wanted, unsustainable, divisive and all those who are talking about this has bullshit in the brain or they are talking because of hariyo doller to digest.
If they try to fedralize nepal state, there will be no more nepal as such. Those talking about federal nepal are traitors and should be shot for treason and history will judge these bull shit eaters.
As long as the old styled indian politics influence Nepal, i can see no NAYA NEPAL at all. We the people are the fools to easily belive the Politicians whathever the shit they talk. now If we want Naya Nepal in true sense,FIRST OF ALL, WE SHOULD CHANGE OURSELF. AND START TAKING ACTION FROM THE INDIVIDUAL LEVEL. ITS NOW OR NEVER. I LOVE NEPAL AND ATLEAST I AM HAPPY THAT I’M CONSCIOUS ABOUT IT.