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.
