Jan Sharma
Is the “Maoist insurgency” being used by foreign power(s) as a tool of international diplomacy? I for one would be hardly surprised if it is not the case.
I turned to one of my favorite gurus of international relations, Professor Karl W. Deutsch, for guidance. In Analysis of International Relations, he has devoted an entire chapter on international terrorism and undeclared warfare as a tool of diplomacy.
He describes how world and regional powers infiltrate the target countries with saboteurs and guerrillas “who mine roads, blow up weakly guarded installations, and attack isolated officials or local agencies or minor centers of the government.”
“The greatest effects of infiltration are obtained, however, in situations where infiltrators serve merely as supplements to or catalysts for local guerrilla forces recruited – and, if possible, led wholly or in part – from within the target country and its population.
“Here the foreign input of radio, propaganda, armed agents, special equipment, technical expertise, and (perhaps) troops can augment or sustain or even trigger a genuine domestic civil war,” says Professor Deutsch.
The mass media, according to him, report terrorist events with sensationalism, which is used by the terrorists to gain attention for their causes and messages. In this way the media becomes an unintended link in the widening spiral of terrorism.
A large part of modern terrorism is supported by governments by providing money, diplomatic facilities, passports, sanctuaries, experts, training camps, weapons, explosives, and justifying ideologies, he says.
Sounds familiar, no?
Leo E. Rose has done pioneering work on Nepal’s foreign policy and on South Asia. He was the very first Western scholar to attempt to study the case of a small landlocked country at a time when such research focused mainly on global or regional powers.
In the concluding chapter of Nepal: Strategy for Survival, a masterpiece on Nepal’s foreign policy, he outlines five broad policy options open to New Delhi in dealing with “chronic problems with Nepal.” Some of these have already been tried.
The first option is replace the regime in Kathmandu with one considered more reliable to India. This is an open secret and even a child can tell you. No Nepalese who is a persona non grata in New Delhi stands any chance of continuing, if not coming to, in power.
This option has been treated in detail by Professor Shelton Kodikara in his Strategic Factors in Interstate Relations in South Asia. This means the view from New Delhi is important, if not the most important, consideration in Nepal’s international affairs.
India, according to Kodikara, sustained the monarchy in Nepal but New Delhi also gave tacit support to India-oriented politicians and parties. “But it was also true, conversely, that a prime minister who had alienated nationalist sentiment in Nepal stood little chance of politically surviving in office.”
Returning back to the policy options discussed by Professor Rose, the second option open for India is direct military intervention. This we have not seen yet but the threat nevertheless persists.
The third option for New Delhi, according to Rose, is “slightly disguised intervention through the use of the Nepalese Gurkha forces serving in the Indian army or ex-servicemen resident in India.”
The fourth option, according to the veteran South Asia expert, is “indirectly intervene through support of a Nepali revolutionary movement.” The fifth and final option he points out is an all-out economic blockade.
This last option India used to punish King Birendra in 1989 because he made an attempt to strengthen and modernize the kingdom’s obsolete national security system.
Still doubt the “Maoist insurgency” is not a tool of international diplomacy? Well, the men in pinstriped suits do many more things to serve what they perceive as their national interest at the cost of other nations.