[Assam] Hope Cooke the Sikkim Queen that India dethroned, so forgiving!

[Bartta Bistar]

 

Spill-over EFFECT, subtle divergence and ‘phir milengey’

BY M.R. JOSSE

 

http://www.peoplesreview.com.np/2005/100305/detail/b1.html

Lately, we’ve been hearing and reading a heap about the spill-over effect. That, of course, is code or short cut lingo for a reference to the danger of a spill-over of Nepal’s Maoist insurgency, in its manifold or myriad manifestations, over into mysterious Hindoostan

SPILL-OVER EFFECT

One recent example was a THT reference to the same in a statement by the Indian EAM – or External Affairs Minister for the uninitiated – the dapper K. Natwar Singh contained in a refutation of reports suggesting that her Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB, or the Border Security Force) had been involved in RNA operations against Maoists in Bardiya district.

Singh, speaking in India’s Upper House of parliament, went on to say that “India was concerned that further deterioration of the situation in Nepal will result in spill-over effects across the open border.” Wow!

Apparently, the wizards of Hindoostan have made a profound, original discovery that the “jana juddha” – the Maoists’ unlovely dirty war now in its 10th year – would have a deleterious (a particularly over-used word in India) effect on her.
My first prosaic point is this: surely, it could not have ONLY NOW dawned on the beautiful minds at EAM that a spill-over effect of the Maoist insurgency in Nepal into India would, or could, have such an adverse impact across the “open border”. The second is that the Singh assertion makes it appear that, hitherto, there had not been any spill-over effect; that, in fact, such a grim possibility stares her in her face, in the FUTURE.

Finally, on this score, this press wallah wishes to place on record that we in Nepal have, for instance, been conscious of the spill-over effect for years – only that in the REVERSE DIRECTION. Meaning? That for donkey’s years we chaps have been subjected to all manner of peccadilloes from South of the Border, including assaults from Maoists and their assorted pals holed up in various pockets of that vast peninsula. Therefore, it only stands to reason that if anyone should stand up to protest about the spill-over effect it should be Nepal! QED. (Quad Erat Demonstrandum as my ol’ math teacher was so fond of saying.)

SUBTLE DIVERGENCE

These days, who doesn’t know about the red-hot US-India honeymoon? Yet – hold your horses, pard – is all the mushy rhetoric about misty-eyed consultations with India taking the lead role in arm-twisting or brow-beating Nepal just so much froth or hot air? Why do I dare even to pose such a sacrilegious question?
The reason, dear reader, is rather mundane or piddling (if you don’t mind the word), triggered by an intriguing reference in a news item in the one-and-only THT. In reporting the other day an upcoming visit to India by Nepal’s spanking-new pararastra mantri Ramesh Nath Pandey, it made a song and dance of the “fact” that while India’s rajdoot in the land of Shiv Shanker had been specifically recalled by his political masters for consultations, “US mission staffers had attributed Moriarty’s visit back home as something which took place in connection with a seminar on earthquake(sic).”

As far as this pen pusher or keyboard puncher can recall, Washington’s man-on-the-spot in Catmandoo was also recalled for consultations to his capital but decided to briefly attend a seminar/workshop on earthquakes or the tsunami phenomena in hedonistic Honolulu, en route to DC. The point that THT is subtly attempting to make – at least to my simple pahari mind – is that here, too, it is India, not America, that is, or should be, calling the shots.

Chewing on this savoury THT tid-bit a bit more, I hit upon another lip-smacking possibility: that the blokes at THT, which as all know is no ordinary newspaper, are not all that terribly keen on allowing the Americans to muscle in into what they probably or naively believe is their territory. Doubtless future developments will tell whether or how long the India-US convergence of interest in Nepal and elsewhere lasts. Something, perhaps, that our foreign policy sages sitting in the faded splendour of Shital Niwas can figure out in their spare time, don’t you agree?

ON SAME PAGE?

Still on India/US relations and Nepal. Have carefully read through a TOI news story spun around the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s brief upcoming visit to India, her first to that country. Therein, a woman journo, identified through byline, rather breathlessly points out: “During the recent crisis in Nepal too, the US and India have been, as the saying goes, on the same page.”

Maybe, maybe not, Indrani Bagchiji. As just stated, only time will tell what that romance is really all about. Here, however, I can’t resist making three rather cheeky suggestions. One: that during the ensuing official Indo-American chit-chat in the graceful city that Luytens built some American thought will go to into probing the nature and scope of India’s relations with Bhutan. This, not least against the backdrop of that primitive state’s God-awful human rights, ethnic cleansing (etc, etc) record, and their impact on Nepal.

Two: ditto for India’s shadowy relationship with the Nepali Maoists, the apex leadership of which, according to pundits, is still operating from Indian territory. As I’m told by many friends in the fraternity, while some minnows have been apprehended, the whales are still out in the ocean. How does India’s running with the hares and hunting with the hounds sit with the much-hyped Indo-American “war on international terror”, I really wonder. Don’t you, too?

Finally: also can’t resist suggesting that the American delegation, prior to the visit, bone up on the Great Sikkim Tragedy. This should be of gripping interest given that one of the central figures of that sad drama is none other than Hope Cooke.
The one-time New York debuntane, as many will recall, became Sikkim’s Gyalmo, or Queen. To my knowledge, she has at least one book to her name that I read with much interest a few years ago. In that volume, whose title now escapes my memory, she described in painful detail how she was hounded out of Sikkim on charges that she was a CIA agent or worse! I don’t know if she’s still around. At least, when I was wearing stripped pants around the UN in the Big Apple aeons ago, she was still there.

‘PHIR MILENGEY’

Self and spouse enjoyed a memorable ghazal and qawwali concert by the Taji group from Karachi at the Hyatt last Saturday, courtesy the soon-to-depart Ambassador of Pakistan, the strapping and popular, Zamir Akram. What naturally added to the zest to the occasion was a pre-performance round of cocktails and a sumptuous post-concert dinner set out on assorted tables on the hotel’s lawn.
Since the happening was, essentially, a “to say goodbye” event for Ambassador Akram – whom I’m told will now serve as a senior aide to Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in Islamabad – it represented a rather unique way of doing so I thought, as so did umpteen other guests present.

I also felt it only reflected his thoughtfulness and his transparent affection for this country and its people. Although he’ll be missed by friends and colleagues, as also his charming begum Saadia, I will not say goodbye but use the cheerier exhortation ‘phir milengey’ (be seeing ya), as the departing envoy did say in a short farewell speech that he/wife would be visiting in the future as often as they could.

Certainly, I shall be ‘seeing’ this column’s readership next week. Till then: hasta la vista as they say South of the Rio Grande.

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Email:[EMAIL PROTECTED]

 

 

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