The first and foremost burgeoning question in Nepal today is the problem of impunity. Talking of impunity, we need to go back at the blatant violation of human rights in the repressive Panchayat era. Those involved in these human rights violation were allowed to get off scot-free even during the post Panchayat era or after the restoration of democracy in 1990. The Mallik Commission prepared an 1100-page report, clearly identifying the persons involved in extra judicial killings, torture, disappearance, and plundering of the nation. However, the accused and those who plundered the nation for 30 long years were allowed to have the upper hand because they went unpunished. The same persons, in one way or the other, are in power and are continuing the legacy of the past repressive regime. So the crux of the problem lies in granting self-amnesty and not in bringing those culprits to book. In order to create a kind of parameter to assess the violation of human rights situation on the part of the government, we can say that the policemen are not well trained, and are somehow continuing what they did in the past when it comes to maintaining law and order situation in the country. So this is one part of the coin that the entire state mechanism has a deep feeling that the institutionalisation of human rights is not the integral part of the entire process of consolidating democracy. This is one of the basis reasons why the violation of human rights still continues.

First of all as the representative of a human rights organisation, we do not advocate violence. On the part of the state there are so many things that could be attained and achieved in the best interest of the people. The basic thing is proper governance or good governance, which is the fundamental principle of the observance and respect of human rights in this country. So the political parties have a strong role to play in improving the situation. What happened in the past is major political parties were busy in horse trading and very much involved in petty politics and they had a lot intra party conflicts that created a solid ground for the escalation of violence. So the basic thing comes down to good governance again. Negotiation, mediation, reconciliation and peace are what we need at this hour of crisis to put the country back on the track. But the peace should be based on justice. We cannot discuss or talk about absolute peace. We need to talk about just peace. And for that to happen, it is important to consider the distribution of resources, due respect for the rights of the marginalised section of society and also economically challenged population. In doing so, the geographical realities should also be taken into consideration because development is not proportional in Nepal.

We should first realise that Nepal is not a poor country. It is one of the richest countries in the world in terms of human and natural resources. The geography itself is such a balanced one in this country that we have diverse flora and fauna, climates, natural resources and minerals. In terms of tourism, Nepal is one of the attraction centres for the world but the only thing is we have poor management, or mismanagement and rampant corruption in the country. At this juncture, the civil society has a great role to play in streamlining the political process and consolidating democracy. So we really need to start from the top because the policy makers and the people who are sitting on the driver’s seat have been recklessly driving this country to the extent that it might derail and a great collision or crash cannot be ruled out until strong measures are taken to improve the situation.

The concern is that unfortunately we have been imitating the worst part of the standard multi party system that is heavily influenced by money, marshal and mafia right from the beginning. Election is the primary structure of any multi party system. But when the people’s will is not genuinely expressed or respected, then that becomes the epicentre or the seed of the problem. If we create an atmosphere where people could express their will freely without intimidation then automatically there emerges due respect for elected representatives, which also applies at the self-governance level. The most important thing is guaranteeing an atmosphere where people can exercise not only their right to vote but also their right to be elected.

Just for instance the excessive repression exercised by the state in the early 1990s against the party which was then functioning within the constitutional framework, and with the misuse of state power during the elections angered many people of the mid-western Nepal to the extent that they started supporting the so called people’s war. Today there is the so-called people’s war movement but people of different groups and ethnic communities also have a lot of frustrations, lot of grievances like the question of self-determination. Even after more than a decade into democracy, we have not been able to define who the indigenous people are and who the marginalised section of the society are. We have not been able to define who the nationalities are. The state is not in a position to define what the question of right to self-determination means. These are some of the things the state has failed to address properly.

Look at the refugees! We do not have the national legislation to address the problems of refugees, be they Bhutanese or Tibetan refugees or from other parts of the world. We are not the state party to the United Nations refugee convention. That is creating a very odd situation thereby providing enough ground for the escalation of violence in the country.

Well, the Tibetan refugees are known as the first generation refugees in Nepal and they are also the pioneer of the highest amount of foreign currency earning entrepreneurship; i.e. the carpet industry. Tibetan refugees possess the most adaptive quality among refugees in the world. For this reason they get easily assimilated not only in Nepal but also in other parts of the world. Therefore, reason, Tibetan refugees problem has not come to the nation’s priority agenda. It is also because Tibetan refugees have also chosen to be assimilated in the local community. If you tell them to stay in a temporary camp somewhere, even if administered well by the UNHCR, they are not willing to do that mainly because they came with fairly good amount of wealth when whey fled the country and also because they have been generating a lot of international solidarity. So their situation is very much different from the condition of refugees coming from Bhutan or other parts of the world.

Bhutanese refugees are victims of what we term as the Bhutanese way of apartheid or Bhutanese way of ethnic cleansing. They are now living in the UNHCR-administered camps and their plight has been highlighted so much in the international arena. So they are not in a situation to be assimilated in the local community. The problem of Bhutanese refugees lies with the host country because on the part of the state, we have not been able to pursue the fast tract diplomacy at the international level because of the direct influence of our big southern neighbour India. The reason for not resolving the problem at this stage is that Nepalese are known as the floating tribe and if India recognises Bhutanese refugees as refugees, the problem arises in other parts of India as well where people of Nepalese origin are living for so many years. So the problem has been in the limbo.

The civil society cannot run the government nor should they create a parallel government even if they are in a position to do the job better than the government at some points. They have their own scope, mandate and limitations. So the civil society could definitely play a vital role in terms of creating a congenial atmosphere to start some kind of positive dialogue for reconciliation. The civil society in Nepal, fortunately, is not totally ruptured and polluted in that sense. We can create an atmosphere for dialogue but we really will have to undergo a comprehensive research on the problem in question. The dialogue cannot take place in abstract. Posting a peace pole and “crying” for peace cannot and will not help achieve genuine peace. What we have seen with the civil society is that it is praying for peace and not acting for peace. We need to advocate for peace and for that we also have to undergo some kind of risk and that is what we should be ready for. The intellectuals and academicians are just “crying” for peace and posting the peace pole every time describing Nepal as a peace zone. Today at the age of globalization, the whole dynamics of peace, human rights and governance has been changed. So we have to work with both the warring parties (government and the insurgents) and demarcate our position and our responsibilities. What happens is that we have a kind of preconceived idea that we are not for conflict and we tend to say that we should be condemning the violence all the time. This is not right. Condemnation is not the solution. It is vital that the civil society penetrates into the warring parties and creates a sort of friendship with the warring parties because they have a very strong instrument with them- the international human rights instruments and international humanitarian laws. These laws can bring both the warring sides together and make them realize that at least they should be sparing the civilians. The human rights organisations are effortful of brokering talks between the government and the Maoists.

In terms of Kamaiya it’s been exactly like— the plane has taken off but no one knows where it is going to land because the airstrip on the other side has not been built. This is exactly what has happened in the case of the Kamaiya freedom. The problem of Kamaiya should not be dealt with in isolation. A lasting solution calls for agrarian reform in this country. The land use policy, the natural resource use policy should be completely comprehended, and changed to ensure equitable distribution. Otherwise, Kamaiya problem is a small part of the problem. Of course, it seems to be a big problem because we are talking about bonded labour, about the enslaved people like in the first century but unless a drastic change is effected in the land use policy in the entire kingdom, the Kamaiya system is not going to end because we are talking of a few thousand Kamaiya in that pocket of the country alone. But Kamaiya or a similar system still persists in other parts of the country as well. So it’s a question of total agrarian land reform policy that the state has to dare to start, otherwise, the conflict between the landlords and the tillers will persist.

Just for example, let me take the example of the case where we rescued 118 Nepali trafficked girls from Bombay and brought them home by chartering the Airbus from Bombay to Kathmandu and settled them in some centres in Kathmandu. But that was a temporary sort of relief. To tell very frankly, we shouldn’t do the job because we should not be running a parallel government. That will be totally an overlapping and that will not strengthen the government. We should help strengthen the government. The government is the law enforcement agency and it is the state mechanism, which should be strong enough to solve the problems.

I cannot give you the exact prescription for resolving the crisis of this particular type of violence but honesty, good governance, and punishment to violators of the human rights are a must for bringing about a positive change. There should be no impunity, no criminalisation of politics. What people have witnessed in the last ten years is that parliament has become the platform for horse-trading. Just see the wealth of the ministers, parliamentarians, and look at their attitudes. Everything has been changed for the worse and people have vividly witnessed this scenario. So people want some change. If you went to a district like Rolpa in 1994, it was impossible to get a tablet of medicine like cetamol in the whole district. So what is there for the people to expect when the state cannot fulfil even their very basic rights? Violence has emerged in the country because the basic needs of the people have not been addressed for a very long time.

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