M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — A year ago, when the
government of India invited all major political formations in Nepal to an
"offer you can't refuse" conference in New Delhi, a sympathetic New
Delhi forced through a "democratic" alliance of eight parties that
would take over effective power from King Gyanendra, widely regarded as leaning
too close to China.
A short while back, 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, immediate steps
were taken to neuter the king of Nepal's powers by installing a
"democratic" government in place of the Gyanendra-led
"autocracy." Such was the headline. The 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, the Parliament expanded its
strength by a third, nominating the additional members mostly from the ranks of
the Maoists. It had been this armed group that had 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 had seen a succession of nominated prime
ministers, each chosen by King Gyandendra 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 had ascended the throne after
the reigning monarch, his brother Birendra, had been gunned down by his son the
Crown Prince in June 2001, and almost all of Kathmandu's inflential
"liberal" set believed him and not the apparently crazed Dipendra
guilty of the crime. The new king, unlike his brother, took a hard line against
the Maoists, and had he confined himself to them, may have retained the support
that the monarchy has historically had in Nepal. However, 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, 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 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.
Interestingly, even after the now-prostrate
King Gyanendra earned the hostility of India by his preference of Beijing's
regional interests over New Delhi's, China has now 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 and 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 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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