How to cite this journal: Author, Date of the post, WMO Conflict Insight, Title of the post, ISSN: 2628 6998, https://worldmediation.org/journal/
ABSTRACT *
This article examines the Madhesi conflict in the southern Terai region of Nepal and the border blockade of 2015, and applies the principles of mindful mediation to it. After outlining the background of the civil war, the earthquake, the disputed constitution and the resulting shortages of fuel, food and medicine, the author draws on the Buddhist understanding of attachment and ignorance as sources of suffering to develop three sets of reflective questions, addressed in turn to the Government of Nepal, to the Madhesi parties, and to mediators themselves. The author concludes that mutual understanding reached through such reflection could contribute to resolving a dispute in which agreements have repeatedly been signed but not implemented.
KEYWORDS *
Nepal, Madhesi, Terai, border blockade, mindful mediation, Buddhism, attachment, reflective questions, self reflection, mediator preparation, constitution, unimplemented agreements
INTRODUCTION
Crisis on the Nepal-India border as blockade continues: Three million Nepalese children under the age of five are at risk of death due to a shortage of fuel, food, and medicine (Plesch 2015).
Nepal went through a decade-long civil war from 1996 until 2006. During the war, the Maoist political party tried to overrule the traditional monarchy and implement democratic governance structures. Additionally, Nepal was struck by a massive earthquake in 2015 and a series of aftershocks that furthermore negatively affected political tensions within Nepal and with its neighboring country, India.
MAIN CORPUS
Madhesi Conflict History
After the earthquake in 2015, India imposed an unofficial blockade, which was supported by a part of the Nepali ethnic group of Madhesis in the country’s south. The political group protested the newly developed constitutions and felt marginalized as their request for an autonomous region in Nepal’s southern Terai remained unfulfilled. Inspired by the country’s recent protests and the Maoist party, the Madhesis initiated protests against the Government of Nepal. Thereby, more than 50 people have been killed. As a result, the Government of India, bordering the Terai, imposed a security-concern-related unofficial border blockade. Nepal, being highly dependent on supplies from India, such as fuel, food, and medicine, faced shortages that put vulnerable groups at severe risk, especially during the back-then harsh winter. The blockade started in September 2015 and affected Nepal for several months. The conflict, however, remains. During several mediation meetings, the Government of Nepal and the Madhesis drafted an agreement in which the Government promised the Madhesis more rights. However, the promises remain unfulfilled until now (Plesch 2015).
Mindful Reflection
Mindful mediation is a social competency that can be found in everyone. Additionally, mindful meditation is a fundamental requirement for human beings to be able to live together. Furthermore, mindful mediation contributes to communication within communities and groups.
In the theory of Buddhism, attachment and greed, tanha is the origin of suffering or conflict, dukkha. Ignorance, moha, leads to false views. False views are the source of attachment. According to Buddhism, the cause of tanha is incorrect (Erdmann n.d.).
According to the theory of Buddhism, the realization or correct understanding of this process can eliminate ignorance. The Madhesis party protests since 2007. Inspired by demonstrations of the Maoists that led to enforcing their interests, the Madhesis always felt that their interests were ignored, underrepresented, or neglected. According to this theory, one can argue that the Government of Nepal ignores the Madhesis’ requests and is thereby not necessarily mindful. Even worse, interests are ignored, false promises are given, and the implementation of agreements remains unfulfilled. Mindfulness in mediation processes has the potential to support sustainable agreements and help people understand each other more. The Government of Nepal could reflect on its position and ask itself:
What influences the Madhesis to protest?
Why are their demands so crucial to them?
What affects the Madhesis’ perspectives?
Why do we, as the Government of Nepal, reject their requests?
What influences the Government to ignore agreements?
How do we, as government officials, individually think and act? Why?
Where is the origin of the Government’s position?
Are there characteristics of the Madhesi culture that the Government does not understand?
However, one can also argue that the Madhesis’s interests are rooted in greed. Their demands for an autonomous region come from different desires based on personal interests. Therefore, the Madhesis involved in the blockade could ask themselves:
Why do we protest for so long, even if people die during fights?
What influences the government to refuse to accept our demands?
Why are the demands so vital to us that we do not give up?
Would integrating a third party help to resolve the dispute?
How did we grow up?
Does our religion play a role in our viewpoint?
How can we detach ourselves from our demands?
To exterminate attachment, according to Buddhism, the cause must be eliminated. Eliminating causes can occur through exchanging viewpoints, for example, through mediation. Parties need to observe and watch the purpose of the conflict.
Asking mindful questions during future mediation sessions could be a tool to increase the mutual understanding of the parties. However, I could not find relevant information on the eventual use of mindful meditation in previous mediation attempts. If not used yet, mutual understanding through the reflection of one’s perspective and the broad range of influencing factors could make a significant difference in resolving this conflict.
A mediator needs to be able to listen deeply, think critically, and speak wisely. Therefore, the mediator does not only need to include questions similar to the ones mentioned above but also supports the conflicting parties in critically reflecting on their viewpoints.
Furthermore, mediators must reflect on their upbringing, viewpoints, and other influencing factors. Questions to be asked can include:
How does my family background control my communication?
How does my cultural background reflect in mediation processes?
Why did I choose to become a mediator?
Do my previous relationships influence my behavior in this mediation process?
SUMMARY *
The article’s structure carries its argument. By addressing the same kind of reflective question to all three positions in turn, to the government, to the protesting communities and to the mediator, the author avoids assigning blame and instead treats the conflict as sustained by unexamined assumptions on every side. The recurring theme is the gap between agreement and implementation: commitments have been made repeatedly and not carried out, which the author reads as evidence that neither party has genuinely understood what the other needs.
CONCLUSION
In conclusion, mindful mediation could bring chances to resolve the Madhesis conflict in Nepal’s Terai.
POTENTIAL SOLUTION *
The reflective questions offered here are well conceived, and their value increases considerably once one asks who is meant to answer them and in what setting. Asked privately by each party, such questions produce insight that changes nothing. Asked within a structured process, they become a method: each side prepares its answers separately with a facilitator, then presents them not as demands but as an account of what lies behind the demands, and each is required to restate the other’s account until the other recognises it. This turns self reflection into mutual recognition, which is where movement in identity conflicts actually begins.
The article’s own diagnosis points to where the work is most needed. Agreements in this conflict have not failed at the negotiating table; they have failed afterwards. An unimplemented accord is more damaging than no accord, because it teaches those who compromised that compromise brings nothing, and it strengthens whoever argued that only pressure works. Any renewed process therefore has to address implementation before substance: a published timetable, an agreed independent monitor, and early deliverables visible to ordinary people in the Terai, such as citizenship documentation, representation in the civil service and security forces, and local language use in administration. Constitutional questions about federal boundaries can follow once each side has evidence that the other keeps its word.
One framing in the article deserves gentle qualification, and the point is a general one about applying Buddhist categories to political conflict. Describing the Madhesi demands as possibly rooted in greed, while describing the government’s conduct as insufficiently mindful, applies the concepts asymmetrically. The demands at issue, citizenship, proportional representation, constituency boundaries reflecting population, are claims about inclusion rather than about acquisition, and treating them as attachment risks suggesting that a marginalised group should detach from its claim to equal standing. The teaching applies more evenly the other way: what both sides might usefully release is not the underlying need but the fixed position through which it is expressed, and the certainty that the other side acts in bad faith.
Two practical elements complete the picture. The blockade illustrates a feature of this conflict that no bilateral process addresses: a third state’s border policy became the decisive instrument, and a settlement between Kathmandu and the Madhesi parties that ignores the India dimension leaves that instrument available for the next round. Quiet trilateral understandings on the border, separate from the domestic negotiation, would remove it. And the humanitarian consequences documented at the beginning of the article, children at risk from shortages of fuel, food and medicine, are precisely what mediation should ring fence: agreement that essential supplies and medical access remain outside the dispute, whatever else is contested, is achievable early and saves lives while the political questions remain open.
* Added by the WMO Editorial Team
REFERENCES
References
Erdmann, Daniel. “Section: B) – Syllabus 1 – World Mediation Organization.” n.d. https://worldmediation.org/. Accessed March 12, 2020.
Plesch, Valerie. “Crisis on Nepal-India Border as Blockade Continues.” 2015. https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/inpictures/2015/12/crisis-nepal-india-border-blockade-continues-151223082533785.html. Accessed March 12, 2020.
Supplementary references added by the WMO Editorial Team
Constitution of Nepal, 2015, provisions on federal structure, citizenship and representation.
Comprehensive Peace Accord between the Government of Nepal and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), 21 November 2006.
Madhesi Morcha and Government of Nepal, agreements of 2007, 2008 and 2016 on Madhesi demands.
International Crisis Group (2016). Nepal’s Divisive New Constitution: An Existential Crisis. Asia Report, Brussels and Kathmandu.
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, reports on the Terai protests and the use of force, Geneva.
United Nations Children’s Fund (2015). Nepal: Impact of fuel and supply shortages on children, Kathmandu.
