Post by repeater on Mar 16, 2005 16:05:46 GMT -5
SOUTH ASIA:
Maoist Deal with Nepal's Political Parties May Doom Monarchy
Analysis - by Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Mar 16 (IPS) - A new deal in the offing between Nepal's main political parties and Maoist rebels has the potential not only of returning the Himalayan kingdom to democracy but also ending a constitutional monarchy that has so far enjoyed New Delhi's support.
Last weekend, representatives of Nepali Congress, Nepali Congress (Democratic), Nepal Communist Party (United Marxists-Leninists) or UML, People's Front Nepal Party and the Nepal Sadbhavana Party meeting in Bangkok issued a joint-call to redraft the country's constitution through a constituent assembly and force the ouster of King Gyanendra who seized power in a 'royal coup' on Feb 1.
''This move poses the biggest challenge yet to Nepal's monarchy as well as to Indian policy on Nepal,'' S. D. Muni, India's most-respected expert on South Asian affairs and professor at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University told IPS.
New Delhi has consistently laid emphasis on the ''twin pillars of constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy'' in Nepal but this policy took a knock after the king ignored India's advice and used the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) to seize power and dismiss the elected government -- saying it failed to deal with a bloody Maoist insurgency that has left 11,000 Nepalis dead.
''We want the promulgation of a constituent assembly, and through the constituent assembly we will decide whether to have the king or not to have the king,'' said Ramesh Rizal, a central committee member of the centrist Nepali Congress (Democratic), speaking for all the five political parties in Bangkok.
The demand of the political parties is in consonance with the Maoist stand that the people of Nepal be given a fair chance to decide on a kingless republic through a new, popularly elected constituent assembly which would be charged with drawing up a new constitution.
Muni said the coming together of the political parties and the Maoists was ''a surprise though not an altogether unexpected development and was the natural result of the two groups realizing that they could not take on the monarchy unless they joined forces.''
Soon after the Feb. 1 coup independent commentators in Kathmandu, notably editor and publisher Kanak Mani Dixit, opined that the king had put the monarchy in jeopardy through his actions in dismissing the elected government (which served as a buffer between the palace and the Maoists), clamping down on civil liberties and muzzling the media.
The political parties whose second-line leadership managed to escape to India and set up base in New Delhi have been demanding that the host country support the idea of democratic republic that would replace constitutional monarchy, which they said never worked in practice
''If a democratic republic is good enough for India it should be good enough for Nepal too,'' is the unassailable argument put forward by Sujata Koirala of the Nepali Congress to Indian leaders whom she has been in contact with.
India, which enjoys more clout in Kathmandu than any other country, has nevertheless preferred to play it safe and coordinate sanctions against Nepal with major donor countries like the United States and Britain.
But the pressure on India to be more pro-active is greater because more than ten million Nepalis live in India taking advantage of the Indo-Nepal treaty of 1950 which allows them to freely reside, own property, find employment and carry on business in this country.
Indian nationals enjoy similar privileges in Nepal on a reciprocatory basis and many large Indian companies have made significant investments in the kingdom.
Although the 1950 treaty has been constantly under fire in Nepal as being more advantageous to India, no Nepali government to date has called for its abrogation.
Since January 2003, the number of Nepalis crossing over the border into India has gone up to 2,000 persons a day according to a study conducted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-sponsored study on internal displacement as a consequence of the Maoist insurgency.
Right-wing political leaders in India, notably those from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have opposed any dialogue with the Nepali Maoists on the grounds that they have links with India's violent Maoists groups such as the Maoist Communist Centre and the People's War Group. Also the Indian right-wingers have been quite supportive of the monarchy.
Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani who was deputy prime minister until the BJP lost the national elections in May last year has repeatedly warned that Nepal's Maoists were trying to create a 'Maoist belt' that extends through the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.
Advani has in fact publicly accused the Congress Party that leads the communist-backed United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ruling coalition of winning the elections through a secret understanding with Maoist groups.
But there is a view that Marxist groups in the Indian state have had a positive role in forcing badly needed socio-political changes including steps towards land reforms.
India's Maoist groups participate indirectly in electoral processes and have at various times come out openly to hold public rallies and negotiate reforms with elected governments which see wisdom in having a tolerant approach to them, so as to co-opt their left-leaning supporters.
In Nepal such tolerance is impossible since the Maoists and the monarchy are not only inimical but deadly opposed to each other's existence.
According to leading economist and parliamentarian Ashok Mitra, who has served as finance minister in Marxist-run West Bengal, Nepal's political parties have had an ambivalent attitude towards the monarchy and are reluctant undertake drastic reforms demanded by the Maoists, such as that involving land tenure.
The reason, Mitra says, is that land reforms could hurt not only Nepal's aristocracy which controls vast tracts of the kingdom but also the leadership of political parties that come from elitist and landed backgrounds.
For those who would care to understand the real situation in Nepal, Mitra recommends a book written by top-ranking Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai, entitled 'Underdevelopment and Regional Structure in Nepal: A Marxist Analysis.''
Originally submitted as his doctoral thesis while studying at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi during the late 1970s, the book details the grossly inequitable land ownership pattern in Nepal which has remained steeped in medievalism, oblivious to reforms around it either in China to the north or India to its south. (END/2005)
Maoist Deal with Nepal's Political Parties May Doom Monarchy
Analysis - by Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Mar 16 (IPS) - A new deal in the offing between Nepal's main political parties and Maoist rebels has the potential not only of returning the Himalayan kingdom to democracy but also ending a constitutional monarchy that has so far enjoyed New Delhi's support.
Last weekend, representatives of Nepali Congress, Nepali Congress (Democratic), Nepal Communist Party (United Marxists-Leninists) or UML, People's Front Nepal Party and the Nepal Sadbhavana Party meeting in Bangkok issued a joint-call to redraft the country's constitution through a constituent assembly and force the ouster of King Gyanendra who seized power in a 'royal coup' on Feb 1.
''This move poses the biggest challenge yet to Nepal's monarchy as well as to Indian policy on Nepal,'' S. D. Muni, India's most-respected expert on South Asian affairs and professor at the prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University told IPS.
New Delhi has consistently laid emphasis on the ''twin pillars of constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy'' in Nepal but this policy took a knock after the king ignored India's advice and used the Royal Nepal Army (RNA) to seize power and dismiss the elected government -- saying it failed to deal with a bloody Maoist insurgency that has left 11,000 Nepalis dead.
''We want the promulgation of a constituent assembly, and through the constituent assembly we will decide whether to have the king or not to have the king,'' said Ramesh Rizal, a central committee member of the centrist Nepali Congress (Democratic), speaking for all the five political parties in Bangkok.
The demand of the political parties is in consonance with the Maoist stand that the people of Nepal be given a fair chance to decide on a kingless republic through a new, popularly elected constituent assembly which would be charged with drawing up a new constitution.
Muni said the coming together of the political parties and the Maoists was ''a surprise though not an altogether unexpected development and was the natural result of the two groups realizing that they could not take on the monarchy unless they joined forces.''
Soon after the Feb. 1 coup independent commentators in Kathmandu, notably editor and publisher Kanak Mani Dixit, opined that the king had put the monarchy in jeopardy through his actions in dismissing the elected government (which served as a buffer between the palace and the Maoists), clamping down on civil liberties and muzzling the media.
The political parties whose second-line leadership managed to escape to India and set up base in New Delhi have been demanding that the host country support the idea of democratic republic that would replace constitutional monarchy, which they said never worked in practice
''If a democratic republic is good enough for India it should be good enough for Nepal too,'' is the unassailable argument put forward by Sujata Koirala of the Nepali Congress to Indian leaders whom she has been in contact with.
India, which enjoys more clout in Kathmandu than any other country, has nevertheless preferred to play it safe and coordinate sanctions against Nepal with major donor countries like the United States and Britain.
But the pressure on India to be more pro-active is greater because more than ten million Nepalis live in India taking advantage of the Indo-Nepal treaty of 1950 which allows them to freely reside, own property, find employment and carry on business in this country.
Indian nationals enjoy similar privileges in Nepal on a reciprocatory basis and many large Indian companies have made significant investments in the kingdom.
Although the 1950 treaty has been constantly under fire in Nepal as being more advantageous to India, no Nepali government to date has called for its abrogation.
Since January 2003, the number of Nepalis crossing over the border into India has gone up to 2,000 persons a day according to a study conducted by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)-sponsored study on internal displacement as a consequence of the Maoist insurgency.
Right-wing political leaders in India, notably those from the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have opposed any dialogue with the Nepali Maoists on the grounds that they have links with India's violent Maoists groups such as the Maoist Communist Centre and the People's War Group. Also the Indian right-wingers have been quite supportive of the monarchy.
Opposition leader Lal Krishna Advani who was deputy prime minister until the BJP lost the national elections in May last year has repeatedly warned that Nepal's Maoists were trying to create a 'Maoist belt' that extends through the Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh.
Advani has in fact publicly accused the Congress Party that leads the communist-backed United Progressive Alliance (UPA) ruling coalition of winning the elections through a secret understanding with Maoist groups.
But there is a view that Marxist groups in the Indian state have had a positive role in forcing badly needed socio-political changes including steps towards land reforms.
India's Maoist groups participate indirectly in electoral processes and have at various times come out openly to hold public rallies and negotiate reforms with elected governments which see wisdom in having a tolerant approach to them, so as to co-opt their left-leaning supporters.
In Nepal such tolerance is impossible since the Maoists and the monarchy are not only inimical but deadly opposed to each other's existence.
According to leading economist and parliamentarian Ashok Mitra, who has served as finance minister in Marxist-run West Bengal, Nepal's political parties have had an ambivalent attitude towards the monarchy and are reluctant undertake drastic reforms demanded by the Maoists, such as that involving land tenure.
The reason, Mitra says, is that land reforms could hurt not only Nepal's aristocracy which controls vast tracts of the kingdom but also the leadership of political parties that come from elitist and landed backgrounds.
For those who would care to understand the real situation in Nepal, Mitra recommends a book written by top-ranking Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai, entitled 'Underdevelopment and Regional Structure in Nepal: A Marxist Analysis.''
Originally submitted as his doctoral thesis while studying at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi during the late 1970s, the book details the grossly inequitable land ownership pattern in Nepal which has remained steeped in medievalism, oblivious to reforms around it either in China to the north or India to its south. (END/2005)