Linguistic federalism

Linguistic federalism

- DR ANAND JHA

Many people have expressed their opinion on how provinces in new Nepal should be demarcated. Rarely, though, have they shown any support for demarcation along linguistic lines and have, instead, often warned of grave consequences if it happens. The biggest fear, they argue, is that demarcation along linguistic lines will fuel an ever-increasing passion for a distinct identity of various language groups, will corrode the existing Nepali identity and may even lead to disintegration of the country.

Passion against division along linguistic lines runs so high that many are unwilling to listen to any kind of benefits such division might entail. Some have even gone to the extent to argue against any kind of federalism at all. It’s time we spared some time and evaluated the costs and benefits of demarcation along linguistic lines with more reason and less passion. Demarcation along linguistic lines may not be bad for our country as it is made out to be. Instead, it may be the very thing we need for long-term political stability.

With division along linguistic lines, more ethnic groups will feel at home. The danger of suppressing any particular group is inviting trouble in the future and that’s why the idea of One Madhes, One Pradesh is flawed.So, what are the benefits? For one, it would give a major boost to a number of language and culture groups. For example, a state which is dominated by Tharus will be a major boost to the Tharu culture, language and it will make Tharus feel that they are an important part of the Nepali identity. All of us would agree that Tharus would feel good about this situation. But, wouldn’t it benefit all of us if Tharus feel that their culture and language is an indispensable part of the Nepali identity?

So, why is there so much opposition to the creation of a province with a Tharu-speaking majority? The most common concern is that non-Tharus living in such a province would feel out of place and discriminated living in a majority Tharu state. Well, this might be true but isn’t it better than the Mahendra version where every non-Nepali speaking, non-daura suruwal wearing citizen feels out of place! It is impossible to design a system that will please each and every one of us but that does not mean that one should sabotage a system that benefits the majority of Nepali citizens. Isn’t that what democracy is all about? With division along linguistic lines, more ethnic groups will feel at home in Nepal and this is vital for long-term political stability and economic development. The danger of suppressing any particular group is inviting trouble in the future and that’s why the idea of One Madhes, One Pradesh is flawed.

Also, it is important to tackle the argument for and against federalism along linguistic lines head-on. Often, an alternative model is suggested downplaying the ongoing struggle by various linguistic groups in the country.

A group of highly-regarded intellectuals and journalists have championed the idea of having federal states similar to the five development regions we have today. They argue that their model will allow for homogeneous division of resources (i.e Mountains, Hills and Tarai) in all the provinces. This, they argue will make sure that all states are equally divided in terms of resources and have all they need for sustainable development. This logic is too simplistic. For one, this will hurt specialization.

For example, when a state consist of only the plains, it is easier to specialize in grains produced in those regions. Second, development has more to do with how you use resources for productive use. Also, research shows that ethnically-homogenous societies have greater social capital and make more efficient use of their resources. So, even from a purely economic standpoint and ignoring political realities, demarcation similar to the existing five development regions may not be the best one.

As far as inclusion of ethnic groups goes, their model further allows for “ethnic enclaves” in each of these federal states, which is supposed to assure that other ethnic groups other than “pure” Nepali are not treated like second-class citizens as they have been so far. In other words, in their model second-class citizens remain at the mercy of the first-class citizens to make sure that such distinction is eliminated. How likely is that?

As a Nepali citizen, whose mother tongue is not Nepali, this model appears like a total set-up. It will perpetuate hegemony of Nepali-speaking people all over the country and will continue to stifle the opportunities for the rest. Just think about it: What are the chances of a Tharu being elected as a chief minister in a state that includes Bardiya as well as Khaptad? And how realistic is it to believe that some non-Tharu chief minister of the state would understand Tharu’s plight and work to end the Kamaiya system in that region. And how realistic is it to believe that it will give a boost to Tharu identity? Contrast this with a situation where there is a separate Tharuwan state. The possibility of a Tharu chief minister rises significantly. With a Tharu chief comes a big boost to the Tharu identity and a place for them in Nepal just like any other community.

In many ways, Nepal is at a point where India was about 60 years ago. India, like Nepal, is a diverse country with numerous ethnic groups and languages. Not many people believed that it was possible to hold India together as nation as we see it today. Yet, India has survived as a nation and nobody is talking about India disintegrating in the future. The Indian constitution gave space to one’s language and culture and devised a mechanism where Indians could be proud of their mother tongues and cultures and be a proud Indian citizen as well. We need to learn from the Indian experience and think long term.

(Writer is an Assistant Professor of Economics and Finance at Texas A&M International University in Texas, USA.)

 source::http://www.myrepublica.com/portal/index.php?action=news_details&news_id=6948

Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome diversity of the Tharus (Nepal): a reservoir of genetic variation

Mitochondrial and Y-chromosome diversity of the Tharus (Nepal): a reservoir of genetic variation

Simona Fornarino , Maria Pala , Vincenza Battaglia , Ramona Maranta , Alessandro Achilli , Guido Modiano , Antonio Torroni , Ornella Semino and Silvana A Santachiara-Benerecetti

BMC Evolutionary Biology 2009, 9:154doi:10.1186/1471-2148-9-154

Published:2 July 2009

Abstract (provisional)

Background

Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent represent an area considered as a source and a reservoir for human genetic diversity, with many markers taking root here, most of which are the ancestral state of eastern and western haplogroups, while others are local. Between these two regions, Terai (Nepal) is a pivotal passageway allowing, in different times, multiple population interactions, although because of its highly malarial environment, it was scarcely inhabited until a few decades ago, when malaria was eradicated. One of the oldest and the largest indigenous people of Terai is represented by the malaria resistant Tharus, whose gene pool could still retain traces of ancient complex interactions. Until now, however, investigations on their genetic structure have been scarce mainly identifying East Asian signatures.

Results

High-resolution analyses of mitochondrial-DNA (including 34 complete sequences) and Y-chromosome (67 SNPs and 12 STRs) variations carried out in 173 Tharus (two groups from Central and one from Eastern Terai), and 104 Indians (Hindus from Terai and New Delhi and tribals from Andhra Pradesh) allowed the identification of three principal components: East Asian, West Eurasian and Indian, the last including both local and inter-regional sub-components, at least for the Y chromosome.

Conclusions

Although remarkable quantitative and qualitative differences appear among the various population groups and also between sexes within the same group, many mitochondrial-DNA and Y-chromosome lineages are shared or derived from ancient Indian haplogroups, thus revealing a deep shared ancestry between Tharus and Indians. Interestingly, the local Y-chromosome Indian component observed in the Andhra-Pradesh tribals is present in all Tharu groups, whereas the inter-regional component strongly prevails in the two Hindu samples and other Nepalese populations. The complete sequencing of mtDNAs from unresolved haplogroups also provided informative markers that greatly improved the mtDNA phylogeny and allowed the identification of ancient relationships between Tharus and Malaysia, the Andaman Islands and Japan as well as between India and North and East Africa. Overall, this study gives a paradigmatic example of the importance of genetic isolates in revealing variants not easily detectable in the general population.

 Source::http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/1471-2148-9-154.pdf

A class apart

A class apart

PRAMOD MISHRA

The SLC results are out; 68.47 percent of the candidates have cleared the Iron Gate, and this year’s result is said to be the highest in its 75-year history. Commentators are in a celebratory mood at this year’s unprecedented yield. But what they should be asking is why the unprecedented result has denied the privilege to the remaining 31.53 percent. Who are these failures? Where do they come from? What will happen to them in the New Nepal or in the 21st century world of information technology and knowledge economy? What sort of work they will do? What does the gap between the overwhelming number of third divisions and the 11,000 first divisions mean for the nation’s future?

In the 1960s, when I started school in a Morang village at the southern edge of the charkose jungle, my class was the third batch and it had only three pupils — a Rajbanshi girl, a Rajbanshi boy and myself. And for all intents and purposes, I was a Rajbanshi. I spoke the language; it was my only culture; and my kinship network, socially formed by my mother, spread across villages among the Rajbanshis.

 

In later years, after DDT came, the first batch of settlers from the hills began spending more time in the plains; and their children, too, joined the school.

In the first five years, from classes one to five, our school moved to five different sites and expanded from one to three rooms. Save for the last schoolhouse, whose walls were made of sapwood, had a thatched roof and lasted a couple of years, all the others were made of bamboo, hay and thatch. By the end of the year, local cattle would eat away the walls, the rains rotted the roof, and the effort would begin anew at the end of the school year to collect bamboo and thatch and hay from the villages around, which grown boys carried on their backs (most boys were already in their early teens when they started reading, writing and basic arithmetic). By the time I reached class five, deforestation had begun in earnest, providing sapwood for the walls of the three-room school.

Our first teachers were Indian traders and confectioners who had ventured into malaria-infested Morang to buy a seer or half-seer of rice, mustard and jute at the weekly market and then sell them in bulk to the merchants in Rangeli, four hours south. The Rajbanshi village chief, Jahar Singh (we also had a Sher Singh, and the two names frightened outsiders who didn’t know what to expect in the den of lions) had coaxed one of these grain traders, a man named Poddar whom his pupils called Long Jaw, to be our first master. The second master, the pupils called him Sukhna for his emaciated looks, had a sweets shop at the village bazaar. I suppose they had a few years of schooling in their home villages and had come to make a living through petty trading away from the unemployment and famine of Bihar.

Both the Rajbanshis and the first batch of hill men had begun to realize that their children should learn the alphabets and basic arithmetic, from addition to division. And those boys who had ambitions went for higher multiplication, from 11×11 to 20×20. It was our solid geometry and complex calculus that only tougher boys with greater grey matter pursued.

These Indian traders knew Manohar Pothi, our first primer, which said Mahatma Gandhi was the father of our nation. It was soon replaced by the Mahendra Mala series, which shifted the focus from Gandhi to King Mahendra, from dahi to mohi, and from Hindi to Nepali. We used white clay to write on black slates and wiped them clean as many times as we wished with our hand. Ink was made by dissolving pieces of purple clay from Buchchi’s shop in water, and pens were made from bamboo slivers. The older boys could always make better pens because they had knives of their own and could use it better, sharpening the bamboo into a smooth body and slitting through the sharpened, sloping head to make a fine nib. I always envied their skills, but could never emulate them, for I had no knife and I could never achieve any success in calligraphy, which remained a lifelong regret.

When the first matric-failed teacher, a brother-in-law of a local Rajbanshi landowner, arrived from a different village (I was in class three), it caused a sensation among the pupils and the guardians alike. They all said that we finally had a master with a degree. We all aspired then to be matric-failed. In class four, when Hari Prasad Dulal arrived from the eastern hills with normal training received at a place called Dharan — as DDT had begun to show results on the mosquitoes, cats and the jungle — his normal training sounded most abnormal and exotic. He indeed transformed the learning experience. Grown boys no longer showed off and bragged about their welts, and the younger ones no longer pissed in their pants. Dulal Sir coaxed the pupils and teachers into bands of dancers and singers and led them around the villages during festivals to raise funds for thatch, sapwood and stationery. Good looking boys became marunis in sari and blouse and I danced as a clown with a fake rubber nose and an upturned moustache. Dulal Master was the first to introduce blotting paper, rubber eraser and stamp pad in the school.

Then a perpetually drunk panchayat chief founded a high school in the middle of the jungle on a whim and named it after his mother. We now had a multi-room schoolhouse made of sal trees — floor, walls and pillars — and a roof of baked tile. Resourceful as he was, he brought (at least this was the rumour of their awe-inspiring degrees) a mix of I.A.-failed Indian traders and B.A.-failed wandering hill men as masters. I finished class six and seven there. Then the school, too, failed. And both the teacher and the school disappeared from the village for good.

Years later, the primary school evolved into a high school, named after the then crown prince. The teachers now had certified degrees, but new handicaps replaced the old. The village, as in most other places in Nepal, has a government school now, where the poorest of the poor can’t afford books and minimal fees, and the “boarding schools”, where the pupils have to wear ties. Even the poor now have ambitions to send their children to the English-medium school, whereas the government school now has too many pupils and too few teachers. Towns and cities have options and facilities, villages don’t. A few well-to-do can avail of the best for their children, while the poor are left behind everywhere. Those groups that have had a sense of entitlement to knowledge and the land have a vision for themselves and their progeny; those who have lived without a sense of entitlement and connection very often don’t know what education will bring them. They still don’t send their children to school, or even if they do so, there is little motivation and drive.

The SLC results of this year, as in other years, carry all the complexity of Nepal’s geography, class, caste and ethnic divide. Old handicaps of the initial years have gone, but new ones have appeared. Chinese pens have replaced bamboo slivers, Enid Blyton may have replaced Manohar Pothi, but can there be a new revolution in mass education replacing the first, hesitant beginnings? Nepali patriots are obsessed with Nepal’s border with India. Can they be similarly obsessed with India’s giant strides in education? The Indian government is already acting on the recommendations of its Knowledge Commission under its prioritized Human Resources Development Ministry. But top Nepali political leaders still give interviews about defence, home and foreign as the plum ministries deserving their high ambition and status. Who gives a fig about education? What is the Constituent Assembly going to do about education in the New Nepal and make sure that there is equality of opportunity for everyone in education?

source::http://www.ekantipur.com/columns.php?&nid=201928