Was this necessary? Was it rational? No one with a sense of democratic reasoning would say that it was desirable. I shed tears in a foreign land when trying to share the grief of having to live without a valid constitution. I could not bear the glare of the people who were watching this shameful scene on TV with me. How could I justify the ‘gundagardi’ of such honourable CA members when I was in Australia, a country where any violation of the law places the offender behind bars, irrespective of their position or power?

The practice of democracy

The CA members who indulged in the violent act that night were trying to kill the seed of democracy. They seemingly forgot that it was democracy that had given them the honour of being a part of the esteemed CA, which must promulgate a constitution to safeguard democracy for the future generation. And it was their obligation, because they had agreed to follow the democratic line at different stages of recent political developments in Nepal. The Maoists had agreed to democratic norms while signing the 12-point agreement with other political parties. They had pledged to respect the mandate of the people while they were campaigning for the CA election. They, along with all other parties they have aligned with, had pledged in their election manifestos to abide by the decision of the people.

If Nepal is a democracy, where do the people stand? If the people are the sovereign power, how do they exercise their power? If the political parties get to decide how the people vote, how can the people have any decisive powers? Where then is the necessity of having manifestos? What is the status of a party that has lost the election? Does a party have the right to punish people for having rejected it in an election? Do the party or parties that the people voted to majority have to follow the dictates of the party or parties that the people rejected in the election? This is not an exhaustive list of the paradoxical implications the so-called opposition ‘alliance’ led by the UCPN (Maoist) has generated, but it shows the trend. The argument of the opposition can be perhaps be paraphrased as ‘heads we win, tails you lose’.

To argue that the claim of the parties in government is to bully the minority is to defy the sovereignty of the people. In a dictatorship, a single party or even a single leader can bully the entire population. What does the ‘alliance’ want to preach in the name of the power of the people?

Consensus or majority

There is no denying that consensus has a role in politics. But not every political issue can be settled by consensus. No constitution in the world has been made with 100 percent consensus; there are always some reservations. The basic principle of democratic politics is the supremacy of the majority. In the context of the constitution, a special provision of two-thirds majority has been accepted as a universal principle. That principle has been enshrined in our Interim Constitution, according to which the CA was formed. The ultimate norm for the CA is to move ahead according to provisions in the Interim Constitution, but if even this foundational document is not accepted, there will be outright anarchy.

The provision of consensus or two-thirds majority dates back to the first CA. The parties know better than anyone else that both provisions failed in the first CA because of the poor leadership of the parties. They did not have the skills required to bring all the parties to agree on basic issues. They also lacked the ingenuity of harbouring a two-thirds majority because they failed to create the environment of mutual trust.

The same parties that were represented in the first CA (with negligible exceptions) took their major issues to the people in the election for the second CA. But some issues raised by some parties were conspicuously rejected by the people. The election was a kind of referendum on political issues. Now, the same rejected issues are being hurled back in the name of consensus. In the name of consensus, the spirit of the people is being crushed by the parties that failed to convince the people during elections. This is irrational. The way the opposition parties behaved in the CA on the 19th of January will remain the blackest day in the history of democracy in Nepal.

No sacrosanct date

It is arguable that the Chairman of the CA made a hasty decision at the wrong time to stretch the CA meeting almost overnight in order to finish the job of finalising the constitution to meet the January 22 deadline. This scribe had suggested several times that there was nothing sacrosanct about January 22. The constitution could have been written much earlier if there had been agreement on core issues. Many lapses have been seen on both sides of the political divide. As such, some more time for reaching agreeable positions would not have killed the prospect of reaching a sustainable solution. However, the kind of reaction the opposition took on that night has strengthened the cords of polarisation that have now become almost unbridgeable.

Given the fresh tangle, it is necessary to draw a new timetable to complete constitution writing. Apart from the mandate from the people, there is a continuous flow of informed public opinion to beacon the direction of constitution writing. The most disagreeable issue has been the federalisation of the country. In a way, this issue has become over-politicised. So, one possible solution would be to form a non-political specialist commission to suggest a sustainable model of federalisation with full recognition of available resources. If all parties agree to abide by this model, the present impasse will end and the road ahead will become pliable.

The commission may take a few months to come up with a model, but such a model could be the least controversial one. The best part of a constitution is its flexibility to accommodate future changes. The world is dynamic and Nepal has to catch up. But to do so, we must at least start.

Sharma is a freelance political analyst