An amendment proposal to the Interim Constitution (IC) seeking to address the principal demands raised in recent protests in the Tarai has already been registered in Parliament. However, the Madheshi Janaadhikar Forum (MJF), which overtly spearheaded the movement, has announced fresh protests on the grounds that its 10-day ultimatum has elapsed. It had set that period for the government to create a “congenial atmosphere for talks”. The forum had laid down three pre-conditions for dialogue — the resignation of home minister Krishna Prasad Sitaula, the formation of a judicial commission to investigate the protest-related deaths and injuries, and action against the guilty. Calling the PM’s second address “incomplete” and “indecisive”, the forum has scheduled a shutdown of all transport services and customs points for eight days (February 26 to March 5) and an indefinite Tarai bandh from March 6.

The IC is set to incorporate the eight-party pledge of a federal system and provisions for fresh delineation of constituencies based on population growth. But the forum’s pre-conditions and some other demands are unrealistic. The government has already formed a probe commission headed by a judge, assuring action against the guilty. As for the talks, they are likely to yield better results only if they are unconditional and both sides are guided by a sense of fairness and realism. The government had responded flexibly, and many hold that it had yielded too much to the forum, which had freely used force or threat to use force in course of its protests.

Judging by the MJF’s demands, meaningful talks appear difficult. If a government enjoying the mandate of Jana Andolan II is to yield to all MJF’s demands because of its violent protests, other people might follow suit, and all hell would break loose. Then, what would remain for the CA to decide? The MJF’s other demands include adoption of a fully proportional system for the CA instead of the present mixed one (these are concepts on which intellectual debate can go on endlessly), the declaration of the whole of the Tarai to be a single “autonomous” region (too simplistic for the region’s complexity coupled with the forum’s delusion of representing the people of the entire Tarai), and choice of Madhesis for government postings to the Tarai. The forum’s claim of peaceful protests took a beating, and its claim of working for national unity seems to be heading for a similar fate unless it reverses its course, which has tended to encourage communal disharmony as they seek to divide people on the basis of whether they can trace their roots to the hills or the plains, in Nepal or outside. If it has the support of the majority of the Madhesis, the forum’s leaders will be doing a service to them by demonstrating it by seeking elections to the CA, thereby influencing constitution-making, instead of indulging in disrupting activities in only certain parts of the country. In the days to come, the forum may be hard put to explain convincingly that its agendas are not aimed against the CA polls or that it is not playing into the hands of those who are bent on reversing the gains of the April uprising.