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 Home » Constitution Design » Questions for constitution makers in Nepal » Inclusion

What is Inclusion?


This is a large topic! Inclusion was a demand of the jana andolan II in 2006. And the various agreements, including the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, as well as the Interim Constitution have promised "inclusion". Many people have used the expression "inclusive democracy" to indicate the sort of system they want to see in Nepal.

The Interim Constitution says "Nepal is an independent, indivisible, sovereign, secular, inclusive and fully democratic State". Article 33 says that the government must "carry out an inclusive, democratic and progressive restructuring of the State"; and changes must "enable Madhesi, Dalits, indigenous ethnic groups, women, labourers, peasants, the physically impaired, disadvantaged classes and disadvantaged regions to participate in all organs of the State structure on the basis of proportional inclusion". The "principle of inclusiveness shall be taken into consideration by political parties" when selecting candidates of the geographical constituency election for the Constituent Assembly (click here for information on that election system). Political parties must have "provision for the inclusiveness of members from neglected and oppressed groups including women and Dalits in the executive committees at various levels". The army's "inclusive character" must be developed.

All this suggests that many people were feeling excluded by the Nepal state. These feelings were felt especially by tribal communities (janjatis), Madhesis from the Terai region, Dalits and women. Other groups that have been identified are the poor of any community, and farmers.

Why did so many groups feel that the 1990 Constitution, which has been often praised, did not promote inclusion? You might be interested to read a paper on Ethnicity and the 1990 Constitution, which discusses some aspects of this.

The question: what can a constitution do to promote inclusion? Various ways are being discussed in Nepal, or may be discussed in the future:

  • Electoral systems that ensure a wide range of candidates and members of the legislature
  • Rules that require or encourage political parties to have a wide range of candidates
  • Federalism - that might give people more control over decision making that affects them in their own areas
  • Local government that also brings decision making closer to the people
  • Rules that require public institutions to reflect the ethnic and other make-up of the country in their recruitment
  • Fair administration that takes accounts of the needs of all members of the society
  • Rights of minorities, including to the exercise of their religion
  • Language rights

Some of these topics are discussed elsewhere in this website. You can click here to go to the section on women, the section on federalism, the section on political parties, and the section of electoral systems (which will be expanded shortly). There will be material on the other topics in the list above in the near future.

On the topic of language you can look at a PowerPoint presentation by Professor Sujit Choudhry of the University of Toronto.

  • Some of the CASU conferences have been very relevant to issues of Inclusion. One of these was the conference on Restructuring of the State and Federalism. The report of this conference will be published soon. Meanwhile you can read the background paper for the conference in English and Nepali.
  • Another important area of inclusion is in the composition of the Constituent Assembly. This was an important theme of the first CASU national Conference on Constitution Making in Nepal; you can see the full report on this site. You can also read about participation in the constitution making process, and also about the election system for the Constituent Assembly that is intended to ensure wide representation.


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