English - Support to Participatory Constitution Building in Nepal ...

The Remake of a Stateoffenders believe they are following a higher conscience or morality thatsupersedes present society and law. This is the justification often given bythe militarised youths when they commit political crimes.The history of criminalisation in politics started long ago. After therestoration of multi-party democracy in 1990, it continued further (Pathak2005). The act of criminalisation of politics in Nepal slightly contradicts thestatement made by Hagan (1997) because politicians’ or political cadres’activities supersede the ideological purpose by their private greed andpassion. Supporting youth political cadres by turning deaf ear to theirunlawful activities also encourage more criminalisation in politics.According to Ghimire (2010), Khas Kshetri Unity Society has alsoestablished its militarised youth wing with claimed 1,200 active members.Akin to this, the YCL claims that their group has 500,000 members amongwhich 450,000 are general members, 50,000 are expected to be activelyfunctioning and six to seven thousands are working as whole-timers.Youth force claims to have 600,000 members and their regional expansionis also at an increasing trend.INSEC (2010) reveals that there is no improvement in security situationin the Terai owing to the activities of the armed groups. According to theINSEC Human Rights Year Book 2010, 240 people were killed in 15 Teraidistricts in 2009 alone. Among them, 27 persons were killed by the state,22 by armed groups, 89 by unidentified groups and one person each killedby the YCL and YF. Splinter group of UCPN (Maoist), the CPN (Maoist), andother mushrooming underground armed groups has been adding fuel onthe violent fire of the Terai region. 12Comparatively, the youth of Terai are seen to be more militarised thanother youth groups. One reason for their militarisation can be analysedthrough the history of marginalisation in Nepal. With open border toIndia, their loyalty towards the nation has always been questioned by thestate thus excluding them from governance process. Also with the openborder to India, small arms are easily available to them. It is needless tosay in such a condition that the illicit trade and use of SALW is not onlyintensifying the ongoing civil wars and armed conflicts in different partsof the world, but also severely hindering the post-war reconciliation andreconstruction efforts. Upreti (2006) claims that a militarised society is12Nepal Monthly Situation Updates, Issue No.58, covering the period 1-28 February 2010. OCHA SituationReport-February http://www.un.org.np/ocha-situation-updates/2010/2010-03-17-OCHA-Situation-Report-February.pdf verified as on May 2nd, 2010.199