Enter the Maoists?

With the end of the monarchy in Nepal, the country is geared for a Government where one sees the participation of various political outfits of every hue and ideology. The latest to join the ranks are the Maoists who have so long been identified by their armed rebellion against, political legitimacy. Though the transition to a democratic government seems far from problems the mood is optimistic bolstered by the fight for democracy also advocated and ushered in Nepal with the blessings of the Bush administration in the US.The entry into the main political fray by the Maoists is though challenged by long-held principles of the country that have opposed to the  involvement of  states or groups thought of as rogues. The (Maoist) Communist Party of Nepal which has won the majority of seats in the constituent assembly elections, is on the U.S. Terrorist Exclusion List. This also implies that members of the same are barred from travelling or owning property in the States.

In what is being termed of as a shift in US think tanks, top U.S. diplomats met with Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, though of as probable next as prime minister. This though contradicts statements made by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Evan Feigenbaum, who told reporters that the Maoists are still on the terrorist lists.

An electoral victory for the Maoist’s leads to problems for some of Nepal’s neighbour’s especially India which has been providing military training to the countries army. It is feared that the Maoist electoral victory will lead to strengthening of Maoist rebel activities with the Naxalities within India too. The Maoist leader Prachanda has however denied any links with Naxalites in India.

Both India and China, important neighbours for Nepal have shown keen interest in Nepalese political developments. On its part Maoist leader Prachanda has said that Nepal would try and maintain good relations with both the countries.

The new Nepalese Government will face plenty of political and economic challenges that are predominant in the country. According to sources in the Asian Development Bank, Nepal is still one of the poorest nations in the world. According to recent reports by World Food Program, about 2.5 million people in rural areas of Nepal are in need of immediate food assistance. This is in addition to an additional 3.9 million people who face a risk of starvation due to food insecurities and increasing prices of food.

Another of the major problems lies in deciding the future of twenty-three thousand guerrilla fighters of the People’s Liberation Army, who are in the UN-monitored cease-fire camps. According to Prachanda, they should be integrated into the existing 95,000 Nepalese army but this suggestion has been opposed by the military administrators.

The Diamond In The Rough

Most people associate Bangladesh with catastrophic floods and chronic instability, as Ernst Herb notes in Switzerland’s Finanz und Wirtschaft. But it’s come a long way. According to the IMF, growth is set to reach 7% this year, a 30-year high. A military-backed government has pushed through a series of reforms, with 26 state-owned enterprises set to be sold off.”It’s a quantum leap in the mind-set of the government…that they’re embracing privatisation,” says Yawer Sayeed, CEO of the first and only private fund manager in the country. New-found political stability has encouraged foreign investment and consumption is also on the rise.

The Dhaka Stock Exchange Index has risen by about 80% this year amid these improved conditions. The market’s total value is a tiny $8bn, says Pooja Thakur on Bloomberg.com, but is expected to double to more than $15bn as privatisations provide further impetus and the market begins to appear on foreign investors’ radar screens. JP Morgan, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup - which last month became the first foreign lender to acquire a license to offer investment banking services - all reckon Bangladesh may be the “next Asian success story”, says Thakur.

Water Issues In South Asia

If there is any single most important issue that mars bilateral relations among the countries of the subcontinent, it is water. The issues of cross-border water distribution, utilisation, management and mega irrigation/hydro-electric power projects affecting the upper and lower riparian countries are gradually taking centre-stage in defining interstate relations as water scarcity increases and both drought and floods make life too often miserable.Thanks to its location, size and contiguous borders with other South Asian countries, it is India, in its capacity as both upper and lower riparian, that has come into conflict with most of its neighbours, except Bhutan, on the cross-border water issues. Given an atmosphere of mistrust, an upper riparian India has serious issues to resolve with lower riparian Pakistan and Bangladesh and, despite being lower riparian, with the upper riparian Nepal. This, however, does not mean that India is solely responsible for certain deadlocks, even though its share of responsibility may be larger than other countries which have their own physical limitations and political apprehensions.

As elsewhere in the world, and more particularly in the subcontinent where population explosion continues and environmental degradation worsens, water resources, like energy, are going to be much lower than the increasing demand, even if they are harnessed to the most optimum. Given the depleting resources of water, the issues of human security, and water security as its most crucial part, are going to assume astronomical proportions. The issues of water distribution and management are bringing not only countries of the region, but also states and regions within provinces into conflict since they are not being settled amicably within a grand framework of riparian statutes respecting upstream and downstream rights.

What is, however, quite appreciable is that the countries of the subcontinent have made certain remarkable efforts to resolve their differences over water distribution through bilateral agreements. India and Pakistan signed the Indus Water Treaty (IWT) in 1960 allocating three eastern rivers (Ravi, Sutlej and Beas) to India and three western rivers (Indus, Jehlum, Chenab) to Pakistan. The IWT has remarkably survived the ups and downs of Indo-Pak relations, and despite wars the parties upheld the Treaty, although serious differences persist over various projects being undertaken by India over Jehlum (2 projects) and Chenab (9 projects) rivers. Similarly, the Ganges Water-Sharing Treaty (GWST) was signed between India and Bangladesh in 1996 and resolved the dispute over Farakha Barrage, although differences continue on Bangladesh’s share of water during the lean period. Nepal and India also signed the Mahakali Treaty in 1996, but despite ratification by the Nepalese parliament, the Treaty has remained stalled.

Despite these treaties, serious differences over water sharing, water management and hydropower projects continue to spoil relations between India, on the one hand, and Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, on the other. Differences between India and Pakistan continue to create ill-will between the two on around 11 large hydroelectric projects India plans to construct, including the Baglihar Project over which Pakistan has sought the appointment of a neutral expert by the World Bank after the failure of talks. More than the dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, the issue of the waters of Jehlum and Chenab has the potential to once again provoke people in Pakistan against India and push the two countries to war.

Bangladesh, which shares 54 rivers with India as a lower riparian, has serious differences with New Delhi that hinder agreement on eight rivers, besides the continuing complaints by Dhaka over sharing of water of Ganges. The Indian plan, which is now under review, to build a big river-linking-project that includes diversion of water from Ganges and Brahmaputra, has become yet another source of antagonism between the two countries who have not been able to sort out their differences over a whole range of issues that continue to fuel political tension which, in turn, does not allow the resolution of differences over water.

As an upper riparian, Nepal has a different relationship with India and faces many problems in constructing its dams due to opposition by the lower riparian and has serious doubts about the projects proposed by India. Nepal’s mistrust, beside other factors, has been reinforced by what it perceives to be various unequal treaties — starting from Sharada Dam construction (1927), 1950 Treaty and Letters of Exchange of 1950 and 1965, Koshi Agreement (1954), Gandak Agreement ((1959), Tanakpur Agreement (1991) and the Mahakali Treaty (1996). Since 400 million people live in the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna region, India needs Nepal to meet its energy needs and for management of water.

Besides many issues of water sharing among the countries of subcontinent, there are huge water and energy related issues that are critically affecting the food security, environment and agriculture. Above all, projections of scarcity of water in the future present a doomsday scenario. There are serious differences over water-sharing within different states/provinces in India (Ravi-Beas dispute between Punjab and Haryana and Cauvery dispute among the states of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry) and Pakistan (water sharing dispute and construction of dams over Indus between Punjab and Sindh and also NWFP). Rigorous exploitation of groundwater in India and Pakistan is rapidly depleting aquifers which is a cause of great concern. Contamination of water and presence of arsenic in groundwater has become a major concern, especially, in Bangladesh and some parts of India and Pakistan.

Climatic changes that are being forecasted and low-water discharges need to be addressed collectively. India should, as SAFMA’s Delhi Declaration says, ‘make more efforts to discuss bilaterally with its neighbours problems relating to river waters. A new regional understanding of the riparian issues is essential to resolve Indo-Nepal, Indo-Bangladesh and Indo-Pakistan water issues’. Some way out should be found on the Baglihar issue between India and Pakistan to keep the sanctity of Indus Water Treaty. Regional Riparian Statutes must be obligatory to resolve the bilateral water disputes. RRR statute model, respecting Helsinki Convention proposes 8K upstream and downstream rights, should guide the countries of subcontinent to avoid conflict over water and reach a lasting understanding for the collective good of our people. Lastly, the ‘middle-path’ adopted by Bhutan should guide the planners for sustainable development that is environment friendly and is not carried by supply-side approach of the big dam lobbies.

Healthcare in South Asia

Most South Asian countries continue to perform poorly on most social indicators, something that is reflected in their human development indices. With the onset of structural adjustment reforms, even the policy commitment to free, universal healthcare has quietly slipped into the wings. The shifting emphasis on fiscal management and structural adjustment has restricted the public sector’s role to ‘regulation’ and little more. Evidently, healthcare provision is no longer the business of the state, as against universal and equitable provision of healthcare, which is not only a basic human right, but also the prerequisite of a dynamic human resource. Without an elaborate healthcare system and effective population planning, focusing on women and children’s healthcare, South Asia cannot join the ranks of civilised nations.In the case of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, the Government of India had affirmed its policy commitment to providing universal and, more importantly free, healthcare even before Partition in 1947. But policies and budget allocations within and outside the health sector are not always made on the basis of need, but on what is politically expedient and on the ‘consumer’s’ ability to pay. Relegated as South Asia’s poor are to this euphemism, healthcare continues to be something the poor simply cannot afford.

Meanwhile, acute inefficiencies in healthcare, inadequate and inefficient resource allocation, and correspondingly poor service delivery have all triggered the growth of private sector healthcare providers available only at a higher price, leaving the poor and much of the lower-middle class - women and children in particular - at the mercy of disease and ill health. In many cases, it has only encouraged ‘over-diagnosis’ and ‘over-medication’ with the aim of profiteering.

The blue-ribbon Commission on Social Determinants of Health (CSDH), convened in 2005 by the World Health Organization (WHO) maintains that longevity and susceptibility to disease often have less to do with infections and genetics than with the social determinants of health - factors such as income, education, occupation, access to services such as sanitation, good medical treatment, and decent housing. In South Asia, we have yet to come to terms with the interlocking relationships between economic achievements, social investments, and health outcomes. Not only does a country’s state of health boost economic output, economics can and should promote better health as well.

The urban and elitist biases inherent in health facilities in most South Asian countries, and the neglect of primary and tertiary healthcare, mean that such facilities over-care for the rich and neglect the poor. With the exception of Sri Lanka, these countries’ health sectors have tended to evolve in line with the broader dynamics of ‘free’ market forces, the inherent class contradictions of which have led to the development of a largely curative-care model. Medical education at local institutions in the region often replicates what is found in developed countries, resulting in a demand for the ‘latest’ (which does not necessarily mean the most appropriate) medical care.

This bleak picture aside, there are nonetheless instances that show that it is possible to challenge the hegemony of laissez-faire economics under which health, and indeed other social services, become profiteering ventures. Sri Lanka’s success in developing a highly dispersed rural health infrastructure and policies rooted in preventative healthcare; and the success of Pakistan’s community-embedded Lady Health Workers Programme, show that health outcomes need be achieved even at the cost of economic gains. As Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has often candidly pointed out, people can hardly be expected to generate income when they are not healthy enough to hold a job.

Improving the state of health in the region requires a creative and more far-reaching approach to how the health and well-being of the region’s people can be improved. Sri Lanka, for instance, has been able to use efficiency gains to keep government health spending limited to less than two percent of its GDP. By giving curative and preventative healthcare priority in public health budgets, and allowing access to precede quality, the country’s public healthcare providers have not allowed themselves to be dislodged by the private sector.