Maoist Victory in Nepal: View From India
By J. Sri Raman
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Wednesday 16 April 2008
The Maoist victory in the April 10 Nepal elections to a Constituent Assembly has come as a shock to every victim of media-reinforced prejudice and propaganda. The elite in Nepal and the political establishments in countries around the world were caught unprepared by the popular support that "terrorists," who did not share a supposed Nepali reverence for a monarchy of self-proclaimed sacredness, had won.
In retrospect, this undemocratic assumption of these otherwise fervent devotees of "democracy" appears more surprising than the poll results themselves. Particularly notable is the surprise caused in India, the neighbor who ought to have known better. All the more so for the fact that what the results mean for the region will depend on the victors' relations with India.
New Delhi did seem to know better once. It took the Communist Party of Nepal - Maoist (CPN-M) seriously enough, after all, to broker a peace between it and the Seven-Party Alliance (SPA) led by the Nepali Congress of outgoing Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala. It did let top Maoist leader Pushpa Kumar Dahal, better known by his nom de guerre of Prachanda, and his deputy, Baburam Bhattarai, visit India on a well-publicized public relations mission in 2006.
The pre-poll assessment of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's government, however, showed a perceptible change. We do not know whether this was because of the public statement in 2006 of former US Ambassador to Nepal James Francis Moriarty that the Maoists would win only "very few seats" in case of polls. The India-US "strategic partnership" perhaps made New Delhi take seriously the declaration, noted in these columns then as an egregious example of diplomatic impropriety.
As the results started coming out, firmly sealed official lips represented the first reaction from the government, with the media close to it only voicing concern over the fate of the obviously unequal India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship, 1950, which the Maoists had promised in their manifesto to review and revise if returned to power. The past couple of days have seen a distinct shift in the stand, with the government preferring the positives of the situation, such as the impact the event is likely to have on the Maoist insurgents at home. This is a major component of the response of the mainstream, parliamentary Indian left to the Maoist victory as well.
Three different responses, in fact, make up India's reaction to the historic development in the Himalayan nation. The first, and perhaps the least noticed, is the impact on the Indian Maoists. No statement from the Communist Party of India (Maoist) has found its way into the media, but the outlawed party has not concealed its opposition to the policies and path pursued by the CPN-M over the past two years. The CPI (Maoist) has taken particular objection to the talk about the CPN-M's switch to the parliamentary path as a shining example for the armed left operating in some tribal areas of India.
In a rare interview in July 2006, a top CPI (Maoist) leader, known only by his nom de guerre of Azad, took strong exception to a reported observation of the CPN-M chief in this regard. Azad said: "It is really a matter of grave concern that Comrade Prachanda, instead of demanding (of) the expansionist Indian ruling classes to stop all interference and meddling in Nepal's internal affairs, only talked of how their tactics would bring about a change in the outlook of the Maoists in India. Needless to say, these remarks will not only be deeply resented by the revolutionary masses of our country who have seen the wretched system of parliamentary democracy in India, but will also be proved totally wrong through their revolutionary practice."
The Maoists' electoral victory would not have elated Azad. He warned: "There is need to beware from two situations: falling into any traps laid by the ruling classes and their imperialist and expansionist masters; second to beware of a sudden coup and massacre of communists as witnessed in Greece, Indonesia, Chile and a number of other countries." He added: "Even a huge mass base in these countries did not stop such massacres."
India's mainstream left does not share Azad's stand at all. Sitaram Yechury, a very visible leader of the Communist Parity of India (Marxist), the strongest of the parliamentary left parties on whose support the Singh government depends, visited Nepal in April 2006 and played a crucial role in bringing the CPN-M and the SPA together. In a media interview around the time, Yechuri explained the parliamentary left's purpose: "Drawing the [Nepalese] Maoists into the democratic mainstream is the biggest advantage that India will have in tackling its own internal Maoist problem."
Reiterating this position after the early poll results, Yechury has said: "The Maoists in Nepal have given up arms and participated in the elections, while their counterparts here are killing innocent people. If good sense prevails on them and people in general accept them in India, the leftists will welcome it."
Not everyone agrees. Ajai Sahani of the Institute of Conflict Management voices precisely the opposite view. Says he: "There is nothing positive for the Indian establishment in the election result in Nepal. It will provide a great inspiration and give a new intensity to the Indian Maoist movement."
India's far right, of course, has always taken a more militantly anti-Maoist stand. Responding to Yechury's statement in April 2006, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lal Krishna Advani said the Maoists should not, in fact, be allowed to influence the restoration of democracy in Nepal. He added: "This is for the sake of our own national interest....
India should try to help bring about normality in that country with the setting up of a constitutional monarchy and democracy which should be regarded as the two pillars, but only at the exclusion of the Maoist influence there."
As for the government, its spokespersons have been indulging in a flip-flop over the past few weeks. India's national security adviser, M. K. Narayanan, raised eyebrows on the eve of the elections by indicating a preference for the Nepali Congress over the Maoists (and possibly thus helping the latter's cause).
Much earlier, in August 2005, India's external affairs minister, Pranab Mukherjee, voiced concern that the situation in Nepal could "go out of hand" as the Nepalese army's efforts to crush a Maoist rebellion were proving ineffective. He added: "We are trying to impress upon (the Nepalese) government (the need) to tackle the Maoists. But, unfortunately, certain recent developments in that country, like the suppression of its constitution and the multi-party system, had set back anti-Maoist initiatives." He was referring to dismissal of the civilian government by King Gyanendra on February 1, 2005.
On December 18, 2006, the same Mukherjee said that the entry of Maoist rebels into Nepal's government following a peace deal "would encourage the extremists and the Maoists in other areas to join the national mainstream of politics." Asked whether the Maoists were still "untouchable" to New Delhi, he said: "Once the Maoists join the government, there is no question of not meeting them."
In his first official reactions to the poll results, Mukherjee welcomed the Maoist victory and declared that New Delhi is "better off with a democratically elected government in Nepal." He has more than hinted at sharing the left's hopes about the impact of the event on the Indian Maoists.
Given the constraints of the "strategic partnership," it may well be that Washington will influence significantly what will happen on the India-Nepal front in the future. The US policy itself would appear to be undecided, as of now.
Pressure for a more positive approach to the Maoists has been forthcoming from former US President Jimmy Carter, who was in Kathmandu recently and whose Carter Center had sent a 62-member team of election observers to Nepal.
Carter was quoted as telling the BBC: "It's been somewhat embarrassing to me and frustrating to see the United States refuse among all the other nations in the world, including the United Nations, to deal with the Maoists, when they did make major steps away from combat and away from subversion into an attempt at least to play an equal role in a political society."
"If the Maoists do gain a substantial share of power," he went on, "I hope the United States will recognize and do business with the government."
Hailing the elections as among the "most profoundly important" of the several he has witnessed, Carter said they marked "the end of a decade of political violence and the probable transformation of Nepal from a Hindu kingdom to a democratic republic." The ex-president went out of his way to defend the Maoists against charges of election-time violence.
Pressure of the opposite kind is being mounted by diehard royalists, refusing to accept the results and the prospect of a republican Nepal. Some organizations of US-based Nepalis - including the Nepali Nationalists Organization, Sanatan Dharma Sanskrit and Nepali Center and Motherland Nepal - have petitioned Sen. Joseph Biden, chairman of the US Senate Committee for Foreign Relations, practically calling for assistance in undoing the results.
The petition to Biden said, "the international community can minimize the tragedy that will unfold in a very near future" in Nepal as a result of the Maoist victory. This could be done, in the petitioners' view, "if Nepal's monarchy is saved and given continuation as the constitutional monarchy." They said: "Now, as the leading nation of the world, the US must make swift moves for containing the rise of communists in Nepal thereby spreading rapidly throughout the South Asian region...."
The peace movement in India cannot afford to ignore the peril such a response to the Maoist victory in Nepal can pose to the region.
A freelance journalist and a peace activist in India, J. Sri Raman is the author of "Flashpoint" (Common Courage Press, USA). He is a regular contributor to Truthout.
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