A constitution is a socio-economic document written to correct historical injustices. Nepal's 2015 Constitution emerged from the People’s Movement, the Comprehensive Peace Accord, two Constituent Assemblies, and decades of struggle by marginalised groups—including the Tharuhat, Madhesh, Dalit, Indigenous, Muslim, and feminist movements. Yet, many demands remain unaddressed. The rights these communities gained were not a gift, but structural justice they claimed for themselves.

Crucially, the current constitutional amendment debate treats Part 27—which established seven inclusion commissions—as ripe for elimination. Critics bluntly argue these bodies ‘didn’t work’, became ‘political recruitment centres’, or ‘burden the state’. But before dismantling institutions born of decades of struggle, the state must answer: Did these commissions fail, or were they deliberately set up to fail?

Institutional neglect does not equal irrelevance. Successive governments have starved these commissions of budgets, staff, authority, and autonomy. Chronic vacancies, political appointments, and ignored recommendations are self-inflicted weaknesses that the state cannot use to justify dissolution.

Inclusion does not implement itself. Electoral democracy alone cannot undo centuries of exclusion. Communities denied land, resources, decision-making power, education and public office for generations do not hold equal ground the moment a constitutional clause says so. Turning those clauses into lived equality takes time and that is exactly why guardian institutions are needed; to protect and strengthen rights on paper until they become rights in practice. This is why Part 27 of the Constitution established these commissions as dedicated constitutional bodies. They function as independent guarantors of commitments that ordinary politics tends to neglect. Seen this way, these institutions are safeguards for democracy itself.

This is best illustrated by the marginalised Tharu community to which I belong. Our history includes land dispossession, forced displacement, bonded labour under the kamaiya and kamlahari systems, chronic underrepresentation and generations of deprivation. These are products of a state-building process that concentrated power in Kathmandu by extracting labour, land and resources from communities like ours. The Tharuhat movement was as much about identity as it was about the demand for dignity after formal equality repeatedly proved insufficient. Establishing the Tharu Commission was a constitutional acknowledgement that promises alone cannot redress historical injustice.

Had the commission been given adequate resources and authority, it could by now, have been the country’s leading authority on Tharu land insecurity, public-service representation, rehabilitation of former kamaiya and kamlahari families, and protection of Tharu language and culture. Instead, it has been reduced to issuing recommendations governments can easily ignore, hobbled by minimal staffing and a budget too thin for serious policy work. This is but evidence of political leadership unwilling to implement the constitution seriously.

Critics argue that separate commissions duplicate ministries’ work, but merging them creates a conflict of interest: ministries implement policy, while constitutional commissions independently audit whether those policies fulfil constitutional obligations. Because the historical roots of caste, gender, and indigenous marginalisation differ, they require distinct institutional responses. Folding the Tharu experience of bonded labour and land exclusion into a generic, Kathmandu-centric bureaucracy would erase its unique character.

Modern constitutional democracies have moved beyond formal equality, toward institutions built around substantive equality. India established separate commissions for Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backwards Classes, on the premise that one mechanism cannot address distinct forms of historical discrimination. Similarly, South Africa created independent ‘Chapter Nine’ institutions to guarantee the voice of marginalised communities. Addressing specific historical injustices through specific institutions is not a special favour, but a constitutional necessity for equality and inclusive democracy.

Most arguments for the commissions’ abolition invoke Article 265, which tasks parliament with reviewing these commissions 10 years after implementation. But the provision’s purpose was never automatic dissolution. Rather, it was to assess whether these bodies have the authority, resources and mandate to fulfil their duties. The article does not empower the state to eliminate institutions representing marginalised communities for political convenience. It envisions periodic review aimed at making them more effective. Reading the 10-year review as a built-in ‘constitutional death sentence’ contradicts both the framers’ intent and constitutional philosophy, turning reform into erosion.

None of this suggests that these commissions sit above criticism—their institutional record has been relatively limited. But failure to achieve intended effectiveness is not proof that an institution’s constitutional rationale has expired. Instead, it raises the question of what structural and legal barriers prevented it from functioning. Thus, the proper response to weak performance is institutional strengthening, not abolition.

Several reforms would help in achieving this: Transparent, merit-based appointments insulated from political influence; guaranteed financial autonomy rather than dependence on executive discretion; recommendations that carry legal weight, with government required to respond formally within a set timeframe; stronger parliamentary oversight, with regular debate on commissions’ reports and accountability for ministries that ignore them; and real investigative authority, skilled staff, and a permanent provincial and local presence.

The real question is what marginalised communities themselves want. The marginalised communities are not dissatisfied with the rights the Constitution granted them. They are dissatisfied with how poorly those rights have been implemented and protected. Their calls for amendment are to make these commissions more independent, resourced and accountable. Presenting community dissatisfaction as justification for abolition is both factually and constitutionally mistaken.

This question extends beyond administrative restructuring and touches the credibility of Nepal’s entire inclusive-democratic project. These commissions were established as a legitimate channel to enable excluded communities to voice grievances through constitutional institutions rather than unrest or street protest. Weakening or abolishing them will not make the structural problems they exist to address disappear. Treating their ineffectiveness as grounds for abolition is the state retreating from its own obligations and telling the marginalised communities that their decades of struggle produced only political inconvenience, not justice.

A confident democracy views institutions representing marginalised communities as pillars of democratic stability, not burdens, and invests in strengthening their independence and capacity rather than weakening them. Ultimately, the real question facing Nepal is not whether these commissions should exist, but whether the state still has the political will to fulfil the constitution’s promises of inclusion, equality and justice to historically abandoned communities.