The Hindu Business Line : Uncertainty ahead in Nepal as Maoists sweep the polls

India will have to take a mature view on future relations with Nepal, and even consider renegotiating the 1950 Treaty with that country. More importantly, Prachanda will have to persuade India that he is no longer wedded to his 40-Point Programme of 1996, or committed to support for Maoist brethren in India, says G. PARTHASARATHY.

Pushpa Kamal Dahal, aka Prachanda, is an enigma to many Indians. Educated in elite universities in Chandigarh and New Delhi, he now seeks to portray himself as a moderate, determined to take Nepal forward as a democratic and federal republic. He professes to be realistic about relations with India and claims he wants equally good relations with both India and China.

While Prachanda speaks of an empathy with the ideological moorings of Indian Maoists, he asserts that violence cannot resolve political issues. This, after he led a bloody armed struggle for a decade between 1996 and 2006, in which 13,000 people are reported to have perished. This was a period when there was no dearth of evidence about Prachanda’s links with Maoists in India.

While there are differences about how New Delhi should respond to the challenge of a Maoist-led Government in Kathmandu, there can be no doubt that, like in Pakistan, our diplomatic and intelligence establishments have been horribly wrong in their assessments of emerging political development.

Questions are in order about whether cronyism and parochialism should prevail over experience and expertise in postings of senior diplomats to important neighbouring countries.

Hard reality

Those not given to sentimentalism recognise that across Nepal there is an almost pathological distrust of India. Successive monarchs have not hesitated to play the anti-India card and even political parties such as the Nepali Congress, not to speak of the mainstream CPN (UML), have found India bashing and attempting to play the so-called “China Card” useful political tools.

The monarchy has also played the “Hindu card”, to influence Indian opinion regularly, even as it sought to routinely adopt policies evoking Indian concern.

The hard reality is that in the recent elections, which have been internationally labelled as largely free and fair, the Maoists have secured precisely half the directly contested seats. This is a democratic verdict that cannot be ignored, whatever the reservations that distant powers may have about the Maoists.

Secondly, politicians and political parties in Nepal, including the Maoists, have shown remarkable maturity in reconciling differences. This was evident from agreements like the Seven Party Agreement of December 2007, which evolved an extremely innovative combination of ‘first past the post’ and proportional representation seats in the Constituent Assembly.

The Parties have also agreed on several Commissions on issues such as truth and reconciliation, human rights and the return of land captured illegally by the Maoists to their rightful owners. The process of Government formation and building a consensus is, however, not going to be easy and it remains to be seen how it will be competed in the scheduled two-and-a-half years.

One hopes that during this period, the Maoists will not be denied their rightful place in the Nepali polity and that they, in turn, will recognise the merit of working with others in a consensual manner.

With 26 seats yet to be filled by consensus in the Constituent Assembly, the Maoists have 220 seats, the Nepali Congress 110, the CPN (UML) 103 and the Madhes Parties around 85 seats, with 54 being held by the staunchly anti-Maoist Madhes Janadhikar Forum (MJF).

Madhesi demand

Prime Minister Koirala showed remarkable statesmanship in striking a deal with the Madhes Parties that provided for a federal state structure with an autonomous Madhesi State and proportional representation of marginalised communities into the Nepal Army.

The Maoists are not too pleased with this agreement, but will have to implement it, if they want to end decades of discrimination practiced by the monarchy against a disenfranchised and disempowered Madhes population. The Madhes region, bordering UP and Bihar, where a substantial proportion of Nepal’s industries are located, has become a hotbed of intrigue, violence and caste, ethnic and religious rivalries.

India, which wields influence in this bordering region, should categorically reject the outrageous demands for “self-determination” by the Madhes groups, while advocating substantial devolution of powers in a federal polity.

We could well be faced with a situation worse that the ethnic conflict in Sri Lanka, with no dearth of clones of Velupillai Prabhakaran emerging on the scene, if this issue is not sensitively handled.

The other issue on which India can help is the transition process in building a new Nepalese Army whose loyalty is not to the discredited monarchy, whose days are numbered, but to the new Constitution of Nepal. While individuals from Maoist cadres could be absorbed into the army, Prachanda would be well advised to avoid seeking integration of his cadres in separate units of the new armed forces.

The bulk of his cadres will have to be suitably integrated into the national life of Nepal, and India would be well advised to work with the international community to raise the necessary financial resources for this process. The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) played a useful role in both the management of arms surrendered by the Maoists and in the election process.

But some of its members were reportedly less than neutral and some even provocative, in fomenting religious and ethnic separatism. It is time the size of the UNMIN was drastically reduced and confined to the management and custody of arms surrendered by the Maoists.

India view

India will have to take a mature view on future relations with Nepal. We have to recognise that the provisions of the 1950 Treaty are justifiably regarded by most Nepalese as unequal. We should be prepared to renegotiate this Treaty in much the same manner as we have done with Bhutan. Likewise, Nepalese do naturally retain bitter memories of the way past river water projects on the Kosi and Gandak were tardily implemented, much to their disadvantage. There will naturally be reservations in Nepal about implementing the Mahakali Treaty of 1996. These will have to be addressed.

At the same time one hopes the Nepalese will realise that they will be the biggest losers if they choose to delay benefiting from hydro-electric projects with India, disregarding how Bhutan has benefited from such co-operation.

Prachanda, claiming to be a realist, says he recognises that as India accounts for around 50 per cent of Nepal’s global trade and is its largest economic partner, Nepal’s problems of unemployment and economic stagnation cannot be addressed unless he pragmatically chooses a path of constructive co-operation with India.

Despite rhetoric about regulating movements across the border, Prachanda cannot ignore the fact that millions on Nepalese live and work in India enjoying the same rights and privileges as their Indian counterparts.

And while the Maoists may feel that Nepali citizens serving in the Indian army portrays an image of them as mercenaries, they cannot ignore that fact that the six Gurkha regiments in the Indian Army do provide Nepal citizens an opportunity to live and work with dignity, in a friendly neighbouring country.

More importantly, Prachanda will have to persuade India that he is indeed a changed man, no longer wedded to his doctrinaire 40-Point Programme of 1996, or committed to support for his Maoist brethren in India. India, in turn, will have to engage Nepal constructively to help it on its path towards becoming a federal, democratic republic.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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