Politics of land

SEP 14 - 2011
Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai appears to be doing all he can to gain the trust of the Nepali Congress and the UML. After trying hard to reach a deal on integration, his government has now directed party cadres and District Administration Officers to immediately start the process of returning property that the Maoists had seized during the conflict. This, of course, has been a long-standing demand of the Congress and other parliamentary parties, and the failure of the Maoists to return property

has been portrayed as one among a number of reasons for bad relations between parties in recent years. As such, Bhattarai’s decision is to be welcomed. It is to be hoped that the property will be returned steadily, and the Nepali Congress and UML will come around to actively cooperating with the government on such matters such as reaching agreement on outstanding constitutional issues.

The process of returning property, however, is not as simple as it has been made to appear and there are certain aspects regarding it that need to be taken into consideration. First of all, it is untrue that the Maoists have made no movement towards returning property. Over the past five years, a lot of property has been returned. The problem is that no systematic records have been kept about how much has been returned and what remains. In order for the process to succeed completely, a reliable database of all property captured and returned needs to be formed at the central level. This will enable the parties and the public to measure how far the Maoists have fulfilled their commitments and will put pressure on them to return property in places where they haven’t yet done so. In addition, by making the facts transparent, such a database will force all parties to deal with reality and prevent them from using the issue in their rhetoric to achieve political gain or justify their continuing lack of cooperation.

Second, although the Comprehensive Peace Agreement of 2006 states clearly that the Maoists will return property, there is another clause that holds that large-scale land reform will also take place. The Maoists had, in fact, insisted on the second clause as a counterweight for the first. In many areas, the land they captured has been given to poor farmers and if the property is returned, these farmers will be displaced. Land reform is necessary if alternative means of survival are to be found for these farmers. This is an issue that has not received much attention. This is unfortunate. Land holdings in Nepal continue to be highly unequal and this is a source of conflict in Nepali society. As the process of returning captured property starts, land reform too should occupy the attentions of Nepal’s political class, Maoists and non-Maoists alike.

Posted on: 2011-09-15 09:16

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