Opinion It was the foreign hand
S.M. Krishna and Gen. Deepak Kapoor are back in Delhi after their official visits to Nepal. Krishna promised all help leaving it to the Nepalese...
S.M. Krishna and Gen. Deepak Kapoor are back in Delhi after their official visits to Nepal. Krishna promised all help leaving it to the Nepalese to decide its kind in the completion of the peace process and that of constitution writing. But this visit also marked the high pitched anti-Indian tirade launched by the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M),with its chairman Prachanda announcing that India is out to use the Nepal army to expand its hegemonic and expansionist design in Nepal.
There may not be too many takers and widespread support to the Prachanda line of nationalism,with anti-Indianism as the most dominant dimension of it,but the failure of Indias Nepal policy in the past four years,is something widely talked about and acknowledged in Nepal. After all,it was India thats generally perceived and officially acknowledged by none other than Pranab Mukherjee as having brought Nepali Maoists and the pro-democracy parties together on the pro-republic agenda. There are political parties and a section of the Nepali intelligentsia that believes that involving Nepali people in fundamental shifts from monarchy to republic,from Hindu Nepal to secularism and from unitary to federalism was a mistake,and they have started blaming the key Nepali actors as well as India. And India bashing gets further legitimacy after the man India pampered,promoted and patronised all this while said publicly and literally that India treats Nepal like a colony. S.M. Krishna may have tried to politely deny Prachandas charge when the two met,but that has not stopped Prachanda from continuing with his campaign.
Nepals peace process is fragile,and its inability to have the new constitution promulgated by the May 28 deadline is not only likely to bring Nepals legitimacy into question in the world outside,but internally there will be questions raised about the validity of the changes that the 2006 mass movement brought about. Maoists have already said India wants President Rambaran Yadav to takeover with the help of the Nepal army,but that seems neither constitutionally nor practically feasible. In brief,chances of fundamental shifts look hard to institutionalise.
Prachandas anti-India campaign,on the face of it,may look like something inspired and endorsed by China,but he is certainly banking on the value of anti-Indian propaganda that sells in Nepal. Chinas growing presence in Nepal and its insistence in a treaty of peace and friendship signed with Nepal (almost at par with the one that exists between Nepal and India) is telling. By discarding his long association with Baburam Bhattarai,the partys ideologue and main architect of the Maoist and pro-democracy parties alliance in close consultation with India,Prachanda indicates that he is keen to form a new political alliance in Nepal provided China supports and endorses it.
In that move,Prachanda is smartly trying to bring together all the individuals if not parties who for one reason or the other are unhappy with India. Nepali Congress leader G.P. Koirala has of late,been in favour of China and India working jointly on Nepals political stability. But all these moves appear tactical to usurp power.
Bhattarai has taken up cudgels against Prachanda,but he has also made his prime ministerial ambitions clear and public. When Prachanda was blaming India,Baburam declared from another platform that neither the peace process nor the constitution-writing will be completed within the deadline without Maoists heading the government. And certainly,he was speaking for himself this time. Gen. Kapoor and Minister Krishnas assessment and the anti-Indianism they saw in Nepal may influence their respective institutions that Indias Nepal policy needs a thorough review. But it is perhaps time that Delhi at least lets Nepalis know what was the commitment it secured from the Maoists in private and orally before it initiated drastic policy changes. From G.P. Koirala to Prachanda,the visible faces that assembled in Delhi to sign the 12-point agreement that talked about a peaceful,democratic,republican and economically-prosperous Nepal,are now pointing their fingers towards Delhi for all that has gone wrong.
yubharaj.ghimire@expressindia.com
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