Minister for Foreign Affairs Ramesh Nath Pandey (File Photo)
Foreign Minister, Ramesh Nath Pandey, spent his sixty-second birthday in the Indian capital, New Delhi, Tuesday, meeting ‘old friends’, former Prime Minister, I. K. Gujral and veteran journalist and opposition BJP leader, Arun Shourie, according to news reports.
“This is my third birthday in the Indian Capital,” The Statesman, a leading Indian daily, quoted the Nepali minister as saying.
Sitting in his suite at Oberoi Hotel overlooking the greens of Golf club, Minister Pandey said, “Not only is the future of Nepalese democracy at stake, but so is the stability of India and future of old democracy, according to the daily.
Pandey asserted that the “fate of future peace and democracy rests on the stability of the smaller states in the world”. Nepal has been hoping that the Maoist insurgency raging in most part of the mountainous nation will frighten a critical international community in “helping us in all spheres”.
Pandey said it was “wrong” to say that the King had dismissed an elected government. “After the dissolution of the Deuba government in 2000, all the four Prime Ministers have been appointed by the King,” he said.
He said that Nepal has seen 14 prime ministers in the last 14 years and not a single parliament completed its term. “Several countries, including India, had told us that our democracy had been inadequate, ineffective and in danger of turning into a failed state,” he said. He described the Nepalese politicians who were active in India as “small fry” who were running from the law. “These people had been booked on corruption charges in the courts. These charges had not been levelled by this regime, but by the previous government of political parties,” said Pandey.
A former journalist, Pandey proudly recalled that he interviewed Pandit Nehru as a sixteen-year-old. The restrictions clamped on political activity and media (in Nepal) was only the fulfillment of constitutional clauses on clamping emergency. “This constitution had been drafted by the political parties,” the daily quoted Nepali minister as saying.
The restoration of democracy could be done long before the three years of royal rule. “It all depends on how the international community will support us,” he added.