Cold questions for embattled
Nepal By Dhruba Adhikary
KATHMANDU - Nepal's capital on Wednesday
appeared like a city under seize, with shops
closed and serpentine lines of vehicles in front
of gas stations. Few residents, already struggling
to survive cold winter days and nights amid power
interruptions of eight hours a day, had expected
supply lines cut a week before to remain severed
for so long.
Bitter experience prompts
residents to blame what is effectively a blockade
on the country's Maoists and their militant wing,
Young Communist League (YCL), whose president on
February 7 said it was capable of "capturing" the
entire Kathmandu valley in just five minutes. The
use of threat and intimidation continues even as
the country is preparing for elections scheduled
for April 10.
Yet the "credit" for
effectively disrupting supply lines to
Kathmandu, the seat of
Nepal's political powers, is being taken by a
coalition of three parties which were formed in
recent months. The parties, together with some
armed groups, are based in the country's southern
plains, the Terai region, bordering mainly with
the Indian states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
Six demands they have advanced include
"autonomy with right to self-determination" for
the entire region. Interim Prime Minister Koirala
and his coalition partners read secessionist tenor
in this demand, and appear unwilling to meet it at
least until the elections to the Constituent
Assembly are held.
There is a perception
that the Terai groups would not have been able to
impose a blockade on the capital and the rest of
the country if they had not been encouraged and
aided by the government in India.
Unlike
in the late 1980s, when Indian authorities
directly imposed a trade and transit blockade to
take revenge on Nepal for having imported some of
its military supplies from China, the blockade
this time has been applied indirectly - through
Terai groups.
The possibility that leaders
of these groups are being handled by New Delhi has
to be seen in the context of their frequent
meetings with the Indian ambassador in Kathmandu,
some of which have been reported by Nepal's
electronic media. One such meeting was brought to
the public notice by a television channel on
February 20.
Only a week ago, an Indian
delegation led by Congressman Digvijaya Singh
visited Kathmandu when Singh's public statements
said India favored neither monarchy nor any other
particular group among Nepal's disputing political
factions, and that New Delhi would welcome a
decision by the people of Nepal. This public
posture resembled to the approach from Beijing.
But what is happening on the ground is different.
The visiting Indian politician, for instance,
assured Mahantha Thakur, chairman of the recently
formed Tarai-Madhes Loktantrik Party, in private
conversation that he wished that their six-point
demand be fulfilled. Thakur himself revealed this
information to the media.
His party,
together with other two, has decided to stay away
from the hustings. India's role - some call it
outright interference - in recent times has been
pervasive. In a media interaction a few weeks ago,
Interim Prime Minister Koirala said that the
problems created in Terai could be resolved "in a
minute" if India offered sincere cooperation.
His remarks apparently made New Delhi
unhappy as they gave credence to public
perceptions that the Indian authorities have a
hand in the Terai unrest. "I have told India and
the UN that I will not compromise on [Nepal's]
sovereignty and integrity," Koirala stated at a
high level meeting of the party he heads, Nepali
Congress, on February 17.
Even so, a noted
Nepali columnist described Koirala recently as a
"puppet" of India. Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka
Prachanda) leader of the Communist Party of Nepal
(Maoist) and of the People's Liberation Army
(PLA), the military wing of CPN (M), is equally
uncomfortable with the meddlesome role that New
Delhi is playing. Like Koirala, he too thinks the
Terai agitation would not be sustained "even for a
minute" if India stopped supporting those
associated with it. In a public meeting held on
February 12, Prachanda also accused Nepal's
discredited palace and Americans for having
instigated Terai groups. Prachanda and some of his
comrades-in-arm obtained shelter in India during
the "people's war" they conducted in Nepal. He
spent eight of 10 years up to 2006 in India.
Prachanda's assessment coincides with an
analysis based on the views of the India's main
opposition party, BJP, that the Manmohan Singh
government has "outsourced" its Nepal policy to
its communist coalition partner and leader Sitaram
Yechuri. And, as far as Washington is concerned,
it outsourced its Nepal policy to New Delhi, in
bid to lure Indians into the fold of strategic
partnership. Americans also found it expedient to
help India to contain China - Nepal's neighbor to
the north. Nobody knows how and when Beijing will
react to all these developments.
Meanwhile, another dimension surfaced on
Tuesday when the constitutionally sidelined King
Gyanendra issued a message to the nation asking
his countrymen to pay attention to safeguard
Nepal's integrity, independence and nationalism.
The occasion was Democracy Day, which
reminded the people of the country's first attempt
at democracy in 1951. In the message, Gyanendra
described his grandfather, Tribhuvan, as the
architect of democracy. And the message was made
public in His Majesty's name. The interim
constitution does not have provision for the
monarchy. Parties promoting a pro-republican
agenda, including Maoist leaders, denounced the
move and have seen it as a part of a Western
conspiracy to prevent them from reaching power.
By alluding to Nepal's integrity,
independence and nationalism, Gyanendra appeared
to be telling Nepalis that he too sees a threat to
the existence of Nepal as an independent country.
Those who continue to support the monarchy in
Nepal (simultaneously being critical of Gyanendra
and his son Paras) hastily cite the sequence of
events in Sikkim in the 1970s - the Himalayan
territory was eventually annexed by India, in
1974. First, the Sikkimese people were encouraged
to get rid of their monarchy, then an elected
assembly was prodded to pass a resolution seeking
merger with India. Being a part of India,
Sikkimese did get democracy, and lost their
country in the process.
Nepal's larger
size and status, analysts contend, is not
comparable with Sikkim's; not even with Bhutan's.
But they do agree that a separatist movement in
Terai needs to be read in the context of what
happened in Kosovo, with its declaration of
independence from Serbia, earlier this week.
The upshot of it all is that Nepal should
be allowed to emerge as a stable democracy. The
beneficiary would be Nepalis as well as both the
countries in their neighborhood. The sooner the
neighbors realize this, the better.
Dhruba Adhikary is a
Kathmandu-based journalist.
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