”Federalism Is Sometimes Necessary To Accommodate Differences”
MP Singh
Professor M.P. Singh, vice chancellor of West Bengal National University of Judicial Science, is a well known constitutional expert of India. He worked as a professor of Delhi University, visiting professor at Heidelberg University in Germany and Hong Kong University. Professor Singh came to Nepal recently at a program on constitution making, organized by Constitutional Advisory Support Unit/ United Nations Development Program. Singh Spoke to KESHAB POUDEL on various issues related with constitution making. Excerpts:
Actually, there are no fixed criteria for deciding and defining what is federalism. The word federal comes from the Latin expression Fedus which means an agreement between two or more parties to function in accordance with what they agreed upon. Then that arrangement may be called as federal which may not meet any particular criteria set by any definition of federalism. The example of federation may be as many as the federations in the world are. Each of them are different from each other in respect with the other. However, a classical definition which was given by Professor K.C. Vier is that it is a division of power between the center and states in a manner that they are independent of each other and coordinate with each other in their specified sphere. There he counted USA, Australia and Switzerland. There are other examples like Canada, India, South Africa and former Soviet Union which he said are quasi-federal constitutions.
As our interim constitution has already been amended announcing to make Nepal as a federal state, how do you see the possibility of a federal system in a small country
Federation may be ideal for this kind of situation that people would like to be different in respect of their differences but they would like to be united or common in respect of their commonalities. Nepal having been a nation for long time and an independent country, people know of their nationality and people know that they belong to Nepal. But at the same time they might have a feeling that their mother tongue is different from people
of another area or their ethnicity is different from another area. So far as their differences are concerned, with respect to regulations of their differences, they may have one arrangement while with respect to common things they would like to have this nation as a strong nation and they would like to be protected from outside and they would be represented in outer world as one country. Now in all these matters, they agree that there would be one country.
Best example is India where nobody is in majority and everybody is in minority. Yet we have a functional federal arrangement. The federalism in India is not from today but you can go historically up to Mughal period or before that. One may say that India is too big and the division is necessary. India is much more diverse than Nepal. Rather one may say that further divisions are made to accommodate this diversity.
That is a misunderstanding. If federation means right to self determination, then why nowhere in the world there is a federation which allows its parts or its members to secede. Even if it is mentioned somewhere in the constitution it never works. So even in USA some states thought they could secede from union but they are not allowed to break away and so the right of self determination does not mean that you can separate from nation. It is self determination on certain matters only which are agreed upon between
different units or states.
I don't think so. Generally federalism is not considered to be panacea for all the problems of the country. Federal governments require much more arrangement and somewhere they lead to weak government as total power of the government is divided into a central government and various regions. Therefore, the government at either level cannot act as effectively as a unitary government can. It is somehow creating a kind of weak government. At the same time, it may be sometime necessary to accommodate differences which exist among the people and certain issues.
Federation and federalism cannot succeed without democracy. There is no example of successful federation in the world where there is no democracy. You cannot achieve a federation by merely writing in constitution. Secondly, democracy is dependent upon human rights. Therefore the protection of human rights is also the part of federalism. Democracy is essential for federalism.
Democracy is also a process of learning and experimentation. Just by giving right to vote to all the people, people don't suddenly become democrats. However, in course of time when they are exercising this power, they slowly start realizing that they can make a difference and they can change a government and they can make the government to rethink. Moreover, if they have to work for more than one government, they have to vote for the government which is closer to them. Then, they start participating more actively. The lessons of democracy is close to them and if, during the last sixty years, the democracy has not grown much in this country, one reason could be that people have
thought that the government is too far away. If the government comes closer to them, they may get educated much faster by taking much more interest and by knowing they can make a difference in the functioning of the state.
I got the impression that there is a general consensus among different political groups to have some sort of federal arrangement in Nepal. They may not be having a very clear idea as to what federation and federalism is. But they feel that the existing arrangements of one central government operating from Kathmandu alone is no more suitable to them. So it is a question of working out the details. I got the idea the kind of enthusiasm the people
are showing in matter of creating a New Nepal. It may not be an easy process and it may take much longer than people might be expecting. I am sure that people of Nepal will come to some kind of arrangement that would be functional.
