In 2006, the People’s Movement II tamed an autocratic monarch and paved the way for Nepal to become a federal secular republic. Following the tenure of two Constituent Assemblies, a new constitution was promulgated in 2015. This book focuses on the larger political transition that happened between those two years.
Reading Nepali Transition is divided into three sections. The first section delves into claim making by the various social groups on the state and the latter’s strategy to cope with those claims as the new constitution was being drafted. The second section deals with the intricate processes within the two Constituent Assemblies and shows how the country’s top political leaders were not committed to holding deliberations within them but instead engaged in political negotiations elsewhere. The third section deals with the issue of transitional justice for those who were disappeared during the ten-year conflict. It also looks at the challenges related to the complexity of disarming and reintegrating former Maoist combatants. This book will be a useful guide to all readers who want to understand recent Nepal.
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Contents
Reprinting Rights Acknowledgments vii
Preface xi
Introduction 1
Assessing Nepali Transition
Pranab Kharel
Claim Making: Contestation and Remolding for Identities
1. Debating Civil Society: Nagarik Samaj and Nagarik Discourse in Nepal’s People’s Movement II 37
Chudamani Basnet
2. Understanding Madhesi Contentions 65
Bhaskar Gautam
3. Politicizing Ethnicity: Tharu Contestation of Madheshi Identity in Nepal’s Tarai 97
Krishna Pandey
4. Writing Citizenship: Gender, Race and Tactical Alliances in Nepal’s Constitution Drafting 123
Surabhi Pudasaini
5. Indigenous People’s Struggle for Political Rights and Recognition: Constitution-making and Federal Design 163
Mukta S. Tamang
6. Chequered Trajectory of State Restructuring Process: A Study of Chhetri Mobilization 195
Ujjwal Prasai
7. Federalization and the Dalits 237
Yam Bahadur Kisan
8. Homogenization of Social Movement Dynamics under a “Clever” Nepali State, 2007–2012 261
Lokranjan Parajuli
Constituent Assembly: A Space for Transformative Politics or Power Aggrandizement?
9. The Debilitating Dynamics of Nepal’s First Constituent Assembly (2008–2012) 293
Martin Chautari
10. Attendance and Process in Constituent Assembly-II 317
Martin Chautari
11. Participatory Constitution-making in Nepal (2008–2015) 333
Krishna P. Khanal
A Long Wait: The Issue of Transitional Justice and the Future of Former Maoist Combatants
12. The Politics of Loss in the People’s War and Its Aftermath: The Disappeared as Kin, Citizens and Warriors 383
Ruth Marsden
13. Transitional Justice as an Elite Discourse: Human Rights Practice Where the Global Meets the Local in Post-conflict Nepal 415
Simon Robins
14. Dealing with Ex-Combatants in a Negotiated Peace Process: Impacts of Transitional Politics on the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Program in Nepal 455
DB Subedi
Notes on Contributors 489
Chronology of Major Events 493