NATIONAL 3 -(Spotlight Weekly)

Agenda For Instability

The actions of opponents and proponents of land reform are pushing the country into new political, social and economic turmoil

By KESHAB POUDEL

Soon after Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba announced his "revolutionary" land-reform program, political parties began pushing their own hidden agenda, thrusting an already unstable society towards new political, social and economic turmoil. Their demands, although contradictory, have succeeded in creating confusion among people of different regions.

The two smaller rightist parties — the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) and the Nepal Sadbhavana Party (NSP) — are doggedly persisting with their unreasonable demand for ceilings on all forms of property. Worse, both parties have succeeded in stalling parliament for 15 days. The agitating legislators even asked the government to issue a white paper on the distribution of land in the Terai following the first land-reform program in 1965. Prime Minister Deuba has already accepted their demand to distribute citizenship certificates in the Terai before implementing the land reform program. But he hasn’t been able to calm them.

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The main opposition CPN-UML and other smaller left factions, which originally welcomed Deuba’s land-reform agenda as "revolutionary", have rejected the ceilings proposed by the government. These parties have called for a further reduction of the proposed ceiling of 10 bighas in the Terai to five bighas. The combined left may decide to stall parliament for another month and announce some mass-action programs, including bandhs, to step up pressure on the government.

"We will propose some amendments to the Land Reform Amendment Bill on reducing the ceiling of land. The ceiling must be set in accordance with the recommendations given by the Badal Commission," Madhav Kumar Nepal, UML general secretary and leader of the opposition, told reporters.

Deuba has already announced that he would distribute citizenship certificates before implementing the land-reform program. He has urged national political parties to support his effort to pave the way for the distribution of citizenship by amending the law and, if necessary, the constitution.

"The government will not implement the land-reform program without resolving the issue of citizenship in Terai region," Deuba said in an address to the House of Representatives this week. "The government will amend the citizenship act and, if necessary, the constitution with support from all political parties to solve the citizenship issue once and for all."

These fast-paced political moves have triggered a sense of panic among the common people. Nobody is certain what may happen next. "One of the objectives of the populist moves of the UML, NSP, RPP and the Nepali Congress is to inject uncertainty in the mind of common people and create social tension in Terai," said a political analyst. "Their intention seems to be to evict the people of the hills who migrated to the Terai after the land reform program initiated by King Mahendra in the 1960s."

The demand by the RPP and the NSP for a white paper and the call by the main opposition party for lowering the land ceiling in the Terai may be part of the same agenda, according to some analysts. "The government should issue a white paper on how many hectares of forest land has been distributed in the Terai and how many hectares of land taken from landlords has been distributed after the land-reform program of 1965," said MP Rajendra Mahato, spokesman of the NSP. "Until the government announce ceilings on all forms of property, we will not allow parliament to run."

The communist factions, which blocked the entire winter session of parliament, are making a demand that would not be acceptable to a large segment of the population. UML general secretary Nepal, who is busy portraying himself as an ardent nationalist, fails to understand that his demand for further reduction in the land ceiling would spark social tension in the Terai. Whatever the arguments the major political parties are putting forward to justify themselves, their actions will yield the same disastrous results: economic chaos, political destabilization and social tensions.

As the country is facing an unprecedented level of uncertainty and lawlessness, political leaders, knowingly and unknowingly, are playing games that would further jolt society.