Social disagreement between two or more parties is conflict. Fight between affluent and poor, powerful and powerless, people with opportunities and voiceless, the haves and have-nots, and even between the same class of people are some of the notable forms of conflict. From time unknown, conflict has persisted between individuals, families, societies and states. Every nation has its own story to tell as far as conflict is concerned. Nepal was plagued by conflict for more than a decade. It was often advocated by those (the Maoists) who led the conflict that the fight was between the haves and have-nots, and between the powerful and the powerless.

The rising inequality during 1995/96 to 2003/04 has big implication. During that period, a modest economic growth was achieved. The consumption expenditures increased at an annual rate of 4 percent. The per capita income and consumption grew in all quintiles of the population pulling a quarter of the poor out of poverty. But, growth was not equal across groups and regions exacerbating inequality. The Gini coefficient rose from 34.2 to 41.4 leading to the rise of neo-capitalism. Only a few tasted the fruit of development during democracy, leaving the majority out of reach. It significantly contributed to the conflict.

An empirical study conducted by ADB, 2005 has considered six major variables as the cause of conflict in Nepal- health, education, income, empowerment, road density and poverty. The study found that

life expectancy index — a measure of health status of people, is inversely related to conflict. It implies that poor health service delivery fuels the conflict.

There is the positive association between education and conflict. It indicates that the two are directly proportionate. The higher the level of education, the higher is the probability of conflict. An empirical finding reveals that a 1 percent increase in the educational attainment index leads to 26 percent increase in the intensity of conflict. It implies that higher literacy may have increased awareness of rights and expectations on the part of the common people. If such expectations remain ignored, high unemployment among educated youth and lack of other opportunities stimulates conflict. A DFID study has found that a higher level of education with unemployment stimulates conflict.

The third variable is the income index. The association between income index and conflict is negative. A 1 percent change in the income index in average would influence the conflict by 22 percent in the Nepalese context. It implies that the probability of the occurrence of conflict is high when the income levels are low.

The fourth variable included in the analysis is road density index. From the empirical analysis it is found that the association between road density index and conflict is inversely related. It implies that a 1 percent change in the road density would stimulate the conflict by 0.07 percent. It means lower the road density, the higher is the probability of occurrence of conflict. It follows that

the lower level of physical infrastructure such as roads accentuates physical isolation and remoteness. This prevents further economic progress by disrupting development activities and service delivery to the people at the local level resulting in greater economic deprivation of the people.

The last variable is human poverty index. It represents an important social indicator in terms of human deprivation as one composite index. Four basic dimensions of human life-a long and healthy life, knowledge, economic provisioning, and social inclusion are the components of the composite index of human deprivation. The finding of the study shows that a 1 percent increase in human poverty index in an average would increase the intensity of conflict by 0.21 percent. It implies that the greater the human poverty in a district greater is the conflict and it follows that social and economic deprivation of the masses has a strong role in increasing the propensity of civil conflict in Nepal.

The conflict in Nepal has deep economic and social roots. The ongoing peace process is in doubt. UCPN (Maoist) is on the road protesting against one thing or the other since they left the government despite a commanding position in the Constituent Assembly. The current political situation is fluid that would not help in carrying out the development activities for uplifting and enhancing the income, health, access to physical infrastructure in the country.

Deprivation from the

social services is dominant factor in explaining conflict as evidenced from the

findings of the study. Low incomes with low levels

of economic activities

have been the motivating factors for conflict. It has been evidenced that higher level of education raised public expectations.

The lack of employment opportunities, however,

increased frustration and fueled violence. If we

fail to capture the evidences provided by the above analysis, the ongoing peace process will transform back again into conflict but in a different form.

(Dr. Dhungel is Associate Professor, Central Department of Economics, TU)