SHARE MARKET STABLE Kathmandu, 8 Oct. Share market was stable Monday on the second day of weekly five-day trading. Minutes before the market closed, Nepse gained 0.46 points or 0.4 percent. Altogether 79,425 shares were traded for Rs.21.298 million in 456 transactions. Nnnn MAOIST THREAT TO RESHUFFLE GOVT. Kathmandu, 8 Oct.: The ruling coalition will expand the 17-member government if opposition continues to talk of pulling down the government, Annaourna Post reports. This strategy has been developed if protests persist. Nnnn NCELL FOOTBALLL CHAMPIONSHIP Kathmandu, 8 Oct. Ranipokhari Corner Team (RCT) plays Baudha Football Club in the third quarterfinal of the Ncell Football Championship Monday. The tournament is the country’s richest. Nnnn INTERVIEW A veteran politician, 76-year-old Bhim Bahadur Tamang has been with the Nepali Congress since the time of BP Koirala. At a time when other Janajati leaders have just resigned from the party and allegations of the party being “conservative” are rife, Tamang remains committed to the NC and its principles. Tamang believes that the NC is caught in a tussle between three brothers, much like in Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov. To be a successful politician, it is necessary to be spiritual about politics, he says. In conversation with the Post’s Bidushi Dhungel, Tamang spoke about the Janajati dissent and the NC’s future. Excerpts: Why have some Janajati leaders and cadre from the Nepali Congress left the party in recent days? We couldn’t convince them to stay. We couldn’t win over their hearts—there was a communication gap. Their main grievances were centred on the disparity they saw within the party and without. The Janajatis in the party had brought forth an 11-point demand which was submitted to the party leadership. In it, they demanded an end to discrimination in all forms. They also talked about the importance of identity. Of course this kind of disparity and discrimination exists in society. All groups and people, and not just the Janajatis, should have brought up the issue of disparity in society and the party. In the political realm too, everyone should have been working towards ending that disparity. The party should have been more inclusive. Though we have brought forth some measures to do so already, we need more inclusive policies. In the Congress Central Working Committee, we now see more women and Dalits than ever before—but more needs to be done in a sustained manner. What do you see as the weakness in the NC that led to Janajati cadres and leaders resigning? Structurally, the party has more of a conscious class [educated class] membership than backward classes. Just having the conscious class in not enough. If the backward classes are a part of the party structure, only then can we address their concerns and questions. Disparity is prevalent in politics, the economy, education, the social sector and we need to look into why this disparity exists and then attempt to address it. But to do so, we need the membership of those that feel the brunt of the disparity. Another big problem is that many of the political leaders of all parties, including ours, found a space for themselves through student politics. They have no grassroots base and their motivation for politics has always been power, never social change. Do you think the Janajati members in the Nepali Congress have been less vocal about their grievances than the Janajati leaders in the UML? We do have to go back to history to understand this, and although it has been said many times, the 1950 movement was the first to bring major changes to Nepali. If substantial and earth-shaking change ever came, it was through that movement. For the first time, those that felt the brunt of disparity, through the culture of feudalism where birth determined worth, were given a political voice. Even then we’d brought up the issue of caste and identity. We brought forward slogans that questioned the difference between rice and beaten rice (bhaat ra chuira ma k pharak?) If you can touch the former, then why not the latter? Many Janajati leaders see the Nepali Congress as “conservative” on identity issues. Do you agree? Of course, I understand the kind of marginalisation that many Janajatis today are talking about. After all, I am a Tamang. I know how backward the Tamang people are and how they have been excluded from the state structure. But, in the 104 years of Rana oligarchy, the Janajatis had no space at all in the political sphere. Now, the situation is improving. We know that we have to accommodate the needs of the people as demands change. But the ability to do so comes from statesmanship, which we utterly lack today. Forget the Nepali Congress, but statesmanship in the way BP Koirala embodied, is lacking in Nepal’s entire political leadership. For example, in the Cabinet of 1958, BP gave preference to marginalised leaders even in places where established elite politicians were aplenty. From the East, he had a Limbu minister and a Rai state minister. From the Madhes, he brought in a Yadav and Rajput from the Eastern Madhes. From the mid-Madhes, he’d brought in Mahendra Narayan Nidhi and Ram Narayan Mishra. From the Western Tarai where the Tharus reside, he brought in Parshu Narayan Chaudhary instead of Bharat Mani Sharma. From Syangja, he brought in two Gurung state ministers. From the North Himalayan belt, he brought forth a Thakali. What I’m trying to say is that in order to make these tough decisions, we need statesmanship, not a narrow-minded political class. We couldn’t develop this kind of leadership after BP’s demise. In current times, one school of thought argues that the NC still hasn’t internalised the spirit and changes of Jana Andolan 2. I wouldn’t say internalise, but we haven’t been able to disseminate and address the spirit and changes. This should have been done through a well-thought out and planned programme, but we haven’t been able to do this. Or rather, we haven’t had the time to do it. Is five years not enough time? Well that is not where our focus has been. All the focus and interest has been on power and propaganda. I haven’t seen the kind of leadership needed in other parties either—a kind of leadership which can carry the nation forward. It’s all power and propaganda. The nation is a public asset—it doesn’t belong to one class or ethnicity. The leadership also hasn’t been distributed in the spirit of equal representation of all the diversity of Nepal—in terms of class, caste, region and so forth. How do you react to the notion, being pushed by some people, that Nepali Congress is “conservative” while newer communist parties are “progressive”? This is pure propaganda. I see myself and my party as being far more liberal than any communist party. Ultimately, the communist parties in Nepal have transformed into sukila mukila who have the means, financially and otherwise. If you want to find the well-off class in Nepal today, you’ll have to look into the communist parties, not the Congress. Moving on to contentious issues, what is the Nepali Congress stance on federalism as of now? Federalism is a must, and identity is a core aspect of federalism. We have to find a way to respect to different identities. We have taken up dwanda metine, pahichan bhetine (erasing conflict and finding identity) as the slogan for federalism. The biggest problem in this debate is that parties haven’t been honest with the people in regards to what is feasible and what is not. But identity now needs to be addressed, and since names are so important to those who are raising the identity issue, identity will have to be addressed in the naming of states. Are you saying you have no qualms about states along ethnic lines, for example, like Limbuwan? When we say identity, it needs to accommodate the sensitivities of all the groups in a particular area. While caring for one group’s sensitivities, we can’t compromise on others. So the names will have to be acceptable to all. For example, right now inside the ruling party, the demand for a Khas province in the West is high. Unfortunately, that may also create a foundation to start a whole new movement. We need to think about nationalism along with identity and how we can move that forward. And because we haven’t been able to come up with a solution, we see a lot of external influence affecting our politics. Do you see a lot of external influence in the federalism debate? In our central foreign policy we have to make it clear that we will not take any steps to directly harm India or China. Importantly, we have to be honest with our neighbours. Being dishonest will come to stab us in the back and allow for others to be more active, as we have seen. India may want one state in the Tarai, China might not want isolated states in the north, but we decide. When we carve states in the Tarai, we need to make sure that the people there feel ownership of the mountains in the north as well. When we carve states in the north, they need to feel ownership of the plains below. That should be our priority—not what India and China think or want. We have never been able to do that, and that is a weakness. We need to give people the privileges they deserve so that they can feel ownership of the whole country. Thinking only about what the north and south want will not get us anywhere. If there is an election next April, and NC goes to polls as is, how do you think the party will fare? The Congress has no choice but to create new-found zeal, enthusiasm and organisation. Without completely revamping itself however, it’s not going to be possible to do well. We have to be able to champion the interests of the people. If the Congress can leave behind the power mongering frame of mind, we can lead and create policies which are people-oriented and take this nation forward. It cannot be forgotten that it is the people who are sovereign. Power doesn’t come from the king, or the politicians, or the barrel of the gun—it comes from the people and that needs to be the mantra of politicians. nnnn