Why India ditched Madhes
3 India and Madhes
APEX Series
OLI GOVERNMENT AND INDIA
3 India and Madhes
4 New Indian power regulation
5 Is India losing
India imposed a nearly five-month-long border blockade following the promulgation of the new Nepali constitution on 20 September 2015. India was unhappy that it was not consulted and that Kathmandu was ignoring the demands of Madhes-based parties.
Three years on, two Madhes-based parties, namely Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N) and Federal Socialist Party-Nepal (FSP-N), are demanding another amendment to the constitution. But India is no longer backing the agenda of the Madhes-based parties, at least not publicly. Observers point at a few reasons behind India’s silence. One, its focus now is on minimizing China’s influence in Nepal by taking Kathmandu into confidence.
Two, there is no unity among the Madhes-based parties and the absence of a towering figure capable of triggering and leading a popular movement in Madhes. During the local elections in 2017, there was a clear split among Madhes-based parties. Their differences remain; whereas FSPN Chairman Upendra Yadav is part of the Oli government, RJPN leaders are not. Three, there are insufficient numbers in parliament to pass a constitution amendment bill and the likelihood of another popular movement in Madhes is low.
However, Amresh Singh, a Nepali Congress lawmaker, has a different take. He says India imposed the blockade because of its concern over Nepal’s status as a Hindu state, not over the Madhesi issue.
“The Indians overreacted. The Madhes movement was going on at the time, so they jumped on the bandwagon. But after a few weeks, they realized that the ruling hill elites were displeased, so they lifted the blockade and started dealing with the Nepal government,” he says.
In a recent interview with APEX, Constantino Xavier, a fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings India and an experienced Nepal hand, had argued that the salience of the Madhes issue in Nepal-India relations has gone down. “You see general statements about inclusiveness and diversity, but there are no prescriptive statements India used in 2015/2016 about what Nepal should be doing in terms of its constitutional and political arrangements,” he said.
But says a senior Nepali leader who worked on constitution-drafting, “After a rapprochement with Kathmandu, India dropped the Madhes agenda. But if differences with Kathmandu resurface, Delhi will not hesitate to bring up the agenda to put pressure on Kathmandu.”
Is Madhes just a card for India?
When Nepal promulgated a new constitution on 20 September 2015, India imposed a blockade to put pressure on Kathmandu to fulfill the demands of Madhes-based parties. Following the pressure, some of those demands were addressed through an amendment to the constitution.
Three years after the blockade, two Madhes-based parties, namely Rastriya Janata Party-Nepal (RJP-N) and Federal Socialist Party-Nepal (FSP-N), are demanding another amendment to the constitution. But India is no longer backing their agenda, at least not publicly. There was a time when Nepal had to present a written roadmap on how it was going to address the demands of the Madhes-based parties, but that’s no longer the case today.
_20190310143133.jpg "Photo by Bikash Karki")
Observers point at a few reasons behind India’s silence on the demands of the Madhes-based parties. First, its focus now is on minimizing China’s influence in Nepal by taking Kathmandu into confidence. Mainly after the formation of a strong government led by the Nepal Communist Party (NCP) Chairman KP Sharma Oli, India invested its time and energy persuading Oli to check China’s influence.
Sometime after the blockade, foreign policy observers believe, it dawned on India that if it antagonizes Kathmandu, China will make further inroads into Nepal. After that, India started playing down the Madhes agenda in an attempt to appease Kathmandu so as to reduce Chinese influence in Nepal.
Despite some rhetoric to the contrary, Oli is not ready to amend the constitution. India does not want to make the Madhes issue a cause of friction with the Oli government. “India can neither give up the agenda of the Madhes-based parties nor speak strongly in favor of them,” says a Nepali diplomat who has been actively engaged in Nepal-India dealings in recent times, requesting anonymity, as he cannot speak publicly given his official position.
Come as one
The second reason behind India’s silence is the lack of unity among the Madhes-based parties and the absence of a towering figure capable of triggering and leading a popular movement in Madhes. During the local elections in 2017, there was a clear split among Madhes-based parties. Their differences remain; whereas FSPN Chairman Upendra Yadav is part of the Oli government, RJPN leaders are not. “India, for a long time, has been telling the Madhes-based parties to unite but since that’s not happening, India itself seems confused about their demands,” says the diplomat.
The third reason is insufficient numbers in parliament to pass a constitution amendment bill and the low likelihood of another popular movement in Madhes. The NCP has a two-thirds majority in the parliament but Prime Minister Oli is not ready to amend the constitution—at least for now. Although his party Co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal appears to have a soft spot for the demands of the Madhes-based parties, he is not in a position to make important decisions by himself.
Yet another reason is that after the blockade, which fueled anti-Indian sentiments in Nepal, there were strong views within India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that India should not view Nepal through a Madhes prism. Some BJP leaders strongly advised Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj that India’s policy on Nepal take into consideration various factors and not just the Madhes. They were of the view that if India backs the Madhes-based parties, and thus helps derail the local polls, its commitment to democracy would be questioned.
However, Amresh Singh, a Nepali Congress lawmaker, has a different take. He says India imposed the blockade because of its concern over Nepal’s status as a Hindu state, not over the Madhesi issue. “The Indians overreacted. The Madhes movement was going on at the time, so they jumped on the bandwagon. But after a few weeks, they realized that the ruling hill elites were displeased, so they lifted the blockade and started dealing with the Nepal government and the ruling elites,” he says.
India imposed the blockade because of its concern over Nepal’s status as a Hindu state, not over the Madhesi issue
Amresh Singh, Nepali Congress lawmaker
Dropping Madhes
“The then Indian Ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae was tasked with appeasing the ruling elites. This policy was initiated by the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh]. By way of justification, India blamed the leaders of the Madhes-based parties, saying they were divided, corrupt and visionless.”
A senior leader who worked on constitution-drafting says, “After a rapprochement with Kathmandu, India dropped the Madhes agenda. But if differences with Kathmandu resurface, New Delhi will not hesitate to bring up the agenda to put pressure on Kathmandu,” says the leader.
There is a consensus across the political spectrum in Nepal that valid demands of the Madhes-based parties should be addressed to stem the rise of extremist forces in Madhes. To understand how India gradually changed its position on Madhes, it is necessary to analyze the Indian position and policy over the last decade.
India had played a mediating role during the Madhes movement in 2008. The then Indian Ambassador to Nepal Shiva Shankar Mukherjee had helped strike an agreement between then Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and the Madhes-based parties. India’s role at that time was interpreted as that of an external guarantor. During the constitution-drafting period from 2009 to 2015, India was continuously backing the demands of the Madhes-based parties. Immediately after the constitution was promulgated in September 2015, India imposed a blockade on Nepal as a punishment for not addressing those demands. During the blockade, which lasted almost five months, India’s position was loud and clear: amend the constitution to address the demands of the Madhes-based parties.
After the blockade, the issue of constitution amendment featured prominently in every Nepali prime minister’s visit to Delhi. Due to differences over this topic, no joint press statement was issued during KP Oli’s visit to India in 2016. Oli insisted that India should welcome Nepal’s constitution and the issue of Madhes-based parties should not be incorporated in the joint statement. India disagreed.
Sparing Dahal’s blushes
India started softening its position after Pushpa Kamal Dahal, in alliance with the Nepali Congress, came to power in 2016. During Dahal’s visit to Delhi, the Madhes-based parties’ issue was presented in a general way in that it was the Nepal government’s duty to bring all sections of society on board. This was in contrast to the past tradition of India issuing a prescriptive statement urging Nepal to specifically address the demands of the Madhes-based parties.
But even until the local elections in 2017, India was still pressing Dahal to go for polls only after addressing the demands of the Madhes-based parties. However, Dahal succeeded in convincing India that the demands cannot be addressed as they lacked enough parliamentary support. A week before the announcement of the local polls, Dahal sent his deputy Narayan Kaji Shrestha to Delhi with a message that the date of the first phase of the polls would be announced. Shrestha made a case in front of Indian leaders and officials that there was no other option. Still India wasn’t fully convinced. Later when Sher Bahadur Deuba visited Delhi as a prime minister, he expressed a commitment to amend the constitution, which drew criticism in Nepal.
At the same time, the Madhes-based parties were also divided on whether to contest the local polls. (They did ultimately.) Indian Ambassador Manjeev Singh Puri reportedly urged the Madhes-based parties to drop their agenda of a constitution amendment and contest the elections. If India had insisted on amending the statute by addressing the Madhes-based parties’ demands, the local elections would not have been possible. In that case, Dahal would have had to step down, paving Oli’s path to power—an outcome India wanted to avoid. The Madhes-based parties, however, felt betrayed by India when it did not back their agenda just before the local elections.
After the formation of the Oli-led government last year, the Indian side has refrained from talking about amending the constitution or fulfilling the Madhesi parties’ demands. The Madhes-based parties, however, are still asking for an amendment.
In a recent interview with APEX, Constantino Xavier, a fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at Brookings India and an experienced Nepal hand, had argued that the salience of the Madhes issue in Nepal-India relations has gone down. “You see general statements about inclusiveness and diversity, but there are no prescriptive statements India used in 2015/2016 about what Nepal should be doing in terms of its constitutional and political arrangements,” he said.
Xavier had continued: “I think there is now a focus on delivering development assistance, implementing connectivity projects and diversifying outreach in Nepal beyond the usual groups of people who are friendly to India”.
The interminable EPG delay
2 EPG report
APEX Series
OLI GOVERNMENT AND INDIA
3 India and Madhes
4 New Indian power regulation
5 Is India losing influence in Nepal?
The report prepared by the eight-member Eminent Persons’ Group on Nepal-India relation (EPG-NIR) around seven month ago is gathering dust. It is not clear when the report will be submitted to the prime ministers of the two countries. The long delay means members from both sides are losing hope that the recommendations of the report, which was prepared after extensive and taxing homework, would be implemented. In various bilateral talks and meetings, the Indian side has repeatedly cited the tight schedule of Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the reason for the delay, but not everyone is convinced.
An EPG member who spoke at length with APEX says that Modi’s tight schedule and the upcoming Indian elections are not the real reasons. According to him, the Indian side is dissatisfied with some portions of the report, mainly related to the regulation of the Nepal-India border by adopting high-level technology and identity cards. “If both governments accept our report and implement its recommendations, the dynamics of the open border will change,” he says. India is reportedly not satisfied with some other provisions of the report as well. It is expressing displeasure over the leakage of the report to a ‘third country’ before its submission.
Observers say India’s reluctance to accept the report has highlighted a couple of issues. They argue it is not rational to expect the Indian government to form a position based on a report prepared by a group of experts. “If so, there was no need to form such a panel to suggest ways to redefine bilateral relations,” says a diplomat who is closely following EPG-related issues. “It is just a report prepared by a group of experts and it is up to the two governments to settle outstanding bilateral issues,” he says. He argues that the delay in accepting the report is a clear demonstration of India’s desire to keep the 1950 treaty unchanged and maintain the status quo on other issues.
The EPG’s eight members (four from each country) had reached a consensus while finalizing the report. Just before the report was finalized, some (but not all) Indian members had expressed a desire to make changes to some provisions and those changes were incorporated in the final report. Besides other treaties and conventions, the 1950 Nepal-India Treaty of Peace and Friendship is the main document that Nepal wants to amend.
Members from the two sides APEX approached for this story said they still await an appointment with Indian Prime Minister Modi to submit the report. “I do not see any reason behind the delay. Both countries are free to take or reject our suggestions,” says Surya Nath Upadhaya, an EPG member from the Nepali side. Soon after the EPG finalized its report, the Indian media had carried stories that said some high level Indian officials think the report’s recommendations should not be implemented, as doing so would end the special relationship between the two countries.
Disputes over 1950 treaty
The 1950 treaty has 10 articles, some of which are outdated. Article 2 states: “Two Governments hereby undertake to inform each other of any serious friction or misunderstanding with any neighboring State likely to cause any breach in the friendly relations subsisting between the two Governments.”
This provision is obsolete as both countries are conducting their foreign policy independently. During the Doklam crisis between India and China in 2017, some Indian experts cited this article to argue that Nepal should support India. Nepal, however, took a neutral position on the India-China standoff that lasted 77 days. The Nepali side of the EPG has reportedly suggested scrapping this article.
Nepal also wants to amend articles 5, 6 and 7 of the 1950 treaty. Article 5 says: “The Government of Nepal shall be free to import, from or through the territory of India, arms, ammunition or warlike material and equipment necessary for the security of Nepal. The procedure for giving effect to this arrangement shall be worked out by the two Governments acting in consultation.” As per this article, Nepal is free to import arms and ammunitions that its security forces need. Another “secret” arms agreement was signed between India and Nepal in 1965, but was made public only after 1990.
Article 5 of this agreement states: “The arrangements envisaged above shall have no bearing on the independent foreign policy on either Government. The Government of Nepal shall be free to import from or through the territory of India arms, ammunition or warlike material and equipment necessary for the security of Nepal. The procedures for giving effect to this arrangement shall be worked out by the two Governments acting in consultation.”
Indian officials maintain that Nepal should consult with India when it imports arms from third countries. In 1989 when Nepal imported arms and ammunition from China, India objected to it, saying that it was a violation of the 1950 treaty, and even imposed a border blockade. Nepal wants to remove such provisions from the treaty to ensure that it can freely purchase arms from third countries.
However, Dinesh Prasain, whose PhD thesis (from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi) deals with the 1950 treaty, has a different take. “Nowhere in the treaty is it explicitly mentioned that Nepal is not free to import arms from other countries. And Nepal has no obligation to consult India in any way if the imported arms are not transported through the Indian territory,” Prasain says.
Article 6 and 7 of the 1950 treaty deal with how citizens of one country are to be treated in another. Article 6 says: “Each Government undertakes, in token of the neighborly friendship between India and Nepal, to give to the nationals of the other, in its territory, national treatment with regard to participation in industrial and economic development of such territory and to the grant of concessions and contracts relating to such development.” Article 7 says: “The Governments of India and Nepal agree to grant, on reciprocal basis, to the nationals of one country in the territories of the other the same privileges in the matter of residence, ownership of property, participation in trade and commerce, movement and other privileges of a similar nature.”
Given the difference in the size, population and economic conditions between the two countries, Nepal cannot provide national treatment to Indian citizens. The fate of the Nepali migrant workers in India, however, is open to debate. According to the EPG, India has about one million Nepali migrant workers, who are working there without a work permit. If this provision is modified, they might need a permit.
Says Prasain, “The treaty does not grant ‘rights’ to the nationals of the other country, it just gives them ‘privileges’.” Moreover, even the privileges related to “residence, ownership of property, participation in trade and commerce, movement”, as well as the unspecified “other privileges of a similar nature” which have never been clarified, that each country grants to the “nationals” of the other country, are not guaranteed—they are to be granted on “a reciprocal basis”.
The reasons why India hasn’t accepted the EPG report are unclear, but it’s probably safe to say that it won’t do so before the upcoming Indian national elections.
The history
On 31 July 1950, the then Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher Junga Bahadur Rana and Chandreshwar Prasad Narain Singh, an Indian government representative, had signed the Treaty of Peace and Friendship. However, dissatisfaction erupted in Nepal soon over the ‘unequal’ nature of the treaty and how it disproportionately favored India. Since then, revising or even scrapping the treaty has been a major political agenda in Nepal. Mainly, various communist outfits and royalist forces have exploited this agenda to bolster their ‘nationalist credentials’.
For example, then Prime Minister Kirti Nidhi Bista in 1969 publicly spoke about the need to revise the treaty on the grounds that it was obsolete. After the restoration of multi-party democracy in 1990, the CPN (UML)-led government in 1994 also demanded the treaty’s abrogation. It argued that the ‘special relationship’ with India must come to an end and there must be renegotiations on the sharing of water resources, the recruitment of Nepali nationals into the Indian Army and so on. Similarly, in 1997, then Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa submitted a non-paper to Indian officials concerning the amendment of the treaty.
Political weapon
During Nepal’s 10-year-long insurgency, the Maoists vehemently demanded that the ‘unequal’ treaty, as well as other discriminatory accords between Nepal and India, be scrapped. Of late, during the national polls in 2017, amending the treaty was a major election plank of the leftist alliance, whose manifesto said: “The tendency to surrender to foreign forces will be discouraged. All unequal treaties and agreements signed with India including the 1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship will be reviewed and replaced on the basis of necessity and national interest. Diplomatic efforts will be applied to resolve border related problems and the management of border points.”
Coincidently, the EPG completed its task at a time when KP Oli is leading a government with a two-thirds majority. He has both the mandate and the time to take a decision on treaty revision.
Vault of history I : Saintly despot
When KP Sharma Oli became the head of a government with a two-thirds majority, Nepal’s intellectual circle compared him to ‘Shree Teen’ Juddha Shumsher, in the sense that Oli was the most powerful ruler since the Rana prime minister. Bishwo Paudel, a scholar of economic history, makes this argument on the basis of his research on Nepal’s prime ministers. Juddha Shumsher lost the reins of power about 73 years and two months ago. Since then, the country had not got such a strong prime minister—until Oli appeared on the scene.
Juddha Shumsher’s reign, which lasted 13 years two months and 26 days, was indeed absolute, free from any restraints or obstacles. He could exercise power freely. The palace was extremely weak. In fact, Juddha Shumsher didn’t think much of the royal family. On occasions, he even reprimanded King Tribhuwan in front of courtiers.
Juddha’s successor Padma Shumsher, who became known as ‘the tearful maharaj’, was feeble by nature. It didn’t take long for Chandra Shumsher’s descendants to force Padma Shumsher to a life in exile in India. Padma’s successor Mohan Shumsher was weakened by the growing intensity of the movement for democracy. After democracy dawned, the palace suddenly became strong. Then it started appointing prime ministers or dangling the sword of Damocles over the heads of elected prime ministers.
Oli is free of such concerns. The monarchy no longer exists. The president’s post is merely ceremonial. Again, because Oli has been compared to Juddha Shumsher, the powerful Rana prime minister’s life story has become a topic of interest.
On 29 Nov 1945, Juddha Shumsher made a sudden and unexpected announcement that he was abdicating in favor of his nephew Padma Shumsher. There was rampant speculation as to Juddha’s motives for the abdication. Some guessed that the move was meant to preempt a coup (and possibly murder) by Chandra Shumsher’s descendants. At the time, power struggles, including bloodshed, were commonplace within the Rana family. Members of the family had to perform various rituals and make religious vows to refrain from violence. Juddha Shumsher had sent his brothers and nephews into exile in order to safeguard his hold on power.
The general expectation was that Juddha would tighten the hold. There was no hint that the 70-year-old prime minister would suddenly abdicate. According to Bhim Bahadur Pande, a high-level courtier at the time responsible for formulating development plans, Juddha Shumsher got his relatives and courtiers to gather together and made a speech announcing his abdication. “My sons and nephews are capable of handling the affairs of the state, so I’m following in the footsteps of some of the Kshatriya kings of the Raghu dynasty, who after reaching a certain age abdicated the throne and entered the forest to meditate. (Sardar Bhim Bahadur Pande, Tyasbakhat-Nepal, Part 3, Page 329)
Next week’s ‘Vault of history’ discusses some of the other possible reasons why Juddha Shumsher had to abdicate
Also read:
Vault of history I : Saintly despot
Lift the ban, lift the economy
1 Public demand
APEX Series
MARIJUANA
1 Public demand
3 Economic benefits (Mar 29)
4 Downsides (Apr 12)
5 Government stand (Apr 26)
Till the 1970s, the farming and consumption of marijuana was legal in Nepal. Marijuana or Cannabis sativa is an easy-to-cultivate, naturally-growing weed with ‘unnatural’ medicinal properties, as researchers and scientists are finding out. True to its property, until just over a decade ago, it grew in abundance on the fertile outskirts of Kathmandu, even right next to the Ring Road, before the city’s expansion left it without much space. Even today, one can catch a whiff of the ganja while walking through tourist areas. Come Shivaratri, the day of Lord Shiva, the ‘holy’ ganja becomes unofficially legal and you would definitely know at least one person who smokes or consumes it that day. The medicinal value of marijuana is immense. The Harvard Medical School website reports the many benefits of cannabidiol (CBD), a cannabis component, including “relieving insomnia, anxiety, spasticity, and pain to treating potentially life-threatening conditions such as epilepsy”. It goes on to note how “one particular form of childhood epilepsy called Dravet syndrome is almost impossible to control, but responds dramatically to a CBD-dominant strain of marijuana called Charlotte’s Web.”
Similarly, other medical websites list a number of other ailments cannabis could relieve: cancer, chronic pain, Crohn’s Disease, depression, glaucoma, Lou Gehrig’s disease, and Parkinson’s.
Moreover, Nepal is an import-dependent country which relies on its neighbors for even the most basic items. Investing in the low-cost, high-yield crop can help narrow the budget deficit. Normally, it takes about three to four months to grow a cannabis plant but with proper tools, the produce can be harvested in as little as eight weeks. Cannabis byproducts include oil, medicines, fabric, paper and edibles, which can all be profitably traded.
Nepal enacted the Narcotic Drugs (Control) Act in 1976, under tremendous pressure from the US. (For one, the Americans thought their youth were getting high in Kathmandu instead of serving in Vietnam, and started lobbying for its ban.) The sale, cultivation and use of cannabis was banned. Nature’s gift to Nepalis was deemed illegal and what was historically legal and normal became immoral over time. (This APEX Series will also include an extensive article on the history of cannabis use in Nepal). The Hippie Trail, which brought the first commercial western tourists to Nepal, was suppressed under the US directive. With the forceful deportation of the ‘hippies’, as well as a total ban on the sale and consumption of hashish and marijuana, Nepal lost the rights to an ancient and profitable cash crop.
A case for legal cannabis
The Western world has started decriminalizing and legalizing the medicinal and recreational use of marijuana. As it does so, Nepali authorities are at a loss to explain its criminalization, or whether to continue with a ban dating back almost 50 years. Yet the government has been unable to strictly enforce the ban as cultivation and use of marijuana is still common both in urban and rural regions. Negatively publicized as a contraband product all these years, marijuana’s use for any purpose became strictly taboo, with people reluctant to even mention its name, let alone accept its beneficial properties. This was until Birodh Khatiwada, a federal lawmaker from the ruling Nepal Communist Party, spoke in the House of Representatives in favor of lifting the marijuana ban. While developed countries like the US, Canada and Thailand are increasingly using cannabis as an income source, Khatiwada said, people in Nepal are barred from producing it. He gave the example of the Singha Durbar-based Vaidyakhana—the state-run manufacturer of Aayurvedic and herbal medicines—which is having to import marijuana from abroad even as the state destroys the good stuff produced in Nepal.
Khatiwada’s House presentation has prompted other prominent figures to also come out in support of lifting the ban. APEX had in the past tried to raise this issue on the basis of public opinion, but everyone it approached wanted to remain anonymous. Not so after Khatiwada’s remarks. People are now ‘coming out’ on its benefits and are already calculating how the country can benefit from the cash crop. Most of APEX’s contacts this time emphasized medicinal and commercial use of marijuana, rather than reinforce the common perception that it is used only for “smoking and getting high”.
“It is high time we amended laws that do us more harm than good,” Khatiwada told APEX. “The US forced us to sign the Act. Now more than 30 of its states have legalized marijuana. So why should Nepal still criminalize it?”
In 2017, combined marijuana sales in the US state of Colorado exceeded $1.5 billion
Going global
As marijuana is a lot easier to cultivate than other crops and its use is globalizing, Khatiwada explains, lifting the ban will create opportunities for Nepali farmers and traders alike. He recalls a time during his childhood when cannabis was used as medicine for diarrhea and other stomach ailments for both humans and livestock. “Cannabis grows freely in all regions of Nepal, especially remote hilly areas where growing anything else is difficult. Cannabis grown in Nepal is considered top quality and we could export huge amounts of it legally,” Khatiwada says.
Although critics initially accused him of promoting “drug abuse”, Khatiwada says the support he has received from fellow lawmakers and politicians as well as the general people from his constituency has by and large been positive. “Many lawmakers thanked me for bringing up the issue. Many advocacy organizations working for the legalization of cannabis in Nepal are willing to work with me on further research,” he says.
Nepal is an import-dependent country which relies on its neighbors for even the most basic items. Investing in the low-cost, high-yield crop can help narrow the budget deficit. Normally, it takes about three to four months to grow a cannabis plant but with proper tools, the produce can be harvested in as little as eight weeks. Cannabis byproducts include oil, medicines, fabric, paper and edibles. The countries that have legalized its production and sale report a significant yearly income from taxes. In the US, the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq both list cannabis companies and “cannabis stocks” are predicted to be the highest-yielding future investments.
Colorado rapids
In 2014, the year marijuana sales were legalized in the US state of Colorado, total annual recreational sales amounted to $303 million, while medical sales totaled $380 million. By 2017, recreational sales had grown to almost $1.1 billion, and medical sales were almost $417 million. In other words, in 2017, combined marijuana sales in Colorado exceeded $1.5 billion.
In Nepal there has been no official study of cannabis production and trade. But economists predict that the high-yield, low-investment plantation will be an economic boon for the country. “When I was a junior officer at the Nepal Rastra Bank back in the 1990s, I had written in my internal reports that the farming of cannabis should be made legal,” says economist Keshav Acharya. “I am still of the opinion that economic farming should be made legal. We can bring in millions of dollars from international pharmaceutical companies by decriminalizing and regulating cannabis production.”
“The world is cashing in on the legalization of marijuana but Nepal, a country famous across the globe for the quality of its crops, is still confused about the use and abuse of something,” says Ranjan Ojha, founder of the Nepal School of Entrepreneurship. “When we say marijuana should be legalized, we don’t mean everyone should be smoking it. We have alcohol manufacturers here too, but does everyone drink alcohol?”
Ojha says that as agriculture and tourism are the twin engines of Nepal’s economy, cannabis farming can help both. As an entrepreneur, he sees more opportunities than threats in legalizing marijuana. “We have a history of tourists coming to Nepal for cannabis and if we legalize and regulate its sale, we will have something more to offer them. Rather than blindly following an Act that tied us up, we can be more progressive and introduce cultural entrepreneurship and an experience economy in the country.”
Dr Bipesh Acharya, a pathologist and the director of the Purbanchal Hospital, says the medicinal value of cannabis has been studied by international researchers and it is now known to help with, among other ailments, chronic pain, arthritis, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. “But despite knowing the medicinal value, Nepali doctors have been unable to prescribe medicines with cannabis.”
“Rice is used to make beer, and apple is used to make brandy but we don’t ban them,” Acharya says. “For a nation that wants to graduate from an underdeveloped to a developing country, progressive decisions need to be made to keep up with developed countries”.
