The sudden consensus of the ruling parties to formulate a national constitution post-earthquake indicates nothing more than a very manipulative kind of political will. While the leap from a seven-year impasse to draft constitution seems impressive, what’s disturbing is how the draft misses out on issues relating to gender equality and Nepali citizenship.
Last Friday’s ‘Open Dialogue with CA Members on Women’s Issues Engaging Media & Civil Society’, with advocates Sapana Pradhan Malla and Dipendra Jha in attendance, crystallized these inegalities from the perspective of women and Madhesis.
Sapana Pradhan Malla forcefully put forth the need for transformation in the private, domestic sphere for a gender egalitarian Nepal. Until responsibilities in conjugal relationships are free from notions of gender and women break free from unpaid labour at home, she declared, the patriarchy will persist. Society will take time to change, but laws should be implemented immediately. Three changes in particular are needed to correct the prejudices of the draft constitution – the provision of acquiring citizenship through mothers, equal representation of women in all state bodies, and guaranteeing women’s reproductive rights.
Primitively justified as a tool to control inheritance of cattle and property, patriarchy continues to hold modern Nepal in its grip. The updated draft, in demanding proof of identity of mother and father for citizenship, flouts the erstwhile (symbolic) law on matrilineal citizenship. As egalitarian as the relevant clause attempts to sound, its provisions ensure extreme bias against women. Stemming from a patriarchal xenophobia, the constitutional draft considers the offspring of Nepali mothers married to foreign nationals not ‘Nepali’ enough, and its provisions for naturalised citizenship safeguard positions of power and property in Nepal to those accustomed to holding them.
Given the high rate of migration from our country and its porous borders with India and China, it is but natural to have affinal relationships with foreign nationals. Indeed, as Dipendra Jha pointed out, it is hypocritical of us to be ecstatic when a person of Nepali origin in the United States contests elections there while we forbid Nepali citizens of foreign origin to do the same in Nepal. Perhaps Jha’s suggestion of making the Madhes an exception, in the same way India has allowed Kashmiris certain immunities, would help alleviate the xenophobia against people from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and curb the perils of fraudulent citizenship; however, this is not a solution that addresses the root of our selective xenophobia.
Most troublesome perhaps was how the CA members present appeared optimistic about the mitigation of inherent hierarchies in Nepal. They insisted with conviction that the constitutional draft suits Nepali culture and that each gender, caste and ethnicity will stand on an equal footing irregardless of the skewed provisions. CA members such as Amresh Kumar Singh and Yashodha Lama, however, oppose the draft altogether, declaring that the subalterns cannot have their way against the hegemony of political elites.
As the pressure to force amendments to the misogynistic definition of a ‘Nepali citizen’ escalates, the prospects for single parents, LGBTQ and other marginalised groups appear even bleaker. Only constant pressure from civil society (and mandatory education on the biology of reproduction for all CA members) will ensure just rights to citizenship and prevent yet another calamity in the nation, this time of a social kind.
