NP Upadhyaya, Kathmandu: The political slide continues. The slide shall continue for long it appears. Amidst this grand slide, Comrade Prachanda’s political ambitions have gone up. Perhaps he is hoping big from the sickness of the incumbent Prime Minister who is almost now Okay and the Hospital wherein he has been admitted may discharge him any time soon. (He has been discharged already last Friday evening).
Baburam Bhattarai too is hoping life-size by the way. He appears to have already caught the alien signals. We shall elaborate it later.
It is this discharge of Prime Minister KP Oli from the hospital that has made Prachanda restive. Babu Ram too appears to have not taken this discharge beamingly.
If Prachanda is not in good shape politically speaking, then his former Delhi deputy, Baburam has freshly ventilated that the nation now needs a more what he calls “advanced revolution” perhaps of the sort of the last one which he waged on Nepal by residing in New Delhi but that needs to be an “improved one” both technologically and financially.
Baburam yet claims himself to be the brilliant son of this soil at par with Unifier King Prithvi, which cannot be true by any means.
Dr. Bhattarai has made his fresh target on the Bureaucracy which he says has become redundant and defunct.
So when Baburam is so sure for an advanced revolution should mean then that he is not talking his personal brain but thinking high and big as is being thought of by his former mentors in Delhi. Old friendship counts.
To recall, Dr. Bhattarai has already waged a revolution in the past by residing in New Delhi, if he recalls his Delhi’s gloomy past.
Though the party, The Naya Shakti, Baburam heads is a one-man show and he is the chairman and the last listener as and when he speaks as the last man to listen to his ideological guffe- is the mike man who has to collect his audio system and pack up for the next political event.
Baburam’s warning has come at a time when Indian media has floated the idea that Nepal’s former King Gyanendra may be picked up as the next foreign dignitary to grace the Indian republic day celebrations, January 26, 2019, as the Chief Guest much similar to what his brother late King Birendra had been honored with in the year 1999, if one were to recall.
India goes to polls in 2019 and Modi is once again the potential candidate.
Such talks have surfaced in the Indian media as the US President Donald Trump has out rightly denied the Indian request. Trump’s annoyance is plausible in that India through its IT force pockets billions of dollars in remittance from the United States but buys weapons from Russia using the same remittance money. This is a classic example of cheating. Trump is aware of this Modi thuggery.
China gave some matching weapons to Pakistan and that too around the same time when Russia sold to India. India paid cash money in Dollars to the Russian federation.
Though the chances of former King of Nepal being invited to these celebrations are hundred percent slim but yet, if per chance, the India sidelined King is invited then what message such a signal it would send to the world people at large? What subtle message it would mail to the Nepali political parties who have had under the Indian instructions summarily rejected the institution of monarchy?
And more so what the sidelined monarch himself would take this Indian gesture primarily? He is the one who had felt the brunt of all that had happened to him, if he recalls.
Will he accept to become the King of Nepal with the help of a force which had so mercilessly sidelined him, if he recalls those insulting days?
Thanks despite the humiliating gestures, the King left the Palace smilingly. Said then the Danish envoy, “ Your King was wise enough who avoided blood bath. He could have prolonged his tenure with the help of the Nepal Army but he opted to quit the throne. Never have I heard of such an event wherein a sitting monarchy quits his throne so peacefully”.
It was June 11 and the place was Russian Culture center where I had met the Daanish Ambassador and the listener was the Sri Lanakan Ambassador. HE Nakandala.
But what is for sure is that if Gyanendra is invited as Chief Guest during the January 26 Republican day celebrations in India would automatically mean that he is the “restored sovereign of Nepal”.
Nepal’s political circle which has benefitted the Monarch’s ouster from Nepal has already in a state of panic and perhaps is not that happy with the Indian decisions that has still not taken a full shape.
The entire Indian media drama may have been to comfort the Nepali people that PM Modi wants to pay for the insults committed on King Gyanendra by the then Prime Minister Dr. MM Singh.
Modi in doing so wants to collect the Hindu votes for the upcoming elections. This has already annoyed Rahul Gandhi, it is talked. Mr. Gandhi is the Chairman of the Indian Congress.
In effect, Dr. Singh did not damage Nepal for himself. Mr. Shyam Saran did it on his behalf and the domestic paid agents of Sharan in Nepal had supported this ugly move wholeheartedly.
But it is not that what we have been thinking. It is something very different than we presume.
India is not extending olive branch to Nepal or say even to former Nepal King. The fact is that in doing so, the restored King may comfortably check the increasing influence of China in Nepal as the Royal Institutions in Nepal have had been doing in the past when alive.
India believes so even if Nepalese people do not subscribe to this old and defunct notion.
India has become nervous watching the Himalayan influence of China in Nepal.
The Indian urgency is all the more pressing in restoring the King, if it is at all closer to truth though it appears absurd for the time being, because the Nepali defense minister Ishwar Pokhrel, a minister by fluke, upon his return from Beijing roared that “henceforth Nepal shall not be forced to bear the burden of the occasional Economic Blockades being imposed by India on Nepal. China is the option now.
Even if China have had assured Minister Pokhrel, the latter must not have spoken about the subtle Chinese assurances.
Deficiency of diplomatic knowledge. A minister by chance not necessarily should be versed in Diplomatic languages.
Matured observers believe that China may not have assured Nepal straight not to worry of the Indian blockades as she knows that the High Himalayas remains yet a formidable barrier in countering the Indian notoriety of the sort of what we have been witnessing for decades and decades.
Unfortunately, Nepal has done no homework to brave the next blockade from India which may have been in the store. The agreed upon Air route denial to Nepal does explain it all.
China may assist Nepal to the desired extent but perhaps it knows the geo-compulsions that still divide Nepal with China: the dangerous and untamed terrain.
Having said all this, all that India wants is to neutralize the China’s increasing influence in Nepal through the sidelined King, if the rumors were to taken into account.
But will the restored King satisfy India and China both?
For matured observers in Nepal, India can play any funny game or send any false or even float rumor(s) that lures the Nepali population and keeps then busy for a while.
The fresh target is former King Gyanendra. India prefers now to blunt the Chinese influence by elevating the ranks and personality of the “insulted King” that Gyanendra was.
Gyanendra knows better as to what he may have felt at time of leaving the Palace.
It is altogether a different matter that with the disappearance of the Monarchy from Nepal, China has had too loose a reliable partner in Nepal who had at least kept a balance in between the two gigantic neighbors. Albeit, India had an upper hand even in those days but yet with that China felt comfortable and accepted the existing reality. Such was China’s quiet diplomacy.
But a China that has already entered into Nepal in a big way, and the abrupt emergence of Mahendra Rajpaksha in the Sri Lankan political scene, the Indian discomfort must have intensified though India has some solace from the installation of the new President in the Maldives, presumed to be of the Indian liking. But yet the elevation of Rajpaksa in Colombo, India has reasons now to embrace several sleepless nights as Rajpaksha is supposed to be comfortably close to Beijing and is talked to have personally invited Beijing in his country to invest in a big way when he was the President.
“Fundamentally India needs to be mindful of the famous axiom by Charles de Gaulle that “No nation has friends only interests.”
China follows it-be it in Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, or the Maldives. Why can’t India do the same? So says Dr. Subraminyam Swami, an Indian leader.
But will India change? Not in our lifetime. India is sure to displease Mahinda under this or that pretext and the advantage shall go to the pockets of Mahinda and by extension to China. Take it for granted.
In retrospect, the decision maker(s) in South Block took an appalling decision when they turned down his initial request for its help to develop Hambantota port. Rajpakshe was determined to have this port in Hambantota. But when India denied, he turned towards Beijing, with that China entered Colombo in a Himalayan manner.
Mahinda’s first choice was India for Haambantota port
Exactly the same has happened with Kathmandu, when India ignored Nepal’s requests, Kathmandu did what it had to do by inching closer to China.
When China is already in Kathmandu means automatically that Pakistan too may have made already greater inroads in Nepal as was evident from a brief program that was organized by Pakistan Embassy in Kathmandu just the other day, October 31, 2018, wherein the scholars and the academicians together with the senior journalists unanimously expressed their grave concerns as regards the situation in Kashmir.
Pakistan should now exploit this constituency in Nepal. PM Imran Khan may drop in Nepal for a day or two to solidify the silent political advantages.
After China, Nepal should greet this energetic Pakistani Prime Minister Mr. Khan.
This means that Kashmir issue now has also entered into the mainstream Nepali politics. Though late but not bad. It had to which it is now. The Indian government must comply with the UN resolutions taken in the past as regards the Kashmir issue settlement. The UN body must press India to which it has not so far. Should this mean the UN is scared of India?
One modest advice to the Indian regime: Appeal the Ganganagar, Rajshthan boy Mr. Shyam Rangeela for the republic day celebrations. He is a strong nationalist in India at par with PM Modi. That’s all.