When the then CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist) center draft­ed the constitution in 2015, with the help of Nepali Congress, the constitution’s preamble clearly mentioned that from now on all kinds of discriminations based on class, caste, region, language and gender would end and that inclu­sive proportional representation would henceforth be the state’s guiding principle. The same con­stitution guarantees that dalits and women would be enlisted in state organs on inclusive proportional basis. Likewise, the presence of one-third women in parliament has been made compulsory. Moreover, there is a law whereby a party cannot be registered with the Election Com­mission unless women comprise at least a third of its central committee. Nepal now has a Nepal Commu­nist Party-led government, whose guiding principle is inclusive and accommodative democracy. It can even be argued that the communist leaders were chiefly responsible for including the provisions of inclusion and proportional representation in the new charter. But has the NCP adhered to its own principles?

 

Recently the NCP constituted its central committee, standing com­mittee and central secretariat. In the nine-member central secre­tariat, the party’s high command, there is not a single woman or dal­it. Of the nine men, seven (or 75 percent) are Brahmins, but not a single Chhetri or Madhesi has been accommodated. What could be a bigger contradiction than the fact that not a single laborer or poor farmer is represented in the central secretariat of the supposed party of the proletariat?

 

Lack of inclusion is even more glaring in the 45-member NCP stand­ing committee. The party’s organ responsible for all the vital deci­sion-making has just two (or four percent) women. There is a single dalit (two percent) and no Muslim. On the other hand, 96 percent of its members are male, and Brahmins take 60 percent of all seats.

 

The 441-member NCP cen­tral committee is bigger than the 376-member central committee of the Chinese Communist Party. But even this vast body is exclusionary. The NCP central committee has just 77 (17 percent) women. Missing the 33 percent compulsory threshold, the Election Commission should not have registered it. (But it has.)

 

There are just 5 percent dalits in the NCP central committee, or three times less than the required amount. On the other hand, there are 146 (33 percent) Brahmins, which is nearly three times their national popula­tion. There are eight percent Madhe­sis, two percent Muslims, 15 percent Chhetri/Thakuri and 26 percent jan­jatis. Thus all their shares have been eaten up by male Brahmins. There is also only token representation of laborers and poor farmers. The NCP central committee, it seems, has been constituted to establish the superiority of a single gender, a single caste and a single elite group.

 

This contradiction is seen not only in the NCP but also in different levels of governments it runs. Of the 24 federal level ministers, there are only four (17 percent) women. More­over, of the 21 ‘full ministers’ only two (9.5 percent) are women.

 

Twelve percent of Nepal’s population is comprised of Brah­mins while the dalit population is 13 percent. But while there is a single dalit in the cabinet of ministers, there are nine Brahmins. Likewise, of the six chief ministers of federal provinces chosen by the NCP, there is not a single woman or dalit.

 

At the level of mayors and head of rural municipalities, there are just 18 (four percent) women. But at the level of deputy mayors and deputy heads, there are 700 (or 93 percent) women. This happened because just like other parties the communist party too decided not to field women in the race for heads of these electoral bodies.

 

Is it the case that the NCP simply does not have enough women and dalits it can elect to executive posts? That is not so because the party has a large number of capable women and dalit leaders. Thus it is safe to say that they were excluded not because of their lack of ability but because they were not the favorites of powerful leaders.

 

When the political parties knew the inclusionary provisions would be impossible to implement, why keep them at all? Or is it the case that the constitution and the laws are not meant to be implemented but just to act as window dressing that we can showcase before the world? This big gulf between the laws and their actual implementation hint of a lack of responsibility and morality in Nepali politics.

 

The author is a veteran journalist and a left-leaning intellectual