By P.R. Pradhan

“Politics for Development” was a popular slogan of the Panchayat days which collapsed in 1990. The Panchayat system introduced a land reform program fixing a land ceiling, introduced a decentralization program by introducing five development regions, and introduced four tired structures—village, town, district and national Panchayat—focused on development.

King Mahendra introduced the partyless Panchayat System on December 15, 1960 (Pous 1, 2017). 

More importantly, to safeguard national sovereignty and independence, Nepal had adopted a non-aligned foreign policy maintaining equidistance relations with all the friendly nations, including the two giant neighbors. Viewing the geopolitical sensitivity of the two immediate neighbors, India and China, Nepal stood as a buffer nation. Furthermore, to cement Nepal’s sovereignty and independence, King Birendra proclaimed the Zone of Peace (ZoP) proposal, which was recognized by the above 116 countries, including China, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka in neighborhood. Intentionally, India didn’t recognize the Nepali King’s proposal as the Indian leaders wanted to bring Nepal under the Indian umbrella against which, the Nepali monarchs struggled hard. Coincidently, the month Pous is very important in history as it reflects the kings’ contribution to nation-building. Pous 1 is important as the nation adopted a sustainable political system. King Mahendra took the bold step of introducing the Panchayat democracy based on a mixed economy. Pous 14 is the birth anniversary of King Birendra, who contributed his entire life to the peace and development of the nation. Accordingly, Pous 27 is the birth anniversary of King Prithivi Narayan Shah the Great, founder of modern Nepal.

Nepal’s wish to become a Zone of Peace holds great significance for national sovereignty, unfortunately, the ZoP proposal was removed from the Nepali constitution without justification by the leaders involved in writing the new 1990 constitution. We believe, those involved in writing the new constitution were highly manipulated by the Indians, thus far, they quietly removed ZoP--a bold stance for safeguarding Nepal.

For Nepal, peace and development are two important components. The Panchayat system was for peace and development, nevertheless, the political system introduced in 1990 and the next system adopted after the 2006 April uprising completely derailed Nepal’s peace and development, instead, the politics introduced different kinds of anomalies. The 2015 constitution cannot bring peace and development, instead, the nation will face different kinds of crisis in days to come. The present political system is introduced in the foreigners’ interest to destroy this beautiful and peaceful nation. The system is focused on managing those workers of the political parties in power. The entire revenue is being spent to manage the federal structure, whereas, investment funds are scarce for development projects. The government is managing funds by taking domestic and international debts. The debt amount has reached an alarming stage. If the present trend of taking debts will continue, soon, we will fall into a debt trap. The question here is whether to introduce a system that makes the country prosperous or a system that destroys the country financially! In one decade of the adoption of the present constitution, it has been proved that the system is unable to function. The parties in the government have also felt that the constitution is not working. Therefore, they are talking about its amendment. Education Minister Bidhya Bhattarai is saying that the education sector should be free from political influence; some MPs from ruling parties are advocating for scrapping party-affiliated civil servicemen’s associations. These are the indications that those in the government have felt that the present political system has spoiled the education sector as well as the bureaucracy. Surely, the Commission for Investigation on Abuse of Authority and other corruption-curbing organs should be made autonomous and powerful. The system of assigning judges in courts based on political Bhagbanda (sharing) should be ended. Moreover, all constitutional bodies and government undertakings should remain autonomous and run by professionals. Unions in the educational sector should not be allowed to do politics but contribute to educational development. Unfortunately, instead of addressing these issues, the two big parties are thinking about increasing the threshold of the current 3 per cent to 10 per cent so that small parties will be wiped out from the scene.

Indeed, the major hurdle and burden for Nepal like a tiny country is the federal structure. We need an overhaul instead of minor amendments in the constitution.