KATHMANDU: As Nepalese democratic forces struggle to entrench themselves and achieve their main objective of doing away with the monarchy and to set up a democratic rule, their inability to remove some of impediments hindering implementation of the 12-point understanding that reached between the seven political parties and the CPN (Maoist), was complicating things at grass-roots level where the poor and illiterate were still unable to feel any change.
The 12-point understanding had given a push to the people’s movement in Nepal whose one of the goals, as per the roadmap of the Seven Political Parties Alliance and the Maoists, and the civil society, was the election of a constituent assembly to draft a new constitution.
But the process has been bogged down because of differences on whether the existing parliament should be dissolved and how the Maoists should be disarmed. At the moment everything in Nepal seems to be on hold and even the anti-monarchy alliance is concerned because the government is finding it difficult to address core problems which affect country’s economy and socio-economic life of 80 per cent of country’s population.
About 70% of the people are dependent on agriculture. Out of that two million have no land and live in poverty while 4.7 million people are semi-employed.
The total land area of Nepal us 14781 square kilometres. The geography of the country possesses an extreme natural diversity. The Alpine region, where the world’s renowned Mount Everest is located, covers an area of 15 per cent, the mild hilly region and the valleys cover 68 per cent and plains cover 17 per cent of land.
According to Bamdev Gautam, the chairperson of the All Nepal Peasants Association, half of the rural population is made up of women who live a wretched life and 80 per cent of the rural population is compelled to live in extreme poverty. Most of the children in the country face malnutrition. About four million people of the rural area are victims of social discrimination because of caste problem, he said while talking to this scribe. Perhaps such a setting was ideal for rapid emergence of the Maoists as a force to be reckoned with in such a short time, he says.
According to Mr Gautam the Nepalese society has 40 per cent illiteracy in cities and 80 per cent illiterate people in rural areas. It is estimated that around 50 per cent of the people live below poverty in the country.
The peasants’ leader says Nepal and Nepalese have long been exploited by feudal system. It still exists very much in the social structure. Actually the state is dominated by semi-feudal and semi-colonial structures. All means of productions, he says, have been in the hands of those forces. The country is home to at least 62 different ethnic communities. That is why it is known as multi-lingual, multi-cultural land, multi-religious country.
Gautam says that in a country where 70% people depend on agriculture, import of vegetables, fruits, meat, Arabian rice, cooking oil, flour, milk powder and sugar costs the government Rs31 billion annually. He claims that the government has ignored the agriculture sector and stopped facilities that used to be provided to peasants previously.
He says that genuine agrarian reforms should soon be introduced in the country to enable productive forces to have the right to access to productive resources including land.
