Role of government

The Constituent Assembly has 601 members, whose primary obligation is to draft and promulgate the new constitution within two years, which has also been encapsulated in the interim constitution. Hence, it behoves the Constituent Assembly members to write and promulgate the constitution within the deadline. It does not, however, mean that there is no role of the government in constitution writing. The role of the government is that of a facilitator, coordinator and mentor. Where snags crop up, the government should step in, creating an environment conducive to writing the constitution.

But as things stand now, the behaviour and speeches of the political parties are showing that it is the government that has to write the constitution, which is not the case. If the government is to write the constitution, what is the rationale behind the elections to the Constituent Assembly? And what are the functions of the 601-strong jumbo Constituent Assembly?

The Maoists are now hell-bent on staging protest programmes. They have also made it clear that they are ready to sacrifice thousands of people to make a success of the people’s movement, which is designed, in the parlance of the Maoists, to secure a logical end to the peace process and complete constitution-writing.

The Maoists have a fallacious notion that once they come to power, they can complete writing the constitution in ten days as if they had a magic wand. They have also brazen-facedly announced that they are staging the mass strike for the welfare of the nation and the people.

The nitty-gritty of the current scenario demands that the peace process be logically brought to an end and the new constitution be in place by the deadline. The Maoists, who have a majority in the Legislature-Parliament, must play a catalytic role in fulfilling the goals of the Constituent Assembly if they are really serious about the nation and the people. It does not matter whether they are in the government or in the opposition because the onus of constitution-writing falls, as stated somewhere above, on the shoulders of the Constituent Assembly members, not the government.

The behaviour of the Maoists clearly shows that they have been like a fish out of water since quitting the government almost a year ago due to their inability to come to power again despite employing all kinds of gimmicks, stratagems and ploys at their disposal. They have now fully realised that they cannot easily reach the government. That is why, they have used the last resort of capturing power by opting for a people’s movement.

The Maoists have ten years’ experience with guerilla war. During the decade-long insurgency, they used violence to the nth degree. Later, they came to the mainstream of national politics, discarding the hawk and adopting the dove. Now, they have begun to show their violent colours of the insurgency period. A big question mark has now appeared over whether they have really joined the mainstream of national politics.

The impending people’s movement has struck terror into the minds of all the Nepalese. The Nepalese are now fearful that the May Day demonstrations and the subsequent people’s movement will be violent given that the Maoists have given lathi- and kukri-wielding and teargas-fighting training to their cadres across the country. Although the Maoists are claiming that the May Day demonstrations will be peaceful, there are no grounds to believe that it will be.

In fact, the Maoists believe in running the government by dint of intimidation. They think that they can bring the people under their control by unnecessarily striking fear into their minds. Now, there are reports that thousands of Maoist cadres have been pouring into the Kathmandu Valley in connection with the May Day demonstrations and the mass strike. They will be sheltered in the school buildings, houses under construction, housing colonies and open spaces. Further, the general people will have to feed the cadres. Life will be in a state of chaos if the mass strike takes place. This has terrorised the people beyond measure.

We have had two people’s movements. The first movement toppled the Panchayat dispensation and ushered in multi-party democracy. The second movement abolished the monarchy and brought in a republican system. Now, what is the third movement meant for? It is not for any system change. It is merely for unseating the present government and taking over the reins of the government. The ulterior motive is, however, state capturing and ruling the country with an iron hand.

Impending disaster

Now, the country is at the crossroads of confrontation. Confrontation will do nobody good except the vested interests. What is required at this juncture is consensus among all the political parties. As such, the ruling parties and Maoists must forge consensus so that the impending disaster can be averted. Otherwise, if the Maoists press on with their agitation, it will be the people who will suffer the most. And the economy of the country, which is already in a shambles, will be bombarded back to the ‘mediaeval period’.