M.D. Nalapat
MANIPAL, India, June 26 (UPI) -- A year
ago, when the government of India invited all major political groups in Nepal
to a conference in New Delhi, a sympathetic New Delhi forced through an
alliance of eight parties that would take over effective power from King
Gyanendra, seen widely as leaning too close to China.
By then, the king had destroyed what
little support he had within India's ruling United Progressive Alliance
government by sponsoring a resolution at the South Asia Association for
Regional Cooperation summit in Dacca calling for China's entry into SAARC as an
"observer." Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka backed the move enthusiastically.
Had the previous National Democratic
Alliance regime not lost power in the 2004 general elections, India at this
stage would have exercised a quiet veto, thus returning the suggestion to cold
storage. However, the Congress-led UPA depends for its parliamentary majority
on the Communist parties and hence could not oppose a move backed by the
majority of SAARC countries.
After the summit, however, steps were
taken to neuter the king of Nepal's powers by installing a supposed democracy
in place of the Gyanendra-led autocracy. Yet reality was that the very Nepali
Parliament that had been dissolved by the king in 2002 was brought back to
life, in the opinion of constitutional experts, illegally. The members of this
"elected" Legislature last faced an election in 1999.
Once revived, Parliament expanded its
strength by a third, nominating the additional members mostly from the ranks of
the Maoists. It was this armed group that stymied repeated efforts to hold
elections since former Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba dissolved Parliament
in 2002 to head off certain defeat in a no-confidence motion brought against
him. Since then, Nepal has seen a succession of nominated prime ministers, each
chosen by King Gyanendra after the previous incumbent finally admitted defeat
in his efforts at holding elections in a country where the Maoists killed any
candidate not sympathetic to them.
A series of disastrous attempts by the
Royal Nepal Army to put down the insurgency by force failed, and by the time
the Maoists formally entered the government (courtesy of the government of
India), they controlled more than 70 percent of the land area of the country
but a much smaller share of popular support. It was this disproportion between
popular support and control over territory that fuelled their violent campaign
against political opponents, a situation that continues in most parts of the
country.
India already backed the Maoists, thanks
to the patronage of the Communist bloc within the Indian Parliament, and it was
not long before several European states, led by those hardy do-gooders the
Norwegians, began supporting this "democratic" force against what was
admittedly a dysfunctional and oppressive monarchy.
King Gyanendra ascended the throne after
the reigning monarch, his brother Birendra, was gunned down by his son, the
crown prince, in June 2001. The new king, unlike his brother, took a hard line
against the Maoists. But Gyanendra regarded all groups other than those
sponsored by the palace with distaste, and after three years of ruling behind a
succession of puppet prime ministers he took direct charge of the
administration two years ago, thus making enemies of even non-republican
political parties, who saw their hopes for a return to office extinguished by
the move.
The communist-driven support of India's
Manmohan Singh's government to the Maoists forced the democratic political
formations in Nepal to accept the guerrillas as senior partners in the
government that was sworn in a year ago, after a Legislature dissolved in 2002
was miraculously brought back to life in 2006.
Now, China has established contact with
the Maoists, and there is dizzy talk in the salons of Kathmandu of a so-called
natural alliance between the guerrillas and the country that was the home of
Mao Zedong and has been run by the Communist Party since 1949.
Not surprisingly, their ideology and
their newfound affiliation to the only U.S. rival in Asia have resulted in a
distancing of Washington from its usual European partners. If King Gyanendra is
still in occupation of Kathmandu's Narayanhiti Palace today -- although not of
much else -- it is because U.S. envoy James F. Moriarty publicly protested
against a resolution calling for the abolition of the monarchy, which was
passed last fortnight with an overwhelming majority by a Parliament that had
one-third of its members nominated by those who last faced election in 1999.
India, of course, said nothing, although
by now the efforts of the Maoists to prevent a free election have become too
visible to ignore. After three years of paralysis induced by fear of the ruling
coalition's Communist Party backers, India's Foreign Ministry is finally
awakening to the reality that the ongoing takeover of Nepal by the Maoists
would create another China client in India's neighborhood, following the
example of Pakistan, Bangladesh and -- until recently -- Sri Lanka.
Expectedly, the "democratic"
government in Kathmandu has let slip the promised June 2007 deadline for the
holding of fresh elections and is now talking of a November deadline. The fear
among some analysts is that the Maoists will prevent the holding of polls till
they can ensure conditions that would make the election as "free" as
the many that were held in Soviet-bloc countries from 1950 to 1990. Only united
action by India and the United States can ensure that it is the people of Nepal
rather than sundry authoritarians who decide the future of their country.
Nepal is close to a breaking point, and
unless a democratic process is carried out swiftly, the risk of a civil war
will rise to a level that may make such chaos inevitable.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is vice chair of
the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO peace chair and professor of
geopolitics at Manipal University.)
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