Nepal: Caught in Brink

The political unification of Nepal by king Prithvi Narayan Shah who conquered the Kathmandu valley in 1768 by defeating Newar rulers have been symbolically challenged by the Maoists on the name of federal republic system but their new move by declaring Kathmandu a Newa Republic Province besides six other autonomous republic province have altered the usual pace of Nepalese politics and forming shocking anxiety of parallel governance through their intentions.
In their complacency both the chief Maoist ideologue, Prachanda and Babu Ram Bhattrai had forget to recall that they are part of democracy rather than the upholder of Maoist state; their cynical demonstration in front of official royal set-up with five thousand strong armed cadres for maneuvering the replication of Balkanization in Nepal is out rightly shocking, the way they were pronouncing that Newar community would be given more rights than others in newly formed province might sparked the fuel of mass sentiment.

As Maoist ideologue Babu Ram Bhattrai believe their participation in peace process or constitutional development merely as “tactics” to enter among the bourgeois and a pre-exercise before grabbing the throne and later shaping it into their ideological fervor (Communist utopia) instead of sharing existing democratic model in which they have given fair chances-such game plan is entirely contradictory to their erstwhile preaching when they avoiding such faux pas and desired on numerous occasion for political peace process and constitutional making task.
Now Maoists and other political parties know the fact that the deadlines of constitutional making process wouldn’t be met by May27, 2010, so they are adopting different stand-Maoist Babu Ram Bhattarai’s stand is seems explicitly deadly as think in that case they will declare the constitution from the street and capture power albeit they are forgetting their lowering popularity from mass psyche since they couldn’t copied the pious motives of socialization as the communists of Cuba or many other country did in past.

Way back from the Maoist’s insurgency in 1996 and later their mainstreaming and emergence as single largest party in Nepalese politics have been relentlessly co-inside with the large scale violence and civil war like situation, which’s still being far from over as the collapse of central authority with the end of monarchy, any alternative retrieval plan from major political players only creating void and a loose regime that propelled swiftly on hatred, intolerance and violence-far from stable and peaceful state of affairs.
High expectations were prevailing from Maoists prospective role in the wake of their democratization and accession to the highest political order of the country but they couldn’t endured the expectations for long and very soon started to jeopardize the situation over a standoff between the army and the Maoists, and later between the Maoists and their coalition partners.

Maoists consistent distrust in sharing the state authority and their wayward opportunist expediency now forming furore among a large chunk of population including the media who now for the first time explicitly supporting the Nepal’s official army as they feeling the potential fallout of Maoists strategic domination in the country.
Meanwhile Nepalese army received a major boost in its capacity from both of its neighbors-India and China albeit hidden intentions of China’s assistance worth of $200 million U.S dollars has some stake of greater ambitions to strategically engage India at another geo-political front, indeed there is further need to expatiate on China’s crucial intentions; on the opposite side, Indian support along with a little bit of consultancy from its Chief of Army Staff Deepak Kapur about his opposition to the integration of Maoist combatants in the official Nepal army have fuelled Maoists and they made it a prestige issue.

Maoist chief Prachanda had manipulated this statement to show his party’s view on relations with the India-his angry statement reached to the zenith by terming India as a colonizer of Nepal and a runner of the puppet government (alliance of Communist Party of Nepal {United Marxist-Leninist} and Nepali Congress).
Even more extreme, he out rightly reversed any plan of dialogue with the Madhav Kumar Nepal lead government in the country by saying that it would be more beneficial to talk and settle the issue with the Indian government as they are real master of present government in Nepal-Maoists views are extremely critical on past agreement with India including the border issues; they are in favour of tectonic shift in alliance with the Indian state by daringly asking for removal of Indian army from Kalapani and restraining their so-called encroachments in Susta region-most of claims are prejudicial and could cause for large scale misunderstanding between these two very interdependent and cordial nation.

Whatever the Maoists oral assertions like-abolition of the President’s un-constitutional move, maintaining civil supremacy, safeguarding national independence, checking foreign interference etc, they act entirely opposite from their own front with preoccupied contentious motives.
Maoists have shown terrible performances on most of issues since their arrival as a force in 1996-frequent human rights violation and barbaric suppression including murder of dozens of journalist for merely their ideological opposition with Maoist functional methods. The recent case of Tika Bista, a twenty-two year young women journalist-she was brutally killed in remote western KUSUM district for raising the voice for thousands of missing husbands (among the thousands of death toll during the decade long Maoist insurgency) since the broke out of civil war in country.A single article in a local magazine JATINDHARA was caused for her death and up gradation of ranks for Maoist assailants.

Situation is indeed turning in very grim shape as things are again being ready to be fall apart-presently little hopes persists to visualize consensus among the political parties in near future to look after on the crucial issues of peace process and constitutional drafting. Political parties and members of civil society must refute any maneuverings of Maoists to merge their arm cadres with national army, otherwise stalemate would be never halted; international community has also play a major role to lift Nepal from this very unfortunate state of affairs.
Today India’s neighborhood policy cries for greater attention, so India must monitor the situation closely and assist in stable and united Nepal-where there is will there is always a way…we can’t and shouldn’t see Nepal moving like Bosnia.

Atul Kumar Thakur
December27th2009, New Delhi
atul_mdb@rediffmail.com