SIKKIM OBSERVER        Jan 12-18, 2013

Lepchas demand employment under ‘primitive tribe’ status

Gangtok, Jan 11: The Sikkim Lepcha Youth Association (Renjyong Mutanchi Rong Ong Shejum) has demanded reservation for members of the minority Lepcha community in the State in the employment sector under the “Primitive Tribe Group”.

The State Government has placed the Lepchas under the “Primitive Tribe” grouping. A press release of the Association said the Chamling Government has given this status to the Lepchas

“after taking into consideration the human development statistics of autochthonous Lepchas.”

The Association has urged the government to fulfill their demand at the earliest, the release said.

Editorial

PRESS VS PRESS

A Needless Controversy

Those, including mediapersons, who want reunification of Darjeeling with Sikkim, ought to adopt a better method to meet their objective. Raking up this controversial issue without a sound base will achieve nothing. People from Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong, who have settled in Sikkim since the ‘merger’ in 1975, are at home in the former kingdom and are living in peace and amity with local Sikkimese. The present political leadership in Darjeeling has stated that it will not interfere in Sikkim’s politics. The political leadership in Sikkim while supporting the demand for creation of Gorkhaland state in Darjeeling has made it clear that it is against Darjeeling’s merger with Sikkim. The Chamling Government has also passed a resolution in the Assembly supporting the statehood demand of Indian Gorkhas. Therefore, those who are hell-bent on racking up the Sikkim-Darjeeling issue are needlessly causing unnecessary social disharmony and tension. The good relationship that the people of Darjeeling and Sikkim enjoy should be maintained at all cost.

When asked for his opinion by Hamro Prajashakti, a Gangtok-based Nepali daily, the editor of this newspaper, said he did not have any comment on the issue but said that some of those in Sikkim who were vociferously opposing the merger were not sincere in safeguarding Sikkim’s distinct identity within the Union. If Sikkimese leaders are strong, consistent and committed to safeguarding the rights and interests of bonafide Sikkimese hailing from the three ethnic communites – Lepchas, Bhutias and Nepalese – no one will dare to try to divide us and dilute our identity. Despite a simple and strong rejection that the editor had not supported the merger demand, Prajashakti, unfortunately, said that he had made a ‘U-turn’ on the issue. It is hoped that those such as the editor of this weekly, who are apolitical and want to remain so, should not be dragged into a needless controversy just to help those who are campaigning for something. Those who are with Prajashakti ought to know that if readers lose faith in the credibility of a newspaper it has lost everything. Mediapersons ought to protect its colleagues in times of trouble if it is justified and not do anything which may cause harm to their colleagues. 

Indigenous people: a new emerging political force in Nepal

By JAMYANG DORJEE

After the subjugation of Magrat empire, Kirat and Limbu kings and finally the establishment of the Gorkhali state on 12 November 1769, with the final capture of Bhaktapur by Prithvi Narayan Shah, Nepal became a Hindu state and it strictly forced a vedic caste system which was later codified by Janga Bahadur Rana in his famous (Muluki Ain) of 1853.  For 182 years until Nepalese became the citizens of the country for the first time in 1951 from being subjects of the king, people had no say in running of the country. Dor Bahadur Bista, also known as the father of Nepalese anthropology, in his book Fatalism and Development in Nepal, termed this voicelessness as people's belief in  ' fatalism' preached by the Hindu Puranic texts.

Democracy in Nepal started sixty years ago but unfortunately even today Nepal does not experience a stable and lasting democracy because the exercise remained exclusive affairs of the Pahari rulers centric to Kathmandu valley.  Himali people in the northern border and the bulk of the indigenous people were excluded from mainstream politics and discriminated.

The proposed 14 Federal States of Nepal.

Nepal Government during the 245 years of monarchy ignored the cultural plurality and tried to contain the country's remarkable ethnic diversity through national caste system. This extreme ethnocentric model of achieving national integration automatically established the cultural dominance of the upper caste and degraded all who conformed least to Hindu norms. According to R.P.Yadav, former member of National Planning Commission, while stating the status of the Nepali government from 1951 to January 2005, said "all ministers and the secretary level officers and all the members of the cabinet, which was formed sixty four times during that period, has remained mainly in the hands of Hindu high castes of Chhetris/Thakurs, Brahmins and Newars." For centuries the state strongly believed that unification can be achieved by suppressing the difference.

The Madhesis: The Madeshi in the Terai region bordering India and the Bhotiyas of the northern region have always been treated as foreigners or Indians and Tibetans respectively by the Kathmandu rulers.  L.R. Baral in one of his books observed that “The Terarians are vociferous critics of the overall policies followed by what they call the 'Pahade (Hill) dominated power structure' aimed at intensifying the process of 'Nepalisation' i.e. dissemination of the Brahmin-Chettri political and social cultures of the hills.”

 Madeshis have marriage relations across the border with India and the two people are emotionally, culturally, religiously, economically and geographically so interlinked that it is difficult for any political move to separate them. Naturally, India trusts them and with their support today, Madeshi rise to power is very apparent.

Nepal is home to 59 officially recognized groups of indigenous peoples (known as Adivasi-Janajatis), with distinct cultures, languages and belief systems. Collectively they comprise about 37.8 % of the population according to official census. Indigenous leaders claim that the figure should be much more. Indigenous peoples are found all across the country, in the mountains, hills and plains areas; the largest concentration being found in the east.

Indigenous people: The bulk of the non-resident Nepalese, which remained the main source of foreign remittance, the backbone of Nepali economics, spread over in  Hongkong, Malaysia, Korea, Middle-east, USA and Europe are all indigenous people. Almost the entire army in the Gorkha regiment, be it in India or British army, consisting of Gurung, Tamangs, Thapas, Limbus and Lamas are indigenous people.

Two million of Himali indigenous people, who call themselves as  'Bhotya and Sherpas' and  look towards Tibet as a source of their civilization, are spread over 19 districts of the  entire northern borderland from Humla to Tablejung and share a common ethnicity, culture, language, marriage relation and religion. The fact remains that Buddhist/Bonpo culture dominant among highlanders is very different from the dominant culture of the Nepalese state. Also the later never made a secret of its contempt for Bhotiyas.

Krishna B. Bhattachan, an indigenous leader writes, “The main socio-cultural-political fault line in the past and the present, irrespective of political systems, is the ideology, policy and practice of Bahunbad (Brahmanism)." He further writes, "In the past the main challenges faced by indigenous peoples were monarchy and the Hindu kingdom. Now monarchy has been abolished for good and Nepal has been declared as a secular state. Therefore, the main challenges to indigenous peoples comes from Bahunbadis, patriarchy, continuation of unitary state in the name of federal democratic republic, and undemocratic and exclusive political parties."

The 27th May, 2012 Constituent Assembly of Nepal was supposed to declare the new constitution of the Federal Democratic Secular Republic of Nepal. Instead, the Assembly itself was dissolved due to disagreement amongst the major political parties, mainly on the state restructuring issue. Different political parties have, over the years, debated over different ideologies on hard issues such as the political system but never serious to deal with the socio-cultural and religious inequalities, which, as a matter of fact, remain the core issues for the suppressed and marginalized section of the society.

Ruling elite: Today's ruling class does not want to see the unification of Madeshis and formation of federal states based on identity or ethnicity. They support federal states where Madeshis are divided into parts and other states based on mixed identity, geography and capability. They refused to even name the states based on identity. They advocate that federating the country based on ethnicity will break the country; in other words they want to maintain the status quo.

On the other hand the Madeshis and indigenous people advocate that the fruit of many years of struggle or revolution must be implemented.  The six-point agreement of SPA-Maoist on November 7, 2006 stated: “to end discriminations based on class, ethnicity, lingual, gender, cultural, religion and region and to deconstruct the centralized and unitary structure of the state and to reconstruct it into an inclusive, democratic and forward looking state… A high level commission will be formed to suggest on the restructuring of the state. Final decision regarding the restructuring of the state will be made by the constituent assembly.”

The high-level state restructuring committee of the constituent assembly was indeed formed and in its final report it suggested formation of 14 states, which include two states for Madhes and two Himali states. The indigenous people demand that this proposal should follow the next natural course of parliamentary procedure, meaning debating in the parliament and voting. They know full well that they will get 2/3 majority and, therefore, the upper-caste party of NC and UML refused to allow discussion in the parliament. Instead they began to discuss the issue outside the parliament for so many months for consensus, which bore no fruit. The high-level committee's report was again subjected to a refinery process by an expert committee of non-parliamentarians. They further delayed and finally submitted the report to the PM two days after China's Prime Minister Wen Jia Bao's visit to Nepal by deleting the two Himali ethnic states.

Sixty years of democratic struggle in Nepal is virtually the history of struggle for empowering the marginalized people.  27th May parliamentary dissolution is simply a repetition of history.

Knowing full well the political bullying tactics of the ruling elite, the indigenous people have gathered themselves across party lines and developed a strategy. 219 members of the Constituent Assembly belonging to indigenous people  have  formed what is known as 'Indigenous People's Caucus', whose sole aims and objectives is to ensure the rights of  ethnicity, culture, religion and federalism are included in the new constitution. All the members of the caucus have signed an undertaken that they will not respect their respective party whip in the parliament when it comes to the common interest of religion, culture and ethnicity.

Federalism: The three big parties in Nepal, which normally sit to decide Nepal's future, still consider Madeshi party as party of second class citizens. The Congress and the UML have decided to fight to the tooth against ethnic federalism because they believe that such democracy will finish their traditional political base forever. The Maoists leaders, who are basically Bahuns, are not able to decide whether they should be with their party folks or their caste brothers. Prachanda says one thing when the three party leaders sit together and another thing when he meets his party workers.

Therefore, Sushil Koirala, President of the Congress party, recently said, “The problem could be solved if Prachanda was honest.” The indigenous people and the Madeshis knew the kind of decision that could emerge out of the meeting of the Bahun leaders and hence have openly declared in advance that the three-party decision is not binding on them. Realizing this, the indigenous leaders have decided to form a separate political party. Dissatisfied over party's stand on federalism, Passang Sherpa spearheaded the movement with the support of Ashok Rai, Prithvi Subbha Gurung and Chaintanya Subbha and 517 party workers from 61 districts. Disgruntled Janajati-Madhesi leaders of the CPN-UML declared their breakaway from the mother party in October 2012.

Besides, vice-chairman Ashok Rai, other leaders including Rajendra Shrestha, Rizwan Ansari, Mangal Siddhi Manandhar, Ajambar Rai, Hemraj Rai Majhilal Tharu, Bijay Subba, Bir Bahadur Lama announced their ultimate decision to desert the party. The formation of the new party was not easy because some of the veteran communists like Ashok Rai want to include Maxism in the party ideology but Passang Sherpa was adamant that party's ideology should be only social democrat with no communist baggage attached.

People’s movement: Ashok Rai announced his party as socialist democrat two months back and Subbha and Passang announced the new party 'Social Democrats' on 30th December, 2012. Passang Sherpa said on the opening day: “For 60 years we followed the Congress and Communists with the hope that finally the indigenous, Madeshis, Dalits, women and suppressed people of Nepal will see the light of the day but they failed us. When it comes to inclusive democracy, they all follow the same path therefore; we are launching this new political force of the suppressed people of Nepal.”

Now that the people's revolution, some say 'social evolution' launched by Maoist party, already have woken the suppressed masses and brought the ethnic gin out of the bottle, it is not easy to put it back. At the same time, the NC and UML leaders continue to believe that they enjoy full support from both the neighboring countries on rejecting federalism based on ethnicity and that they can outwit the indigenous leaders by their oratory skills outside the parliament.

 Democracy is a numbers game and as of today Madheshi-indigenous combine (Madheshis 40% and indigenous people 37.8 %) is a majority force that cannot be easily ignored. While the elite parties are fighting for the post of Prime Minister, believing that power in hand will change the fortune of the party, the indigenous people are on the ground managing the grassroots movement believing that ultimately it is the numbers game in a democracy and grassroots campaign that will blow the wind in their favour. (Jamyang Dorjee is the Regional Coordinator, CTAC, Kathmandu.”

Chungthang Teesta hydel project to produce power by June 2013

Gangtok, Jan 11: With the ending of the long standing dispute between the Sikkim Government and Teesta Urja Limited (TUL) over the State Government’s share holding in one of the largest hydel projects, Teesta-III located in Chungthang in North Sikkimis all set to on stream from June this year.

Men and machines are racing against time to ensure that project work is completed as per current schedule and provide virtually free power to Sikkim and supply to four northern States – Delhi, UP, Haryana and Rajasthan - which reel under chronic power shortages, according to sources.

The Sikkim Government, through Sikkim Power Investment Corporation Limited, obtained 26% share holding in the SPV that is executing the 1200 MW Teesta-III hydro power project – the largest in the six cascade projects on the Teesta river.

Teesta Urja’s Board of Directors has already approved the transfer of 29,64,00,000 partly paid shares held by Athena Projects Private Limited in favour of SPICL.

The State Government has reportedly withdrawn its case against TUL following the amicable settlement paving the way for taking the project back on track.

The first unit will begin to produce power by June. As much as 99.2% of tunneling works was already completed (around 34.4 km out of total 34.6 Km). The excavation of 13.824 km of head race tunnel is also complete, sources said.

REC and PTC are among the big lenders to the project while a consortium of six PE players led by Morgan Stanley have pumped in Rs 750 crores signaling the FDI into country’s hydro power projects.

This was considered to be the largest PE transaction in the country’s power sector. Besides Morgan Stanley, the group of investors includes Everstone Capital, General Atlantic, Goldman Sachs Investment Management and Norwest Venture Partners.

Experts say Sikkim sets the new trend for developing hydro-power projects as the country is blessed with bounty of rivers flowing from Himalayan glaciers during summer when the power consumption is at its peak. Development of hydro power projects along the Himalayan river course, thus, could be a win-win situation for the people and the governments.

New Act to benefit private employees

Gangtok, Jan 11: The Employees’ State Insurance Act 1948, which provides certain benefits to employees, has been enforced in Sikkim with effect from December 1 last year.

The Act provides certain benefits to employees in case of sickness, maternity and employment injuries, an IPR release said.

 Under the Act, shops, factories, industries, hotels, restaurants, private educational institutions, road motor transport establishments, cinemas, news paper establishments, private medical institutions, nursing homes, diagnostics centres and others are to be registered under the scheme.

A team of officials from Employees State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) regional office of Kolkata is here to meet State Government officials on the implementation of the Act. The meeting is scheduled for January 10. The Act is applicable to private enterprises which have a minimum of 10 working staff members. As per the Act, all employees in those private enterprises coming under its purview, are to be insured with contributions made to the ESIC by the employer. The rates are prescribed by the Central Government. The employees can claim benefits to him and his dependants for sickness, maternity and injuries while working.

An awareness programme on Employees State Insurance Scheme (ESIS) was organized by the Labour Department, Government of Sikkim, at a local hotelyesterday. It was mentioned that the ESI scheme is a comprehensive social security scheme designed to accomplish the task of socially protecting the employees in the organized sector against the events of sickness, maternity, disablement and death due to employment injury and to provide medical care to the insured employees and their families.