Parmeshwar Devkota

Nepal had five constitutions within 40 years, but none worked properly as they failed to address common people's grievances against the state. The first constitution - the Government of Nepal Act, 1948, was introduced by Rana Prime Minister Padma Shamsher. It was brought to pacify angry landlords around the country. The landlords, however, went against it and took part in the historic 1950 revolution which overthrew the Rana oligarchy.
King Mahendra had a different design when he promulgated the Constitution of Nepal, 1962. It was aimed at quelling the hard-earned multiparty democracy for good.

Except for the aforementioned statutes, the Interim Government Act, 1951, the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal,1959 and the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal, 1990 were brought in the participation of Nepali political parties and people. However, they too failed to produce the desired results.

Common Goals
Regarding the failure of all the constitutions of the past, senior advocate and constitutional affairs expert Dr Bhimarjun Acharya has scrutinised Nepal's constitutional history on a TV programme. According to him, there were three prominent power centres in the past. The extreme rightist groups were functioning under the then King Birendra as he was popular among people at the grassroots level.

The centre rightist and centre leftist forces, though they were gaining popularity, were shying away to set the common goal and work together. The far-left groups had adequate capacity to hit the streets and vilify leaders and political parties close to power centres. Another notable point of those far-left groups is that they had been demanding the election of the constituent assembly and overthrow of the kingship from the country since the very beginning. The power tussle among these forces was the cause of the failure of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal, 1990.

If we recall those suffocating days of political turmoil, general strikes and the breaking of railings of the streets of Kathmandu, we can find that these events had taken place because a big chunk of Nepali society stood in favour of that constitution. But a small but vibrant group in our society opposed some provisions of that statute. When the then Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist and Leninist) registered a 26-point protest letter against that constitution, the value of the then constitution somewhat diluted.

Amid the confusion and street protests, an extremist far-leftist group called CPN (Maoist) emerged with a clear-cut agenda of confronting the extreme rightist power centre whose reign was with the then, King Birendra. Though excessive sacrifices, bloodsheds and extrajudicial killings from the state and the Maoists have still been regarded as barbaric incidents, the Moist movement did two great things. First, it pulverised the extreme rightists and forced them to join hands with the centre-right and centre-left forces for a common cause of formulating a new constitution through the constituent assembly. Second, the Maoist movement tried its best to end centuries-long caste-based disparity in Nepali society.

The present constitution is, therefore, an outcome of the compromise between the centre-rightist and centre-leftist forces. The preamble of the Constitution of Nepal, 2015 mentions this. It has an amalgamation of democratic socialism and socialist democratic values. It reads: "Being committed to socialism based on democratic norms and values including the people's competitive multiparty democratic system of governance, civil liberties, fundamental rights, human rights, adult franchise…etc."

Similarly, Part 3 of the constitution deals with various fundamental rights and duties. As per the statute, we can now enjoy as many as 46 rights. This is a matter of happiness. Article 48 includes only one duty.
Another prominent feature of this constitution is the provision of federal setup. It has conceived a three-tier sovereign government -- federal, provincial and local level. According to that provision, the federal government is at the centre, and seven province governments and 753 local levels have been made for good and efficient governance of the country. Provincial governments are given executive, legislature, legislative and financial powers.

Similarly, every local level government enjoys executive, legislature and financial powers. They are sovereign to formulate laws, execute them and prioritise their development plans and finance them. Such provisions have been made for the first time in the constitutional history of Nepal.

Interrelation
So, the effective implementation of the present constitution should be judged on the grounds of interrelation among three levels of government.
There is a provision in the constitution regarding the inter-province council - it functions under the chairmanship of the sitting prime minister and in case any disputes between or among local or provincial levels erupt it would work to address such disputes. To date, we have not heard of any serious disputes between the governments.

It shows that the first federal democratic constitution is successful on the governing level. If any political party or sect of Nepali society has any discontent with the constitutional provisions, it should be sorted out keeping away malicious intentions. The present constitution is a document of political as well as ideological compromise. So, if any amendment is to be made, there should be a win-win situation as great thinker Burke says: 'Every human benefit, every virtue and every prudent act, is founded on compromise'.

(Devkota is deputy executive editor at TRN)