It was as expected--
comparable to all other forums but poor in terms of the ratio with the total
attendance of the convention.

Mine was less speech, more data.
So the attendants seem to be finding it educational.

And the panelist who
presented after mine also frequently referred to some of the data I presented.

One interesting anecdote is the
ex-minister and now the leader of ‘Terai-Madhes Democratic Party’, Mr. Sarbendranath
Shukla, who presented Madhesi issues had to refer to some of the unfriendly
data (to the cases he was supposed to make) from my presentation.

Here are two such slides.

and

Shuklaji did make a point
about a short list of ministers from Madhesi group compared to one from Pahadi
group (not shown). However, if you look at the surnames of the Madhesi minister
and compare that with the total population of those castes, they do not lag
much behind. At least they are enjoying much better representation than that of
the most unfortunate groups, dalits and muslims.

But the more important data
would be the representation of Madhesi group in the current Constituent
Assembly. As a bulk, they are represented absolutely proportionately.

But the most unfriendly (to
high caste Madhesi elite’s cause) data is the following splitting of high caste
Madhesis and dalit Madhesis’ representation.

High caste Madhesis is
actually enjoying disproportionately high representation in the Constituent
Assembly.

Terai populations and representation in Constituent Assembly:

Now, does some Madhesi
parties’ demand for ‘One Madhesh, One Pradesh’ make any sense ? Absolutely not.

And it was good to hear from
Sarbendranath Shuklaji at the forum that ‘One Madhes, One Pradesh’ is not an
immediate demand/agreement of Madhesis.

That’s all for now.

Nepe