आफ्नै कांधको भार

सञ्जय उपाध्याय

संविधानसभामा सबैभन्दा ठूलो दल बनेको नेकपा माओवादीलाई सरकारको नेतृत्व नसुम्पनका लागि केही पक्षले अघि सारेका तर्कहरू वैदेशिक आडमा लोकतन्त्रका आधारभूत मान्यतामाथिको ठाडो अतिक्रमण हुन् वा शक्ति बांडफाटका लागि एउटा दबाबसूत्र मात्र, त्यो त प्रस्टिदै जाला । समग्र बहसको स्तरले भने राजनीतिक असमझदारी गहिरिदै जाने पूर्वाभास भएको छ ।
प्रबुद्ध अन्तर्राष्ट्रय पर्यवेक्षकहरूले निर्वाचन सामान्यतः स्वतन्त्र र निष्पक्ष भएको ठोकुवा उत्तिखेरी नगरिदिएका भए सायद सडकमा अहिले टायर जलिरहेका हुन्थे र ढुङ्गामुढा बर्सिरहेका हुन्थे । भित्रभित्रै भने आगो सल्किरहेकै छ । मतदाताद्वारा निर्दिष्ट आ-आफ्नो हैसियत अनुसार नयां संविधान बनाउन तर्फ कसरी लाग्ने भन्नुको साटो अन्य दलका केही नेताहरू माओवादीलाई कसरी अर्को चुनावमा तह लगाउने भन्नेमै तल्लीन देखिन्छन् ।
यहां २०५२ सालको त्रिशङ्कु संसद्को अनुभव सम्झनुको कुनै तुक रहेन । उतिबेलाको संयुक्त वा अल्पमत सरकार बनाउने प्रस्ट संवैधानिक प्रावधान एवम् त्यसलाई क्रियाशील बनाउन प्रत्यक्ष राजनीतिभन्दा माथि रहेका राष्ट्राध्यक्ष छैनन् । असाधारण परिस्थितिले असाधारण प्रयोजन खोज्ने नै भयो ।
चुनावभन्दा धेरैअघि नै सत्तासीन दलहरूले आफूहरूबीचकै सहमतिका आधारमा राज्यव्यवस्था चलाउने प्रतिबद्धता अन्तरिम संविधानमै जनाइसकेका थिए । नयां शक्तिका रूपमा उदाएको मधेसी जनअधिकार फोरमका साथै सभामा उपस्थित अन्य साना दलहरूलाई कसरी प्रभावकारी संयन्त्रमा समावेश गर्ने भन्ने कुराले प्रमुखता पाउनुपर्ने थियो । प्राथमिक विद्यालयको चौरमा सुनिने धमास र घुर्र्कीको स्तरमा पो त बहस झर्‍यो ।
माओवादी अध्यक्ष प्रचण्डले आफूलाई राष्ट्राध्यक्ष पदको उम्मेदवारका रूपमा प्रस्तुत गर्दा र उनलाई 'भित्ते राष्ट्रपति' भनेर अन्य दलका नेताहरूले ठट्टा गर्दा अन्तरिम संविधान सबैका छेउमै थियो । जनताले त्यसमा अन्तरमि राष्ट्रपतिको प्रावधान नभएको कुरा बुझ्न फुर्ुसद पाएनन् होला । नेता र दलहरूले उनीहरूलाई बुझाउन नखोज्नु वा नसक्नुको परिणाम मुलुकले कतिसम्म भोग्दै जाने। प्रचण्डको सैनिक ओहदा र वाईसीएलको उद्दण्डतालाई उनको प्रधानमन्त्री बन्ने अभियानको बाटोमा तगारो देख्नेहरू चुनावअघि दृष्टिविहीन पक्कै थिएनन् । उता वर्तमान प्रधानमन्त्रीलाई शान्ति प्रक्रिया यहां सम्म पुर्‍याएकै आधारमा निरन्तरता दिनु वाञ्छनीय हुने हो भने किन उनलाई आजीवन सरकारप्रमुखको पदवीले विभूषित नगर्ने।
सुरुबाटै शान्ति प्रक्रियालाई जसरी पनि कायम राखिनुपर्ने बाध्यताले आफ्नै प्रकारका तनावहरू सिर्जना गरेको थियो । असहमतिहरूको समायोजन गर्नका लागि सहभागीहरूले पनि आफ्नै नियम बनाए । कहिले राजनीतिक त कहिले संवैधानिक अनि कहिले व्यावहारकि अनिवार्यताद्वारा निर्देशित प्रक्रियामा हचुवा र हल्का निर्णयहरूसमेत अनिवार्य बन्न पुगे । पुराना प्रतिबद्धताहरू नै सबैतिर अलपत्र पररिहेका बेला तिनको पुनःव्याख्या गर्नु सजिलो जुक्ति थियो । सङ्घात्मक गणतन्त्रको ऐनामा नयां नेपालको अनुहार देखियो ।
नयां समस्या र र्सत आइलाग्नासाथ अन्तरिम संविधान संशोधन गरिहाले पुग्ने परम्परालाई अहिले आएर तोड्न सजिलो हुने कुरै भएन । सरकार बनाउन र खसाउन यदि दुइतिहाइ समर्थनको सर्त समस्या बनेको हो भने त्यो फेर्न खोज्नु नै प्राथमिकता भयो । तर, सहमतिका नाममा अस्थायी प्रकृतिको विधान आफू अनुकूल संशोधन मात्र गररिहने हो भने मूल काममा कसले, कहिले र कसरी ध्यान दिने।
विदेशी अनुगमनकर्ताहरू ल्याप्चे लगाएर गइहाले पनि नेपालले उनीहरूको सदासय पाइरहला । भूतपूर्व अमेरिकी राष्ट्रपति जिम्मी कार्टर माओवादीमाथि आफ्नो देशले लगाएको आतङ्ककारीको बिल्ला उतार्न सफल हुन् भन्ने कामना गरौला । तर, यथार्थपरक रहनु नै श्रेयस्कर होला । नेपालपछि सिरिया पुगेर कार्टर वासिङ्टनद्वारा आतङ्ककारी घोषित अर्को सङ्गठन हमासका नेतालाई भेटेर विवादमा परे । अमेरिका फर्केपछि कार्टरले लेखेका र बोलेका शब्दहरू केलाउदा त उनले माओवादी र हमासलाई वर्तमान अमेरिकी विदेश नीतिविरुद्ध उनको बृहत् अभियानमा समाहित गरेको देखियो । यस्तो समायोजनले राख्न सक्ने अर्थका बारेमा माओवादीहरू नै सबभन्दा पहिले चनाखो बनेका होलान् ।
अनमिनमा रहेका विदेशी शुभचिन्तकहरू नेपालले शान्ति प्रक्रियाको अहम् खुड्किलो पार गरेकामा खुसी छन् । हामीकहां विशिष्ट र सीमित राजनीतिक लक्ष्य लिएर संयुक्त राष्ट्रसङ्घ आउनुमा हाम्रै अनुरोधका साथै हाम्रा दुइ विशाल छिमेकीहरूका संवेदनशीलताले काम गरेका थिए । अनमिन राष्ट्रसङ्घ मुख्यालयमा राजनीतिक विभागले अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय स्तरमै द्वन्द्व निरोध र व्यवस्थापनमा लिन खोजेको बढ्दो भूमिकाकै उपज पनि थियो । यस प्रसङ्गलाई निश्चय पनि गौण मान्न सकिन्न ।
हाम्रो शान्ति प्रयासमा संलग्न अन्य अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय सङ्घसंस्थाहरू पछिसम्म पनि नेपालबारे र्सतर्क रहिरहलान् । उनीहरूलाई संसारभर कार्यक्षेत्रको कुनै कमी रहने छैन । समय र स्रोतका अभावले उनीहरूको उत्सुकतालाई सीमाङ्कन गर्नेछ । जहां सम्म हाम्रा पारस्परकि अविश्वासकै कारण विदेशीहरूलाई निम्त्याइएको यथार्थ छ, त्यसको पर्याप्त सुनुवाइ त चुनावअघि नै हुनसकेको थिएन । कमजोरै भए पनि समझदारी बढाउने अभिभारा हाम्रै कांधमा रहिरहनेछ ।

(नेपाल राष्ट्रिय साप्ताहिक, बैशाख २२, २०६५)

सत्ताको अभिशाप

सञ्जय उपाध्याय
नेकपा माओवादीको अनपेक्षित चुनावी सफलतालाई सबैले आ-आफ्नै ढङ्गले व्याख्या गर्ने क्रमको तीव्रतालाई हर्दा मुलुकले सर्वस्वीकार्य स्पष्टीकरण पाउन गाह्रो पर्ने देखिन्छ। त्यसैले त्यतातिर समय खर्चनुभन्दा भविष्यप्रति उन्मुख हुनुमै बुद्धिमानी ठहरिनेछ । स्पष्टै भन्नुपर्दा माओवादीहरूको सफलतालाई स्वीकार गर्दागर्दै पनि त्यसले निम्त्याउन सक्ने प्रतिक्रिया, प्रभाव र प्रवृत्तिको आकलन गर्नु अत्यावश्यक छ।
उत्कृष्ट वैज्ञानिक दर्शनका अनुयायी भएकोमा गौरव गर्दै आएको माओवादी नेतृत्वले नतिजाको बराबर र विपरीत प्रतिक्रियाको अपेक्षा गररिहेकै होला। नयां राजनीतिक दललाई नवीनताले नै केही न केही फाइदा पुर्‍याउने गर्छ। माओवादीहरूको हकमा त उनीहरू रूपान्तरति भएर आएका हुन्, त्यो पनि एक दशकसम्म हत्या र हिंसाका प्रतीक बनेर।
बन्दुक र बमका साथसाथै उनीहरूले राज्यविरुद्ध शब्दजालको सशक्त प्रयोग गरे। जनयुद्धभरि आफूहरूलाई जसले जसरी हेरेको भए पनि ती विविध बुझाइको तुंवालो पछाडि बसेर नेतृत्वले सङ्गठनलाई यहां सम्म पुर्‍याउन सफल भयो।
निर्दोष नागरकिमाथि भएका जघन्य अपराधपश्चात् माओवादी नेताहरूले कतिपटक आत्मालोचना गरे। राज्यले त्यस्ता घटनाहरू हुदै जानुलाई नेतृत्वले तल्लो पङ्क्तिमाथि पकड गुमाएको भनी अर्थ्यायो। माओवादीहरूले सो बुझाइको प्रतिवाद गर्न उति आवश्यक ठानेनन्। कारण खुल्दै पनि गयो। आफ्ना मूल्य, मान्यता, भाव, आवश्यकता र अपेक्षाका बारेमा आमजनतामा जति भ्रम बाक्लियो, त्यति नै उनीहरूलाई फाइदा पुग्ने भयो।
राजतन्त्र उन्मूलनको अभियानमा चुर्लुम्म डुब्दा पनि दरबारसंगको कार्यगत एकता रहेको स्वीकारोक्ति त एउटा कडी मात्र थियो। दरबार हत्याकाण्डपछि गद्दीनसिन भएको घडीदेखि आफूहरूले खेद्दै आएका राजा ज्ञानेन्द्रको सरकारसंग दुुइपटक वार्तामा बस्न माओवादीहरूलाई असहज भएन। त्यसभन्दा पहिले नारायणहिटी काण्डमा संलग्न रहेको आरोप लगाउदै बहुमतप्राप्त प्रधानमन्त्रीलाई गैरप्रजातान्त्रिक प्रक्रियाबाट पदच्यूत गराउन विद्रोहीहरूले मूलधारका प्रतिपक्षीहरूलाई मद्दत गरेका थिए। पांच वर्ष नबित्दै माओवादीहरू तिनै वयोवृद्ध व्यक्तिको पछि लागेर सिंहदरबार छिर्दा देशले गाह्रो मान्न पाएन।
वार्ता र युद्धलाई पर्यायवाची धरातलीय यथार्थ बताएर नेपाली मनमस्तिष्क रन्थनाउने माओवादीहरूले शान्ति प्रक्रिया अंगालेपछि आफ्नो कुटिलतालाई पनि परिस्कृत गरे। वाईसीएलको उदय र उद्दण्डता एवम् राज्यसत्ता जसरी पनि कब्जा गर्ने चेतावनीजस्ता कुराले माओवादीहरूको अन्तिम लक्ष्यलाई झनै अस्पष्ट बनायो। शाब्दिक चालबाजीको चलन त व्यापकै रहेछ । मूलधारमा समाहित हुन लागेर नेतृत्वले जनयुद्धलाई धोका दिए भनेर कटु आलोचना गर्दै आएका रवीन्द्र श्रेष्ठ त तुलनात्मक रूपले दक्षिणपन्थी एमालेमा छिर्न गए।
नकारात्मक धरातलमै उभिएका शक्तिहरूमध्येबाट र्सार्वभौम नेपाली जनताले माओवादीलाई रोजेका छन्। संविधानसभा निर्वाचन अभियानलाई सबै दलले संसदीय चुनावभन्दा पृथक् नबनाइदिएकाले माओवादीहरूलाई पनि नयां नेपालको खाकामा अल्झिरहनु परेन। तर, अब शासनभार आई नै सकेपछि राष्ट्रको मूल कानुन निर्माण गर्ने प्रमुख जिम्मा माओवादीहरूले नलिई सुखै छैन।
सरकार र सभामा रहने अन्य दलहरूको पनि दायित्व उत्तिकै रहनेछ। तर, उनीहरू मूल रूपले आ-आफ्ना दीर्घकालीन हित सुरक्षित गर्ने खालको संविधान बनाउन प्रयत्नरत हुने हुंदा प्रक्रिया सहज हुने छैन। त्यसमाथि श्रोताका अनुहार र अपेक्षा हेरेर आफ्ना मूल्य र मान्यता व्याख्या गर्ने माओवादीहरूको पुरानो बानीको स्मरण गराइरहने काममा विपक्षी चुक्ने छैनन्। सरकारमा रहने अन्य दलहरूले अपजस जति माओवादीका थाप्लामा थोपर्न खोज्नु अस्वाभाविक हुने छैन। उता काङ्ग्रेस र एमालेमा चुनाव हारेका हस्तीहरूको प्रभाव र प्रवृत्ति सभाबाहिर सवल हुने नै देखिन्छ।
सत्ताको अभिशापले माओवादीहरूलाई व्यापक सहमतिका लागि सहिष्णु बन्न कर लगाउला पनि। तर, जतिसुकै इमानदारीका साथ अन्य दलतर्फ बढ्न खोजे पनि उनीहरूलाई आफैले बुनेको अविश्वासको जालबाट उम्कन सजिलो हुने छैन। उता राज्यसत्तामाथि एकाधिकारको मनोविज्ञानबाट अभ्रिप्रेरित माओवादीहरूको तल्लो पङ्क्तिले नेतृत्वले अन्य दलहरूसंग गर्नसक्ने सम्झौताको दायरा सङ्कुचित बनाउने सामर्थ्य राख्नेछन्। सत्ताबाहिर रहेका र उब्जन सक्ने समूहहरूका असन्तोषका बारेमा त माओवादी नेतृत्वलाई केही भनिरहनुपरेन। असन्तोषको आगो सल्केपछि त्यसमा आ-आफ्नै स्वार्थका लागि घिउ थप्नेहरूको अभाव देशभित्र वा बाहिर रहने छैन।
सुरक्षाको कवचका लागि माओवादीहरूले पनि अन्ततः विदेशीहरूलाई नै समाउन पुगे भने त्यो उनीहरूलाई समस्या बन्ने देखिन्छ। जङ्गलबाट राजधानी पसेको वर्षदन नपुग्दै सङ्गठनमा कुन गुट उत्तर र कुन दक्षिणतिर ढल्केको भन्ने र्सार्वजनिक चर्चाको विषय बनिसकेको थियो। बाह्य शक्ति संगको सामीप्यको मूल्य कति चर्को पर्ने हो एवम् त्यो आफूहरूले नै बेहोर्नपर्ने यथार्थ बुझ्न त माओवादीहरूले काङ्ग्रेस र एमालेलाई हेरे पुग्छ। यस ऐतिहासिक क्षणमा आशङ्का र असमझदारी चिर्दै सबै राजनीतिक शक्तिहरू अघि बढ्न सकून् भन्ने कामना गरौ।

जनमत जगेर्नाको जिम्मेवारी

सञ्जय उपाध्याय
संविधानसभा निर्वाचन होला कि नहोला भन्ने आशङ्कापछि सुनिने गरिएको अर्को प्रश्न अहिले आएर गहन बन्दैछ । चुनाव भइहाले नेकपा माओवादीले आफूप्रतिकूल नतिजालाई स्वीकार्ला - राजतन्त्र र संसदीय व्यवस्था दुवैविरुद्ध हत्या र विध्वंसमा उत्रेको समूह बहुदलीय मूलधारमा आउनुलाई त्यसै पनि स्वाभाविक मानिएको थिएन । त्यसमाथि दसवर्षे 'जनयुद्ध'द्वारा राज्यलाई घु“डा टेकाउन नसके पनि उनीहरू पराजित नभएको यथार्थ सबैका सामु छदै थियो ।
घटना, प्रवृत्ति र पात्रबीचका अन्तरद्वन्द्व चर्काएर त्यसबाट भरपूर फाइदा लिदै आएका माओवादी नेताहरू अहिले आएर कहिले जनमतको आदर गर्ने प्रण गर्छन् त कहिले षड्यन्त्रद्वारा रचिने पराजयको प्रतिकार गर्ने चेतावनी दिन्छन् । के लाई षड्यन्त्र मान्ने र कस्तो प्रतिकार गर्ने भन्ने कुरा उनीहरूले आफैमा सुरक्षित राख्न खोज्नु अनौठो होइन ।
आममतदाताको स्थिति भने दयनीय बनेको छ । दलहरूभित्र कसैलाई संविधानसभा चुनाव राष्ट्रपति बन्ने माध्यम बनेको छ भने कसैले त्यसलाई प्रधानमन्त्री बन्ने अवसरका रूपमा लिएका छन् । जनप्रतिनिधिको त्यत्रो झुन्डले कसरी, कहिलेसम्म र कस्तो संविधान बनाउलान् भन्नेतर्फध्यान पुर्‍याउन नपाउदै कतै माओवादीलाई हराए तिनीहरूले देशलाई पुनः हिंसाको चक्रमा फसाउलान् भन्ने डर आइलागेको छ ।
बाकी सबै दलहरूलाई मौका दिइसकेर निरास भएकाहरूमध्ये कतिलाई माओवादीको पक्ष्मा मत खसाल्न त्यति गाह्रो नपर्ला । तर, यो समूहलाई पनि विजय-पराजयपश्चात् माओवादीहरूले एकदलीय अधिनायकवाद लादे भने कसरी उम्कने भन्ने प्रश्नले कतै न कतै पिरोलेको हुनुपर्दछ ।
समसामयिक विश्व परिस्थतिमा साम्यवादी अधिनायकवाद टिक्न नसक्ने विश्वास लिएर बसेकाहरूलाई नेपालको भूराजनीतिक अवस्थितिले अझ उत्साहित बनाएको होला । माओवादीहरू स्वयम्ले सत्ता कब्जा गर्न सके पनि त्यसलाई टिकाइरहन गाह्रो पर्ने कुरा राम्ररी बुझेकाले त्यस्तो कुनै दुस्साहस नगर्लान् भन्न सकिएला । तर, आधारभूत रूपले सदैव आफ्नै स्वार्थबाट अभप्रेरित रहने हाम्रा दुुइ छिमेकीहरूले अन्य बाह्य शक्तिहरूलाई विस्थापित गर्नैका लागि कतै माओवादीहरूलाई नै स्वीकार त नगर्लान् ।
जनमतका बारेमा शङ्का निवारण गर्ने जिम्मा माओवादीहरूले लेलान् भनेर सोच्न उनीहरूकै पृष्ठभूमिले दिदैन । सत्तासीन साना दलहरू सरकारकै कतिपय निर्णयो खरो आलोचना गर्न पछि पर्दैनन् तर सरकार पनि छोड्न सक्दैनन् । अन्तरिम संसद भित्र र बाहिर पञ्चायती पृष्ठभूमि भएकाहरूले केही बोले प्रतिगमनको प्रतिविम्ब देखिने भइहाल्यो । मधेसका नया दलहरू सरकारसंगको सम्झौतापछि आफै रनभुल्लमा छन् । राजा त शान्ति प्रक्रियाको हकमा निलम्बित अवस्थामै रहेका छन् । अझै पनि दरबारप्रति बफादार भनिएको सेनालाई गुहार्ने हो भने पहिले देशले दुइ वर्ष देखि बुझेको लोकतन्त्रको पुनःव्याख्या नै गर्नुपर्ने हुन्छ ।
नेपालीहरूको आपसी अविश्वासकै कारण शान्ति प्रक्रियालाई सहज बनाउन आएको संयुक्त राष्ट्रसङ्घ अहिले स्थिति सुध्रिएको छैन है भनेर खुलेरै भन्छ । बारम्बारको त्यस्तो खबरदारीमा उसले आफ्नै जिम्मेवारी पूरा गर्न नसकेको स्वीकारोक्ति देख्न सकेको छैन । लोकतन्त्र, मानव अधिकार र समावेशीकरणप्रति प्रतिबद्ध अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय गैरसरकारी सङ्घसंस्थाहरूले केही गर्न सक्ने थिए । तर, अहिले उनीहरू नेपाल सरकारले तिब्बती प्रदर्शनकारीमाथि गररिहेको दुर्र्व्यवहारले स्तब्ध छन् ।
त्यसैले जनमतको कदर हुने प्रत्याभूति दिने दायित्व सत्तँसीन अन्य दुइ ठूला दलहरूको नै हुन जान्छ । त्यहा पनि कुरा सरल छैन । तीनवटा प्रजातान्त्रिक निर्वाचनमार्फ परीक्षित भइसकेको नेकपा एमाले अझै पनि साम्यवादी बिल्ला भिररिहेकै कारण शङ्काको घेराबाट पूर्ण रूपले बाहिरनि सकेको छैन । अन्ततः नेपाली काङ्ग्रेसले नै त्यो जिम्मा लिनुपर्ने भएको छ । त्यो बुझेर उत्साहित बनेका सो दलका नेता, कार्यकर्ता र र्समर्थकहरू आफूहरूले मात्र लोकतन्त्रको रक्षा गर्न सक्ने नाराका साथ पो त जनतामाझ जान थाले । दायित्वबोध दम्भमा परिणत हुन बेरै लागेन ।
निश्चय पनि काङ्ग्रेस तीन-तीनवटा प्रजातान्त्रिक आन्दोलन नेतृत्व गरेको पार्टी हो । तर, बिर्सन नसकिने कुरा के पनि हो भने दुवैपल्ट प्रजातन्त्र अवरुद्ध हुदा काङ्ग्रेस नै सत्तामा थियो । दरबारको कथित अधिनायकवादी संस्कारलाई जतिसुकै दोष दिन खोजे पनि काङ्ग्रेसले आफूलाई पानीमाथिको ओभानो ठान्न मिल्दैन । बहुमतको अहङ्कार र पार्टी अन्तरद्वन्द्वकै सम्मिश्रणले २०१७ र ०५९ का राजनीतिक दुर्घटनाहरूलाई निम्त्याएको प्रस्टै छ ।
हो, यसपटक आन्दोलन सफल भइहाल्यो भनेर काङ्ग्रेस अन्यत्र लम्कन त्यति आतुर भएको देखिएन । तर पनि पुराना रोगहरू बल्झिएकै छन् । चुनावी मनोनयन नपाएकाहरूले विद्रोही उम्मेदवारको लामो पङ्क्ति बनाएका छन् । शाही शासनका दूइ चरणभर भौतिक असुविधा खपेकाहरूमध्येकै केही नेताहरू अहिले राजावादी कित्तामा दर्ज भएकामा खासै असन्तुष्ट देखिदैनन् ।
उता बीपी कोइरालाको मेलमिलाप नीतिको र्सार्वजनिक दुहाई दिनेहरूलाई राष्ट्रपतिको दायित्वबोध भन्दा पनि संस्थापन पक्षप्रतिको असन्तुष्टिले अभिप्रेरित गरेको छैन भन्न सकिने स्थिति छैन । सरकार र राष्ट्रप्रमुखसमेत रहेका काङ्ग्रेस सभापतिले नै सम्भावित राजनीतिक दुर्घटनाको चर्चा गर्न थालेपछि के नै पो गर्ने ।

Tibet Unrest Squeezes an Unstable Nepal

Sanjay Upadhya
April 1, 2008
World Politics Review

From the TV footage coming out of Nepal these days, it is easy to forget that the Himalayan nation is struggling to build a viable democracy. Almost every day since mid-March, when anti-Chinese protests erupted in Tibet and other countries, images of Nepali police beating Tibetan demonstrators have been beamed around the world.
Nepal's major political parties and former Maoist rebels have promised to build an open and inclusive state after years of turmoil. The people are preparing to vote April 10 for a new assembly that would write a new constitution embodying a federal democratic republic. Yet barely two years after having defied King Gyanendra's direct rule, Nepali parties seem to have emulated the palace in cracking down on another group of pro-democracy protesters.
With China limiting international access to Tibet, the most conspicuous images of the anti-Beijing protests are coming out of the Nepali capital, Katmandu. The demonstrations and the strong government response have forced many ordinary Nepalis to ponder their geographical vulnerability.
Prithvi Narayan Shah, the monarch who established the modern Nepali state over two centuries ago from dozens of petty principalities, described his new realm as a "yam between two boulders." His successors fought two wars with the Tibetans, the last resulting in a Chinese retaliation, as British India, Nepal's southern neighbor, rebuffed the kingdom's pleas for assistance. In 1816, the British defeated Nepal in a war that cost the kingdom a third of its territory. After that, each giant saw Nepal as a useful buffer against the other. Amid the enclosement, Nepal's rulers were left struggling to strike the right balance in foreign policy.
The triumph of China's communists in 1949 raised fears of Nepal becoming the next domino. After Chinese troops overran Tibet the following year, India, newly independent, crafted a compromise that empowered Nepal's political parties under an assertive monarchy. Geopolitics continued to weigh heavily on Nepali politics.
In 1960, King Mahendra, father of the current monarch, dismissed Nepal's first democratically elected government and banned political parties in the shadow of growing Sino-Indian tensions. China moved swiftly to build ties with the palace, while India tacitly encouraged an anti-monarchy insurgency. India's defeat in a brief but bloody border war with China two years later encouraged New Delhi to engage the palace.
A decade later, the Nepali military crushed a U.S-backed Tibetan insurgency, as Washington opened ties with Beijing. The monarchy-led regime lasted until 1990, when it was swept away by the global democratic wave that the collapse of the Berlin Wall unleashed. Even so, change in Nepal would not have come so swiftly without improvements in Sino-Indian relations.
Until the mid-1990s, Beijing seemed to acquiesce in Nepal's close relations with India, buttressed by a shared religion and culture. When a group of radical Nepali communists revolted against the king and parliament in 1996 under the banner of Maoism, China grew uneasy. The instability bred by the Maoist insurgency renewed Chinese sensitivities over the 20,000 Tibetan refugees in Nepal.
Successive elected governments in Katmandu maintained a close watch on Tibetan exiles, in line with the country's "one China" policy. Days before King Gyanendra seized power in 2005, the multiparty government had shut down the Tibetan welfare center. After the restoration of democracy, Nepal continues to arrest escapees and deport them to China. The communist factions that dominate the current ruling alliance have criticized the anti-Chinese demonstrations. The Nepali Congress, which heads the coalition, has maintained a studious silence. The government recently announced it would close its side of Mount Everest during China's Olympic Torch relay to the summit in early May. The United Nations, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations have deplored Katmandu's crackdown in language reminiscent of their toughness against royal rule.
While India, together with the United States and the European Union, has been actively pushing Nepal's peace process, China has considerably stepped up its overall role. Beijing has become unusually candid in asserting its interests. In public remarks, Zheng Xialing, the Chinese ambassador in Katmandu, has insisted that his country would not tolerate what he calls "foreign interference" in Nepal. Wang Hongwei, a leading Chinese expert on Nepal, has been more candid. In a widely read interview last year, Wang said his government felt "some foreign countries were trying to turn Nepal into the second largest base [after India] for Dalai Lama-led anti-Chinese activities."
Nepal did not figure on the official agenda during Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's wide-ranging talks in China earlier this year. Although the visit was billed a success by both governments, Indian news media continue to voice concern about Beijing's growing influence on India's South Asian neighbors. Last month, the Indian Express newspaper, known to reflect official opinion, reported that China Study Centers had mushroomed along Nepal's border with India.
As Tibetans stepped up protests in Katmandu, photographs and video purportedly showing Chinese officials directing Nepali police circulated. Last week, the Times of India, reporting on what it called China's snub in summoning India's ambassador at 2 a.m. on a Saturday to protest against Tibetan activists breaking into the Chinese Embassy in Delhi, lamented how the Indian government was silent on the reported deployment of Chinese troops in Nepal.
That story prompted a sharp response from China's Global Times newspaper, which accused the Indian media of joining the West in an "anti-China chorus." Days later, the official Chinese news service Xinhua released what it called a signed confession from a participant claiming that the Dalai Lama's supporters planned to smuggle weapons into Tibet through Nepal.
In the midst of continuing domestic strife, Nepalis in general are looking forward to building a democratic and inclusive state. Many are also now wondering how much power over their fate really lies in their own hands.

नयां नेपालमा पुरानै अभिभारा

सञ्जय उपाध्याय

तिब्बत प्रकरणले नयां पुस्ताका नेपालीहरूलाई आफ्नो मुलुकको जोखिमपूर्ण भौगोलिक अवस्थितिका बारेमा सशक्त परचिय दियो । सार्वभौभ भनिएका जनताकै हातमा नेपालको भविष्य सुरक्षित रहने हो वा होइन भन्ने प्रश्नले त मुलुकलाई दक्षिणतिरबाट च्याप्दै आएको थियो । उत्तरतर्फका बाध्यताहरूको सार्वजनिक स्वरूपले उक्त बहसलाई व्यापकता दिएको छ ।
भूगोलले नै नेपाली राजनीतिलाई सदैव निर्देशित गररिहेको कुरा हाम्रा लागि प्रँज्ञिक मात्र नभएर एउटा जीवन्त यथार्थ बनिसकेको छ । आधुनिक इतिहासलाई मात्र केलाउने हो भने पनि २००७ सालको प्रजातान्त्रिक सफलता चीनको तिब्बत आगमनसंग कति नजिक जोडिएको थियो भन्ने प्रत्यक्ष अनुभव वर्तमान प्रधानमन्त्री र उहांका समवयीहरूलाई छंदैछ ।
०१७ सालमा बहुदलीय व्यवस्थाको समाप्ति र निर्दलीय पञ्चायती व्यवस्थाको दशकौको निरन्तरतामा भारत र चीनबीचको कटुताले निर्वाह गरेको भूमिकासित परिचित नेपालीहरूको सङ्ख्या त अझ धेरै छ । निश्चय पनि ०४७ सालको जनआन्दोलनको सफलताका लागि बर्लिन पर्खाल भत्कनु र भारत-चीन सम्बन्ध सुध्रनुले मद्धत पुर्‍याएको थिए ।
तथापि, त्यस समय चीन आफै तियाननमेन कान्डपछिको तीव्र अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय विरोध नखेपिरहेको भए घटनाक्रमले अर्कै मोड पो लिने थियो कि भन्ने प्रश्न एउटा बौद्धिक विलासिता मात्र हुन सक्दैन । शाही सरकारको अल्पायु नेपाली आन्तरकि राजनीति प्रति चीनको औपचारिक निरपेक्षताका अभावमा अझ कति छोटिन्थ्यो होला ।
भूराजनीतिक यथार्थलाई समसामयिक अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय सम्बन्धका मान्यताहरूसंग राख्दा देखिने विडम्बनाले नेपाललाई अहिले पोलिरहेको छ । पटकपटकका आन्दोलनपश्चात् नेपालीहरू दिगो र समावेशी प्रजातन्त्र तर्फ लम्किरहेको कुरालाई अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय समुदायले सराहना गररिहेको थियो । काठमाडौका सडकमा आफ्ना लागि त्यस्तै स्वतन्त्रता खोजिरहेका तिब्बती प्रदर्शनकारीहरूका टाउकामा बज्रिएका लट्ठीहरूका कारण रक्ताम्य दृश्य अहिले अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय समाचार बन्न पुगे ।
नेपालको शान्ति प्रक्रियामा सम्मिलित विभिन्न अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय सङ्गठन र व्यक्तित्वहरूलाई त यस विरोधाभासले झनै घोचेको हुनुर्पर्छ । द्वन्द्वपश्चात्को राज्य पुनःनिर्माणसम्बन्धी प्रयोगशालाका रूपमा नेपाललाई सदासय साथ हेररिहेकाहरूमध्ये कतिले त अहिले मुन्टो बटाररिहेका होलान् ।
त्यसो त तिब्बत प्रकरणले भारतको छविमा पनि धक्का नपुर्‍याएको होइन । विश्वको सबैभन्दा ठूलो प्रजातन्त्र हाक्ने सरकारले तिब्बतीहरूको स्वतन्त्रताको आकाङ्क्षाको अभिव्यक्ति कुण्ठित पार्न पुग्नुका पछाडि उसको पनि राष्ट्रिय स्वार्थ नै थियो । त्यसपछि दलाई लामाको नेतृत्वमा निर्वासनमा रहेको तिब्बती सरकारलाई आश्रय दिएको मुलुकले तिनैका र्समर्थकविरुद्ध बल प्रयोग गरेर दोह्रो मापदण्ड दर्शायो ।
निश्चय पनि भारतझै नेपाल नकारात्मक अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय जनमत थेग्न सक्ने अवस्थामा छैन । नेपालको बाध्यतालाई नेपालको संलग्नताका रूपमा नलिन अरूलाई कतिसम्म अनुनय गर्ने - सायद त्यो र्व्यर्थ हुनेछ । महत्त्वपूर्ण त हामीलाई अन्तर्राष्ट्रिय छविभन्दा पनि दुइ छिमेकी मुलुकहरूको सदासय नै रहनेछ ।
शान्ति प्रक्रियाका नाममा भित्रिएका केही तत्त्व र प्रवृति प्रति चीनको आफ्नो असन्तुष्टि असाधारण स्पष्टताका साथ व्यक्त गर्दै आएको धेरै भइसक्यो । विगत दुइ वर्षमा चिनिया सरकारी टोलीका लस्करबाट विभिन्नस्तरमा नेपाली अधिकारीहरूले यो सन्देश अझ विस्तृत रूपले पाएका होलान् । हामीकहां शान्ति स्थापना गर्न आएकामध्ये कसैले स्वतन्त्र तिब्बत अभियानलाई सहयोग गररिहेको भए-नभए पनि चीनलाई आश्वस्त पार्ने दायित्व हाम्रै हो ।
उता तिब्बती विरोध प्रदर्शन नियन्त्रण गर्ने काममा नेपाली प्रशासनिक एवम् सुरक्षा संयन्त्रसंग चीनको प्रत्यक्ष संलग्नता रहेको समाचारहरूप्रति भारतले कुनै दरिलो नकारात्मक प्रक्रिया नजनाइहाले पनि उसले त्यस्तै खाले चिन्ता सधै विभिन्न प्रसङ्गमा व्यक्त गर्दै आइरहेको जगजाहेरै छ ।
हो, शीतयुद्धकालको तुलनामा एसियाका यी महाशक्तिहरूको पारस्परकि सम्बन्धमा निकै न्यानोपन आएको छ । राजनीतिक स्तरमा भ्रमणको आदानप्रदानमा आएको तीव्रता, सैनिक र सुरक्षा मामलामा बढ्दै गएको समझदारी, व्यापारमा भएको गुणात्मक वृद्धि आदि त्यही सौहाद्रताका परिचायक हुन् । तर पनि सहयोग, प्रतिस्पर्धा एवम् होडबाजीसमेतको सम्मिश्रणमा आधारित यस सम्बन्धले नेपाललाई स्वाभाविक र अनपेक्षित असर पाररिहनेछ ।
यति हुदाहुदै पनि चीन र भारत दुवै आफ्ना द्विपक्षीय सम्बन्धभित्रका असहजताबाट तेस्रो वैदेशिक शक्तिले लिन सक्ने लाभप्रति सचेत छन् । यस्तो संवेदनशील अवस्थामा नेपाली नेतृत्व पङ्क्तिको सामूहिक विवेकमा आउने सानोभन्दा सानो ह्रासले पनि भयङ्कर परिणाम निम्त्याउने निश्चित छ । विदेशी चलखेल बढ्यो मात्र भनेर टाउको ठटाउनुको कुनै उपयोगिता छैन । सङ्क्रमणकाल भनेर छिमेकीलगायत कसैले छुट देलान् भन्ठान्नु त मूर्खताको पराकाष्ठा ठहरिनेछ ।
अग्रगामी परविर्तनका लागि राजतन्त्र वा गणतन्त्र एवम् एकात्मक वा सङ्घीय राज्य संरचनाजस्ता विषयहरू छिनोफानो गर्न तल्लीन नयां नेपालका निर्माताहरूका सामु दुइ ढुङ्गाबीचको तरुललाई सग्लो राख्नुपर्ने पुरानै अभिभारा कायम छ ।

Republicanism’s Recalcitrant Ripples

By Sanjay Upadhya
September 16, 2007

The Nepali Congress’ headlong plunge into republicanism has spawned some unruly ripples. Krishna Prasad Bhattarai emerged from seclusion to disapprove of the decision. He underscored his displeasure by visiting Crown Prince Paras in the hospital. This dismantling of the ruling alliance’s sustained boycott of the monarchy may have been symbolic, but it was no less significant.
Bhattarai’s stand was immediately ridiculed as a monumental irrelevance. One-time loyalists suddenly saw the sole surviving founding member of the Nepali Congress as a symbol of senility. They resurrected the dead, too. B.P. Koirala’s plea for reconciliation between democrats and the palace had lost its validity, the refrain went. Were B.P. alive, prominent Nepali Congress thinker Pradip Giri asserted, Nepal would have become a republic four years ago. What was more fascinating here was that so many quarters across the political spectrum spent so many sentences on exemplifying an irrelevance.
Whether Bhattarai’s view represented those of the more reticent Nepali Congress members in both factions is unclear. What it does show is that there are still those who see the party’s survival closely tethered to the monarchy’s.
Across the board, the euphoria did not last long among republicans. In retrospect, what the Nepali Congress leadership did was refer the republican agenda to its general convention. The impression is that the body would eventually rubber stamp the decision. Yet other parties do not seem so sanguine. Maoist chairman Prachanda, among others, has pondered in some detail over whether the Nepali Congress would go into the constituent assembly elections with a republican agenda and then vote for the retention of the monarchy.
So far, Prime Minister Koirala has adroitly played off the Maoists and monarchy against each other in an effort to maintain a tenuous peace. That strategy may be running its course. The Maoists have been able to push their 22 preconditions for the constituent assembly elections primarily on the strength of the second amendment to the interim statute.
The eight parties in power had empowered the interim legislature to abolish the monarchy if the palace were found to be obstructing the polls. The argument that the Maoists are somehow shifting the goalposts is, therefore, specious. The only way the other constituents in power can now rebut the ex-rebels is by certifying that the palace has done no such thing – something the maligned Bhattarai seemed to have grasped.
Koirala is keeping his principal card – if he has one, that is – close to his chest. Rooting for the monarchy may be the best route for daughter Sujata to win the succession struggle in the party and perpetuate the Koirala dynasty. The premier may have helped her by asserting that the country’s independence was at stake.
Having discharged the duties – spiritual as well as secular – of head of state over the months, Koirala may now covet the real job. But, surely, he knows that becoming the first president of Nepal would require much more than Prachanda’s consent. The ruling parties would need to persuade internal and external constituencies of their ability to sustain a republic. And reconciling India’s aspirations for a democratic Nepal with China’s desire for a stable one is the easy part.
The postponement of the constituent assembly elections was a thinly guised affirmation of Nepal’s failure to attain political equilibrium. If the elections are delayed once more, it will be because of this factor. It is hardly surprising, therefore, that the government’s agreements with the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum and Chure-Bhawar Ekta Samaj have been unable to lift the national mood.
No one – within the country or outside – wants to be blamed for derailing the tenuous peace process. Yet everyone is aware of another fragility: Koirala’s age and ailments. Deep inside, the premier probably considers himself no less vulnerable to the S slur than Bhattarai.

The Koiralas’ Crown Compulsions

By Sanjay Upadhya
May 21, 2007

Contrary to all outward appearances of ambivalence, the Nepali Congress appears to have cemented the centrality of the monarchy to its identity. Each new reiteration by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala of the inevitability of a republic has encouraged some of his closest associates in the party to articulate the crown’s continued relevance with greater clarity.
This affinity, to be sure, does not stem from an underlying affection. Shared class characteristics, as the Maoists like to point out, may be responsible to some degree. If anything, political pragmatism is the prime compulsion for the Nepali Congress.
The precise details of the April 24, 2006 compromise between the Seven-Party Alliance and King Gyanendra – if there was one in the first place – remain under wraps. For Prime Minister Koirala, seizing that middle ground between the monarchy and the Maoists became the first order of business. By playing off the palace and the Maoists against each other, Koirala succeeded in bringing the former rebels into government.
In formalizing the postponement of the constituent assembly elections after roping in the Maoists, Koirala exhibited, more than anything else, his vaunted party-building skills. Maoist chief Prachanda saw where things were headed. Sensing a trap, key associates began to feel they might be better off staying out power. In retrospect, the feverish bargaining over rank and portfolios right up to Koirala’s departure for the SAARC summit in New Delhi provided a convenient cover for all the protagonists.
Prachanda has been making obligatory allegations of betrayal to fortify his flank within. The Maoist chief understands how perilous the peace front of his “people’s war” can be. Despite all the other good things his Young Communist League is doing, the bad ones are hogging the headlines. For the country, it no longer matters how deep the internal split in the Maoists really runs. The nationalism and revolutionary planks in their platform have decayed the fastest.
In the legacy-building stage of his political career, Prime Minister Koirala may have grasped Nepal’s broader options. Vignettes from his previous stints in power must be swirling around him. Facing massive street protests against the Tanakpur accord in 1992-94, Koirala certainly did not relish those pleas by some normally sympathetic Indians for New Delhi to distance itself from the man. The escalation of the Maoist insurgency, the political instability preceding the Narayanhity Massacre and the wider convulsions it created must have encouraged deeper introspection.
After King Gyanendra took over full executive powers in October 2002, Koirala and the Nepali Congress, like much of the mainstream, were at the nadir of their popularity. While other leaders geared up for the looming collision with the palace, Koirala considered his own vulnerabilities. When the palace-appointed government purportedly agreed with Maoist negotiators to limit the army to a five kilometer radius of the barracks, Koirala became the first leader to criticize this infringement of state sovereignty.
That statement became part of a wider dynamic that ultimately shut the door on a palace-Maoist deal that would have bypassed the parties. The bonus Koirala sought – and may have succeeded in getting – lay in plugging that vulnerable hole Tanakpur exposed.
Last year, when Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh welcomed him to New Delhi as a South Asian statesman, Koirala must have found it hard to suppress that chuckle inside. For someone who had a hard time scheduling meetings with then-premier Atal Behari Vajpayee during the early years of the anti-palace movement, this was quite a leap – and illusory.
Koirala was too close to his illustrious brother not to have experienced the exasperation B.P. Koirala felt in the late 1960s before abandoning efforts to renew relations with Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. During the eight years B.P. was imprisoned at Sundarijal, time had not stood still.
B.P.’s subsequent years in exile must have occasioned ample review of his brief tenure as Nepal’s first elected premier. When Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru declared in parliament in November 1959 that any external aggression on Nepal and Bhutan would be treated as an aggression on India, B.P. felt compelled to respond.
Speaking in the Nepali legislature, Koirala said he took Nehru’s statement as an expression of friendship, but added that Nepal, being a fully sovereign and independent nation, decided its external and home policies without ever referring to any external authority.
Over a week later, Nehru affirmed he agreed entirely with Koirala’s interpretation, but not without disclosing the secret letters that had been exchanged with the 1950 Treaty. Of course, B.P. did not have the benefit of hindsight to see how his battle with the palace would only set the stage for a larger phenomenon that would marginalize the Nepali Congress for three decades. If B.P. considered exile in Sarnath a lot like Sundarijal, who could have understood this better than his youngest brother.
In his current tenure, Prime Minister Koirala has become a changed man. He is an ardent champion of China’s entry into the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation as a full member. The prime minister appeared unconstrained in seeking the new Chinese ambassador’s help on ensuring smooth petroleum supplies as the Indian Oil Corporation began tinkering with the taps.
In the cryptic maneuverings that pass for Nepali politics, these moves may be devoid of real substance. Yet coming from Koirala, the symbolism becomes starker. It was not too long ago, after all, that he flew straight into New Delhi from talks in China, left alone to battle the diplomatic fallout. Unlike B.P. Koirala, age has made this prime minister less susceptible to external “penalties” for flaunting his independence. This allows him greater leeway to build his legacy.
The logical question here is whether Koirala can impose his views on a party that largely considers itself the principal victim of the palace. Koirala is the Nepali Congress. Those who broke away under Sher Bahadur Deuba in mid-2002 had an opportunity to prove otherwise. The country recognizes how far anti-Koirala-ism has worked. For most of the younger Koiralas competing for the family mantle, the monarchy remains a pivot. Party members who disagree are most welcome to find another tent.
This brings us to another area where the Koiralas have proved particularly adroit. By allowing the communist factions monopolize the so-called “progressive/left” banner, the Nepali Congress can blur the distinction between the Unified Marxist Leninists and the Maoists, especially in those crucial western eyes.
When the Maoists relentlessly blame international power centers for conspiring to retain the monarchy, the Nepali Congress can afford to nod in affirmation and sit back. Prachanda and Co., by their own logic, have a long way to go toward establishing the scope and structures of republicanism as a viable alternative. Prime Minister Koirala, meanwhile, can continue uttering those obligatory republican sentiments.

Behind The Bombast And Bluster

By Sanjay Upadhya
May 2, 2007

For an organization that has flourished on ambiguity, obfuscation and even prevarication, the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist’s latest internal commotions could be yet another subterfuge. Still, it is becoming difficult to view media reports on the ex-rebels’ growing disenchantment with India in isolation from their increasing assaults on Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, their determination consolidate the fiefdoms ministries they control have become, and their newfound eagerness to forge a broader republican front on the left.
Forest Minister Matrika Prasad Yadav’s altercation with Prime Minister Koirala on the military and the projectiles hurled at Peace and Reconstruction Minister Ram Chandra Poudel at the main mass meeting marking the first anniversary of the collapse of King Gyanendra’s regime, among other things, may not be entirely unrelated events. Some mid-ranking Maoist leaders have started reminding the country that Koirala holds the record of having had the greatest numbers of effigies burned. The peace process may not be in danger. But it will not become more tranquil or methodical.
Today’s Maoists barely resemble the group that declared war on the state 11 years ago with a manifesto top heavy with grievances against India. Indeed, Prachanda and Dr. Baburam Bhattarai were already articulating the urgency of toning down their anti-Indian rhetoric at the Lucknow talks with UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal in 2003. Whatever the truth behind the Prachanda-Dr. Bhattarai split that came to the fore in mid-2005, the events leading up to the 12-point agreement with Seven Party Alliance in New Delhi underscored the centrality of India in the Maoists’ internal deliberations.
With enough sophistication, Prachanda’s very public turnaround in New Delhi could have helped the peace process. For a brief moment, it looked like the Maoists were actually capable of creating that vital mixture of nationalism and democracy Nepali politics has been oscillating between. The moment Prachanda felt compelled to criticize Pakistan in order to woo India, he forced many Nepalis into that awful disposition between laughter and lament.
Clearly, India’s immediate goal in securing the 12-point accord was to tame the palace, as evidenced by New Delhi’s enthusiastic albeit premature welcoming of King Gyanendra’s first address to the nation. Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai could not have been oblivious to New Delhi’s larger objective: the mainstreaming of the Maoists as a national security imperative. By subduing the inspirational fount of the Naxalites, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would be more comfortable in confronting what he has called greatest internal security threat since independence.
India’s duality on the Maoists has survived the royal regime. The security establishment, which was more amenable to engagement with King Gyanendra’s government, continues to uncover the Nepali ex-rebels’ purported wider links to terrorism. The political establishment, excluding the Hindu nationalist flank, is busy assuring Indians and the rest of the world that Nepal’s Maoists have little more than ideological ties with the Naxalites.
When the Maoists rail against India’s “trap”, they obviously have the former group in mind. But blaming Indian Hindu extremists and royalists for instigating madhesis, janjatis and other groups that still feel disenfranchised cannot help much. The amplification over the past year of traditional grievances the Maoists claimed to have articulated has questioned the premise of the “people’s war.” Prachanda’s frivolities have only reinforced the siege.
Prachanda’s purported retort at a recent central committee meeting that C.P. Gajurel and Mohan Baidya would still be languishing in Indian prisons without his overtures to India sounded pragmatic. The problem is, Baidya was among those criticizing the party supremo’s policy. If today’s Maoists are the same group of ideologically disciplined people credited with mounting the world’s most successful post-communist revolutionary movement, could they be expected to correct this drift? If so, in which ways? How would the Maoists’ sustained effort to build ties with China in light of Beijing’s policy of pragmatism fit into this drive? More importantly, how would New Delhi respond?
For the moment, the disgruntled Maoists have made renewed calls for unity between nationalist and democratic forces against Indian designs. In the past, that slogan allowed the Maoists to veer closer to the palace. What does “nationalist” imply in the republican context beyond the broader leftist front?
The Nepali Congress seems have grasped the implications of that question. The party continues to remind the Maoists of their undertaking to allow the first sitting of the constituent assembly to decide the fate of the monarch less out of scrupulous adherence to existing agreements than political pragmatism. It is hard to miss the murmurs within the Nepali Congress suggesting that the palace may actually constitute a lesser threat to democracy than the Maoists.
For now, though, the bombast and bluster over the wisdom of declaring a republic from the interim parliament, government and streets provides a convenient cover for all.

A Year On, King Still At The Center

By Sanjay Upadhya
April 16, 2007

A palpable paradox remains the defining feature of the year since the culmination of People’s Movement II. A king supposedly sidelined by his people is very much at the center of the nation.
Amid the inexorable cycle of hope and despair of the last 12 months of peacemaking, the uncertainty gripping the constituent assembly (CA) elections has cast a new pall of gloom for many. But it would be deceitful to cite the postponement of the polls as a setback to the peace process. And not just because large segments of Nepalis feel disenfranchised heading into the exercise. Writing the election schedule into an interim constitution that failed to materialize on time was just one manifestation of the legerdemain that sustains the polity.
As someone accustomed to far worse indictments, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala can shrug off the latest censure from his partners in power. His public pronouncements on the palace had turned sufficiently hostile to deflect charges of coddling the crown. Deep inside, though, Koirala rests confident in the recognition that no party wanted the elections in June.
The Maoists are in a slightly different league. As the owners of the CA agenda, they are entitled to make the loudest noises. Yet their abolish-the-monarchy-first clamor serves more as a cover for their internal churning process. This is a do-or-die situation for the Maoists in the literal as well as figurative sense. The ex-rebels’ claim to have represented the ethnic, linguistic, cultural, religious and geographical grievances that were swept under the People’s Movement I carpet has been thoroughly debunked by, among other things, the madhesi and janjati movements.
Furthermore, as the Maoists were pressing the CA demand for much of the past decade, virtually every party argued that it would open a Pandora’s Box. Now that those parties have gone along, the Maoists are unwilling to acknowledge the steady discharge. In their pointless search for scapegoats, they have merely reinforced the centrality of the monarchy.
Prime Minister Koirala stiffened his stance on the palace only after having lined up a pro-monarchy constituency in his party under daughter Sujata. Even then, the premier’s option envisages placing King Gyanendra’s four-year-old grandson on the throne. It’s pointless to even begin wondering how such an antiquated vision could chart the course to a new Nepal.
That inanity pales in front of the proposal from other quarters to enthrone a granddaughter of King Birendra. The idea of tinkering with such a central element of royal succession when the future of the institution is hanging in the balance was wrong-headed enough. Long before that, the difficulty the female biological cycle would pose to the religious and cultural roles a ceremonial monarchy would have to confine itself to should have been apparent.
Those decrying such chauvinism would do well first to either redefine the rules of our rituals or the role of the monarchy – and possibly both. The rest are perhaps realistic enough to recognize that the monarchy, by definition, offers the least scope for the people to choose their head of state. (This debate has been complicated by the campaign, if only tepid, to create a republican Hindu state.)
The Maoists can claim the high ground here by calling for the outright abolition of the monarchy. Yet their rationale remains spurious. The ex-rebels’ detection of a royalist hand in the madhesi and janjati movements raises interesting questions. If the 238-year-old Shah Dynasty was indeed responsible – as the rebels have long claimed – for the systematic impoverishment of these groups, what might have led the aggrieved seek their salvation in their long-time tormentors?
The Maoists’ refrain that national and international forces are trying to save the monarchy raises its corollary. What might have impelled these forces – obviously the loudest critics of the royal takeover in February 2005 – do so? It’s one thing for the principal domestic actors to claim that Nepal can do without the monarchy. It’s quite another to persuade major international players increasingly driven by the imperative of defensive imperialism.
As for the principal external player, King Gyanendra’s attempt to tether his regime tightly to China was a greater sin than the nature of his regime. Prime Minister Koirala’s call in New Delhi earlier this month for China’s inclusion as a full member of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation – from its current status as an observer – must have cast new light on Nepal’s much-maligned “China card.”
Juxtaposed with the “stability” school of thought resurgent in a section of the New Delhi establishment vis-à-vis the neighborhood, the wider dynamics of the preceding year do not necessarily conform to those being projected by the Nepali parties in power.
King Gyanendra’s critics succeeded in portraying the palace takeover as nothing more than a power grab. By directing public wrath to a handful of Panchayat-era individuals in power, Seven Party Alliance (SPA) leaders sidestepped the stark reality that many of their former colleagues were part of the royal regime. It became all the more convenient to ignore the technocrats and entrepreneurs who also underpinned King Gyanendra’s government.
A year later, as the peace process hobbles ahead, the royal regime’s role as a catalyst for the SPA-Maoist alliance has acquired greater clarity. This must have been among the successes King Gyanendra referred to in his much-criticized Democracy Day message in February.

How Strong Is The Maoist Peace Camp?

By Sanjay Upadhya
December 21, 2006

The ecstasy over the outbreak of peace has abated somewhat with the government’s ambassadorial appointments ostensibly aimed at spreading universally the message of amity. The severity of the Maoists’ denunciation of the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) government’s “ill-timed” decision was less surprising than the swiftness with which they were able to enforce their six-hour stoppage the other day. At a deeper level, though, this public display of the fragility of the peace process offers a timely reminder of the perils of unrestrained optimism.
The success of any peace and reconciliation effort will depend, above all, on the control Maoist chairman Prachanda exercises over his organization. Until the latest outburst, his political and military lieutenants seemed to be firmly behind the process. Moves to sequester Maoist fighters in UN-managed camps appeared to have started well. It was not difficult to attribute the persistence of abduction, extortion and other violations of the peace accords to Maoist maladjustment. Considering the rollercoaster ride the peace process has proved to be over the past several months, Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala may be right in refusing to see the latest episode as a crisis.
Yet doubts about the Maoists’ commitment to peace continue to hover over the horizon. How genuine is the peace consensus in the organization and how long might it prevail? Even an informal rift in rebel ranks could torpedo the gains of the last several months. The national anxiety deepens when one considers that a formal split is still possible.
Indian Maoists have been unequivocal in their criticism of Prachanda’s latest path. Accusations of betrayal have been emanating from a wider universe of the international left long sympathetic to the insurgency. In this climate, any breakaway Maoist faction would not find it too hard to find ideological allies. The swiftness with which moral sustenance can translate into military support is evident in the Maoists’ own evolution since 1996.
The essential question remains: what stakes do the Maoists have in peace? For all the triumphalism Prachanda and Co. have been exuding, the Maoists have paid a hefty price for peace. Militarily, they seemed capable of overrunning the capital and establishing their cherished people’s republic. What impelled them to join hands with the parliamentary mainstream against the monarchy? More importantly, what effect has this alliance with one of their two principal adversaries had on the fighters? “Recognition of international realities” – the Maoists’ phrase of choice – hides more than it reveals. From the outset of the April movement that ousted the royal regime, the SPA has been treating the Maoists as the eighth player, not as the representatives of the “new state” the rebels so energetically project themselves as.
The extent to which Prachanda went to praise India could not have gone unnoticed in an organization that began its original 40-point demand with a tirade against New Delhi’s sustained subjugation of Nepal. Even if the entire Maoist entity were to somehow share Prachanda’s political pragmatism, far fewer would be ready to countenance his conversion to capitalism, something unmistakable in his recent pronouncements.
Prachanda may have lost the credibility to revert into a hardcore revolutionary. Prime Minister Koirala may rescue his peace partner by immediately promulgating the interim constitution and inducting the Maoists into an interim government and parliament. How would such a peace feed into the discontent voiced by other constituencies?
The Terai may yet be calmed, especially considering its proximity to the external agent most able to stoke instability. After all, it was only in the latter phase of the Maoist insurgency that violence really gripped regions bordering India. More ominous are the bruises inflicted in India by the identification of Hinduism with the monarchy. A Hindu republic of Nepal carries considerable resonance among constituencies there that are more than capable of articulating their displeasure.
For now, each of the three political forces claims to enjoy the people’s mandate. A souring of the popular mood could erode the credibility of the entire arrangement that began with the House of Representative Proclamation. The wildly varying opinion polls on the monarchy have flustered the SPA and the Maoists. Uncertainty may yet unite them against the palace. Would that be enough to sustain the peace process? Eternal optimism is a feeble basis for peace; it is dangerous when the process is so amorphous.

Can We Ever Reconcile Our Relative Truths?

By Sanjay Upadhya
November 13, 2006

Amid calls for the creation of a truth and reconciliation committee to complete the peace process, Maoist leader Dev Gurung has come out with his own flash of candor.
He wants a separate ministry to oversee the reconstruction of infrastructure lost in the decade-long “people’s war”.
It would have been comforting to accept Gurung’s assertion as the ultimate acknowledgment of responsibility. If those intent on blowing up Nepal into Year Zero in their quest for a utopia could genuinely undergo such a radical change of heart, well, more Nepalis should be encouraged to bare their souls.
But genuineness is not something that can be easily equated with Gurung’s organization. And not entirely because of the scale of the death, destruction and debris the Maoists have unleashed. A fully and credibly disarmed Maoists – if that could ever be achieved – would still retain their lethal verbal weapons of obfuscation and prevarication.
It has become fashionable to cite post-apartheid South Africa as an example of truth being an effective tool for reconciliation. Not every nation is blessed with the likes of Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu. Where Nepal is at a real disadvantage is that truth, here, is more likely to be relative. It would be unfair to single out the Maoists on this count.
Let’s begin with the creation of the modern Nepali state. Decades of profuse state-inspired tributes bestowed upon King Prithvi Narayan Shah almost superhuman abilities. If Lord Ram needed his Hanumans and Bibhishans, could the king of Gorkha have achieved much without confidants and commanders?
In the inevitable backlash, democratic Nepal has veered the other way. National unification stands on clusters of eyeballs, nasal cartilage and ear lobes, not to mention corpses. The Capuchin missionaries – the most prominent chroniclers of the fall of Kirtipur – may have been faithful to what they had witnessed. It hardly seems to matter today that they were allies of the Mallas who had persuaded the British to send Captain Kinloch’s ill-fated expeditionary force against the Gorkha army.
The elasticity of our authenticity endures in other ways. Those condemning the conquerors for having imposed conformity through Khas-Nepali words and practices on diverse indigenous peoples rise up in anger each time a foreigner is perceived to be denigrating Nepal.
Political truths are all the more ambiguous. Was King Tribhuvan’s flight to New Delhi part of a carefully devised plan to turn Nepal into a beacon of democracy? Or was the monarch, already under increasing threat from the Rana rulers, pursuing a strategy for survival?
Was the Nepali Congress really the driver of the 1951 changes as it claims? Or did the organization merely provide the street power for an initiative our southern neighbors had devised to counter the radicalization of our northern ones? Democracy resulting as a byproduct is certainly not the same as one genuinely created.
The palace’s consolidation of political power after the dawn of democracy is attributed to ambitious monarchs. Perhaps. But could such a quest have succeeded without the compulsions that seemed to rally most stakeholders around the palace for stability?
King Mahendra’s distress at the emergence of a competing national institution is solely blamed for the overthrow of Nepal’s first elected government. Doubtless, the monarch could barely conceal his antipathy for party politicians in his pronouncements as crown prince. But does that sufficiently explain how up to three-quarters of the 74 Nepali Congress legislators in the lower house could end up supporting the palace? Or is the palace to be blamed for this en masse surrender?
The freedom fighter in Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru could have done nothing less than denounce the royal takeover as a setback to democracy. How do we explain the massive economic assistance New Delhi went on to infuse into the partyless system? Certainly not just because of the torrent of Chinese, Soviet, American and British aid and expertise?
B.P. Koirala based his acceptance of the referendum verdict in favor of the Panchayat system in 1980 on the duties of a democrat. Or was it the anti-communist in him speaking? But, then, who knows how national reconciliation really came to be the euphemism B.P. used to trade house arrest in Emergency-era India for a second stint at Sundarijal? These issues are relevant to understanding why sections of the Nepali Congress – a party that attempted regicide twice in the 1960s and 70s – should still feel compelled to advocate a ceremonial monarchy.
The pragmatism that had taken over Nehru’s Delhi after the 1962 Sino-Indian war could not have melted merely under his grandson’s purported personality clashes with King Birendra. Could Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi’s landmark visit to China in 1988 have encouraged New Delhi to twist the palace’s arms and slip that 80-page draft memo on the entire gamut of ties to find out which one would work first?
The People’s Movement of 1990 cast a more ominous shadow. Did King Birendra restore multiparty democracy at that late-night meeting or did he simply lift the ban on parties? The distinction is important considering how Nepalis had to spend the subsequent 11 years in a twilight zone. Of course, it took King Gyanendra’s dismissal of Sher Bahadur Deuba’s elected government for our politicians to tell us that the slain monarch was not, after all, the model constitutional monarch they had made him out to be.
The Maoists seem to have been the biggest winners of the April Uprising. Let’s take a closer look. Until last week, the rebels seemed to have won half of their original demands. After the Baluwatar agreement, they have settled for 25 percent, by acknowledging that the House proclamation had already suspended the monarchy.
Yet the real record lies in their virtual silence on the first nine of their 40-point demand. True, Prachanda and his comrades are still calling for a more equitable relationship between Nepal and India. The tone has lost all of its roar now that words like “Bhutanization” and “Sikkimization” have quietly left the comrades’ lexicon. Prachanda must have drawn this important lesson from Madan Bhandari’s tragic end: It makes more sense to attend a global leadership summit down south than to aspire to embody the Great Helmsman up north.
Dr. Baburam Bhattarai certainly recognized the opportunity of the moment and claimed an undeclared working unity with King Birendra. His eloquence impelled him to conclude that Nepalis would rate highly every predecessor of the slain monarch. No one considered it relevant to ask the comrade what he considered to be the most salient features of the reigns of, say, Kings Pratap Singh, Girvan Yuddha, Surendra and Prithvi Bir.
King Gyanendra is expected to take responsibility for 238 years of the Shah dynasty. The 104 years of Rana rule, 30 years of Bhimsen Thapa and the periods an assortment of courtiers manipulated infant kings are all clubbed into one epoch of history. Worse, many descendants of those same Thapas, Pandeys, Basnets, Kunwars and bevy of Bahuns and Newars pretend they can absolve their clans of complicity.
Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala must certainly feel vindicated today when the Maoists insist he must continue as premier. After the Narayanhity carnage, Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai had clubbed Koirala together with the current king and crown prince in a single “coterie”.
The Nepali Congress dissidents and the CPN-UML would not have succeeded in dislodging an elected prime minister who was also the head of the majority party in parliament without the help of the Maoists. Who knows what kind of flexibility power might encourage our rebels turned rulers to exhibit in the run-up to the constituent assembly elections?
Each Nepali has a copious collection of personal truths capable of overwhelming even the strongest willed reconciliation commissioner. The strident mixture of ancient grudges and modern slights – real and perceived – would require an open-ended commission. The truth, they say, shall set us free. But can we ever reconcile our relative truths?

Precarious Premise Of Peacemaking

By Sanjay Upadhya
October 16, 2006

The grins, quips and all the other breezy displays of optimism surrounding the post-Dasain phase of the peace process have dissolved in the somberness of the indefinite postponement of the Seven Party Alliance (SPA)-Maoist talks.
Given the murkiness of the enterprise, however, another phase of ebullience and enthusiasm could bounce back with surprising speed. The “homework” hiatus should afford the country an opportunity to reflect on the predicaments on both sides.
For the Maoists, blaming the palace and foreign powers for conspiring to keep them out of power would help energize the base and thwart the prospect of serious discontent over the political leadership’s capitulation to the machinations of the mainstream.
When the rebels continue to ascribe to the palace the ability to torpedo the peace process, they are virtually negating the finality of the “historic” proclamation the House of Representatives adopted in May. Yet the SPA – at least the sections of the two Nepali Congress parties that seem to be propelling the ruling alliance – does not seem too bothered.
The Unified Marxist Leninist (UML) and the other communist constituents may be too busy protecting their own turfs against the imminent influx of their more radical cousins to challenge Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s deepening affection for the monarchy. The mainstream communists, like the republican wing of the Nepali Congress, have evidently recognized the asset a sufficiently and certifiably tamed palace could prove to be.
The two factors supposedly holding back the breakthrough that was so tantalizingly close – the monarchy and Maoist arms – have brought out the painful predicaments of peacemaking. The government’s annoyance with the Maoists eagerness to maintain simultaneous access to their arms and political power – in defiance of international pressure – is understandable.
No less so is the Maoists’ bafflement over the government’s refusal to “suspend” the monarchy, when, for all practical purposes, the House proclamation has already done that.
Introspection is in order. Considering the approaching anniversary, it should begin with the 12-point SPA-Maoist accord reached in New Delhi last year. The reality that the accord stands on flimsier ground than the 1951 Delhi Compromise rests not on the absence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as the preponderant player.
The real distinguishing feature is that Jawaharlal Nehru represented India far more credibly than the current Congress premier – and perhaps any future leader of the world’s most populous democracy – can expect to.
The fragility of the peace process becomes more ominous when Maoist chief ideologue Dr. Baburam Bhattarai praises India for facilitating the accord and then blames it for conspiring to keep the rebels out of power, almost in the same breath. If the adroit hair-splitter is making a distinction between those in the Indian Left who mediated the talks with the SPA and the “official sources” who leaked reports to the media that Indian intelligence agencies were “chaperoning” him around New Delhi, then he needs to be more explicit about those negotiations.
The question is, can he? When UML general secretary Madhav Kumar Nepal traveled to Lucknow in November 2003 to meet with Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai, there was palpable mix of outrage and embarrassment in both sides of the border over the ease with which the leader of the opposition could meet “terrorists” on Indian soil.
Those sentiments obscured the more relevant story: Dr. Bhattarai’s candid acknowledgement that the Maoists, like any other political organization in Nepali history, could not advance their objectives by criticizing India. The Indians, for their part, must be equally baffled by how the Maoists, who have vowed to launch massive peaceful urban protests in case the talks fail, could still keep their broader pledge to turn South Asia into a flaming field of Maoist revolutions.”
Such fiery rhetoric cannot obscure the flexibility behind the Maoists’ growth. An organization that took up arms against both the monarchy and parliamentary democracy – more vigorously against the latter until the June 1, 2001 royal palace massacre – has now allied with one.
A 40-point list of grievances heavily targeted against India has now been distilled into diatribe against the 238-year-old monarchy. The obfuscation and prevarication that has gone into justifying such shifts are not helpful. Yet the Maoists persist.
Providing revolutionary ardor to Prithvi Narayan Shah’s famous counsel, the Maoists describe Nepal as a dynamite between two boulders. The yam metaphor of the first Shah king may have contained traces of weakness – as the Maoists allege -- but it still pulsated with a quest for life.
The notion of self-destruction – and its wider devastation -- inherent in the dynamite analogy may not have alarmed many Nepalis. The international community has taken notice. No wonder U.N. General Assembly members on Monday refused to be taken in by the peace-and-democracy platform in Nepal campaign for a two-year seat on the Security Council.

Where Geography And Politics Clash

By Sanjay Upadhya
September 10, 2006

From the assurances emanating from both sides, the audible hardening of positions may not stand in the way of the next summit between Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala and Maoist supremo Prachanda. The uncertainty over how this transformation might influence the outcome underscores the precariousness of the peace process.
The Maoists evidently see virtue in letting some ambiguity shroud the deliberations of their recent central committee meeting. The firmness of Prime Minister Koirala’s insistence on the primacy of the arms-management issue vis-à-vis the peace process directly stems from the rebels’ strong utterances after the meeting. Yet he is addressing a wider audience.
In confirming Gen. Rukmangad Katuwal as army chief, over the objections of Seven Party Alliance (SPA) politicians, civil society and the Maoists, Koirala has reminded the country that he still retains enough of his record of implacability. In recent comments, the premier has qualified his insistence on giving space to a ceremonial monarchy with an acknowledgement of the people’s ultimate sacrosanct right to choose.
His political priorities are clear. The draft interim constitution is full of blanks waiting to be filled through political consensus between the SPA and the Maoists. The issue of constituent assembly elections – with or without a referendum on the monarchy – lies beyond Koirala’s immediate gaze. Having brought the army under civilian control – if that is what it is – Koirala recognizes the flip side of the achievement: earning and retaining the loyalty of the forces.
With the Maoists and the SPA squabbling over almost every vital element of the 12-point accord, we now know why the signatories came out with separate statements last November. A broader opposition front had become urgent to tame the palace in the immediate aftermath of the Dhaka SAARC summit, where Nepal was instrumental in shifting the geopolitical locus of South Asia by drawing in China as an observer.
Koirala, who Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh hailed as the greatest statesman of the region in June, could not have forgotten the sustained difficulties he had to encounter in scheduling meetings with Singh’s predecessor in the aftermath of King Gyanendra’s dismissal of Nepal’s last elected government in October 2002.
It took five months for the SPA-Maoist accord to achieve what now appears to have been its sole objective. From this perspective, at least, the 12-point accord lost its relevance the moment King Gyanendra reinstated the House of Representatives. Yet the Maoists chose to moderate their criticism of the SPA’s betrayal of the spirit of the April Uprising because it provided an opening to the urban uprising component of the People’s War.
For the Maoists, the series of steps the legislature took toward eviscerating the palace, democratizing the military and secularizing the state helped to undermine the “old state” a decade of murder and mayhem could not. Sooner or later the MPs’ ebullience would end up bordering on the ridiculous. Their penchant for taking repeated oaths and ordering others to do the same set the stage for other absurdities such as “outlawing” discrimination and throwing in internationally recognized heritage sites to bloat the royal assets they proudly covered.
Over time, Maoist military commanders like Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal broke their mysterious silence on the peace process, but not without employing the creative ambiguity the political commissars had long perfected. Once representatives of the republican camp in Nepali Congress, such as Ram Chandra Poudel, began criticizing the Maoists’ haughtiness, chief rebel ideologue Dr. Baburam Bhattarai grew anxious to see, more than anything else, another split in Koirala’s party.
Having seen King Gyanendra struggle for American and Indian sympathy – if not outright support -- for his compulsions in seizing power on February 1, 2005, Maoist leaders certainly did not think they were making any great revelation in suggesting that the key to peace lay in the hands in Washington and New Delhi.
The four-month-old logjam, on the other hand, must have allowed the two capitals to appreciate the complexity of a stalemate the monarch could not break with the three governments he appointed – the last drawing partial representation from the opposition alliance -- before taking direct control. Surely, the SPA and Maoists are alert to the implications of a deepening of any such assessment.
In retrospect, international opposition to royal rule – at least from quarters that mattered the most -- had more to do with geopolitics than with an underlying revulsion for a grand autocratic design of an ambitious monarch. As Koirala and Prachanda prepare for their next discussions and beyond, Nepal’s geography and its politics remain deeply engrossed in search of that ever-elusive state of equilibrium.

Nepal: Ominous Order Amid Murky Mandate

By Sanjay Upadhya
August 21, 2006

It would have been easy to hail the Nepalese government’s decision to revoke its order raising the prices of petroleum products as another triumph of “people power” had it not been so ominous. Two days of violent protests forced an increasingly drifting government to relent on something it has perhaps the least control over.
Clearly, the argument could be made that petroleum prices in Nepal must factor in the inefficiencies of the state monopoly, Nepal Oil Corporation. An organization once known for its outrageously lavish employee bonuses was bound to confront fiscal reality. Yet Nepal’s options on oil remain limited. If the government must watch the streets in making key decisions on such issues, then we must brace for perpetual chaos as part of political life.
The temptation to blame the protests on “regressive” elements linked to a beaten but unbowed palace is understandable. The real problem lies in how the participants in an increasingly uncertain peace process have politicized the issue. The Maoists, under tremendous pressure to disarm by any name, had found another excuse to buy time: demanding the restructuring of the state before they would consent to participate in the government. The rebels’ threat to launch another movement if the government failed to withdraw the petroleum price rise may come back to sting them the day they find themselves in the seat of power and responsibility.
Key constituents of the ruling Seven Party Alliance (SPA) – and their fraternal organizations – were being disingenuous as well. The Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML), whose minister tried to justify a similar price rise in 2004 amid great popular wrath, could have consulted some of those same talking points. By rolling back the price increase in its entirety, the government has chosen to appease the streets. For how long?
A reduction in the rates of increase along with efficient-distribution measures, matched with a more convincing articulation of its compulsions, could have been a more measured response. The reality that the government chose not to do so underscores its unenviable plight. Surely, an entity that could eviscerate the monarchy, secularize the country and accomplish a host of other wonders could not have been seen unable to withdraw the price rises.
This is where the nebulous “mandate” of People’s Movement-II gets murkier. The interpretations of key protagonists have conferred on that mandate an elasticity that risks negating its reality. The wily Maoists have placed themselves on the cooperation and confrontation boats. (The terminology has been deliberately moderated in view of the rebels’ repeated assurances that they would not return to the jungles.) Should the going get rough, we can expect Prachanda and Ganpathy – not obscure lieutenants – to sign the next statement of solidarity between Nepalese and Indian Maoists.
The Maoists’ vicious attacks on Nepali Congress, Nepali Congress (Democratic) and UML politicians are ostensibly part of the confrontation mode. Should the Congress unification process gather pace, the UML would find it harder to postpone its own moment of reckoning.
The Terai has brought another imponderable. For now, the region may be in the grip of violence primarily between the Maoists and a breakaway faction. Should the ambiguity of the people’s mandate spill over, the conflict will have acquired added combustibility. The solidarity demonstrated by Terai-based politicians across party lines following Sher Bahadur Deuba’s land reform effort in 2003 signaled the radicalism of regionalism. There could be a more perilous resurgence, especially when this particular element of ethno-geography finds inadequate resonance in most federalism models.

The Foreign Factor
Given the geopolitical stakes involved, the international donor community could still provide enough financial cushion to the government, enabling it to appease the streets through subsidies and other inducements. The possibility of open-ended external financial commitment diminishes with the emergence of each new global hot spot on the front pages. The external propensity for political intervention need not. With the palace and the army continuing to be hounded, the responsibility for driving the internal processes falls on the SPA and the Maoists.
Last November’s 12-point accord between the two was achieved in a different regional context. Yet the SPA and the Maoists must have acquired much of their momentum from assurances not specified in their separate texts. Recent rifts are perhaps rooted in interpretations and revisions driven by other equally eager external stakeholders after the political marginalization of the palace.
Evidently, the Maoist leadership – backed by allies in civil society -- want to claim the moral high ground here. They cannot credibly criticize the United States for impeding the peace process without addressing the substance and secrecy of their own recent visit to Silguri. (And, of course, the real story behind the Prachanda-Baburam Bhattarai conflict and conciliation last year.)
The external dynamics at play today should shed some light on the first phase of King Gyanendra’s active rule beginning October 4, 2002. The monarch had gone on national TV that night after consultations with, among others, key senior foreign diplomats. The ensuing sequence of events was peculiar.
Lokendra Bahadur Chand seemed acceptable as prime minister to the mainstream parties before the palace-led cabinet expansion turned him into a symbol of “regression”. The Maoists, who were staking their claim to head an interim government in early 2003, were stunned by the reorganization of the government negotiating team and the appointment of Surya Bahadur Thapa as premier.
Thapa, who couldn’t win the full support of his own Rastriya Prajatantra Party, continued on a caretaker basis for almost a month after his resignation in 2004. Prachanda kept insisting he would hold talks only with King Gyanendra as New Delhi and Kathmandu were having a hard time scheduling the monarch’s visit to India. On whose initiative was the visit eventually finalized? Was the royal visit called off just because of the death of a former Indian prime minister or was that only a coincidental cover? How did the monarch’s February 1, 2005 proclamation end up describing the Maoists as terrorists instead?
The murkiness of the people’s mandate may have succeeded in obscuring such questions of the past. It must not be allowed to cloud the future.

Southern Discomfort And Emerging Dynamics

By Sanjay Upadhya
August 8, 2006

The cautious optimism expressed by a senior United Nations assessment mission on the prospects for peace in Nepal must be juxtaposed with a perceptible souring of the Maoist rebels’ relations with India.
The precise nature, severity and implications of this downturn remain in the realm of speculation. The Indian media’s wide coverage of the Maoists’ harassment of Indian nationals in Nepal and New Delhi’s firm acknowledgement of ideological and operation ties between the Nepalese rebels and Indian Naxalites, among other things, convey sufficient bitterness. The timing of the chill, in the aftermath of reported Chinese overtures to the rebels, adds to the overall anxiety.
New Delhi’s request to the Nepalese government to ensure the safety of Indians from Maoist harassment points to the source of tensions. But such threats are nothing new. Indian individuals and establishments, like their Nepalese counterparts, have been subjected to Maoist intimidation and extortion for years. Moreover, in the list of the Maoists’ principal grievances, India-related issues are close second to the monarchy.
The Maoists had moderated their criticism of India, especially after what many saw as a New Delhi-inspired rapprochement between rebel supremo Prachanda and chief ideologue Dr. Baburam Bhattarai. The patch-up set the stage for the Seven Party Alliance (SPA)’s 12-point accord with the Maoists reached in New Delhi last November. The Prachanda-Bhattarai rifts, whose seriousness was widely covered by the Nepalese media, were mysteriously healed without much explanation.
The presence of US Ambassador James F. Moriarty in New Delhi during the height of the SPA-Maoist negotiations underscored the urgency with which Washington and New Delhi were comparing notes on Nepal. Leaks in the Indian press left room for speculation on how united the New Delhi government was behind Indian communists’ efforts to mainstream the Nepalese Maoists.
Were Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) leader Sitaram Yechury’s overt initiatives genuinely aimed at bolstering the democratic mainstream in Nepal against an assertive palace? Or was he merely the public face of the Indian Left’s effort to preempt a challenge from Indian Maoists by subverting their ties with the Nepalese Maoists?
Given the enormity of the undertaking, it was perhaps essential for the SPA and the Maoists to leave certain ambiguities in their accord. However, it would be naïve to think that Prachanda and Dr. Bhattarai signed on without having received private assurances on key issues.
Prachanda has acknowledged that Indian officialdom had played a major role in creating the broad anti-palace alliance. It would be safe to assume that the Maoists considered New Delhi the principal guarantor of its interpretation of the unfolding political course in Nepal.
In that case, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s decision to send Karan Singh – undoubtedly a veteran politician but one who enjoyed close family ties to the Nepalese royal family – as his emissary to the monarch must have represented to the Maoists an egregious violation of New Delhi’s undertaking.
The seemingly open-ended existence the reinstated House of Representatives acquired under Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala -- against public expectations of a brief session paving the way for an interim government and constituent assembly elections – must have represented to the Maoists another manifestation of the imperatives that drove the Karan Singh mission.
The almost identical assertions from Washington and New Delhi making the Maoists’ participation in an interim government contingent on their disarming must have been the tipping point. The CPM’s advice to Indian Naxals to follow their Nepalese allies’ example of moderation could have only added the proverbial insult to the Maoists’ festering injuries.
The promptness with which Indian editorial writers and analysts chose to link the Maoists’ harassment of Indians in Nepal to the rebels’ reported contacts with Chinese emissaries should provide a broader setting for analysis. Throughout the decade-long insurgency in Nepal, India benefited from the perception in much of the world that Beijing was somehow behind the conflict. The ideology and the suffix the rebels carried tended to obscure the ease with which the Nepalese Maoists enjoyed safe haven – if not overt official support – across the southern border.
With New Delhi growing increasingly skeptical of China’s motives in South Asia, especially since Beijing received observer status in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, the slightest indication of a Chinese-Maoist connection is bound to raise passions in India.
Could the non-communist elements of the Indian establishment have made a conscious decision to sign on to Washington’s efforts to marginalize the Maoists? Assured of having taken a major step toward preserving their turf by hurtling the Nepalese Maoists to swim or sink in the mainstream, have Yechury and the Left front quietly acceded to the New Delhi-Washington consensus?
Prachanda’s three-month extension of the ceasefire and the threats he made in the announcement signal that the rebels have kept their options open. It would be tempting to believe that, having come this far in the peace process, Prachanda and the political leadership may have forfeited the credibility needed within the fighting force to mount a serious challenge to the state should things fail to go their way. Prachanda himself has been trying to rule out – in varying degrees of candor, of course – a return to full-scale violence.
The Maoists’ political leadership has proved too wily in the past not to be able to make the best of any situation. By amplifying the India-related component of their 40-point demand of 1996, they could hope to carve their space on the nationalism plank hitherto espoused by the palace. Clearly, it would be much more difficult for critics – domestic as well as foreign -- to discredit the Nepalese quest for full independence and sovereignty when its advocates can no longer be denounced as a “feudal anachronism.”
The Maoist political leadership’s eagerness to participate in mainstream politics without having much to show for a decade of bloody and bitter insurgency would almost certainly precipitate a serious internal rupture. A formal split led by military commanders and lesser-known political leaders would allow the state to deploy its coercive powers without the encumbrance of military sanctions from principal external stakeholders. The “mainstreamed Maoists,” for their part, could then find it easier to explore and enhance their compatibilities with key domestic and foreign constituencies.
In recent essays criticizing the SPA for reneging on its commitments, Dr. Bhattarai has revealed how alliance leaders pleaded with the Maoists to use their full force to disrupt the municipal polls the royal government held earlier this year. Dr. Bhattarai claims the democracy protests in April would not have succeeded without the massive participation of Maoist cadres. Can we expect future columns to shed more light on the confabulations in New Delhi that led to the SPA-Maoist 12-point accord? They might help illuminate Nepal’s road ahead.

Nepal: New Portrait Of Chinese Pragmatism?

By Sanjay Upadhya

Reports of China having opened direct contacts with Nepal’s Maoist rebels, and possibly having offered arms, have added to the uncertainty gripping Nepal’s peace process. It is difficult to view Maoist chairman Prachanda’s note to United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, strongly protesting the letter sent by Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala, outside this emerging dynamic.
Neither Beijing nor the Maoists have shed light on the nature, substance or even veracity of the reported contacts. Yet any such development would not amount to a “dramatic reversal” of Chinese policy, as sections of the Nepalese and Indian media have suggested.
True, China has refused to consider the Nepalese rebels as Maoists, arguing that their violent actions have denigrated the name and image of the Great Helmsman. Chinese officials, unlike their Indian and American counterparts, have studiously refused to call the rebels terrorists.
Beijing, moreover, defied much of the world by refusing to criticize King Gyanendra’s Feb. 1 2005 takeover of full executive powers. Whether that stemmed from China’s traditional confidence in the Nepalese monarchy or from its desire to see the three domestic players find a solution without external meddling – or perhaps even a careful mixture of both – will continue to be debated. While pragmatism remains the pivot of Chinese foreign policy, its nuances provide important pointers.
If China has opted for realpolitik, with the Maoists having joined the political process, it must be seen in the context of Nepalese developments since King Gyanendra was forced to cede direct control. Indications of a chill in bilateral relations emerged amid reports that Prime Minister Koirala’s government had moved toward reopening the Office of the Dalai Lama in Nepal.
During his meeting in Geneva with Deputy Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli, Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing protested the proposed resettlement in the United States of 5,000 Tibetan refugees in Nepal on the basis of official Nepalese travel documents.
Oli, for his part, underscored the gravity of the situation by telling a House of Representatives panel that the Chinese government has taken these matters seriously. So seriously indeed that Beijing expressed its inability to provide duty-free access to Nepalese exports from July 1 as agreed during the royal regime. Chinese Vice-Minister Wu Daewi is due in Kathmandu this week to discuss these and a host of other issues.

Internal And International Dynamics
Beijing’s pragmatism on the Nepalese Maoists is logical also from the standpoint of internal and international dynamics China faces. The rise in public disturbances within China amid a growing urban-rural economic divide has goaded Beijing toward preventing bolder and coordinated demonstrations across villages and provinces.
In March, the National People’s Congress approved a five-year plan implementing measures to address China's growing wealth gap. These measures aim, among other things, to transfer wealth through various means from the booming coastal regions to the less-developed countryside.
A hard-line Maoist government in Nepal spewing tirades against the leadership in Beijing for having abandoned the basic tenets of Maoism could revive nostalgia among sections of the marginalized for the certitudes of Mao’s times. By themselves, the Nepalese Maoists may not represent a serious source of destabilization. However, Beijing is aware of the clandestine support foreign powers could extend to fan the flames of discontent.
If moderating the Nepalese Maoists made good domestic sense for Beijing, it also held promise as a prudent element of its increasingly assertive South Asia policy. Beijing could hardly have been oblivious to the reality that New Delhi’s stepped up its effort to build a broader opposition front between the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) and the Maoists in November last year after King Gyanendra played a major role in including China as an observer in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
This shift in the geopolitical locus of SAARC as well as a solid display in December of China’s preponderance in the emerging East Asian community served to sensitize India. Indian media have begun covering China as a beat that contains elements of cooperation, competition and confrontation. Even in entrepreneurial Mumbai, paeans to the synergies between China’s computer hardware capabilities and India’s software prowess have ceded space to the geopolitical implications of Golmud-Lhasa railroad and the reopening of the Nathu-La trade route.
A shared interest between China and the communist front in India to prevent a firmer American foothold in Nepal may have influenced the political changes of April. If the aftermath failed to thrill the Chinese, they were not alone. The Maoists’ resentment of the SPA government’s reluctance to share the glory of triumph must have opened up the prospect for a new realignment. For those within the country and abroad tempted to conclude that the Maoist political leadership, neck-deep in the peace process, had reached the point of no-return, the rebels’ northern option must have come as a stunning revelation.
For China, political proximity with the Nepalese Maoists would fit into its wider global strategy. The post-9/11 warmth in Sino-American relations has given way to a more sobering analysis of each other’s motives and expectations. The U.S. Department of Defense's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) in February contained the fingerprints of neoconservative advocates of the containment of China.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry criticized Washington for attempting to play up a “non-existent Chinese military threat.” Chinese analysts, for their part, saw the QDR’s designation of their country as a “strategic threat,” along with the U.S. focus on enhancing its Pacific military assets and increasing its long-range strike capability, as clear preparations for a future conflict.
The contours of a containment strategy were also evident in the Bush administration’s reorganization of the State Department bureau responsible Central and South Asia. Of the 13 countries falling under the bureau, eight border China. Now the U.S. Congress appears set to vote in favor of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, seeking to advance civilian nuclear cooperation despite New Delhi’s weapons program.
For the Maoists, the first group in Nepal to detect in our “ground realities” an imminent “encirclement” of China by its adversaries, bonhomie with Beijing always resided within the realm of possibility.

Eyeball To Eyeball At Putin’s Party

By Sanjay Upadhya
July 13, 2006

In the run-up to the three-day Group of Eight (G8) summit he is hosting in his native St. Petersburg from July 15, Russian President Vladimir Putin has been sounding increasingly assured about his country’s place in one of the world’s most exclusive clubs.
Moscow has been invited to attend annual summits of the world’s industrialized democracies for some years now. But this is the first year the country has been accepted as a full member. Russia, moreover, was included in the organization without its having attained the economic or democratic development of the other members -- United States, Canada, Japan, Britain, Germany, France and Italy.
Admittedly, this exception was made to promote the continuation of Russia’s free-market economic reforms and democratization. As the other G8 members in varying degrees bemoan Russia’s failure to keep its side of the bargain, Putin expects to exude his nation’s new-found confidence buttressed by, among other things, growing revenues from energy exports.
For US President George W. Bush, who famously looked Putin in the eye in Slovenia five years ago and concluded he could do business with the Russian leader, St. Petersburg will offer moments of reflection. The post-9/11 camaraderie between Washington and Moscow has been replaced by contours of a deepening adversarial relationship.
The turning point was Washington’s involvement in the color-coded revolutions in former Soviet republics like Ukraine and Georgia that put pro-western leaders in power. In response to America’s engagement in its ‘near abroad’, Moscow has assiduously built stronger military, political and economic relations with Iran, Syria, Venezuela and other regimes out of favor with Washington.
In February, Putin invited Hamas representatives to Moscow at a time when Washington was leading an international effort to isolate the newly elected leaders in the Palestinian Authority. Moreover, Moscow offered considerable financial aid to what the United States regards a terrorist organization.
In April, American efforts to impose United Nations-backed sanctions on Iran were blocked by Moscow’s support for Teheran’s right to a peaceful nuclear program. Lately, Putin has criticized the US and Japan for their hawkishness on the North Korean missile crisis, saying such a posture would worsen matters.
Russia has joined hands with China in an apparent initiative to resist American efforts to change regimes it dislikes. Moscow and Beijing have reinforced military and energy-trade relations in an effort to bolster their global leverage.
Putin has shaped the St. Petersburg agenda around energy, education, and the eradication of infectious diseases. European nations rely significantly on Russian natural gas supplies. Moscow, which exports oil around the world, recognizes competitively stable energy prices as the key to its long-term economic prosperity.
The other G8 members, too, have energy high on their minds – but in a less salutary sense. The Kremlin’s recent effort to tighten control over energy exports has raised concern in Europe. The Putin administration’s suspension of natural gas supplies to Ukraine several months ago – ostensibly for the former Soviet republic’s efforts to pull itself out of Moscow’s orbit -- left Europe with shortages. Europeans seeking assurances of reliable gas supplies from Russia confront a government setting most of the terms.
The G8 summit would provide Putin an opportunity to showcase the reality of Russia’s resurgence on his watch. When he took office in 2000, Russia was mired in chaos and corruption, where ultra-rich oligarchs were really in charge. The war in Chechnya was becoming increasingly brutal beyond the restive region. Moscow’s default and the ruble devaluation of 1998 left economic prospects uncertain.
Putin believes his firm hand in governance, not only high oil prices, is behind the rise in wages and living standards and Russia’s ability to make the last repayment of its foreign debt. The growth of a middle class in a nation struggling to break free from the Soviet-era worker-nomenklatura divide is as gripping a reality as the high approval ratings Putin has consistently enjoyed. Last week’s killing of Shamil Basayev, a Chechen rebel leader blamed for massive atrocities against civilians, handed Putin a major victory in his war on terror.
The other G8 members are more concerned about the political price Russians are being forced to pay for these successes. Although Russia is far from a return to Soviet-style repression, it is sliding back to a form of authoritarianism. Much of the political opposition to Putin has been bulldozed or bought off. The once-vibrant broadcast media have been forced off the air or taken over by Kremlin allies.
Putin has reversed much of the post-Soviet decentralization of political power by abolishing elected governorships in the provinces. Corruption may be less visible than under Boris Yeltsin, Putin’s ailing and bumbling predecessor, but it certainly has not been less pernicious.
Clearly, Putin expects to deflect criticism of his domestic and foreign policies by using the Iranian and North Korean crises to establish Russia’s credentials as a responsible international player. As he looks Putin in the eye this time, Bush might want to keep his gazed fixed a little longer.

Nepal: Perilous Koirala-Kerensky Parallels

By Sanjay Upadhya
July 10, 2006

Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala’s visceral faith in the Maoists’ full commitment to a nebulous concept of “total democracy” amid a sustained pattern of rebel defiance has invited comparisons with Alexander Kerensky, Russia’s short-lived democratic president in 1917.
Maoist supremo Prachanda’s threat to launch an October Revolution if the Seven Party Alliance (SPA) failed to move in consonance with the rebels’ interpretation of the spirit of the April Uprising prompted American Ambassador James F. Moriarty to inject some sobering history into Nepal’s befuddled political discourse.
Has Koirala become Nepal’s Kerensky? The contrasts between the two men and their times could not be starker. Kerensky, at 36, was in the prime of his life when he embodied Russia’s democratic quest. His opposition to the absolute rule of the Romanovs blossomed during his university days in St. Petersburg. Kerensky, moreover, was an intellectual interested in all aspects of Russian history, culture and literature in addition to politics.
To be sure, Koirala’s plunge into politics at an early age came at the cost of academic life. But that tradeoff put him at the forefront of Nepal’s democracy movement. Koirala, moreover, did not have to work his way up the leadership hierarchy like Kerensky – at least in the context of his undisputed leadership of the SPA. And Koirala has been ready to ally himself with the palace on his terms.
In a country devastated by a decade-long insurgency with its heavy human and development costs, Kerensky’s Russia carries much relevance. The First World War, in which Russia had been involved in for three years, diverted massive amounts of manpower and caused serious food and fiber shortages. The Czarist regime was exposed to increasingly strident charges of gross mismanagement. Yet the collapse of the monarchy was as unexpected as that of the Soviet Union would be 74 years later.
Kerensky was a moderate socialist whose passionate, lifelong goal was to see a Western-style constitutional democracy in Russia. In his ardor to fight off his adversaries on the right, Kerensky simply refused to believe that the Bolsheviks could represent the greater threat.
Koirala, who started out as an implacable anticommunist and thrived on that record, is today bending over backwards to appease the Maoists. His own Nepali Congress is outraged by the government’s apparent capitulation to the rebels.
Dedicated to his country and to democratic principles, Kerensky was a courageous, energetic man with great oratorical skills. It was his willingness to assume command in a time of crisis that allowed Russians to enjoy their brief but unprecedented freedoms. The bitter political infighting that followed Czar Nicholas II’s fall may have allowed Kerensky to establish his indispensability. His lack of vision to tackle the root causes of popular discontent came in handy for the Bolsheviks.
Indeed, it would have required a miracle for Russia to become a vibrant democracy amid the mixture of a disastrous war, massive economic hardships and political factionalism. Yet the Bolsheviks’ triumph was not inevitable. Lenin and Trotsky plotted their course in the chaos conceived in Kerensky’s misplaced confidence. The reality that the world’s first experiment with a “worker state” occurred in a country that was 98 percent agrarian more than debunks the myth of communism’s inevitability.
The most ominous parallel between today’s Nepal and Kerensky’s Russia is that Koirala finds himself straddling between those who see the triumph of total democracy in the sidelining – and perhaps an eventual abolition -- of the monarchy and those demanding more radical social and economic restructuring.
Here Prachanda has taken the most insidious page from Lenin’s playbook. Through his fiery and often contradictory rhetoric, buttressed by an almost insatiable appetite for concessions from the state, Prachanda hopes to exert complete authority. By portraying the government’s failure to meet his impossible demands as a sign of utter ineptitude, the Maoist supremo seeks to evade responsibility. Clearly, the Maoists are banking on the same anarchy the Bolsheviks capitalized on.
In exile, Kerensky believed the Bolshevik regime would crumble imminently and contemplated his triumphant return to power. Koirala and his cohorts, at least, can rely on history to shed any such illusions.