Prachanda triggers Political Crisis in Nepal

As heat wave conditions intensify in large parts of the country and the election jamboree takes a queer turn with personal allegations being traded with vigour by all sides since policies, principles and ideologies have ceased to matter, the latest developments in Nepal are a cause for considerable anxiety for all countries in the region.

In fact after Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Nepal is now on the throes of instability and tension originating from a major political crisis that has gripped the Himalayan state. The crisis was triggered by the Maoist PM‘s sudden move to remove the Army Chief from his post ignoring the other parties’ stout opposition to the step as unconstitutional. Following the move by the PM, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, the country’s President, Ram Baran Yadav, in his capacity as the supreme commander of Nepal’s armed forces, also threw in his lot with those opposing the move by rejecting the sacking of the Army Chief and reinstating General Rukmangad Katuwal in the same post. This was a heavy blow for Prachanda to stomach and he thus tendered his resignation from the office of the head of government. It is now to be seen how the country‘s political leadership resolves the crisis and defuses the tension in order to salvage the peace process set in motion after the monarchy was overthrown on the crest of a popular upsurge.

There have been reports of China having backed Prachanda’s move against the Army Chief whereas India had conveyed to the PM not to take any such precipitate action. So some people have seen in these developments the spectre of a Sino-Indian conflict vis-a-vis Nepal. This argument appears to be too simplistic for acceptance at face value. One should, of course, be necessarily wary of Chinese intentions and it would be foolhardy to drop one’s vigilance in relation to Bejing’s designs. The way in which it is fishing in Sri Lanka’s troubled waters is for all to see. But one cannot believe that the present Chinese authorities would start a fresh a conflict with India in Nepal at this point given their manifold problems in both the domestic sphere and wider arena, prominent among those being their seemingly intractable problems with the US.

Actually it is the Nepali Maoists in general and Prachanda in particular who engendered the crisis by sacking the Army Chief to serve their narrow, selfish and partisan ends little realising—or perhaps because of the realisation—that this step would help pave the way towards reviving their decade-old ‘people’s war’ (which in common parlance was nothing short of a civil war). Whatever the current level of their support among the people, such a strategy would be suicidal for the Nepali Maoists in the long run, especially when we know the price the Communists in Burma and Indonesia have had to pay due to their adventurist actions.

In his televised address to the Nepali people on May 4 announcing his resignation as the head of government, Prachanda declared that the Maoists were ready to maintain “cordial relations” with neighbouring countries but would “not accept any intervention”. Thereafter he stated:

I will quit the government rather than remain in power by bowing down to the foreign elements and reactionary forces.

By “foreign elements” he meant India and those like President Ram Baran Yadav allegedly owing allegiance to New Delhi. And his deputy, Finance Minister Baburam Bhattarai, openly blamed India by name for the crisis in Nepal and said New Delhi’s bureaucrats had committed an “enormous blunder” that would cost India “all the goodwill it earned by supporting the pro-democracy movement during Gynendra’s regime“; he further observed: “The politicians are busy with the elections and the decisions are taken by blundering bureaucrats.” Apart from the fact that this was a palpable travesty of truth, wasn’t Bhattarai, through such a public statement, meddling in India’s internal affairs—an accusation he and his comrades frequently hurl at New Delhi in relation to Kathmandu?

In the meantime India has categorically denied interfering in Nepal’s internal affairs, explaining that its suggestion to the PM not to dismiss the Army Chief stemmed from its eagerness to see the peace process preserved in the Himalayan state since Prachanda’s move had the potentiality of dealing a mortal blow to the entire exercise. Subsequent to Prachanda’s charge against India in his televised address, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee made it abundantly clear that whatever was happening in Nepal was its internal matter and India was only interested in seeing the political parties in the Himalayan state resolve the crisis through consensus.

Now it is obvious that Prachanda’s step was prompted by the Maoists’ inherent desire to bring about forcible integration of the young and armed Maoist cadres (confined to UN camps) with the Army. This was justifiably opposed by General Katuwal who could not possibly integrate all the 19,000 Maoist activists into the Army at one go (given the nefarious role they had played both during and after the Maoist civil war by engaging in widespread violence and extortion) precisely because they were an indisiplined lot devoid of any training. It needs be mentioned that a committee had been set up to oversee the integration of the young Maoists with the Army. But Prachanda insisted that that they be inducted into the Army at once, that is, even before the committee had submitted its report on the issue.

It must also be pointed out that for quite some time Maoist elements have been targeting the media—even killing journalists (including women reporters) especially in the Terai region and attacking established media houses—in a bid to throttle freedom of the press. This caused considerable concern in media circles abroad and international media teams interested in ensuring freedom of the press went to Nepal several times to discuss the matter with the authorities. This journalist too was in the last of such teams to visit Nepal in the first half of February this year. In an interaction with the PM (wherein this journalist was present on behalf of the International Press Institute) the concerns were freely raised and Prachanda appeared quite responsive to the anxiety of the international media community. He highlighted his party’s decision to protect freedom of the press even during the civil war and frankly admitted that some groups calling themselves Maoists were trying to defame the UCPN-Maoist party by such activities. However, the same Prachanda was quoted as declaring at a public rally shortly thereafter that if the Maoists’ integration with the Army was not carried out “we would return to the jungles to resume the ‘people’s war’”. And his deputy, Bhattarai, was quoted as advocating ‘controlled anarchy’ or regulated chaos in order to further the Maoist cause. Naturally such statements by top government functionaries cannot be reconciled to democratic functioning anywhere. (Moreover, such pronouncements reinforced Nepali Congress supremo G.P. Koirala’s allegation that the Maoists’ real motive was to establish a dictatorship.)

Afer Prachanda’s resignation efforts are underway to set up an alternate government headed by the CPN-UML as the largest party after the Maoists in the interim parliament, the Nepali Congress, has declined to lead the new Ministry. However, such an exercise will come to naught if the Maoists decide to keep out of the government. Thus the other parties are currently in consultation with the Maoists so that they enter the government and not remain outside the peace process. But if Baburam Bhattarai is to be believed, he is learnt to have said that his party could support or even join the new government only if the measures taken by President Yadav were “rectified” which essentially means that General Katuwal would have to be dismissed afresh and the President impeached and removed from the highest post. Such an unswerving stand would inevitably make any compromise with the Maoists virtually impossible given the ground reality: that Prachanda’s sacking of the Army Chief does not enjoy support from even the Maoists’ coalition partners was evident from two of its allies—the CPN-UML and Sadbhavana Party—walking out of the government in protest against the dismissal while the two remaining partners—the Madhesi Janadhikar Forum and CPN-United—boycotted an emergency Cabinet meeting on the subject. Hence the Maoists isolation on the issue has been total.

In the prevailing circumstances the UCPN-Maoist is indulging in rabble-rousing tactics on the streets of Kathmandu on the one side and resorting to anti-India propaganda by instructing its cadres to direct all their ire at New Delhi on the other. India has been a convenient whipping boy for many years in Nepal, and in this game Maoists have not been alone—India-baiting was a favourite pastime of influential segments of the erstwhile Palace, and those sections are still active in different ways. And in this endeavour the present Indian ambassador to Nepal, Rakesh Sood, has been made a special target even though he maintains an exceptionally low profile and never speaks out of turn on any question in Kathmandu. That is what irks the anti-India lobby and they are reacting to it by senselessly attacking him thus betraying their own frustration in the process.

Meanwhile latest reports suggest that Prachanda is blowing hot and cold—while he has warned that the Maoist agitation on the streets of Kathmandu would continue, he has kept the door open for talks with the other parties which have, in effect, started consultations with him and other Maoist leaders on the formation of the new government.

The developments in Nepal are a matter of grave concern not only because they spell instability in the Himalayan state but also because they threaten to undermine the democratic foundations of the new republic that emerged simultaneous with the departure of the hated monarchy and is now engaged in preparing the country’s Constitution. The Constitution-making process has been beset with impediments since the inception. And in this situation it stands to reason that the anti-democratic pro-monarchy forces would seek to join hands with the Maoists (as they did in the not-so-distant past behind-the-scenes) to strike at the very roots of the fledgling homegrown democracy in Nepal that is doubtless of inestimable value as it is capable of enriching democracy in South Asia as a whole. Nepal’s progressive and democratic forces must foil this nefarious conspiracy at the earliest in order to save the peace process. On its part, the Government of India must refrain from making any move that would bring grist to the mill of the conspirators and help translate that plot into reality in the coming days.

Democracy and the peace process in the Himalayan state are too precious assets to be allowed to die a premature demise.

May 6 S.C.