IT WAS meant to usher in a new era of peace and prosperity. But Nepal’s new constitution, which was adopted on September 20th, has succeeded so far only in generating bloody conflict.
For weeks before it was promulgated, protests over it had already been roiling the country’s southern belt bordering on India. They have been staged by ethnic Tharus and Madhesis in the Terai plains (see map), who make up more than a third of the country’s 28m people. Many of them are angry about the formation of new states which they fear will leave them even more politically marginalised. Over 40 people, including ten police officers, have died in the unrest. The violence, including shootings by police, has exacerbated tensions between the Madhesis, who have strong links with India, and the central government which is dominated by politicians from the hilly north. It has also created considerable ill-will in India, a country which Nepal normally tries to keep onside.
Inhabitants of southern Nepal harbour long-simmering grievances: they regard politics in Kathmandu as the domain of upper-caste elites from the hills who hold them in...Continue reading
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