Nepal after Girija Babu

The heading of this article is not a statement meant to predict Nepal's political future. It is more of a question.

Nepal's tallest political leader Girija Prasad Koirala passed away on March 20 at the age of 87, at a time when the country's politics is stretched in different directions.

Mr. Koirala commanded respect from all due to his senior statesman status, and could balance disparate forces. Before he died he set up the High Level Political Mechanism (HLPM) which included the United Communist Party of Nepal (UCPN) or the Maoists along with the UML and Nepali Congress to work out a consensus for writing of the constitution and concluding the peace process. Unfortunately, he could not see it through in his life time.

G.P. Koirala spent more than six decades of his life in politics, which began in India. He participated in the Quit India movement against the British, believing that unless British left India, Nepal would not be able to achieve democracy. A follower of Gandhi in many ways, he was a believer in peaceful movements. But more than once in his long political career he had to take recourse to more militant ways. In the 1950s he was forced to join a move led by his elder brother B.P. Koirala against the Ranas of Nepal. More recently, after King Gyanendra usurped total power in the country in 2005, he decided to join hands with Maoists to bring down the monarchy.

In fact, Girija Babu presided over the demise of the Nepali monarchy, and brought democracy to the country. He was a great friend of India, being aware that while Nepal would have to balance between India and China, its future lay with democratic India and not with communist China.

The immediate impact of Mr. Koirala's death may be on the HLPM, which is still an amorphous body, and not a legal or semi-legal body in any sense. It was meant to be that way, to allow senior leaders of these major political parties to meet on a neutral platform, agree and disagree, and part with a handshake.

Given the political situation in Nepal, out of the box thinking is very necessary to find the way to writing a constitution with democratic values. Only Mr. Koirala, with his vast experience of different kinds of politics had the vision to do something like this. Who will take over from him?

A bigger question is that of the grand old party of Nepal, the Nepali Congress (NC). The party had split before, but then came together. The Royal Palace's intrigues in the past had kept it divided. Now with the monarchy gone that problem is no longer there. But there are others.

In the last stages of his life, Mr. Koirala displayed undue support to his daughter Sujata Koirala. He did make political compromises to elevate Sujata as Foreign Minister, and then Deputy Prime Minister with foreign affairs portfolio under the United Marxist-Leninist (UML) led government.

Mr. Koirala's action did not have the majority support in the NC central committee, showing that his plans for a successor was guided more by his heart than his political mind. Sujata Koirala does not enjoy a great reputation as a political leader. She is also suspected to maintain a quiet personal relationship with the Maoists, which also irks people in the NC.

In the NC's new generation, Sujata has a formidable competitor or political opponent in her cousin Sushil Koirala. A nephew of G.P. Koirala and acting President of the NC, Sushil Koirala would normally be expected to succeed him. But in politics, normal is an aberration. There are other veteran leaders in the NC who could jump into the fray. Senior NC leader Sher Bhahadur Deoba, who left the NC nine years ago to become Prime Minister with the King's blessing, is back in the NC.

Even after losing the last general elections – or the first really democratic elections after 1990 – to the Maoists, the NC remains the stabilising pole in Nepal's politics. If the NC fragments, or even weakens seriously, the political situation in Nepal could face another whirlwind.

The UCPN/Maoists, which has the largest representation in the Parliament, claims it should lead the government. Well, they were given the opportunity and they squandered it. As Prime Minister, Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, also known as Prachanda, tried rush the country into a socialist state under the banner of Republicanism. Ideology became the main theme of the Maoists, threatening the country with doctrinaire rule.

The Maoists lit a virulent anti-India fire on almost all issues. The boundary question, including the old British-India agreement of Sitauli, has been brought to the fore. This is a page straight out of the Chinese negotiating tactics on boundary and territorial issues. Go back as far as possible in history to claim unequal treaties had forced them to cease territory, but not further when they had usurped others' territories.

Heading the government, the Maoists demonstrated that they had no sense of either governance or diplomacy. They messed up the internal dynamics of the country, trying to capture total power backed with the shadow of the gun. The Maoist combatants outside the UN supervised cantonments went on a spree of looting and intimidation. The Maoist Youth league, the Young Communist League (CYL), became almost state protected gangsters. The Maoists also refused to hand back private properties they captured during their armed struggle. In fact, they were reluctant to honour the 12-point agreement they signed in India with the other parties.

But they made a serious mistake when tried to politicise the Nepali Army. Their Defence Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa "Badal" tried to demolish the NA and bring it under Maoist ideological rule. The Army Chief, Gen. Rukemangad Katawal took on the Maoist government. In the end, Gen. Katawal won, and retired in his due time.

But The Nepali Army (NA) – Maoist struggle for independence and supremacy respectively, is anything but over. A major issue is the integration of Maoists in the mainstream as per the agreement between the Maoist and the main political parties. The United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) is trying to play the role of a neutral arbitrator, but its task has not been easy with the wide divergence of positions between the two sides.

The Maoists claim that they have 19,000 to 29, 000 combatants or People's Liberation Army (PLA) fighters who should be absorbed in the NA. Defence Minister Bidya Devi Bhandari has taken the position that the PLA had deposited 3,500 weapons with the UNMIN, and that should be the number of the combatants. Anyway Ms. Bhandari is more rigid than the NA, and does not want the PLA to integrate in the army, saying they can be absorbed in other security units.

It is no secret that the Maoists want to capture the army, one of the traditional pillars of Nepal's politics. They are looking at the structure of the Chinese armed forces, the original PLA, as a model, with political commissars and the party commanding the gun. When the Maoists were running the government, China had offered to train the PLA combats and also help upgrade the NA.

The grand dream of the Maoists is to create state like China. This is the kind of wild ideas that can ultimately split the Maoist movement. Infighting in the Maoist camp over ideology and political structure is quite evident. The hardliners like Mohan Vaidya Kiran, the party ideologue and one time Prachanda's mentor, Ram Bahadur Thapa Badal, and some others are pushing the China model, and are keen to dump India.

In fact, when the Maoists came to power in Nepal in a democratic set up they created a rather dangerous situation on both sides of the Himalayas centered in Nepal. China miscalculated Nepal's political situation and the popularity of the Maoists, and went as far as to declare it would protect Nepal's sovereignty and territorial integrity. In 2008, several visiting senior Chinese officials to Nepal made such statements, and a senior Chinese expert even said China knew that India planned to "Sikkimise" Nepal, but would not allow it!

It is true that China has important strategic interests in Nepal, especially on the Tibetan independence issue and the Dalai Lama. It believes that the US has its strategic activities in Nepal, including with the Tibetan refugees, to break up China. It also suspects India is an accomplice. But the positions adopted by China in Nepal appeared immature and uncharacteristic. In diplomatic parlance, Beijing was threatening India to stay out of Nepal.
Messers Kiran, Badal et al appear to be floating in the early 20th century revolutionary zeal.

They do not realise that time has passed by. It is a globalized world. Nepal has to keep its borders open not only to India and China, but to the rest of the world, especially the developed world.

Hypothetically, given a scenario that the Maoists capture total power in Nepal and the hardliners led by people like Mohan Vaidya Kiran are calling the shots, will they close the borders with India, throw out the Americans and the Europeans and expect China to fill up the void? They must know how much Nepal's economy depends on India and the external world. In such a case, Nepal will burn and the Maoists will be burnt to ashes.

All political sections in Nepal must recognize that except for Pakistan, the rest of South Asia is in a development mode and has dumped confrontation. Terrorism and giving space to terrorists are dirty words. There is a great opportunity for Nepal to tie up in a Bangladesh-Bhutan-India-Nepal quadrangular sub-region for getting out of poverty.

It is time that the realists among the Maoists like Prachanda and Baburam Bhattarai take on the hardliners to either accept the facts on the ground or get out. There is no other way.
Let Girija Babu's soul rest in peace.

Bhaskar Roy, who retired recently as a senior government official with decades of national and international experience, is an expert on international relations and Indian strategic interests.

More by Bhaskar Roy | More on Nepal