Nepal’s Maoist chief Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s (Prachanda’s) meeting with India’s Foreign Minister S M Krishna in Kathmandu on Friday (22nd) turned into a diplomatic duel with both sides raising their own concerns and denying the other’s accusation, according to the headlines..
Prachanda –Krishna meeting took place on the last day of Indian leader’s three-day visit to Nepal, his second in a year. Going by media reports attributed to Prachanda himself, Krishna had brought up security and economic issues as well as attacks on the Indian ambassador to Nepal, Rakesh Sood, during the hour-long meeting.
To be fair to Krishna, he raised these issues with other leaders in and outside the government. As the next door neighbour who is bound by history and culture, it is natural for India to expect a fair deal in and from Nepal. It doesn’t seek any special privileges. What it would like to see however, is an atmosphere which is free of animosities and that which promotes and furthers mutual trust and confidence.
The Maoist leader’s reply to the Indian concerns was a litany of charges that border on the absurd to the grotesque. One charge is that India stood in the way of fulfilling his ambition of becoming the prime minister for the second time after he forced Madhav Kumar Nepal to resign last year. Another allegation hurled during the meeting with Krishna was that India had obstructed the merger of armed Maoist cadres with the army and this had emboldened the then army chief Rookmangud Katawal to thwart the Maoist plans. Then there is the usual anti-Indianism that Delhi was and is inimical towards the Maoists.
For these and many more such charges, Prachanda knows fairly well that it was (and is) his brand of politics that has alienated the Maoists from the rest of the political spectrum. It is this alienation that was the root cause of his defeat in successive ballots for the prime minister’s post in the Interim Parliament. Also it is this alienation that is coming in his way of seeing the success of the coalition he has cobbled up after creating a rift within the UML. That new Prime Minister Jhalanath Khanal has not been allowed to complete the constitution of his cabinet has something to do with the authoritarian and autocratic ways of the Maoists and the fault lines that mark their camp. It has nothing to do with India. Prachanda knows. So do all his interlocutors at home and outside beyond the northern borders.
Prachanda also knows that it was India that had facilitated his entry into the Nepalese mainstream. Even the formation of his first ever government in Kathmandu for that matter. It did so not in anticipation of any reward or as a gesture of magnanimity but as a true friend of Nepalese people, and as a neighbour interested to see peace, harmony and democracy in the Himalayan Kingdom.
As a frequent visitor to Delhi in the days and weeks that preceded his emergence on the over ground political theatre, the Maoist leader could not be oblivious to what India stands for then, now and forever. If he still takes recourse to anti-Indianism, which was the stock-in trade of the Narayanhity Royal Palace, well, it reflects a dinosaur mindset that is neither here nor there.
