Table Of ContentSouth Asia: Nation Building and
Federalism
South Asia: Nation Building and
Federalism
Editors
Lok Raj Baral
&
Krishna Hachhethu
Vij Books India Pvt Ltd
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Copyright © 2014, Nepal Center for Contemporary Studies, Kathmandu, Nepal
First Published in India: 2014
ISBN: 978-93-82652-27-4
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The views expressed in this book are those of the editors/contributors in their
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Contents
Introduction 1
Lok Raj Baral and Krishna Hachhethu
Multiple Paths to Nation Building in South Asia 9
Lok Raj Baral
India’s Federalism And The Practice of Politics: Challenges And
Possibilities 32
Bishnu N. Mohapatra
Re-Imagining Pakistan:
Identity Politics in a National Security State 47
Ayesha Siddiqa
CHT Regional Council: Regional Autonomy within
Unitary System of Bangladesh 70
Abdur Rob Khan
The Federal Debate in Sri Lanka 88
Rohan Edrisinha
Federalism Discourse in Nepal: An Appraisal 108
Krishna P. Khanal
Ethnic Conflict and Federalism in Nepal 134
Krishna Hachhethu
About the Contributors 157
Index 161
Introduction
Lok Raj Baral and Krishna Hachhethu
South Asia is a region having heterogeneous characteristics of its
member states. Management of social diversity has continued to remain
a big question confronting each country of this region. Of two competing
models of nation building – nation-states and state-nations – the former
seems dominant in South Asia. “Nation-states tend to be assimilationist
in character. Removal of ethnic and cultural diversities is one of the key
features of nation-states. In contrast, state-nation policies work on two
levels: creation of a sense of belonging with respect to the larger political
community, while simultaneously putting in place institutional guarantees
for safeguarding politically salient diversities, such as language, religion
and culturally sacred norms” (Varshney, 2013: 46). The dominant path
of nation building in the South Asian countries, as stated by Phandis and
Ganguli, is, “ post-colonial nation building approaches focused almost
exclusively on creating a unified ‘national identity’ based around either
common political values and citizenship or a putative majoritarian ethnic
identity” (2001: 13).
In the formative phase of modern state in the post-colonial era,
most South Asian countries adopted democracy, socialism, secularism
and nationalism as the four pillars of nation building in their respective
countries. Ethnicity, minority rights and inclusion were almost ignored in
management of macro politics. India could be an exception to some extent
as the post-colonial Indian politics intakes some inclusive measures, i.e.
formation of federal units primarily on the basis of linguistic identity,
reservation for schedule castes and tribes, preferential rights to the native
people in some states of North-east and Kashmir etc. Other South Asian
countries failed to uphold some of above mentioned four pillars of nation
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South ASiA: NAtioN BuildiNg ANd FederAliSm
building. Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan had common trajectory of
political development, altering democracy by dictatorship vis versa.
Indian and Sri Lanka have retained democracy without any interruption,
but Sri Lanka gave up the principle of secularism. Bangladesh and
Pakistan also diverted from being secular to Islamic states. So in South
Asia, nation building was largely a state designed project of assimilating
minorities into the fold of the majority or dominant group’s value system.
For instance Nepal, since the time of its unification in 1769, the rulers had
tried to develop Nepal as a homogeneous, monolithic and unitary state
providing protection to one religion (Hindu), one language (Nepali) and
one caste group (hill Brahmin-Chhetri), ignoring the reality of diversified
and pluralistic character of Nepali society. ‘One language, one nation’ and
‘one state, one religion’ (i.e. Hindu Nepal, Islamic Pakistan, Bangladesh
and Maldives, Buddhist Bhutan and Sri Lanka) indicated the old model of
nation building adopted in South Asia. Incongruous of such assimilative
model of nation building for a pluralistic society is manifested in various
ways. Rise of ethnicity and regionalism in Nepal, Tamil insurgency
in Sri Lanka, Chakma revolt in Bangladesh, dissent against Panjabi’s
domination in Pakistani politics, ethnic conflicts in North-east India, all
these are evidences of posing challenges against the prevalent model of
nation building in South Asian countries.
India and Pakistan have adopted federal system from the very
beginning; the rest remain unitary states. At the formative phase, both India
and Pakistan seemed federal more in appearance but unitary in essence.
Recurrence of military rule in Pakistan ever since its birth has obstructed the
federal system to evolve on its natural course. Now, provinces of Pakistan
are more powerful than before. Federating India has become possible only
since the end of one party Congress dominant system and the rise of ethnic
and regional parties as balancer in coalition politics at the centre. Now, one
could observe a paradigm shift in the nation building process in India and
Pakistan. A shift from assimilation to accommodation of minorities has
taken place. Nepal is now embarking on a federal system. A new Nepal
with federal character is expected to bring a change in nation building
model of Nepal. Assimilation of minorities into the dominant hill high
Hindu castes’ culture needs to be changed by accommodation of social
diversity. Bangladesh, being a unitary state and largely homogeneous
society, has a constitutional arrangement for the protection of rights of
Hindu minority and Chakma Hill Tribes. A successful military suppression
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iNtroductioN
of the Liberation Tiger of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) does not mean death of
Tamil’s aspiration if the Sri Lankan rulers do not take steps to assuage
the feeling of the Tamil population. Whether or not the countries that
have adopted unitary system can manage the emergent crisis is a different
matter.
Nepal Centre for Contemporary Studies (NCCS)’s seminar
organized in August 2012 has tried to dwell upon the broad theme of
nation building in South Asia with special references of the countries
of the region. Some scholars of South Asia have raised the problems
and issues that confront them. However, by way of caution, it must be
admitted that only few countries are federal. Nepal, a new candidate for
federalism, has theoretically accepted federalism as one of the means of
nation building. The titles of papers indicate the various experiences of
each country. Multiple Paths to Nation Building in South Asia tries to
introduce the theme in general. The author (Lok Raj Baral) thus takes a
holistic approach to nation building. Three signposts of nation building,
as illustrated by Baral, are: democracy with political stability, diversity
with accommodation, and economic development with empowerment of
the disadvantaged sections of society. Some other thoughts of emphasis
are: the concept of state building and nation building overlaps in their
attributes; political instability and crisis of governance contributes
negatively to nation building; the politics of regionalism and ethnicity has
added new dimensions in politics of the region; demand for inclusiveness
and empowerment have widened the arenas of nation building; and secular
values are the hallmarks of the modern nation state.
Concerning the form of government, South Asia presents two
different models, federal and unitary, of nation building. India and
Pakistan have adopted federal model since their independence in 1947.
In his article – India’s Federalism and Practice of Politics: Challenges
and Possibilities, Bishnu N. Mohapatra analyses two parts of India’s
federalism. One is about construction of federal units primarily on the
basis of language based ethnic identity to respect a vast diversity of Indian
society. The logic behind such construction is to balance the “imperative
of national unity with the claims of regional and linguistic diversities
in India”. So far the centre-state relation – another dimension of this
paper – is concerned; Mohapatra explains the reason behind evolution of
Indian federalism in a direction different from the time of its architect.
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