Enter the Dragon

A Maoist takeover of Nepal could be a much bigger threat to India than a Talibanised Pakistan

There’s a huge hoarding that greets visitors to the Republic of Nepal just outside Tribhuvan airport that amply illustrates the direction this Himalayan country is headed barely a year or so after deposing its monarchy. Welcome to Nepal, the Gateway to China’, it says, and can only hold ominous auguries for India. For, as Nepal slides into Maoist-induced chaos once again, China’s footprints in this country will only increase and Beijing could well succeed in extending its strategic boundary with India to the Indo-Nepal border.

Leaders of political parties, security analysts, the intelligentsia and large sections of civil society here in Kathmandu fear that it is only a matter of time before Nepal’s Maoists grab control of the state and establish their own single-party rule. Especially jittery is the once dominant Nepali Congress (NC), now the second largest party in the Constituent Assembly—which is supposed to draft a new republican constitution but functions as an interim parliament as well.

Together with allies, Maoists have the bigger voice. Nobody forgets the bloody insurgency they had waged before coming overground to contest elections and head a coalition government, the one that collapsed on 4 May over the Maoist prime minister’s attempt to sack the Nepal Army chief for his alleged refusal to induct former Maoist militia as regular soldiers.

If Nepal yields to the Maoist ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ or ‘people’s democracy’—as they proclaim their ultimate goal—the country might align itself much too closely with China for India’s comfort. The signs are flashing red, the most significant being the treaty that Pushpa Kamal Dahal (‘Prachanda’), Nepal’s Maoist PM, was to have signed with Beijing during his aborted visit to China. Under this, China would have provided not only military aid and security to Nepal, but would also have acted against any country that threatens Nepal’s socio-economic and strategic interests, say NC leaders. This treaty is clearly aimed at India.

What’s more, Dahal says he wants a pact with China on the lines of the 1950 Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty that allows free movement of people between the two countries, even as he talks of abrogating the agreement with India. Admittedly, India hasn’t helped itself with its domineering attitude towards Nepal—alienating itself from large sections of Nepalese opinion.

The ongoing political crisis in Nepal, say many, is part of the larger gameplan scripted by Maoists to wrest absolute power in Nepal. “There was no reason for the PM to act in haste and sack General Rookmangad Katawal,” says Rashtriya Prajatantra Party President Kamal Thapa, speaking to Open, “He did so knowing fully well that this would precipitate a crisis. And that is exactly what happened.”

Predient Ram Baran Yadav had asked Katawal to continue in office, and the other constituents of the Maoist-led coalition government—the Communist Party of Nepal-United Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) and the Madhesis—withdrew support saying that the PM had acted unilaterally, leading to Dahal’s resignation on 4 May. The second part of the alleged script is unfolding now, with Maoists demanding that President Yadav withdraw his reinstatement of the general. Or else, they threaten the fragile reconciliation that keeps the peace.

“The Maoists are blocking efforts to form a new coalition government of the NC, CPN-UML and the Madhesi (people of Indian origin residing in the Terai region) parties. This reveals their autocratic nature,” says NC whip Sobhakar Parajuli. “We’ll continue to disrupt proceedings in parliament till the presidential order is revoked. The formation of a new government will also be resisted till our demand is met,” says Maoist leader Dev Gurung, who was Dahal’s law minister. The threats are backed by massive demonstrations in Kathmandu and elsewhere, and by attacks on activists of the NC and CPN-UML as well as journalists and critics.

Revoking the Army chief’s reinstatement, many fear, would amount to ceding control to Maoists for all time to come. The standoff therefore means that the turmoil will only intensify, spilling over onto the streets and wreaking havoc with civil life all over again. “They’re determined to gain control of the army,” says Thapa, “General Katawal was resisting Maoists’ attempts to integrate the army with the armed Maoist cadres of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and so had to be removed. The Maoists have appointed their own people in key positions within the bureaucracy. They’re attacking the media and the judiciary now. This is all part of their plan to undermine and then abolish democratic institutions and take control of the state with the help of an army manned and commanded by the PLA.”

Prakash Sharan Mahat, an NC leader, says the president saved Nepal from being taken over. Such impressions have been strengthened by the release of a videotape by a news channel that shows Prachanda telling his cadres that money from the state coffers would be used to purchase arms for the PLA. “This was after the peace process started. If the Maoists had really intended to embrace multi-party democracy, why would it be necessary to procure arms for the PLA?” wonders a university professor who requests anonymity.

The Maoists themselves don’t hide their contempt for multi-party democracy. “Such a system will never be able to bring about the socio-economic development of Nepal. This is a bourgeois system. We want to change it. We cannot become just one more party in this system,” as Devendra Paudel, a Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist (CPN-M) Politburo member, tells Open. “While we were in government, we tried to change the established feudal order in the army, judiciary, bureaucracy and other institutions. We succeeded in a limited way in a few areas, but when we wanted to replace the army chief, we met with resistance from vested elements and reactionary forces,” he adds. CPN-UML leaders who’ve worked with the Maoists in the coalition government privately concede that they are determined to push their radical agenda through.

“The Maoists have often not adhered to the spirit of a multi-party democratic system even while in government. They still have the hangover of their armed insurgency,” says Madhesi Janadhikar Forum President Upendra Yadav, who was a minister in the coalition government. He fears that regular parties might let the people down, which could make a Maoist takeover inevitable. This could lead to a rapid descent into a totalitarian scenario. The intelligentsia would be appalled, but analysts seem convinced that other parties within Nepal can do little to resist such an eventuality—given the widespread support the Maoists enjoy among the extremely poor and socially backward masses in Nepal’s rural swathes.

The future of Indo-Nepal ties would be thrown into an abyss. Though Prachanda says he wants to maintain equally close relations with China and India, without playing one against the other, the pronouncements of his senior comrades tell a different story. “When we come to power, we’ll take Nepal to the forefront of the struggle against imperial (the US and West) and expansionist (India) forces. China has assured us it won’t tolerate any interference in Nepal by outside powers,” declaims Paudel. Another senior Maoist leader says that their goal is to align with “communist China” and “get out of the clutches of bourgeois India”, simple.

Prachanda himself has accused India of being meddlesome, dubbing the NC and CPN-UML the southern neighbour’s “agents”. Meanwhile, an unusually large number of high-level delegations from China have visited Nepal over the last few months, another sign that the Chinese dragon is closing in on India’s border. Complacency in Delhi could prove costly.

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