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

The Remake of a Statenot have been if their friends were not participating (Tipplet 2004). Thisyouth population accounts the change seekers, reactive people, and easilyagitated ones with unstable mindsets. Due to these factors, youths tendto incline towards destructive activities, which is why, in riots and strikes,youth are seen most active in pelting stones, burning tyres and at timesusing explosives and small arms.If we look at the global trend, most of the suicide bombers and hijackers,abductors, assassins are the youths. For example, the May 2010 case ofNew York Times Square car bomb is alleged to be kept by a young man.Similarly, a 21 year old young man had been arrested and was sentencedfor the Mumbai attack of November, 2008. It is observed that there arealways other people behind the youths engaged in destructive activities. Itis also the truth that ordinary people, simply doing their jobs, and withoutany particular hostility on their part, can become agents in a terribledestructive process.4.2 Socio-economic reasonsIt is reported in insurgencies and civil war situations that there is a closerelationship between youth population and civil war (Upreti 2009). Theexcess youth is regarded as the perfect storm to blow up the wholenation as there is a huge number of a youth population with no access toresources. In other words, there are cases of youths joining paramilitary ormilitary groups to acquire some power which in the absence of resourcesis null both at familial, societal and national level. Staveteig (2005) arguesthat the relationship between large youth cohorts and civil war appearsto have held throughout history. Similarly, Herbert Moller (1968) suggeststhat wars in pre-modern and present day Europe, including the rise ofthe Nazi party in Germany, corresponded with surges in the proportion ofyoung men in the population (Staveteig 2005).In the context of Nepal, youth population constitutes 38.8 per cent of thetotal population, and it is quite obvious that unemployment is the primereason behind youths getting militarised. Thapa (2006) argues that themajority of youth population that comprises nearly half of the nation’stotal has been left behind in the entire development process. Further,the roles of youths are not properly visualised by political parties. Hisconclusion is that if youths are not mobilised properly, they are likelyto emerge as a radical threat. The continued neglect of youth couldbe counterproductive for state building in post-conflict phase with itstwin challenges of violence prevention/accord maintenance and social201