India
can no longer pursue its strategic and economic interests on the basis
of its old colonial mindset and bureaucratised traditional tools of
diplomacy.

The official state visit of Prachanda as the first elected Prime
Minister of the Republic of Nepal marks the beginning of India’s
engagement with a new Nepal. To make this engagement constructive and
mutually advantageous, India has to grasp the degree and depth of the
radical transformation that Nepal has gone through in the last couple
of years. The former Kingdom has witnessed the spread of political
consciousness at the grass roots, upsurge of socio-economic aspi
rations and the unprecedented rise of people’s power. Its 240-year-old
Monarchy has been pushed into the dustbin of history and the hitherto
marginalised and oppressed social groups have entered the mainstream
political dynamics as major stakeholders.

In a certain specific way, and howsoever reluctantly, India was a
constructive participant in this transformation. But if it had really
understood the nature of change, it would not have sent a peace mission
headed by a former Maharaja to bail out the discredited Nepalese
Monarchy nor would the policy pundits in MEA falter on assessing the
outcome of the April 2008 elections for the Constituent Assembly.

India can no longer pursue its vital strategic and economic
interests in this radically transformed Nepal on the basis of its old
colonial policy mindset and bureaucratised traditional tools of
diplomacy. It can no longer play the King against the Ranas; political
parties against the King; one set of Koiralas against the other; and
one political party against the other. The old chess-board politics of
cultivating coteries and promoting cronies or pitting feudal, corporate
and sectarian vested interests against one another would be grotesque
and counter-productive.

No doubt, new Nepal is not free from political cleavages and fault
lines like the ‘Madhesh’ versus the ‘Paharis;’ the Janjatis versus the
dominant castes and the prosperous versus the paupers. There are also
disgruntled feudal and discarded political interest groups that would
like to sabotage the new and emerging Nepal. The traditional strategic
mindset in South Block and ‘operations experts’ in the security
agencies may want these new fault lines to be exploited to promote
India’s short-term interests. But following such leads will harm India
more than help it. Conflict and instability in Nepal have a spill-over
cost for India as well.

Therefore, policy initiatives from New Delhi towards Nepal have to
go beyond the chess-board politics and address the emerging aspirations
of the Nepalese people, by constructively engaging with the political
forces and the leadership that represent these aspirations. Surely, for
the present, the Maoists occupy that slot. The agenda of a new Nepal,
of its Republican, secular and inclusive democracy and, of a dynamic
growing economy, is primarily and essentially a Maoists’ agenda. They
pushed this agenda through the force of violence during the
ten-year-old insurgency, but realised subsequently that the people of
Nepal and the international community while endorsing the agenda
rejected the path of violence and disruption. They also realised that
violence was counter-productive not only to a constructive
transformation and nation-building but also for them to seize and
retain power. The Maoists still have their militant cadres as a part of
the unfinished peace process but that may be more for political
bargaining in the course of unfolding transition than to create,
sustain and translate the vision of new Nepal into concrete reality.

Tactical ploy

The Nepali Congress and the Communist party of Nepal (UML) joined
the agenda of new Nepal basically as a tactical ploy for political
survival against an obstinate and arrogant Monarch. Otherwise, many of
the senior Nepali Congress and UML leaders in close companies fondly
swear by the old politics and cozy alliance with the feudal vested
interests. These leaders had the chance to initiate and lead the agenda
of a new Nepal for 15 long years (1990-2005) after the first Jan
Andolan, if they had any sincere commitment to it. The argument of
these leaders and their parties that the Maoists did not win the
people’s confidence as they failed to secure an absolute majority in
the Constituent Assembly elections is a retrograde one for it overlooks
the hard fact that the electoral strength of these two ‘national’ and
‘mainstream’ parties put together is less than that of the Maoists.

The Maoist leadership is far from those Nepalis who joined India’s
struggle for independence. Nor does this leadership have material
stakes, like many other Nepalese (the Ranas and the Royals), in India.
They have grown up with the heavy doses of anti-Indian Nepali
nationalism evolved and perpetrated by the monarchy for its own
political survival.

But this leadership is self-confident, pragmatic and resilient. The
leaders are intelligent enough to understand and acknowledge that in
the interest of their own political consolidation and delivery of
promised development to the Nepali people, India’s goodwill and help is
indispensable. They sought India’s recognition and respect even during
the insurgency years, particularly since 2002, and loudly acknowledged
India’s support in the Jan Andolan-II. It was India’s confused and
contradictory responses during the two post-Jan Andolan-II transition
phases in Nepal, from Constitutional Monarchy to the Republic and from
CA elections to the formation of an elected government, that alienated
some of them. New Delhi would grossly err in drawing long-term policy
conclusions from Mr. Prachanda’s recent China visit. Wasn’t it grossly
undiplomatic on New Delhi’s part to patronise and embolden the
political ambitions of an outgoing Prime Minister during and after the
Colombo SAARC summit?

It may not be very difficult for India to respond positively to the
issues that Mr. Prachanda may put on the table during his visit. The
question of review and revision of treaties (Kosi and the 1950 Treaty)
is not a big deal. It is for the Maoists to precisely identify the
areas where they want revisions as India has already shown its
readiness to engage on this issue. Once the Maoists’ proposals are
formulated and backed by a national consensus in Nepal, their
acceptability or otherwise may be sorted out through diplomatic
channels.

On Kosi and its devastating potential, India has its own story to
tell, which was narrated to Mr. Prachanda by Bihar leader Sharad Yadav
on the very first day of his becoming Prime Minister. The Maoists would
perhaps do well to recognise that they do not need to flash the
‘nationalist’ card like the King for their political survival. It is
the developmental engagement with India that will bring them rich
dividends.

The Maoists would like to have India’s creative responses to the
four areas of their principal concerns namely; political stability of
the coalition regime, culmination of the peace process through security
sector reforms, timely conclusion of the Constitution drafting and
implementing the vision of “economic revolution” in a decade. The
policy document released this week in Kathmandu highlights all these
concerns. In these areas, India has no basic conflict of interests.
Peace and political stability in Nepal are in India’s genuine interests
and Indian diplomacy and security agencies must be seen to be
convincingly distanced from the discordant voices raised within Nepal
questioning the stability of the Maoist-led government.

Security sector reforms

For security sector reforms, India could consider exercising its
goodwill with the Nepal Army to smoothen the process. The Maoists are
not insisting on a wholesale induction of their PLA cadres into the
army ranks and their preference for a smaller army may, in fact, be
conducive to the long-term viability of democratic evolution. Purges
and reorganisations of armed forces are not an entirely new phenomenon
in South Asia.

The new Nepal may draw on India’s experience and expertise in
drafting an inclusive constitution. India has always provided generous
assistance to Nepal for economic development. A Rs100-crore package
offered in the immediate post-Jan Andolan-II phase has not been fully
utilised. The Maoist promise of 10,000 MW of hydropower generation in a
decade is a win-win proposal for India as well. A vibrant Nepali
economy will reduce the outflow of migrant labour into India.

The vast convergence of interests between India and the new Nepal
has always been obvious. What is needed on both sides is a creative
political approach towards each other, free from ideological obsessions
and past prejudices. India can easily afford to go more than half way
to assure the Maoist leadership that it wishes new Nepal well.

(The writer is Senior Visiting Fellow, Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore. sdmuni@gmail.com)