While waging an all-out war against the Maoist insurgents, the Nepalese government seeks support from India, where many rebel leaders are reportedly enjoying a safe haven. A formidable regional power and an active member of the international coalition against terrorism, will India cooperate with its small neighbor during this hour of crisis? And on what terms?
By BHAGIRATH YOGI
As Radio Nepal and Nepal Television broadcast the news Thursday evening that Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba was going to visit India in a week’s time, his first foreign trip since assuming office eight months ago, many people were surprised on two counts. First, the state media went against the tradition of announcing an official visit of the premier at least two weeks in advance. Secondly, the normally cautious official media quoted “highly placed sources”.
At a time when parliament was in session, intra-party feud was peaking and security forces were engaged in a decisive fight against the Maoist insurgents, Kathmandu’s intelligentsia turned critical of the timing and motive of the premier’s visit. Many believed the Indian government’s preoccupation with the Ayodhya crisis and flare-up of communal violence would not provide a congenial environment for substantive discussions between the two heads of government.
PM Deuba : Testing times
PM Deuba : Testing times
Ignoring domestic criticism, Prime Minister Deuba dashed to New Delhi on Wednesday on a six-day visit (March 20-26). Matters of bilateral interest, including terrorism and law and order, are expected to be discussed, official reports said.
Before embarking on a visit to Mexico to take part in the UN conference on financing international development on Friday, Finance Minister Dr. Ram Sharan Mahat, who has frequently donned the foreign minister’s cap under the Deuba administration, said the Maoist insurgency would figure during Deuba’s visit. “The Maoists are a part of the network of global terrorism. As they have close links with different Maoist outfits in India, India’s cooperation is essential to resolve the insurgency,” he added.
Mahat’s remarks immediately invited sharp criticism from foreign-relations experts. “The Maoist insurgency is our domestic problem. So we should try to find a solution within the country and not look for foreign assistance,” said Kamal Thapa, a former foreign minister and spokesman of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP). “There is no rationale for the prime minister’s visit now. The timing is unsuitable, not only from a diplomatic point of view, but also for touristic purposes.”
Agreed Dr. Jayaraj Acharya, a former permanent representative to the United Nations: “The Maoist insurgency is our internal problem. So, rather than seeking help from the neighboring country, we should attempt to resolve it internally.” While officials insist that Deuba’s visit to New Delhi was being worked out through diplomatic channels for the last six months, analysts say it might be the logical conclusion of a government that has mobilized all its resources and security apparatus to fight the insurgency.
Despite the government’s efforts to contain the rebellion, hundreds of heavily armed Maoist insurgents mounted attacks at Mangalsen, the district headquarters, and an airport tower at Sanphebagar in the far-western district of Achham on February 16, killing over 150 people – including 55 Royal Nepalese Army soldiers, the single biggest assault made by the rebels in the last six years. They set on fire almost all the government offices at the district headquarters, butchered security forces, looted a local bank and killed innocent civilians.
What shocked many was the ferocity of the rebel attacks despite the “cordon-and-searchñand-destroy” operations of security forces during the three-month-old state of insurgency. In the aftermath of the attacks, parliament – with more than a two-thirds majority – decided to extend the state of emergency by another three months (till June 2002) to allow the army a free hand in fighting the insurgency. Though Royal Nepalese Army – known for its professionalism, discipline and bravery all over the world – has waged an all-out war against the insurgents, lack of credible intelligence and inadequate supplies, among other things, have hindered its operations, analysts said. Moreover, the Maoist guerrillas continue to engage the security forces through their “hit-and-run” tactics in the areas surrounding their strongholds.
Tribhuwan Rajpath : Path of Friendship
Tribhuwan Rajpath : Path of Friendship
Said Satchit Shumsher JB Rana, a former chief of the Royal Nepalese Army, “Unlike a regular army, terrorists do not fight from a single fixed position. If they continue to keep their supply lines open, the war could stretch.” Added Dipta Prakash Shah, a retired Brigadier General of the Royal Nepalese Army and a royal nominee in the Upper House of parliament,” “Nowhere in the world can an insurgency be contained by keeping the border open.”
Led by Comrade Prachanda (alias Pushpa Kamal Dahal), a graduate in agriculture, who has never made a public appearance in his over two-decade-long political life, the Maoist party has emerged as the most formidable challenge to the 12-year-old democratic dispensation of the Himalayan kingdom. Killing teachers, political activists, and private citizens have become part of the Maoist strategy to fight with the government. Of late, they have also started targeting and destroying telecom towers, power stations and government buildings. Minister for Information and Communications Jaya Prakash Prasad Gupta said the Maoists have destroyed telecom infrastructure worth Rs 200 million so far, resulting in an annual revenue loss of an equal amount of money.
The insurgency has had a very negative impact on the economy of a country that has a per capita income of US$ 220. Tourist arrivals have dipped to an all-time low. Businesses are facing a slump and no new investment is coming in. The government has diverted its scarce resources to finance the rising security budget.
During much of the six years of insurgency, Kathmandu-based intelligentsia was content arguing that the Maoist insurgency had surfaced in protest against growing corruption, widespread poverty and social discrimination. Even as the rebels were overpowering ill-equipped and ill-motivated police posts around the country, an influential section of the Nepalese media treated the rebels as “heroes and heroines” who were fighting a “romantic war” in the 21st century.
Neither the media nor the intellectuals took notice when then-prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala, while announcing his resignation last year, declared that the Maoist insurgency was a threat to Nepal’s national security.
It was only after the rebels unilaterally pulled out of four months of ëpeace talks’ and attacked an army barracks in Dang on November 23 last year that the government deemed it fit to “expose their real motives. The Defense Ministry said the insurgency was targeted against national security and aimed at overthrowing the political system and constitutional monarchy.
Nepal’s immediate neighbors, India and China, as well the United States, Britain and other countries condemned the resumption of Maoist attacks that led to the imposition of the state of emergency. In a statement issued in late November, India supported the declaration of emergency, terming it a necessary step by a democratic government to preserve order.
The government of India was firmly convinced that Nepal’s constitutional monarchy and multiparty democracy provided the necessary space to accommodate divergent political opinions, the statement said. “India would not allow its territory to be used by those inimical to Nepalese interests,” said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Nirupama Rao in New Delhi. Security forces of the two countries were in close contact to prevent the rebels from crossing over to bordering Indian states, she said.
Weeks after Nepal declaring the Maoists as terrorists, the Indian government also declared two Maoist outfits, the People’s War Group (PWG) and Maoist Coordination Center (MMC) as terrorists and banned all the activities of their 25 affiliated organizations.
Indian state police of Uttar Pradesh raided and sealed two shops at Gorakhpur on charges of supplying huge quantity of chemicals and weapons to Nepalese Maoists. The Indian police also imprisoned four people arrested from near the Indo-Nepal border while carrying weapons, reports said.
During his visit to Kathmandu to take part in the 11th SAARC Summit earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee reiterated his government’s willingness to provide “every possible assistance” to Nepal in its fight against terrorism. The Indian government provided two “Cheetah” helicopters to the Royal Nepalese Army as a gift. Nepal also procured military hardware and logistic support from India after the proclamation of the emergency, reports said.
The Indian Connection
It remained an open secret, nevertheless, that Nepalese Maoists were maintaining close links with Maoist groups and other insurgent outfits in India, receiving training and supplies. The Hindustan Times daily reported last month that Nepalese Maoists procured semi-automatic weapons worth millions of rupees from the People’s War Group “which the PWG had looted from the military barracks.”
It was only after the much talked about “Siliguri visit” by senior Nepalese communist leaders, including leader of the main opposition CPN-UML Madhav Kumar Nepal, early last year to meet Prachanda and his comrades at Champasari in West Bengal state of India that the issue of Nepalese Maoists enjoying safe haven in India came to the full public glare. “Late B.P. Koirala (while in exile) could not have even thought of the lavish lifestyle which Mr. Prachanda enjoys in his Indian hideout,” said a Nepalese communist leader, who had traveled all the way to Siliguri to call on the “Communist revolutionary” leader.
By choosing Kolkata, the capital of communist-ruled West Bengal state, as the only place outside New Delhi, Prime Minister Deuba has hinted that Nepal wants close collaboration with neighboring Indian states in its fight against insurgency. Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Arjun Jung Bahadur Singh called on West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharya earlier this month to seek his help. Bhattacharya, whose party had suppressed the Naxalite movement in the seventies, offered his full support to the Nepalese government.
After the West Bengal government stepped up pressure against them, Nepalese Maoists have lowered their activities in the state, reports said. But they are conducting their activities freely not only in the bordering states of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Uttaranchal but also in Sikkim and New Delhi, sources said. The Maoists have also developed contacts with Assam’s ULFA rebels and the LTTE of Sri Lanka, reports said.
Home Secretary Keshav Raj Rajbhandari recently visited New Delhi to discuss ways of checking terrorist activities across the more than 1800-km long common, open border between the two countries. Chief of the National Intelligence Department Devi Ram Sharma also met his Indian counterpart recently, reports said. Despite such official level contacts, developing an effective mechanism to control the Maoist activities in India will be a difficult task, analysts say. While the Maoists have been reportedly procuring arms and ammunition from the ëopen weapons markets’ in Bihar and other parts of India, lack of coordination among the security agencie between the central and state governments in India and Nepal have failed to yield the desired results, sources said.
Of late, international community is also taking note of the Nepalese Maoists operating freely in India. After the Achham attacks, western diplomats, including US and British officials, raised the issue with Indian officials in New Delhi, reports said. “These terrorists, under the guise of Maoism or so called “people’s war,” are fundamentally the same as terrorists elsewhere – be they members of the Shining Path, Abu Sayyaf, the Khmer Rouge or Al Qaeda,” said Michael E. Malinowski, the US ambassador to Nepal, after visiting Achham and other areas attacked by Maoists last month.
In the post-September 11 global scenario, harbouring terrorists under any pretext could not be justified. The UN resolution 1373 and the SAARC Convention against terrorism also call for closer cooperation among the
member states to combat all kinds of terrorism. Prime Minister Vajpayee called for a united fight against the scourge of terrorism while addressing the SAARC Summit in Kathmandu. Whether his government will extend similar goodwill towards its small neighbor reeling under a ruthless insurgency remains to be seen.
Analysts say India is apprehensive of any military support to Nepal from a third country. During his brief visit to Kathmandu earlier this year, US Secretary of State Colin Powell talked with senior officials, including the Royal Nepalese Army top brass, on Nepal’s immediate military needs. But no US military assistance has landed in Nepal so far. British Foreign Office Minister Ben Bradshaw, who was recently in Kathmandu, did not specify any direct military assistance his government would provide.
Although Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh declared Nepalese Maoists as terrorists well before the Nepalese government did, officials in Kathmandu say they are not getting desired cooperation from their Indian counterparts in checking the movement and supplies of the rebels. Though the Maoists claim to be ultra-nationalists, they haven’t done anything over the last six years that could jeopardize Indian interests in Nepal. Moreover, critics say, India could be using the insurgency as a “bargaining chip” against Nepal.
“We should inform and convey to the Government of India that their negligence or lack of priority (in controlling the activities of Maoists) is having serious implications on Nepal’s domestic politics and national security,” said Prof. Dhruba Kumar, a strategic analyst at Tribhuvan University’s Center for Nepal and Asian Studies (CNAS). “Rather than the cost-benefit or utility rights, we should negotiate with India on the basis of our entitlement rights.”
Nepal’s Security Concerns
Sandwiched between the two Asian giants, there have been very little efforts to define and discuss Nepal’s security concerns beyond what founding father of the kingdom, Prithvi Narayan Shah, described as ” a yam between two boulders” more than two centuries ago. In the five-decade old modern history of Nepal, B.P. Koirala – the first popularly elected prime minister- was the first statesman who asserted Nepal’s independent, sovereign status while underlining its foreign policy. As a member of the United Nations and founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement, Nepal played an active and prominent role, together with India and other countries, in the international arena. In response to a statement made by India’s first prime minister, Jawahar Lal Nehru, that India’s security concerns extended beyond Himalayas, Koirala asserted that Nepal was an independent and sovereign kingdom that could define its own security concerns. After India’s annexation of Sikkim in 1975, Koirala withdrew his armed struggle against the autocratic Panchayat regime from Indian soil and returned to Nepal, risking his life. He said, as Nepal’s very existence was under threat, there was an urgent need for national reconciliation between the King and democratic forces.
While late King Mahendra adopted what may be called a `pragmatic approach’ in foreign relations, late King Birendra tried to institutionalize Nepal’s foreign policy in the international arena. His proposal to declare Nepal as a “Zone of Peace,” during the cold war era, was endorsed by 116 countries of the world – except India in the neighborhood. Indian policy makers argued that the proposal would not do justice to the special relations” between the two countries based on the 1950 treaty of peace and friendship.
Interestingly, after the restoration of democracy in 1990 and in the changed global context, Nepalese leaders abandoned the Zone of Peace proposal. While Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai asserted in New Delhi that Nepal was free to procure arms from wherever it wanted, he signed the controversial June 10, 1990 communiquÈ’ in New Delhi. Over the last 12 years, there has been little effort to develop Shital Niwas as a strong institution that could pursue Nepal’s foreign policy in the changed global scenario and promote the national interests. While prime minister Koirala held the foreign portfolio during 1991-94, successive coalition governments neither had the strength nor motivation to cut Nepal’s foreign relations to suit the changed context. “As foreign minister, I handed over Nepal’s proposal to revise the 1950 treaty prepared on the basis of an all-party consensus to New Delhi in 1997, but over the last five years I haven’t heard of any serious follow-up from our side,” recalls Thapa.
By holding on to the defense and foreign ministries, Deuba has done little justice to these all-important portfolios, say critics. “Foreign policy, by definition, is an extension of the domestic policy of any country. But we are becoming so weak as a state and government that we have to negotiate with India from a position of weakness. India is treating Nepal as a very peripheral country, which has no significance except its geography. The fact that they are hardening their attitude toward Nepal was well reflected in the recent renewal of the bilateral trade treaty and failed talks on the issue of inundation,” said Prof. Dhruva Kumar, who edited the book “Nepal’sIndia Policy” in 1992. “India has the upper hand in all type of bargaining between the two countries. It has already deployed border security force along the Indo-Nepal border keeping in mind its security interests. But our position is so weak that we can’t even ask India to extradite the Maoist insurgents.”
Official sources at the Prime Minister’s Office said during his visit, Deuba would urge India to reciprocate Nepal’s official stand that it would not allow any activity that harm the interests of its neighbors.
While the powerful Indian media has been accusing Nepal of turning into a playground of the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency, it has simply kept its eyes shut when it comes to Nepalese Maoists enjoying safe haven in India. On the eve of then-prime minister Koirala’s visit to New Delhi in August 2000, India Today magazine carried the story “The Nepal Game Plan”, providing a list of influential Nepalis allegedly hand in glove with the ISI.
When Koirala refuted such reports and sought, for the first time, the Indian government’s cooperation in controlling the Maoist activities, there was no tangible response. The bitterness created by the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane on Christmas eve in 1999 and the so-called “Hrithik Roshan” episode is yet to subside, say analysts.
Observers watching the undercurrents in bilateral relations fail to explain why things don’t move their way despite the existence of mechanism to discuss things between the two countries at different levels. Officials from the two countries failed to reach a consensus after the weeklong meeting on the inundation of Nepalese territory by a number of Indian barrages across the border. “It seems there is some `hidden cause’ behind the Indian attitude toward Nepal,” said Rajendra Dahal, editor of Himal Khabarpatrika. “Whether it is the issue of selling cauliflower grown in Dhankuta (eastern Nepal) or utilizing the water resources of Mahakali (in the far-west), the South Block strategy to raise issues of security concerns indirectly is the main crux of the problem.”
Indian Concerns
After the humiliation faced with China in the 1962 border conflict, India has tried to redefine its security interests in the entire region. A close ally of the former USSR, Indian attitude towards her neighbors was largely directed by the “cold war” policies formulated in Moscow. Even after the dissolution of the USSR and trying to project itself as a dependable ally of the US in South Asia, Indian bureaucracy is yet to shed off the old, “cold war” mentality while dealing with its neighbors, say critics. The backtracking from the famous “Gujral doctrine” by the National Democratic Alliance government in New Delhi only proves this, they say. Those watching the regional rivalry between India and China closely, say Maoist insurgency is no more than an under-cover “proxy war” being waged in the Nepalese territory, though originally it may not have been targeted against this Himalayan kingdom.
While strongly supporting stability and development in Nepal, China has made it very clear that it has got nothing to do with the so-called “Maoist” insurgency in Nepal. India has, however, not won the goodwill of its small neighbor by allowing the Maoists operate freely from its territory, say critics. “However big the insurgency in Nepal might look from outside, it can still be controlled with the blow of a whistle, as and when the force that gave birth to it decides to do so,” said a noted political analyst, on condition of anonymity.
Indian policy analysts now admit that their government made a mistake by training and arming the Tamil separatist guerrillas and later sending its own peace-keeping force to Sri Lanka in the mid-eighties to contain it. Recent developments around the world might compel India to change its traditional policy. “By transgressing the Indian philosophy that Indian sub-continent falls in its area of influence and that entry of any third country will not be tolerable to it, USA has already entered into South Asia and has also defined its role in the regional affairs,” said Ramesh Nath Pandey, a foreign relations expert and member of National Assembly. “(In the post-Afghanistan war scenario), USA has established itself as a neighbor of South Asia. To talk of Indo-Nepal relations without defining this latest development will not be pragmatic,” he added.
According to Pandey, Nepal’s foreign relations is being run in an ad-hoc manner for the last few years. ” Nepal’s foreign policy is largely determined by our policy towards India and China. So, there is a need to show a sense of urgency and seriousness in dealing with such important issues,” he said.
Analysts say after B.P. Koirala, no Nepali leader has succeeded in tapping the huge and generous goodwill prevalent among over a billion Indian people towards this Himalayan kingdom. Except the Indian bureaucracy which, critics argue, is yet to overcome the British colonial mindset, Indian politicians and intelligentsia are largely positive towards the needs and concerns of Nepal. And, there are problems on the Nepalese side too. While Maoist leaders and supporters organize open public rallies and functions in the Indian capital, Nepalese officials and its embassy at Barakhamba road has simply failed to bring the issue for wider debate among the Indian opinion makers.
It may be too optimistic to expect Deuba’s visit to bring about a drastic change in Indian attitude toward this Himalayan kingdom. However, the visit could be a small step in the right direction. Whether it is harnessing abundant water resources of Nepal for the benefit of power-hungry neighboring Indian states or entering into viable areas of sub-regional cooperation, there is tremendous scope for bilateral cooperation between the two countries, analysts say. “The only way to end the present stalemate for both sides is to repose their faith in bilateral cooperation.”
India should consider Nepal a reliable partner and Nepal should deal with India as an indispensable partner. Prime Minister Deuba would be doing a great service to the nation by asking the Indian leadership what is it they really want from Nepal. Whether Deuba will be able to get answer to this million-dollar question – as long as some in New Delhi tend to believe that the Nepalese “Maoists” are rightly serving their security concerns interest – remains to be seen. Until then, lasting peace and tranquility in the kingdom will remain a mirage.