The winds of change currently blowing over Nepal have not only brought in their wake a new prime minister, Jhalanath Khanal, a new political alliance between the Maoists and the left-wing Unified Communist Party of Nepal, but also a change of guard in India House in Kathmandu.
It is now confirmed that Jayant Prasad, a former ambassador to Afghanistan and currently secretary in charge of public diplomacy in the ministry of external affairs, cleared personally by the prime minister as India’s man in Nepal, will take charge in April.
Prasad will find his hands are more than full, although there’s nothing like a deteriorating relationship to galvanise all the instincts of a top diplomat. Things had come to such a pass that in the wake of the Dabur Nepal fiasco withholding serious advertising from Nepali newspapers, India’s outgoing representative, Rakesh Sood, even had shoes thrown at him during a tour of northern Nepal in December.
To be sure, the unusual Maoist-Left alliance in Kathmandu is already facing teething troubles, with the seven-point understanding between Maoist chief Prachanda and Communist leader Jhalanath Khanal angering Khanal’s own party leaders in the CPN-UML like Madhav Nepal (prime minister of Nepal till last week) and K P Oli, as they were kept out of the power-sharing arrangement.
Meanwhile, the Maoists are said to want the home, foreign affairs as well as the information & communication portfolios in Khanal’s government, which Khanal is resisting. He knows well that if he hands over these powerful ministries to Prachanda’s party, he may as well cede all power to him. On the face of it, the Communist-Maoist alliance seems like rank opportunism, with Khanal desperate to become prime minister at any cost and Prachanda, realising that since he could not win despite 16 rounds of secret ballot, withdrawing his name in favour of Khanal.
According to the first point in the seven-point agreement between Prachanda and Khanal, both parties “vow to strengthen inclusive democracy and establish political and social system geared towards socialism…”, language that has already raised the hackles of influential sections in Nepal and India for its overt dependence on left-wing jargon.
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In fact, the agreement is structured around the “rotational” structure of leadership between the UML and the Maoists, and many are already asking when Prachanda is going to demand his turn.
Then there is the clause which pledges to take the peace process forward by integrating and rehabilitating the 19,000-odd Maoist combatants, still out in the cold despite the end to the “people’s war” five years ago. According to the agreement, Khanal and Prachanda agreed to “form a separate force for Maoist combatants or an alternative force combining the PLA (the former People’s Liberation Army) and other security forces.” This formulation has already created discord in Khanal’s party, as they feel the Maoists are trying to get their combatants into the army, the para-military or into the police through the back door.
It was precisely over this issue that then army chief Rukmangud Katuwal in 2008 refused to absorb Maoist combatants into the Nepal army, forcing Prachanda as prime minister to sack him.
In the ensuing discord, India took sides against Prachanda — a man Delhi had supported when he was underground in 2005 and subsequently helped broker the 12-point peace accord between the Maoists and the erstwhile royalist government of Nepal — and continued to be firmly ranged against the Maoists returning to power in Kathmandu. In recent years, Delhi seemed to have lost track of the Nepali dream to become a “normal” state, even though it had been instrumental in brokering the former monarch to step down during those heady days of the Maoist-led ‘jan andolan’ in April 2006.
On the eve of the Khanal-Prachanda understanding last month, it was widely rumoured that India persuaded Madhesi leader Bijay Kumar Gachhadar to throw his hat in the ring for prime ministership, so as to divide the votes and prevent Prachanda from coming to power. In fact, Prachanda openly accused India of doing so.
Even Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, it was said, had told Nepal’s fractious politicians that India would support anyone as prime minister, except Prachanda or Khanal, when she visited Kathmandu a fortnight ago.
Indian officials deny the allegations, saying it is up to the Nepalis to choose the leader they want. However, they add, the Maoists had not helped their case by refusing to redeem their own pledges. These included disbanding the Youth Communist League, returning the lands that had been forcibly taken from the peasants and the bourgeoisie and integrating the Maoist combatants.
Rerferring to Khanal’s election as PM, the official sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said they could “see the difficulties coming already, the bickering, the various interpretations by different parties.”
The irony is that despite India’s deep distrust of the Maoists, several Maoist and Communist leaders in Kathmandu are still sending messages to Indian leaders in the hope that Delhi will talk to them. But Delhi continues to turn a deaf ear.
Prachanda sent a message some months ago, saying he would talk to the political leadership, but not to its bureaucrats. Last year, when Jhalanath Khanal came to India, he tried hard to meet the PM, but had to return disappointed. Last month, when Barshaman Pun ‘Ananta’, the head of Kathmandu’s erstwhile Maoist “liberation forces”, came to Delhi to attend a seminar at the Vivekananda Foundation, the only leader who found time for him was Janata Dal (U) leader Sharad Yadav.
It is said in Kathmandu that ‘Ananta’ has been offered the Defence portfolio in Khanal’s government.
Much work is needed over the next few months. On top of the agenda is the matter of rewriting the Constitution by May 28, passing the Budget in July and concluding the peace process — including the integration of the Maoist combatants.
Analysts say if Manmohan Singh’s neighbourhood policy of economic integration has to bear fruit, India must start paying heed to Nepal’s economic crisis. As the largest economic partner, India accounts for 60 per cent of Nepal’s external trade and 40 per cent of its investments. In the last financial year, economic growth fell from 4.5 per cent to 3.5 per cent, and international aid agencies, including the ADB, warned against funds slowing down if Kathmandu didn’t explain its economic vision.