The political race to Delhi continues

June 29, 2005
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Kathmandu: Nepali politics continues to be in a limbo.

Chances of coming out of the prevailing chaos and political uncertainty in the near future appear remote because of the arrogance of the political parties currently housed in one conglomerate called seven party alliance against regression.

 

The rift in between King Gyanendra and the political parties have not lessened if not widened. This means both the parties who possess a dominant say in the country’s politics appear less interested in sorting out their political differences.

Thanks India that she has been adding fuel to the fire to the already conflict ridden Nepali politics.

While all the concerned parties know of Indian habit but yet approach India for favor in order to maintain a favor on its side. It is here that the Indian machinations are on play day in day out and that too openly.

India is with the King. India is with the seven party alliances and remains openly committed for their agitation in Kathmandu. India is with the Maoists and is playing one section of the Maoists with the other in a manner as if the insurgency were its tool to be used against Nepal. India is concerned with the increasing threat of the Maoists in Nepal but yet maintains a cordial relation with the top-hats of the insurgency. India is everywhere in Nepal to the extent that Nepal now could be located in Delhi as most of the Nepali leaders could be found in New Delhi talking on behalf of Nepal and in turn the Indian leaders would be found more than interested in dictating Nepali leaders to do this and don’t do that.

Poor Nepali leaders listen to those instructions and return home hoping that they now could conquer Nepal in an inkling of an eye.

Paranoid affair indeed.

That India is serious about Nepali uncertainty and that she was ready to extend all kind of assistance to bring back normalcy in India-troubled Kingdom has once again surfaced in Delhi.

Talking to Surya Bahadur Thapa who is currently in New Delhi for a medical check-up from preferred Indian medical practitioners like , Dr. M.M.Singh, and Sonia Gandhi among others, the Indian foreign secretary, Shyam Saran, hinted that his country was in his own words “ready to help Nepal in every possible way to end the conflict”.

This message is not at all new for Nepal. To recall, Mr. Saran who was former India’s Ambassador to Nepal, too used to say the same what he said this time to his “intimate” friend Thapa. In effect it was Mr. Saran who tried to shield his country to the hilt to the extent that even if he knew the hideouts of Maoists in Delhi, Siliguri and Lucknow, he used to avoid his country’s tacit connections with the Nepali rebels with one structured answer, “tell us about their hideouts, we will nab them”.

Thanks Madhav Nepal whose famous Lucknow trip some three years back that exposed Saran and his country to the extent that the world knew of this Indian connection. Madhav met Prachanda right in the Lucknow main town.

This embarrassment got another fillip when the Indian media itself leaked Indian government’s connection with Dr. Babu Ram Bhattarai which fortunately happened during Saran’s steering the foreign affairs at the South Block recently.

It is this Saran who now sheds crocodile tears for Nepali problems. Had he been so sincere he could have done a lot while he was Viceroy in Kathmandu. He did not do that because he was supposed not to do as per India’s calculated and what is called the “structured” policy. And this he did not do because he have had to extract so many political concessions both from the state and the rebels. From the state in the form of water at the lowest price and with the rebels India have had to delete the first four demands of the forty plus which were all pro-Nepal and embarrassing to India. That India have had excellent relations with the Nepali sons now rebels becomes clear from the fact that all those four very special Maoists demands that put India at the dock have become a matter of the distant past. Neither India is worried of those points nor the Maoists prefer to bring the matter to surface. It is this understanding presumably that the Indian connection has been established in between the two: “you help me and then I will help you”.

This should be the strategy in between the two sides or if it were not why the Maoists have ignored those four demands that are pro-Nepal?

The Nepali Maoists, the sons of the same soil which gave birth to us all, must clarify as to where they stand today on those first four demands that speak of the abrogation of so many unequal treaties with India.

Saran’s gesture through Thapa thus makes no sense unless he clarifies India’s hidden agenda vis-à-vis Nepal. India must also spell out what she wants to extract from Nepali Maoists? The rebels perhaps understand this fact but why they are silent is puzzling indeed.

The message is clear: making Nepalese to fight with the Nepalese. If not then what?