Description
At the time Nepal is planning for an unprecedented task of forming constitution through a constituent assembly of people’s representatives, restructuring of Nepal into a federation of autonomous or semi-autonomous states has been prominently proposed by some scholars, the Federation of Indigenous Nationalities, and some major political parties, like the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists), the Communist Party of Nepal (UML), Jana Morcha, and Nepal Sadbhawana Party. To my knowledge there are at least 14 proposals already made, which can be classified into two groups. Proposals in one group consider the meeting of political aspirations and demands of ethnic and indigenous nationalities the main objective of federal restructure. Accordingly, those proposals demarcate states by subdividing Nepal based on ethnic/nationality concentration. The proposals in the next group demarcate states on geographical and/or topographical basis, on broad arguments of improving governance through local control of governments and/or on some economic arguments like demarcating states by major river basins to economically harness hydropower potential of the country. Which type of federation proposal is better?
Comparative study of federation proposals for Nepal
At the time Nepal is planning for an unprecedented task of forming constitution through a constituent assembly of people’s representatives, restructuring of Nepal into a federation of autonomous or semi-autonomous states has been prominently proposed by some scholars, the Federation of Indigenous Nationalities, and some major political parties, like the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists), the Communist Party of Nepal (UML), Jana Morcha, and Nepal Sadbhawana Party. To my knowledge there are at least 14 proposals already made, which can be classified into two groups. Proposals in one group consider the meeting of political aspirations and demands of ethnic and indigenous nationalities the main objective of federal restructure. Accordingly, those proposals demarcate states by subdividing Nepal based on ethnic/nationality concentration. The proposals in the next group demarcate states on geographical and/or topographical basis, on broad arguments of improving governance through local control of governments and/or on some economic arguments like demarcating states by major river basins to economically harness hydropower potential of the country. Which type of federation proposal is better?