thecatapult.in

One another item to add to the long list of inglorious achievements of the UPA regime that will haunt India in the coming decades is helping establish a pro-China regime in neighbouring Nepal which effectively brings the communist sickle right upto India’s heartland endangering its security in ways that will only become apparent as time rolls by.

One of the first acts of the Maoists after seizing power in the recently held elections was to dictate the end of Nepal’s 240 year old monarchy thus removing a sizeable thorn in the way of their ultimate aim of seizing absolute power in Nepal in incremental steps. They haven’t yet disbanded their militia and reports are that they used them extensively to intimidate opposition party candidates and supporters in the recent elections.

In the meanwhile the Maoist leader is on a charm offensive. In an interview with Karan Thapar on Devil’s Advocate he has laid out his vision for the future course of Indo-Nepal relations. It is a very charming interview where Prachanda or Pushpa Kumar Dhamal has tried to make all the right noises and lull his enemies into a false sense of security. In that he has learnt from the example of his predecessors from across the globe ranging from Stalin to Mao to Castro and others on how to charm the gullible left-liberals and use the enemy’s own free media against him. that in itself begs the need to keep an eye out for this hooded serpent.

In his interview he holds forth on the need to renegotiate the Indo-Nepal treaty of 1950 on his terms, very diplomatically ofcourse, the future recruitment of Nepal’s Gorkhas into the Indian Army, the trade and cultural exchanges with India and his relation with the Naxalites operating in many remote districts within India.

Karan Thapar: Let me discuss some problems that may arise. You said that you want to abrogate the 1950 Indo-Nepal treaty and you want to renegotiate it. What are the aspects of the treaty that you don’t like?

 

Prachanda: Our people have put forward this concern that they feel that the treaty lacks inequality and that it is not beneficial for Nepal. We thus want to review all the points of the 1950 treaty. And we want to revise it according to new necessity.

 

Karan Thapar: The 1950 treaty guarantees the open border with Nepal and it also says that people of Nepal have national citizen status in India. Do you want to revise it and rework that?

 

Prachanda: Not exactly right now. There are other provisions that we want to discuss in detail.

 

Karan Thapar: So you want to retain the open border and you want to retain national citizen status of people, but there are other provisions?

 

Prachanda: There are others which I don’t want to discuss right now in detail.

In plain language he wants to have his cake and eat it too. And it would be very foolish on our part to take his pretensions of maintaining a so called “equidistance” from both India and China at face value. It is merely another way of admitting that he is taking and will continue to take orders from the Chinese politburo.

India’s options are now to

1) work to help strengthen institutional democracy and rule of law in Nepal and prevent the Communists from degenerating it into a Banana republic where they hold the country and its people hostage under the threat of terror.

2) Work with the international community and concerned Nepali citizens to disarm and disband the Maoist militia and ONLY then support its attempt to remove its name from the list of terrorist organisations of the world.

3) Help maintain the autonomy and independence of institutions like the Nepali Army, the Election commission and the Judiciary and make sure that they swear allegiance to the constitution of Nepal and not to any individual or political outfit.

4) Keep channels of communication open with all other political parties, organisations, and Media within Nepal and make sure that their freedom of speech and association is not curtailed in anyway by the Maoists.

That should severely under cut the standard operating procedures of the Communists if at all they nurse any ambitions to make a bid to seize absolute power.