It is argued that development failure, together with corruption and shortsightedness of the ruling elite, has provided fertile grounds for the civil war in Nepal. Development efforts in Nepal in the past five decades have failed to touch the poor and have contributed to a rise in unemployment, poverty, and rural–urban inequality, which significantly increased frustration and resentment among disadvantaged youth in the rural and remote areas, leading to the eruption of the civil war. The war could have been avoided if political leaders and ruling elite had a vision for the country, intellectual depth to understand the consequences of socio-economic exclusion, and appropriate strategy to address them.
For decades, political scientists and anthropologists have argued that the lack of political freedom and ethnic discrimination can increase the intensity of grievances, leading to civil unrest. While there might be some truth in this, the causation running from failed development strategies to political tension and ethnic discrimination has been largely ignored in the debate. Economists have recently argued that failed development strategies perhaps contribute to political greed and ethnic discrimination, which then turn into civil unrest (Abeyratne, 2004, Bardhan, 1997, Collier, 1999, Collier et al., 2003, FitzGerald, 2001, Richardson, 2005 and UNCTAD, 2004). However, studies investigating the causes of civil war in developing countries are sparse. To the best of our knowledge, Collier and Hoeffler (2002) is the first comprehensive study to address this issue in the cross-sectional framework using the literature from political science, anthropology, and economics.1 Their results suggest that economic factors are the major predictors of civil war, not ethnic diversity, and/or political suppression. While cross-country studies are useful in providing an “average” picture, their findings must be taken with caution, given that developing countries in general and least developed countries (LDCs) in particular differ significantly among themselves (Appendix A presents key features of LDCs that have experienced civil war since 1990s). What may be true for one country may not hold for another. This problem associated with the cross-sectional studies can be overcome through the case study approach, which can provide useful insights for the policy debate, taking into account each country’s structural features and policy history.
There is clear evidence that development failure, together with corruption and shortsightedness of ruling elite, has provided fertile grounds for the ongoing civil war in Nepal. Development efforts in Nepal in the past five decades have failed to touch the poor and contributed to a rise in unemployment, poverty, and rural–urban inequality, which significantly increased frustration and resentment among, disadvantaged youth in the rural and remote areas. This enabled the Maoists to mobilize disadvantage youth from the rural and remote areas to fight against the political and economic system, leading to the eruption of civil war since the mid-1990s.
The war could have been avoided if political leaders and ruling elite had a vision for the country, intellectual depth to understand the consequences of socio-economic exclusion and appropriate strategy to address them. Instead of trying to understand the roots of conflict, political leaders and ruling elite are heavily deploying armed forces to crush the Maoist rebels without realizing that brutal methods, far from defeating them, have in fact increased support for them because they do not address the root causes of conflict. The Maoists are too strong to lose the war unless there is a credible policy commitment to substantial social and economic transformation in rural and remote areas as part of the negotiation process. In reality, a decade long war led by the Maoists is against the failed development, and it cannot be won by military means alone.
