India is a regional hegemonic power and Nepal and Nepalis have to
live with that. India's position on the armed maoist insurgency in
Nepal is not static. Initially India considered this Nepal's internal
problem. Maoists used the open boarder between Nepal and India very
effectively for shelter, and to ferry arms and other vital supplies.
It was only a matter time before the resourceful Nepali maoists made
links with maoist groups on the Indian side.

26/01/2005

Maoism In India And Its Appearance In Nepal

Kamala Sarup

India being a big neighbour, it is nothing wrong having co-operation
in terms of military supplies and sharing of defence intelligence
information. Although India, the U.S. and Britain have given the
Royal Nepal Army weapons and training, the army lacks in intelligence
and capability to carry out offensives. Unless the strong neighbour
like India gives direct military support, it is difficult for the
army to get an upper hand with the Maoists..

On return to its military support to tackle the Maoists, New Delhi
wants a change in the 1953 extradition treaty to incorporate a clause
for allowing Indian police to enter Nepalese territory to investigate
activities of its enemies and handing over nationals of third
countries if New Delhi considers them as criminals. Another proposal
is that Indian security personnel will assist authorities at the
Tribhuvan International Airport, citing the 1999 hijacking of an
Indian Airlines flight. Civil society in Nepal feels that Prime
Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba, who no longer has the advantage of being
an elected prime minister, is giving in too much to get Indian
support for tackling Maoist insurgency. Of course, it would be better
for Nepal not to depend too much on external military support if it
could devise means to tackle insurgency by itself. But then, the
Maoists and the Nepalese army are neck and neck, with the former
having capacity even to carry out strategic offensive. The other
factor to be considered is that taking Indian military support in
suppressing the insurgency may boomerang resulting in the Maoists
gaining more sympathisers. Dr. Arul argued.

India is a regional hegemonic power and Nepal and Nepalis have to
live with that. India's position on the armed maoist insurgency in
Nepal is not static. Initially India considered this Nepal's internal
problem. Maoists used the open boarder between Nepal and India very
effectively for shelter, and to ferry arms and other vital supplies.
It was only a matter time before the resourceful Nepali maoists made
links with maoist groups on the Indian side. Recently, long divided
Indian maoist groups have agreed to wage a united campaign against
the Indian state, and Nepali maoists have pledged to lend their full
moral and strategic support to this cause. Indian security may have
evidence that Nepali and India maoists conduct joint political and
military training on Indian as well as Nepali territory. All added
up, the Indians have suddenly realized that this is not only Nepal's,
but a regional problem with definite spillover effect into key
bordering Indian states like Bihar, UP, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand,
Bengal, and beyond. Schalor Dr. Anup Pahari argued.

India has her own bag of trouble with insurgencies, including the
Indian Maoists. She has not been able to bring them to any meaningful
negotiations there. Further, she has not been able to discourage the
involvement of the Nepali Maoists with the Indian Maoists with
explicit declaration of forming a "Compact Revolutionary Zone"
including the territory extending from Nepal to Andra Pradesh. At
best India could do is expend more effort than currently being made
to control the open border to prevent the Nepali Maoists form using
India for refuse, and export of clandestine of weapons and other
logistic materials into Nepal. Limiting the scope of action of the
Maoist in this way could perhaps force the Nepali Maoists to opt for
genuine negotiations.Misras also said.

The revival of the Maoist movement in India and its appearance in
Nepal represent a phenomenon that goes against the trend of
international communism. At a time when the doctrine seems to have
run its course in both Russia and China - once the two main bastions
of the creed - and is surviving precariously in isolated outposts
like North Korea, Cuba and Laos, it is a matter of surprise that the
most violent version of the dogma has reared its head in South Asia.

"It would have been understandable if the Maoists had grown in
numbers and organisational skill in the 1970s when China under Mao
Zedong openly urged them to spread the 'prairie fire' of revolution.
It was indeed as a result of Chinese inspiration that the Maoists
under their charismatic leader Charu Mazumdar broke away from the
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) in West Bengal in 1969 to
emulate the Maoist example of guerrilla warfare in the countryside.
The first shots - or, rather, bows and arrows - were fired in
Naxalbari village in West Bengal in 1967, giving the uprising the
name of the Naxalite movement. Peace activist Chiranjibi also said.

Even security has been tightened along the Indo-Nepal border area
after recent incuidents of unrest in Nepal. "Our duty is to keep
track on Maoist activities, track them down and take necessary
counter measures," said Himanshu Kumar, the Director General of the
Special Services Bureau.

He said a massive combing operation has been launched in the area and
police have also set up temporary posts as they with the merger of
the Communist Party of Nepal India merging together there is fear of
exchange of weapons going on though there is no notice of any kind of
joint strategy between the two.

"Communist party of Nepal and CPI (India) merged together to there
will definitely be exchange of weapon but there is no notice of any
joint strategy between the two," he added.

New Delhi is a key ally in Kathmandu's efforts to end the insurgency
and is keen to see it quelled quickly. India also urged Nepal to
invite insurgent Maoists for peace talks.

"And they have to be convinced that they cannot win an armed struggle
and that their bargaining power would diminish if they continued with
their agitation for long," Indian Ambassdor Saran told a seminar on
Nepal. "Certain assurances such as a level-playing field have to be
given to them and some parts of their programme accepted to convince
the Maoists to come to the political mainstream and participate in
elections," he said.

"The Maoists are seeing a fractured polity in Nepal. The political
parties, in their rivalry, do not seem to understand that the need
now is to rise above their differences to ensure that the multi-party
system survives," he said.

It is known that the special security relationship between India and
Nepal was re-established during the 1990 New Delhi visit of Nepal's
PM Krishna Prasad Bhattarai and during the 1991 visit to India by
Nepalese prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala. Even during the Indian
PM's visit to Nepal in June 1997 the two sides reiterated their
determination to work closely to fight violence and the Home
Secretary level talks were also held and all matters relating to
security were discussed in detail. After the Joint Working Group on
Border Management and Home Secretary level talks, effective border
management measures were taken to counter the misuse of the open
border. India recently passed the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance
to ban various political groups, including the India-Nepal Solidarity
Forum-which has been working in India to build support for the
Maoists in Nepal.

It is true Nepal is very close culturally to India than any other
country and it is also true, India has condemned the widespread
violent attacks by Maoists and opposed the recourse to violence and
extremism in the pursuit of political objectives.

Our definition of security depends heavily upon our relationship with
India, which nearly surrounds our territory. We have an open and
unregulated border with Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and
Uttaranchal. Our security position has been adversely affected by our
lower level of political and economic development. But the political
and military dimensions have predominated the situation. Even, India
and Nepal have been having close relationship since before 1857, and
in 1950 India and Nepal initiated their intertwined relationship with
the Treaty of Peace and Friendship and accompanying letters that
defined security relations between the two countries.

"Nepal and India have to learn from Vietnam. Vietnam was robbed of
its ancient heritage and forced to accept the culture of communism.
Instead of a socialist paradise communist have obtained only poverty,
hunger and misery. These facts have become so clear and brutal that
even many of the Communist Party's most ardent supporters are
admitting that they have failed.

In 1990, the leading Communist official Tran Bach Dang told the
author Stanley Karnow, "Our belief in a Communist utopia had nothing
to do with reality. We tried to build a new society on theories and
dreams--on sand. Instead of stimulating production by giving people
incentives, we collectivized them. Imagine! We even collectivized
barbers. It was preposterous. We were also consumed by vanity.
Because we crushed the Americans, we thought we could achieve
anything. We should have heeded the old Chinese adage: 'You can
conquer a country from horseback, but you cannot govern it from
horseback.'" Finally the Communists must look their failure in the
face and confess their mistakes.

In a similar confession the unrepentant but realistic Dr. Duong Quynh
Hoa, a high leader in the VietMinh, told the same journalist, "I have
been a Communist all my life, but now I've seen the realities of
Communism, and it is a failure--mismanagement, corruption, privilege,
repression. My ideals are gone." In a later meeting she voiced the
same outrage saying, "Communism has been catastrophic. Party
officials have never understood the need for rational development.
They've been hypnotized by Marxist slogans that have lost
validity--if they ever were valid. They are outrageous." Nguyen Phuc
Buu Chanh of Vietnam said.

(Kamala Sarup is editor to http://peacejournalism.com/ )

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0501/S00215.htm


                
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