Source: Wikimedia
Analysis
Nepal: A year after the worst earthquake
Anasua Basu Ray Chaudhury
While Nepal has marked the first anniversary of its devastating earthquake, the memories of loss are still very fresh in the minds of the survivors in the areas like Barpak, Gorkha, the epicentre of the 25 April earthquake as well as Dolakha in the east, near the epicentre of the 12 May earthquake. Nearly 9,000 people died and 22,302 were injured in the two earthquakes that struck Nepal last year. The first was a 7.6-magnitude earthquake which caused most of the damage and loss of life while a large number of aftershocks followed, including one that measured 6.8 on 12 May 2015. The nation’s 31 districts out of 75 were affected, out of which seven were declared ‘severely-hit’ and seven ‘crisis-hit’, five ‘hit with heavy losses’, six ‘hit’ and six ‘slightly affected’ for the purpose of prioritizing rescue and relief operations.
According to National Reconstruction Authority (NRA), 6,08,155 residential buildings were completely broken down while 2,98,998 were partially damaged. Furthermore, 2,687 government buildings (including schools and health centres) completely collapsed and 3,776 were partially damaged.
According to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the quakes shattered or damaged more than 800,000 houses. The western and central districts are most badly affected where Government buildings, some stretches of roads and Kathmandu Valley’s famous historic monuments along with the Unesco world heritage properties – were destroyed or heavily damaged. Many villages in the north of Kathmandu were poorly hit by the quakes.
In the famous trekking destination of Langtang, situated about 100 km north of Kathmandu, an entire settlement was buried and washed away by a massive landslide, killing more than 100 people, including international trekkers and local villagers. Of 181 foreigners who died in the earthquake or are still missing, 63 were in Langtang.
Homeless in the homeland
Nepali government figures give us an idea that about 500,000 families were made homeless by the quakes. However, the number estimated by the aid agencies is much higher, with millions homeless. According to the IFRC about 4,000,000 (four million) people are still living in sub-standard temporary shelters where they are facing several health hazards.
It also has estimated that more than 800,000 homes were damaged. Despite achievements of earthquake recovery efforts in many areas, little progress has so far been made in helping survivors to rebuild permanent homes. The government has provided N-Rs 25,000 ($ 250) for families to buy corrugated sheets and warm clothes and paid out N-Rs 40,000 ($ 400) for the death of each family member. The victims of the earthquake have received some small payments from the government – for hardship and compensation for the loss of relatives. However, most of that money has not been paid.
It is estimated that the lives of eight million people, almost one-third of the population of Nepal, have been impacted by these earthquakes pushing back more than one million people below poverty line. The disaster also further exacerbated inequities in Nepali society spanning geography, income and gender. Poorer rural areas have been more adversely affected than towns and cities due to their inferior quality of houses. More women and girls died than men and boys, partly because of gendered roles that disproportionately assign indoor chores to women.
It has been said from the Government side that an assessment of total loss and damage caused by the quake has already been done, but it is yet to officially start its much-delayed reconstruction mission and a group of government officials blame a four month long blockade at the Nepal-India border for hampering post-earthquake reconstruction programmes. The unrest was due to Madhesi parties in southern Nepal protesting against a new constitution which they said disadvantaged them.
Rehabilitation delays
In order to promptly complete the reconstruction work of the structures affected due to devastating earthquakes in a ‘sustainable’, ‘resilient’ and ‘planned manner’, and ‘to promote national interests and provide social justice’ by making resettlement and rehabilitation of the displaced families, the Government has made an Act entitled Relating Reconstruction of Earthquake Affected Infrastructures Act, 2015. As a result of it the NRA was set up only in December 2015 as a national body with extra-ordinary jurisdiction.
While preparing its Post Disaster Need Assessment (PDNA), the Nepali government initially estimated that it would need $7bn for reconstruction. However, presently the authority is seeking 811 billion Rupees to implement its reconstruction programme for the next five years due to ‘unspecified cost factors. NRA spokesperson Ram Thapaliya has indicated that international donors are being asked to extend their commitment for reconstruction programmes.
“The donors have already pledged half of the amount and we are in the process of seeking commitment for the rest,” he has said. He has also opined that work is under way to help those in need and speed up the reconstruction process. “In March, we started distributing grants, worth $500 in first stage, to around 800 families for reconstruction…Now another 5,000 families are in the process of getting that amount.” Ram Thapaliya, joint secretary of the National Reconstruction Authority, says delays became unavoidable and promises for widespread reconstruction are now set to begin.
It has been decided that the District Development Committee (DDC) is to expedite the grant agreement process in the 11 worst-affected districts where the surveys on the same have concluded. The names of those benefiting from this agreement shall be published in their respective VDC, District Development Committee and municipalities. Similarly, the construction of a community residence shall be started in each district shortly. The Education Ministry and Health Ministry would initiate reconstruction task of at least one school and health institution in every district very soon.
But that hasn’t suppressed the anger. Many believe government corruption is the real cause of delays. The lack of progress in reconstruction and rehabilitation is most stark in the countryside. Whole villages are still shattered and broken. According to Himal news magazine, a popular weekly which has run an investigative cover story in its recent edition, the agencies spent an estimated $1bn. The magazine wrote “Where did the money go? Of the 1 billion dollars that were raised, two-thirds were spent by donor agencies, international NGOs and their local partners, and only one-third of that amount actually reached the victims.” The aid workers say the main problem is bureaucracy – and that some donors have become frustrated and given up as a result.
The writer is a Fellow at Observer Research Foundation, Kolkata chapter
Sri Lanka: India and the return of the ‘federal’ word
N Sathiya Moorthy
Some 15 months into the new government, the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) on the one hand and the party-controlled Northern Provincial Council (NPC) in Sri Lanka have revived calls for a ‘federal solution’ to the ethnic issue. They were expected to rake up the issue either around or after the twin-polls of 2015, if not as a poll issue in either or both.
The NPC resolution, at the behest of tough-talking chief minister, Justice C V Wigneswaran, was expected for long. The organisational initiative, by the TNA ‘Leader of the Opposition’ in Parliament, is targeted against the government at the Centre and the majority Sinhala polity.
The organisational is also aimed at ensuring that the NPC does not walk away with all the glory among the Tamil-speaking population. Such a course would have left the TNA in general, and its incumbent leadership in particular, irrelevant.
“Our demand for federalism should not be misconstrued as something in favour of separatism. Let the Central government share power with all the Provinces uniformly. We expect other Provinces to fall in line with us so that we all can have greater powers,” The Hindu quoted C V K Sivagnanam, on the ‘federalism’ resolution.
Sivagnanam clarified that they were not for ‘special powers’ for the re-merged stat. He was possibly implying the likes of ‘asymmetric devolution’ much less than that for neighbouring India’s Jammu and Kashmir state.
The Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir in the immediate neighbourhood is a goo example of ‘asymmetric devolution’. Sivagnanam did not specify the same by name. However, he did refer to the ‘Indian model’ in the overall context of ‘federalism’.
The NPC’s “proposals on constitutional reforms were essentially based on the constitutional models of two countries — India and Switzerland,” The Hindu report said, quoting him. “In the case of India, there should be states demarcated on the basis of languages. This was one of the reasons for the proposed merger of the Northern and Eastern provinces as “Muslims in the East are all Tamil-speaking people,” Sivagnanam said further.
“Conscious of the pluralistic character of the Eastern province where the population was more or less evenly distributed among Tamils, Muslims and Sinhalese, the NPC chairperson said for getting the support of the Muslims, the resolution talked of creating an autonomous council,” The Hindu report said. “Taking into account aspirations of hill-country Tamils, the NPC suggested another autonomous body,” it added.
Call for dissolution
Before the current NPC resolution the ‘Tamil Council’, a northern Jaffna-based organisation, headed by chief minister Wigneswaran, had resolved on the ‘federal’ question in February. Critics claimed that it was aimed at forcing the TNA leadership to commit.
Even without the NPC resolution now, the TNA was expected to only move on similar lines while presenting its case on the new constitution the nation. The current Parliament has since converted itself into a constituent assembly, and the TNA would have to actually agitate the cause there.
It’s going to be a tougher task for the TNA than with the parliamentary select committee (PSC) route proposed by predecessor President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Mahinda’s PSC was expected to focus exclusively on the ethnic issue. The present constituent assembly is tasked with a whole pile of issues and concerns, real and otherwise.
The current process could derail. Or, the ethnic issue might not have get the desired time and energy. Clubbing together political solutions to different issues in a single volume like a new constitution can have consequences.
Sri Lanka’s experience in the matter is not encouraging. In 2000, then President Chandrika Bandaranaike-Kumaratunga, CBK, had offered a ‘political package’ better than any since the India-facilitated 13th amendment to the constitution. It was clubbed with other extraneous and even more controversial issues.
In an unprecedented move, the UNP Opposition of the time found it easier to burn down the new constitutional amendment draft inside parliament. Parliament thus threw the baby along with the bath-water. In hindsight, it is unclear why an astute politician like CBK did not see the writing on the wall.
SLFP opposition, still
The official faction in the SLFP partner in the present-day ruling coalition lost no time in opposing a ‘federal solution’. The party/faction is led by President Maithripala Sirisena, and by CBK and Mahinda R before him. As a senior party and ministerial aide of Mahinda when he was president, Sirisena could not have done differently.
“The Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) is very clear in its policy to oppose a federal solution. Such a solution would be unconstitutional and would lead to disturbances by strengthening extremism,” senior party leader, Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe, told the media. The official SLFP faction seems to have pre-empted any serious discussion on the subject with Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s senior UNP partner in government.
Minister Samarasinghe had headed the Sri Lankan delegation to the UNHRC sessions and stoutly defended the Rajapaksa government’s position on ‘accountability issues’. Partners in the self-styled ‘joint opposition’ identified with Rajapaksa now have gone further, with a demand for NPC’s dissolution. A peripheral group, the Frontline Socialist Party (FSP), a breakaway faction of the one-time militant left-nationalist JVP, too has attributed motives to the TNA.
Alongside, ‘federalism’ call, R Sampanthan, the party’s octogenarian ‘Leader of the Opposition’ in Parliament, visited ‘occupied’ Tamil properties in army-occupied territory in northern Killinochchi town, without the required clearances. It was a physical ‘demonstration’ of the TNA’s demand for the ‘vacation’ of civilian land by the armed forces.
The two Tamil demands on ‘federalism’ and ‘army occupation’ has takers in the moderate sections of majority Sinhala community, though not necessarily polity. They have greater purchase in the ‘international community’ (read: West).
However, both may be stymied by the continual and at times inter-connected arrest of ex-LTTE cadres and commanders with large cache of weapons, with intent to use them. To hard-line sections within the Sinhala polity, it’s a hand-in-glove, daggers-drawn affair, all over again.
After the ‘LTTE experience’, moderate Sinhalas may squirm without answers. Sinhala hard-liners would happily cite the Tamil moderates’ unwillingness to condemn the LTTE through the two-plus decades of terrorism, to hit out at the TNA as ‘apologists’ and co-conspirators for ‘separatism’, still.
Imponderables
TNA parliamentarian and international spokesperson, M A Sumanthiran, has since commended the ‘federalism’ demand for other sections of the nation’s polity to consider. Sri Lanka Muslim Congress (SLMC) leader, Minister, Rauff Hakkeem too has said as much – but for exactly opposite reasons.
There are imponderables in the NPC resolution and TNA position. It’s one thing for the TNA to make a ‘political demand’ but another for the NPC as a creature of the current constitution to go against what’s still the ‘unitary’ spirit and character of the same.
The 13th amendment to the constitution and the Provincial Councils Act under it provide for referendum in the Eastern Province for a merger into the North. The reverse is not possible. In 2006, the Supreme Court struck down the 1987 merger in the absence of the mandated referendum, among other reasons.
The resolution infringes upon the rights of the EPC and the multi-ethnic Eastern population. Sivagnanam later commended the NPC resolution to other PCs, but he has not considered the possibility of the other eight resolving against ‘federalism’, or unconnected issue(s) binding on the NPC.
Acceptance level
As the immediate/larger neighbour and a co-signatory to the 1987 Indo-Sri Lanka Accord, the parent-document for 13-A, today may be the right time for India to take a closer and clearer look at the ethnic component of bilateral relation. Later on, it would become too hot as in the past, from inside and outside, fore India to take meaningful positions and purposeful initiatives.
From within India, the southern Tamil Nadu polity is immersed in state assembly polls. Moderation with the aim to broad-base electoral alliance and voter-acceptability has silenced pan-Tamil peripheral parties and leaders like the PMK, Vaiko, Thirumavalavan and Seeman, to play down the ‘ethnic issue’ just now.
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