Leadership and Federalization Debate in Nepal

Nepali politics and leadership were ruled by a centralized, unitary, monarchial and exclusionary Hindu Kingdom before 2006. As a result of a decade long “Peoples war” as well as Maoist movement, the country has declared as republican, federal, secular and inclusive. The root causes of the conflicts are class, caste, gender and regional disparities. The violent conflict was political and it was purely byproduct of discriminatory state structure. It was considered that federalization of the state is prime solution. The peace process was initiated with the firm commitment of forward looking state restructuring. The paper tries to identify the federalization debate among the political parties during the peace process. This paper tries to capture the debates from both federalists and anti-federalists. Paper also tries to compare with the expectations and reality with lapse and gaps. This study is based on available information, literature and political statements, election manifestos and other related documents. Qualitative data has been used. A descriptive and analytical method has been applied to assess overall process of federal design. Data/information has been obtained from the historical document of political parties, government repository and views and ideas expressed by different stakeholders on federalization of the state. Finally some recommendations to the concerned authority for meeting the expectations within the constitutional framework have been made. The draft constitution prepared by 1st Constituent Assembly had adopted the spirit of identity. Identity was the basis of the federal design and a bottom-line of the federalist section of the society. However, in the constitution, the issue of identity based federalism has been badly diluted. There is a huge gap between the pre and post constitution stage. The challenge now is to mitigate the principles of federalism and simultaneously implement the constitution. The constitution is a compromised document and therefore my recommendation is again compromised for implementation of constitution and federalism.