Opinion Neighbour’s choice

Declaring India an enemy by a political party,and a faction within it opposing that line,will not necessarily have consequences for India or for Nepal as there are other crucial factors that determine and dictate the bilateral relationship. And in that context whether Bhattarai should be treated differently from Prachanda will ultimately have to be decided by his actions,and not words alone. He will be judged on whether he will work for democracy without violence,or whether he will still go for a people’s republic that he’s advocated more vigorously than Prachanda himself did during the past four years of the peace process.

As the United Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) prepares to depart any time after a week from now,without a settlement on the issue of the integration of Maoist combatants and on their arms,what happens after its exit remains a big question,especially because the parties in the peace process have failed to work out a clear mechanism. The UCPN-M believes India would want to fill the vacuum that the UNMIN’s departure would create.

Almost coinciding with the UNMIN’s impending exit,India is suddenly exhibiting heightened concern about Nepal’s affairs. Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao’s forthcoming visit is likely to be followed by External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna’s. A 20-member contingent of Nepali parties — including those that do not see eye to eye — left for Delhi on January 5 to participate in track two talks on the way forward for Nepal,but Nepal’s constitution-making and peace processes perhaps cannot be retrieved so easily.

One question that Indian authorities of late have been asking the Nepali side in formal and informal gatherings is: what can India do to bring the peace process on track? But an honest way out would be hard to find unless India admits it’s been involved in each and every crucial phase of Nepal’s peace process — from authoring the 12-point programme in November 2005,to bringing Maoists and the other Nepali parties together and ending the monarchy.

India also needs to assure the international community as well as Nepalis that the interest it showed and the role it played in Nepal were in good faith. After all,it was India that had convinced the international community of the Maoists’ commitment to peace and democracy.

With the peace and constitution-making processes more uncertain than ever before,Nepal’s politics is showing early signs of a three-way polarisation. First: ultra-left groups from various communist parties,mainly the Maoists,are preparing to regroup with the plea,“Give us power or we will snatch it anyway.” Second: some anti-Maoist groups in the ruling alliance are mooting this idea and President Rambaran Yadav has not turned it down completely,that as there is no possibility of forming the government and conducting its business as per the norms of the interim constitution,let the Nepal army back the president as head of the executive so that any possible armed rebellions may be crushed.

Third: as the post-2006 politics has failed and chances of the new constitution being delivered within the extended deadline of May 28,2011,appear almost impossible and the coalition for peace and the new constitution stands almost fragmented,conventional forces are fast regrouping to seek a revival of the constitution of 1991 that favoured constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy. There are demands that a round-table conference of all political parties,and including the former king,Gyanendra,be called to find a way out of the current impasse. Incidentally,it was former Prime Minister K.P. Bhattarai,the lone surviving founding member of the Nepali Congress,who first demanded the revival of the 1991 constitution “to save the country from disintegration” and outside diktats.

Of course,such a tussle among different political forces,if sorted out democratically with the people’s mandate,could consolidate democracy. But that’s a big if.