Off the Record 065: President Bhandari and the citizenship bill
Off the Record 065: President Bhandari and the citizenship bill
Issue 065 • 19 August 2022
It’s August 19, 2022, and you’re reading Off the Record, the weekly newsletter from The Record. We are an independent, ad-free, digital news publication out of Kathmandu, Nepal that is currently on a publishing hiatus.
I’m Pranaya Rana and in this newsletter, we’ll stop, take a deep breath, and dive into one singular issue that defined the past week.
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Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening from Kathmandu still swimming in garbage. Some areas have seen a clean-up, including the road in front of my home in Ward 3, but much of the city still has heaps of garbage piled high. This past week, however, has seen a renewed focus on attempting to manage the garbage problem, albeit a little too late. Gagan Thapa, a Kathmandu Member of Parliament from the Nepali Congress, appealed to locals in Sisdole to not obstruct dump trucks, and the federal Ministry of Urban Development, led by the Unified Socialists’ Metmani Chaudhary, has also taken an interest in attempting to hammer out a long-term solution.
To be clear, as I have said many times before, the Sisdole locals who are obstructing the garbage trucks have very real issues that must be addressed. They have been living next to a landfill for over a decade and have thus developed numerous health-related complications. A large section of Kathmandu residents and Mayor Balen Shah’s ardent followers seem to believe that these locals are simply protesting in order to obstruct Shah and turn his tenure into a failure. They believe that the political parties are behind this entire debacle and are not “letting Shah work”. There might be a kernel of truth here but that does not invalidate the locals’ concerns. Mayor Shah must find a political solution to this issue, not resort to state-sponsored thuggery by employing the police to fire tear gas and beat up protestors. Like I said in last week’s newsletter, Balen Shah is going to have to eat shit from a whole lot of constituents if he is to turn his time as mayor into anything close to successful.
There are, however, complications. Shah fired a social media salvo at Pushpa Kamal Dahal on Tuesday in response to the latter’s complaining about the state of Kathmandu. Shah pointed out how Sharada Prasad Adhikari, Dahal’s landlord and close associate, is the contractor for the road that leads to Sisdole, the same road that has been in disrepair for nearly 10 years now.
Adhikari is a notorious figure in the business-political nexus. Dahal resides rent-free in Adhikari’s mansion and Adhikari in turn receives lucrative government tenders for his many companies, most prominently Shailung Construction. His company holds the construction and repair tender for at least 10 stretches of road in and around Kathmandu. Almost all of them have not been completed on time but instead of being penalized, Adhikari only receives extension after extension, fleecing billions from state coffers.
So in this instance, Shah’s pointed barb was aimed at the right person. But Shah has also been engaging in mud-slinging with Mayor Harka Sampang Rai of Dharan, the other popular independent mayor. Shah is not wholly at fault, Rai has leveled numerous ‘critiques’ at Shah that are little more than insults. To Shah’s credit, he responded once and moved on while Sampang Rai has not ceased to provoke the forme, setting a pretty poor example for independent candidates.
Let’s move from garbage politics to talking about politics in general. This past week, Baburam Bhattarai — former second-in-command of the Maoist revolution, former prime minister, former leader of the Naya Shakti and Janata Samajbadi parties, and current leader of the Nepal Samajbadi Party — had a homecoming of sorts. Bhattarai and his former Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal reached an agreement to contest the upcoming polls in November together. Although the two have not reunited, Bhattarai, after spending years apart from his former commander, has seemingly returned to the fold. It appears that Bhattarai, for whom ideology has always been very important, has now realized that he is a ship without a harbor and needs the organizational support of the Maoists.
Personally, I’m a little disappointed at Bhattarai’s move but I do understand it. All of his attempts at carving out a niche for himself have failed. He had nowhere else to go. His new party, the Nepal Samajbadi Party, was formed after splitting from the Janata Samajbadi Party, which in turn had split earlier to form the Loktantrik Samajbadi Party led by Mahanta Thakur. As of now, Bhattarai has no real ability to contest the polls on his own. But, to ally himself once again with Prachanda can’t be right. Dahal is no longer the man who led the Maoist revolution. He’s become a chameleon, shifting ideologies and loyalties as and when necessary. That’s the reason he’s still a big player in national politics. Bhattarai on the other hand was never able to compromise on his ideals, which is why he was relegated to the margins. I respected that. Now, it feels like he too might go the Dahal way.
Before we move on to our main story, I believe it is necessary to touch upon the ongoing case regarding Niharika Rajput. Some newsletters ago, I had mentioned that Rajput, a single mother to a child born out of rape, had been on a hunger strike on the Kathmandu streets seeking justice. In mid-June, Rajput had come to the Capital from Mahottari after the local police refused to register a rape case against one Shiva Raj Shrestha. All Rajput had been demanding was that the court conduct a DNA test, which would identify the child as Shrestha’s. After reaching an agreement with the authorities, Rajput had gone back home but months later, when there was no progress, she returned to Kathmandu. This time, in front of the President’s House in Sheetal Niwas, Rajput attempted to set herself on fire. Fortunately, the police intervened.
Since the incident, President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Kathmandu Mayor Shah have both taken a personal interest in Rajput’s case. Hopefully, she will get the justice she deserves, but it is a sad indictment of the state when a rape survivor feels compelled to set herself on fire in order to garner some attention for her case. Rajput says she was raped repeatedly as a minor and gave birth to a child. The alleged rapist is reportedly walking free and the authorities have not even registered a case, let alone investigate. Her story bears repeating, yet again, not just for her sake but for the many others who suffer the same fate as her, victimized first by evil men and then victimized again by the callous, uncaring machinery of the state.
And now, on to the primary issue we shall discuss today, President Bidya Devi Bhandari and the citizenship bill.
The deep dive: President Bhandari and the citizenship bill
On Sunday, 15 days after she received an amendment bill to the Citizenship Act for authentication, President Bidya Devi Bhandari sent the bill back to the federal Parliament for a review. After reportedly consulting with civilian experts, ministers, and government officials, Bhandari had decided that it would be prudent for Parliament to take another look. Her office attached 15 points of concern to the bill, including the need for a historical overview of citizenship provisions, the right to privacy and dignity of single mothers, and the difference between a bill passed by parliament and an ordinance. Full list here (in Nepali).
Bhandari sending back a bill passed by both Houses of Parliament is unprecedented, although she is within her rights as the president. A bill only becomes law once it receives the president’s seal and Article 113 (3) of the constitution allows the president, as the ‘guardian’ or ‘custodian’ of the constitution, to send back a bill to parliament for review. However, as a ceremonial president, Bhandari cannot reject the bill. When the parliament passes the bill again, with or without a review, she will be forced to authenticate it, whatsoever her misgivings.
There was much ink spilled over Bhandari’s actions this past week but not as many opinion pieces as reports. Perhaps others too feel the way I do, that Bhandari is not entirely wrong but not entirely right either.
On the one hand, her concerns over the right to privacy and dignity for single mothers are in the right place. The amendment bill demands that single mothers who wish to pass citizenship to their children must present a ‘self-declaration’ stating that the husband is missing or out of contact with the mother and they are liable for punishment should the declaration be found false. This provision is highly problematic and not just regarding the right to privacy. It is heavily gender-biased, given that no such conditions are imposed upon men.
There are other, numerous problems with the citizenship amendment bill that need rectification. I wrote about them in an earlier newsletter:
But on the other hand, there are thousands of Nepalis born to Nepali parents who have not received citizenship. The parents received citizenship by birth as per Clause 4 (i) of the Citizenship Act which stated that anyone permanently domiciled in Nepal and born before April 1990 would become a Nepali citizen by birth. Their children, however, have been unable to receive citizenship by descent. The amendment bill would’ve allowed all those who received citizenship by birth to now receive citizenship by descent and thus pass citizenship to their children. Those thousands of Nepalis who have been struggling to live a dignified life without a document as important as a citizenship would’ve received succor.
Then, there is also the fact that President Bhandari had swiftly approved a very similar bill introduced as an ordinance in 2021 by then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli while rejecting the current one forwarded by the government of Sher Bahadur Deuba. (The Supreme Court had invalidated the ordinance, despite it being authenticated by Bhandari, on the grounds that citizenship required discussion and passage by Parliament and could not be an ordinance). President Bhandari has often played favorites. I wrote about that long ago, in the seventh edition of this newsletter:
Bhandari, in anticipation of this criticism, issued a clarification in her 15 points of concern. An ordinance, such as the one introduced by Oli, requires promulgation by Parliament within 60 days. This allows for discussion before the elected people’s representatives, who can reject the ordinance if they so desire. In this particular case, she pointed out that Parliament had not discussed the bill adequately and a matter as sensitive as citizenship should have been debated more. It’s hard to disagree with Bhandari here too. Yes, the matter should have been discussed a lot more in Parliament.
Unfortunately, the whole issue has turned into a political affair with the ruling coalition refusing to take another look at the amendment bill. The House of Representatives passed the amendment again on Thursday without any changes. If the National Assembly does the same then Bhandari will have no choice but to authenticate the bill and turn it into law.
If only Bhandari had played a more non-partisan role in the past, we could’ve given her the benefit of the doubt. But in acting in such close collusion with Oli, she has provided ample room to question just why she sent the bill back. One key difference between Oli’s amendment and the Deuba amendment concerns foreign women married to Nepali men. In Oli’s case, foreign women would’ve had to wait seven years before they would be allowed to obtain naturalized citizenship. Deuba’s amendment removed the seven-year wait and allowed foreign women to immediately seek Nepali citizenship after marriage. Oli’s UML argues that Deuba’s provisions are aimed at winning over Madhesi voters, many of whom marry across the border, on the eve of elections. Nationalists, of course, fear the ‘Fijikaran’ of Nepal. Others are more concerned that foreign women are immediately eligible for citizenship while no such pathway exists for foreign men married to Nepali women. Yet another instance of a clear gender bias.
It is likely that the National Assembly will also pass the bill without any further discussion. That will be unfortunate. Whatever Bhandari’s intentions, she presented Parliament with an opportunity to correct the flaws in the amendment, especially since it had created such a furor among women and rights activists. By rethinking the gender bias, citizenship could’ve been made fairer and women treated as equals to men. Such opportunities don’t come often and here it was, handed to them, and yet, the politicians chose to politick rather than seriously consider the amendment’s flaws and correct them.
President Bhandari did not act illegally or beyond her bounds. She exercised the right given to her by the constitution. Now, we can’t say the same about her intentions, and whether she seriously considered the amendments an affront to women’s rights. After all, she does not have a great track record of supporting women’s rights. So in this entire saga, no one really comes out looking good, neither the president nor the ruling coalition. The ruling parties had a chance to do some good but instead, they chose to be petty and stick it to the president, who they saw as acting on the UML’s behalf anyway. The president, whatever her intentions, would’ve had more of a leg to stand on had she not attempted to hand the prime ministership time and again to Oli in the last few years.
And so ends this week’s deep dive with not much of an ending. But I guess that’s how things evolve in Nepal. Not much gets done and even when there’s a little progress made, there’s always some regression at the very same time.
Happenings this week:
Sunday - President Bidya Devi Bhandari sent the citizenship amendment bill back to the federal Parliament for a review. While the president, as a constitutional head of state, cannot refuse to authenticate a bill passed by both houses of parliament, she can ask parliament to reconsider the bill. When the bill comes to her a second time, she will have to authenticate it no matter what.
Monday - Conflict victims and civil society members rallied in protest of the transitional justice amendment bill that is currently with Parliament. The protestors say that the amendment bill still provides amnesty for perpetrators of serious human rights abuses and ignores the plight of minors who were conscripted into the Maoist army during the 10-year conflict. The bill was filed in Parliament in mid-July but has not moved forward owing to protests. The parties in the ruling coalition, however, have committed to amending the amendment bill before putting it up for promulgation.
Tuesday - Remittance to Nepal crossed the Rs 1 trillion mark in the last fiscal year, which ended in mid July, according to the Nepal Rastra Bank. This was a 4.8 percent increase from the previous fiscal year’s Rs961.05 billion.
Wednesday - Nepal Electricity Authority plans to achieve 100 percent access to electricity within the next two years, according to Managing Director Kulman Ghising. Electricity access is currently 92.52 percent, he said. However, electricity supply is often sporadic and prone to power cuts. Over the five or so hours I’ve been writing this newsletter, the electricity went out two times for about half an hour each.
Thursday - The Investment Board Nepal and India’s NHPC Limited signed a memorandum of understanding to develop two hydro projects totaling 1,200 MW in Nepal’s Far West. The two projects have a long history dating back to the 80s and were most recently supposed to be developed by China’s Three Gorges Corporation. The company pulled out in 2018 saying the projects were financially unfeasible.
Friday - Amrit Kosh, a new human milk bank at the Paropakar Maternity and Women’s Hospital, came into operation. The bank will collect, store, and provide milk from lactating donors to infants in need, especially pre-term babies.
That’s all for this week. Off the Record will be back in your inboxes next Friday. I shall see you then, in your emails, for the next edition of Off the Record.
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