Months After Earthquake, Nepal Struggles to Find Stability
What’s the Gist?
An ethnic group in Nepal is protesting a new constitution, which they say discriminates against them. Nepali officials promulgated the new constitution in September after working on it for more than eight years, but the Madhesis, a major ethnic group in the country, have been protesting it since before it was even promulgated. So far, dozens have died in the unrest and the country now faces a shortage of fuel and medicine after more than a hundred supply trucks were blocked at the border.
Hold on. What protests?
The Madhesi have been protesting a draft of the constitutionsince Aug. 8. Between then and Sept. 23, nearly 50 people and police officers were killed during protests, mostly in the Terai region. The U.N. has issued a statement calling for dialogue and the end of violence.
The Madhesi also have been forming a human chain across the country since Sept. 24 to “put more pressure on Kathmandu.” Their goal is to force the government to amend the constitution to make it more inclusive, and to include Madhesi voices in the decision-making process.
Now, some protesters are blocking the Nepal-India border, and both Nepali and Indian governments are accusing each other for being responsible of the blockade. The Nepali government says India used the protests to impose an “unofficial economic blockade.” Meanwhile, Indian customs officials say truckers who travel across the two country felt unsafe in Nepal because of the protests.
According to Nepalese officials, the blockade has created ashortage of essential supplies like fuel and medicine. The week of Sept. 14, 125 supply trucks made the trip from India to Nepal. A week later, only 16 trucks made it through customs when Indian officials halted customs processing due to security concerns, according to BuzzFeed.
Nepal’s problems are only compounded by the devastating earthquake that hit Kathmandu in April and killed 9,000 people. The Nepali government estimated that the losses were around $10 billion, more than half of its gross domestic product of $19.2 billion. The country received $4.1 billion in aid money from India, China the Asian Development Bank and others, but that money has not yet been used because the government has been focused on completing the new constitution.
Okay, back up. Why do people feel discriminated by this new constitution?
The short answer: The Madhesi feel excluded becauseMadhesi politicians felt marginalized in the writing of the new constitution.
But this goes beyond the marginalization of politicians. The Madhesi account for about 30 percent of Nepal’s population, which was close to 28 million as of 2013.
However, the Madhesis feel excluded from the political scene altogether because the political elite in Kathmandu, Nepal’s capital city, count the Madhesis as naturalized citizens and not citizens by descent. The current constitution keeps naturalized citizens from holding federal government positions, ergo excluding the Madhesis from the political scene.
More info:
- Gistory: A 2-Minute Guide on Nepal’s Recent Political History
- BBC: Why India is concerned about Nepal’s constitution
Brief contributed by Lakshna Mehta.
