By Narayan Prasad Mishra
I think our country’s constitution is the unique one in the world where you find everything wanted by any little group or party except by the pro-monarchists. Here unique means not unique in a good way. It is like a dish prepared by mixing rice and lentils (Khichadi) which may have many other ingredients — vegetables, fruits, meat, fish, yoghurt, milk, etc. Its creator probably thought that the taste would be fantastic. However, when they tasted it after cooking, no one liked it or was happy with this dish. Despite being inedible, they could neither throw it nor eat it as there was no other alternative. Despite this, the creators of the constitution are reluctant to confess the weakness of their creation. Most of the parties now seem to realize that our constitution of 2047 (1990) was far better for us than the present one, but they cannot open their mouth for fear that they may be called regressors by hardline communists
Just as we can see all and any ingredient in the Khichadi mentioned above, our present constitution has everything – multiparty, democracy, House of Representatives, Upper House, socialism, communism, Maoism, federalism, secularism, Christianity, Muhamadanism, Buddhism, Hinduism, nationalism, separatism, proportionate representations, an independent judiciary, and many other constitutional bodies – Election Commission, Public Service Commission, the Commission for Investigation on the Abuse of Authority, etc. Just like the distasteful and inedible Khichadi, our constitution has become impracticable and unproductive.
We may be the wealthiest in the number of political parties in the world. According to the list published by the Election Commission, at one time, we had 117 registered political parties. In contrast to this, we see only two prime parties in the USA, one of the world’s wealthiest and most developed countries — Republican and Democrat — and the same in another rich country Great Britain — the Conservative Party and the Labour Party. In all democratic countries, primarily, the party elected by the majority of people rules the country. The elected government runs the country for the entire term and does remarkable work for the country and its people. In our country, since the introduction of the present constitution, hardly any party has won the majority seats in the House of Representatives. So, here we always have a coalition government; the minority always rules the majority, which contradicts the democratic system, principles, and values. That is the result of our Khichadi constitution and provision of the election of the House of Representatives and the System of Proportionate Representations. Now, we hardly hope for the elected government of the single majority party in the country, which is the backbone of a democratic system.
As we are always bound to have a coalition government, we have lost the beauty and charm of a multiparty system with a strong opposition party. Many parties unite to form the government and share power and positions, and the opposition amalgamates with the party in government. Due to this, we do not see strong opposition, which is noticeably dangerous to democratic principles. We have established a system of multiparty without opposition. Unfortunately, we see in the country that the parties only unite to gain power, positions, and other benefits instead of uniting to do good things for the people and country.
Because of this, we have been experiencing the country’s self-centered, unprincipled, unstable, and anti-multiparty system government for the last couple of years. They unite when they see a chance to share power and positions. Immediately, they fight when they find some loss and gain in power-sharing and many other unseen benefits. We do not see any party principles in their uniting and separating. This has been going on in the country. They never get together for the cause of the people’s suffering and the country’s development. To depict this disturbing political situation, once I wrote the following sentences in my article “Electorial Alliance A Betrayal for Voters, Democracy,” published in People’s Review on April 26, 2022.
The burning example of this is the formation of the government under Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda’s premiership with the support of K. P. Sharma Oli, the chairman of the Nepal Communist Party (UML), and his present premiership with the support of Shere Bahadur Deuba, the president of the Nepali Congress Party after separating from Oli within two months. They have been forming and deforming the government like this for several years. Our government forming has become the system of a group of frogs where you do not know when and which frog jumps ahead, leaving others behind. In the same way, we do not know when and who become the prime minister separating from one party and establishing good relations with the other party.
On the other hand, we have a large number of people who feel the then seven parties, with the collaboration of Maoist, threw out the existing Monarchy and Hinduism and introduced the Federal System with seven provinces in a tiny country with conspiracy. We have been witnessing that big voice in the streets. We are watching that big voice is louder these days.
From all the above points, it seems we need to think over our Khichadi constitution, especially to form a stable government with a single-party majority. In this context, we also need to give unbiased attention to Monarchy, Hinduism, and the system without federalism and evaluate whether we removed them without giving proper attention to their benefits in our context. That will be the proper way to solve our problem if we want peace and prosperity in the country. We all know the English proverb – “a stitch in time saves nine”. A hole in cloth would undoubtedly get bigger and need more stitches in the future if not fixed in time.
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