Let's meddle in Nepal
By Mohan Guruswamy
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http://sify.com/news/international/fullstory.php?id=13689296 Wednesday, 09 March , 2005, 11:14
While excoriating Earl Russell in the House of Lords on February 4, 1864, Edward Stanley, Earl of Derby, had said, ?The foreign policy of the Earl may be summed up in two short homely but expressive words ? meddle and muddle.? This could as well be said about New Delhi?s policy response to the current situation in Nepal, which is more muddle than meddle. The muddle in South Block over Nepal is not due to the number of options. There is no un embarras de richesse, but a poverty of clarity.
Much of this is due to the sanctity accorded to the ideal of non-interference ? one of the Panchsheel enunciated by Jawaharlal Nehru. This is a good principle, especially when you don?t have the means to interfere or have a natural interest in another country. A few years ago, the US intervened in the tiny Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, not because it had any logical or natural interest in it but because it had the means. Some bright spark in Foggy Bottom then imaginatively justified it by suggesting that the silicon in Vanuatu?s beaches were of strategic interest to the US.
India has seven neighbours, including Nepal. Our relationship with each one of them is based on a different set of historical, geographical and cultural factors. But a generally shared perspective of history, and a substantially common culture, especially binds only Nepal and Sri Lanka to us. Between the two, geography binds Nepal closer to India while the Palk Strait ensures some distance with Sri Lanka. India has a 1,747-km border with Nepal and people of both countries can cross it freely without the sanction or permission of either state. The Nepal-India Treaty of 1950 allows the nationals of one country to have the same privileges in the matter of residence, ownership of property, participation in trade, commerce and employment in the other country. Thus, short of voting and contesting in elections, a Nepali has the rights and privileges of an Indian citizen.
While there are many Indians living in Nepal, a much larger number of Nepalis live in India. Researchers at Columbia University estimated in 1994 that as many as six million Nepalis live in India. Today, it is believed to be almost double that figure. According to a 1996 study by the US? Summer Institute of Linguistics, there are 9.9 million Nepali speakers in Nepal compared to six million in India. A United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-sponsored study of internal displacement of population as a consequence of the ?Maoist? insurgency states that since January 2003 the number of Nepalis entering India has been over 2,000 persons a day.
So, whatever the king of Nepal and the India-baiting Nepali upper class might have to say, what happens in Nepal is very much our business. King Gyanendra and his so-called aristocracy cannot hide behind the fig leaf of ?non-interference? while they go about oppressing the common people of Nepal. It is not just all right to meddle in Nepal; it is India?s duty to do so.
Understandably, even when there is no confusion in our minds, and god knows South Block is quite confused even at the best of times, the difficulty in choosing between policy options, even when there are not many, is directly proportional to the political cost of failure. As any card player will tell, the stakes involved determine choice. The king, by going ahead with the coup despite our expressed reservations, is forcing us to call or raise the stakes. We have to choose between one of three mutually-inimical parties. Neither of them is a particularly good option. Let?s take them one by one.
Supporting the king is the most undesirable option available. Most Nepalis believe that he has had a hand in the murder of King Birendra and his family, although the findings of the Commission of Inquiry headed by the Chief Justice of Nepal has laid the blame on an allegedly drug- and love-crazed Crown Prince Dipendra. On June 6, 2001, the Kathmandu daily Kantipur Post published a signed letter by the leader of the underground Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Baburam Bhattarai, in which he voiced his views on another royal hand in the murders other than that of the dead crown prince. So, we know what the Maoists think of this king. Within India, in North Block, there is much information available about the ?business? activities of Gyanendra: suffice to say that several of his Indian business associates are quite dubious, to say the least.
In the small political spectrum occupied by dictatorships, a despotic and kleptocratic monarchy is about the most wretched and deserves zero tolerance. The US might keep supporting the Saudi monarchy because of its business and economic compulsions, but we are not burdened with such considerations as far as Nepal is concerned. True, our democracy is now mostly a competition between political dynasties: nevertheless, it is very different from rule by a single dynasty without any popular sanction.
It is, therefore, quite ironic that only the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), given that it is one of the few political parties not burdened by a dynasty and with a definite view on it, supports the king of Nepal. To the Hindu traditionalist and fundamentalist, the king of Nepal is the living Hindu Samrat, and hence his place and person is sacred. This, of course, is nonsense.
Now, we have to see if we can support the so-called Maoists. I use the prefix ?so-called? quite deliberately as many experts are of the opinion that the CPN (M) is really an extreme nationalist group like the Sri Lankan Janatha Vimukhti Perumuna (JVP). Since the North Korea-supported uprising of April 1971 was crushed, with Indian assistance, the JVP has chosen to enter mainstream politics. Although its leader, Somawansa Amarasinghe, lives abroad, the JVP has contested elections at the regional and national levels. In 1994, it fielded Nihal Galappthhi for the Sri Lankan presidency, and in the April 2004 elections it won 39 seats to the Sri Lankan parliament and is now a partner in the Colombo government. That, in itself, suggests a policy option for us. Besides, the option of supporting the Nepalese insurgents does not arise, as otherwise we should be supporting our very own so-called Maoists who sustain the group in Nepal.
This leaves us just with a motley bunch of broad-based political parties and crooked politicians to support. That is the only democratic alternative in Nepal, as it is in India. Democracy comes with a heavy baggage of deadweight and, much as we would like to be without it, we have little choice but to live with it. That is the price we pay for all the freedoms we enjoy. And, hence, the only viable long-term strategy for a better and more just future is the process of gradual reform.
So what do we do next? First we must tell the king that we do not support him and the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) while they trample democracy in Nepal under their jackboots. This means withdrawing all assistance to the RNA and putting a tight control on all material entering Nepal. The Nepal establishment has played the China card for far too long and we should leave them the option of getting their supplies from Tibet. I don?t see much future for a communist China-supported king in Nepal. What would the world?s last communists living in Nepal and India then have to say about them?
We are fighting local wars with our so-called Maoists in five states, with only Andhra Pradesh marching to the beat of a different drum. The paradox is that without these Maoist movements, there would be little reform or change in many parts of India. If we have a minimum farm- and rural-wage regime prevailing in these states, and near eradication of the most blatant forms of social and economic oppression, it is because of these Naxalite movements. Since Parliament and our national media are least concerned about issues that affect the people, the great service that Naxalites do is that they bring to notice the disaffection among people. Naxalite violence wakes up the slothful and self-serving political system.
This is a great service that Naxalites do, but that doesn?t mean their violent politics and infantile economics is what the nation needs. The Nepal Maoists could, likewise, play a historically useful role by ridding Nepal of a hated king and an anachronistic monarchy. Thus, the first priority is to get rid of Gyanendra and gang. A reformist regime and military force can then force the CPN (M) into the mainstream.
In April 1951, Ernest Bevin wrote in The Spectator, ?My foreign policy is to be able to take a ticket at Victoria Station and go anywhere I damn well please.? How one wishes that Manmohan Singh and Natwar Singh would say that our foreign policy, for now, at least, would be for us to be able to take a bus from Delhi?s Interstate Bus Terminus and go anywhere in Nepal that we please. Dhaka and Karachi can come later.
From: Hardnews Syndication Service
