Aditi Phadnis: Will the monitor deliver?

PLAIN POLITICS

Maoist leader Prachanda's ability to bring order to Nepal is under question.

It is now almost certain that elections to a new Parliament in Nepal will not be held in June. India would prefer not to see an open-ended schedule to set up formal democratic institutions because it will then be easier to subvert them. But frankly, anything would be better than the quasi-formal anarchy that rules Nepal today under the masterful command of Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda. Last week, one faction of the Maoists raided a police station in Banke, informing the world that they hadn't given up their bad habits. The home minister was indulgent and dismissive of the incident""the Maoists had backed his claim to the job and in his own Nepali Congress, he is referred to as the minister-in-waiting for the Maoists. The UN head of mission for Nepal, Ian Martin, said publicly for the first time last week that he was upset that the Maoists had not kept their word on the second phase of verification of their cadres, which is one of the reasons why the schedule seems to have gone out of kilter.

The world and the friends of the Maoists should have heard the prime minister of the interim government in Nepal, Girija Prasad Koirala, more closely when he came to the SAARC summit in Delhi and said in his speech that democracy and the peace process in Nepal were now in the hands of the Maoists. "A lot of my friends kept telling me, 'don't include the Maoists in the interim government because they have not kept their promises and have not implemented agreements they were party to.' But my political instincts told me to do this and so I made sure they were part of my government before I came here," Koirala told the summit while his colleagues in the Nepali Congress fulminated over his obstinacy and wilfulness. Yes, Prachanda, the most disobedient boy in class, is the monitor now. But will this bring order to Nepal?

Unfortunately, things are much more complicated, though it cannot be denied that the Maoists have contributed to keeping the pot boiling. They are now insisting that Nepal be declared a republic immediately. While the whole tortuous exercise that the country is undergoing is to determine through democratic and constitutional means what kind of system the country would be governed by (that is, what Article 159 of the interim constitution mandates), why the Maoists are so keen to fast-forward that process is not clear to anyone. There is speculation, however, that at the end of the year, when the elected constituent assembly meets, a ceremonial monarchy might be voted back into the system. The Maoists want to pre-empt that possibility and therefore want to adopt extra-constitutional means to impose a republic on Nepal.

Then there is the question of managing arms and armies. The Maoist arms have been submitted to the UN for safekeeping and the second phase of verification of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is yet to start. Thirty-one thousand 'soldiers' have been confined to cantonments. The Maoists had agreed to verify how many 'regulars' and how many underage soldiers the PLA had when they signed the May 26, 2006 agreement. But now they say they won't go ahead with this until there is some forward movement on the political front. What is more, they say the condition of 'soldiers' is appalling and that they must be paid salaries. Considering that the rest of Nepal till yesterday saw them as lawless marauders and extortionists, this is a bit rich. But even assuming they were to be paid salaries, the question is from what head in the budget?

But the worst is the problem of the Terai (or plains). Janjatis, or tribals, and dalits are an important component of the oppressed on whose behalf the Maoists claim to be fighting. However, the janjatis and dalits living in the Terai apparently do not fall in this category. Such is the ethnic divide between the hills and plains that it has caused a rift among the Maoists, leading to a split. The Maoists fighting for the rights of Terai Nepalis have broken away from the organisation fighting for the rights of the hill Nepalis. The hill Maoists, who allege the Terai Maoists have sold themselves out, also charge that foreign powers""India and the US to wit""are interfering in Nepal. No one is surprised by this accusation. It is another matter that the brazen discrimination against the Nepalis of the Terai""who are of Indian origin and identify closely with India""doesn't seem to bother the Maoists, though injustice and discrimination in other parts of the world including Bolivia and El Salvador does. Bihar, which touches Terai, has an enlightened leadership. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar has declared that the Terai people's grievances relate to the Government of Nepal and that their struggle has nothing to do with India or Bihar. But what if Opposition leaders in Bihar begin to claim the Terai movement as their movement?

The people of the Terai, sensing they are going to be second-class citizens unless they speak up now, demand that fresh delimitation of constituencies be carried out on the basis of a new census without which an election in Nepal would be undemocratic and unrepresentative. The Election Commission of Nepal has said this is 'impossible' and has pointed out that a census for Nepal (it cannot be conducted only for the Terai regions) would take four years to complete. The solution is, of course, for the Nepali Congress to take up the cause of the people of the Terai and offer the Maoists a challenge.

It will be clearer by the end of the year""after Dasain and Tihar, Nepal's two biggest festivals, corresponding to Vijayadashami and Deepavali""what the election calendar for Nepal will look like. Meanwhile, the Maoists warn the King and the Army are getting ready for a countercoup. If that happens, whose fault will it be? They need to ask themselves.