thecatapult.in

When the External Affairs minister Padmashri Shri Pranab Mukherjee landed in Beijing for his scheduled meeting with the Chinese leadership. He found that neither Hu or grandpa Wen could spare any time to meet him. But they instead fixed up a meeting with the newly appointed Vice President Xi Jinping who is currently assigned for dealing with crank cases.

That has left the Indian side including both the MEA and MEdiA quite confused and they are trying to figure out whether this is a good thing or a bad thing.The current leadership shows no inclination to meet him while at the same they arrange a meeting with the supposed future leadership.

Well let me help them out of their stupor. In one short sentence- It is a BAD thing and it is a straightforward diplomatic slap in the face.

Xi Jinping might be the chosen successor of Hu Jintao slated to succeed him in 2012. but the CCP history is littered with the corpses of such “chosen ones”. from President Lin Biao to Party General Secretary Zhao Ziyang there are many who one day were on the path to superstardom only to find themselves in a dark dungeon the next day holding their intenstines in their hands and begging for mercy from the red guards just because of one small real or perceived misstep.

Xi knows this very well. So all that Pranab can expect from this encounter is more homilies, platitudes, joint declarations ad hominem but nothing of substance.

And one more thing that has missed the notice of most Padmashri Shri Pranab should have chosen a better day to make his trip to Beijing than preferring to go on the 19th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in an Olympic year when the whole world is trying to use the Olympics as a leverage to pressure Beijing to improve its record on human rights. It is said that diplomacy is a lot about symbolism. The posturing matters just as much as the substance. It is unlikely that the either Pranabda or the babus of the MEA were unaware of the significance of the day.

Now the timing is definitely not an issue between India and China. Most certainly the Chinese would have been just as boorish as they have been today even if the Indian foreign minister had landed on June 6th, 7th or 8th or whenever. it wouldn’t make a dime of a difference.

But where it will come to matter is in the court of International opinion which the Indian diplomats are trying to woo for myriad reasons and especially for their coveted permanent security council seat. For a country that is drumbeating its credentials as the largest democracy in the world to gain a seat at that supposed high table. It matters what message each of its words and actions sends to the rest of the world. This unfortunately has only sent the message that India really doesn’t have any courage of conviction to act on its own professed principles and again when they see the craven attitude of Mukherjee and his ministry in the light of Chinese boorishness it doesn’t raise their confidence that India has the ability to even stand up for its own self. No wonder governments in most world capitals do not take the Indian diplomats seriously.

it didn’t take very long for this to happen did it? barely has the ink dried on the post warning against Prachanda’s Charm offensive where this blogger contended that Maoist leader is merely trying to lull his enemies into complacency while aiming to seize absolute power for himself and his motley crew comes the news that the slimy snake that he is he has already began to hiss and bare his fangs.

Maoist chairman Prachanda, expected to lead the next government in Nepal, has warned the media against criticising his party, saying that “we will no longer tolerate criticism as we have already been elected by the people”.

Addressing a rally to celebrate the declaration of republic in Kathmandu Prachanda said his CPN-Maoist will not tolerate further criticism by the media and warned of serious consequences if it continued to criticise the party.

Targeting the Kantipur publication that brings out the largest circulated dailies Kantipur and The Kathmandu Post, the former rebel leader said, “You journalists did well to continuously criticise the Maoists before the constituent assembly polls, otherwise the election would not have taken place at all.”

“Now we will no longer tolerate criticism as we have already been elected by the people,” he said, adding that the other newspapers criticising the Maoist will also meet the same fate.[link]

It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that it didn’t take him long to start operationalising the standard operating procedures manual used by the communists worldwide to incrementally seize absolute power by first threatening the Free and thriving Nepali media. simply because a free media with its ability to scrutinise their working is what the Communists universally dislike. since it is a huge obstacle in executing the next step of their manual, viz blowing off the heads of all the opposition leaders and supporters, subverting the autonomous institutions of the state such as the Judiciary, the Election commission and the Nepali Army, and installing a banana republic in place where a small privileged elite called the politburo led by himself ofcourse get to dictate the lives of millions of Nepalis.

and all this While the left-liberal Indian and Western media go gaga over Prachanda’s charm offensive and give him and his band of thuggies a free pass and look the other way while they get down to the work of destroying Nepal and terrorising its people into submission.

It is therefore imperative on all free thinking people both in Nepal and the rest of the world to frustrate the dubious Maoist-Communist agenda in Nepal. The Nepali people unfortunately conceded far too easily on the Maoist demands to abolish the monarchy which was a very big mistake. I believe they should have instead replaced Gynanedra with a more acceptable individual and retained the institution as a constitutional monarchy which would have been a symbol of stability for Nepal.

But now that the deed has been done it is doubly important that they do not concede ground on the Right to freedom of speech and expression. Prachanda’s contention that the Media should not criticise him and his party because now they have been elected by the people is laughable. if that is the case then no one should criticise George bush or Gordon brown or Manmohan singh or any of the parties they belong to since even they were elected by the people.

The Nepali mediamen did the right thing by immediately condemning Prachanda’s statement and asking him and his party to demonstrate their commitment to the democratic process.

On India’s part it is absolutely imperative that the Indian government should openly come out in support of the Right to Freedom of Speech and association in Nepal and roundly condemn this statement by Prachanda and demand that he disarm his militia and submit to the democratic political process in Nepal.

Update: Nepal’s newly minted Propoganda minister seems to have disappeared and is suspected to have gone to China on an all expenses paid trip sponsored by the Chinese embassy ostensibly perhaps for some advanced training on the nuances of terrorising the Nepali media into toeing the party line. coincidentally at the same time as his boss Prachanda has begun to threaten the Nepali media of “serious consequences” if they continued to hold him and his motley crew accountable for their actions.