Kathmandu, Aug 26 (Inditop.com) With only four days left for a Supreme Court ultimatum to end, Nepal’s embattled Vice President Paramanada Jha, who triggered an unprecedented furore by taking his oath of office in Hindi last year, faced redoubled pressure Wednesday with both his own party and the Maoists asking him to quit.
The 65-year-old, who has been ordered by the apex court to be sworn in again in Nepali by Sunday or face dismissal, remained torn between two dire options as the snowballing language battle opened a fresh rift between Nepal’s elite hill communities and the disadvantaged residents of the Terai plains, known as Madhesis.
Former foreign minister Upendra Yadav, whose Madhesi Janadhikar Forum party had helped the ex-Supreme Court judge become republic Nepal’s first vice president, said Jha should resign rather than face the indignity of being forced to take his oath again in Nepali.
The Forum, which was the largest party in the plains before it split vertically this year, upholds the use of Hindi as the medium of official work in Nepal. It has proposed that the new constitution, scheduled to be promulgated next year, recognises Hindi as an official language, along with Nepali.
However, the other parties from the Terai that supported the demand are now standing behind the coalition government, in which they are partners. Their ministers have asked Jha to honour the court verdict and take his oath again.
The Maoists, Nepal’s largest party and now in the opposition, Wednesday said Jha should quit instead of knuckling down.
Maoist supremo and former prime minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda criticised the Supreme Court judgment. However, he and his party are not supporting the choice of Hindi for taking the oath of office and secrecy.
Instead, they are saying that Jha should take his oath in his mother tongue – which is Maithili and spoken by the largest number of people in Nepal after Nepali – or any other `people’s language’, like Bhojpuri or Awadhi.
Hindi is regarded in Nepal as the national language of India.
Though it is spoken widely in the Terai plains, the argument is that it is not the mother tongue of Terai, which predominantly speaks Maithili, followed by Bhojpuri and Awadhi.
Both the council of ministers as well as President Ram Baran Yadav have urged Jha to take the oath again in Nepali.
If he heeds the advice, the vice president will keep his job but lose his face since he had challenged the Supreme Court order, saying he could not be compelled to take the oath again in Nepali.
