United We Blog! for a Democratic Nepal

The Bharatiya Janata Party of India has realized that its hard-line brand of Hindutva politics doesn’t work anymore. And that’s a good news thanks to its defeat in the parliamentary polls

By Dinesh Wagle
as published in today’s Kathmandu Post

“There’s a fire raging in BJP,” said a headline in India the previous week. After the humiliating loss in the recently held parliamentary elections, the top leadership of the Bharatiya Janata Party that propagates the idea of Hindutva has been involved in internal wrangling, blame game, finger pointing and leg pulling. The party, like all losers, has been trying to figure out the cause behind the unexpected wallop in the national polls that gave the rival Congress party an opportunity to continue in government with enhanced authority.
Amidst the mudslinging and backstabbing that is happening in the BJP, the largest party after the Congress in parliament, one very positive thing has come out. The party has realized that its hard-line brand of Hindutva politics doesn’t work anymore. The party, it appears, has understood that intolerance towards other religions was the key factor behind its debacle. That’s why L.K. Advani, its prime ministerial candidate during the polls who is now leader of the opposition despite some opposition from his own party colleagues, has started urging his party to follow a tolerant version of Hindutva. That request came after the party adopted a political resolution last week insisting that its Hindutva ideology was not exclusive of certain religions. Read more »

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The Himalayan Republic Celebrates First Republic Day Anniversary
[From a year ago: 1. Nepal is Declared a Republic!!! 2. Minute by Minute Account of the Historic Session of the CA that Declared Nepal a Republic

Republic Day rally in Pokhara, Nepal. Pic by Krishna Mani Baral

The first anniversary of the declaration of federal democratic republic of Nepal is being observed throughout the nation on Friday (today). Hundreds of thousands of Nepali people within and abroad the country are celebrating the first republic day. A large number of people thronged the capital to observe a special function organised at Tundikhel in which various cultural programmes and other vibrant displays were organised by the government appointed organising committee. Read more »

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“I announce that Madhav Kumar Nepal has been elected unopposed in the position of Prime Minister as per the Constituent Assembly’s Legislature-Parliament Business Advisory Regulations 2065.”

With that declaration from Subash Nemwang, the chair of the CA, today evening the moderate Marxist and Leninist leader became the third communist prime minister in Nepal. MK Nepal had previously served as the deputy prime minister in the nine-month-long government led by his Communist Party of Nepal (United Marxist and Leninist)’s Manmonah Adhikari, the first elected communist prime minister of Nepal. That was in 1994-95. MK Nepal led the party for 15 years from 1993 to 2008 as the General Secretary. He took over the responsibility after the accidental death of charismatic communist leader Madan Bhandari. He resigned from the post citing moral responsibility for his party’s humiliating defeat in the Apri 2008 CA polls. He was later nominated in the CA. Read more »

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Just as our April 2008 poll verdict, this Indian election, it appears, was about stability and progress of India

By Dinesh Wagle
Wagle Street Journal
[This article first appeared in today's Op-Ed of The Kathmandu Post. Here is the PDF version of the page.]

A kid, carrying the Indian National Congress Party flag, walks on the street in front of the Congress headquarters in New Delhi on the day of the counting of votes of the month-long parliamentary elections. Congress emerged as the single largest party with more seats than it got in 2004 polls. Pic by Zakaria Zainal

One thing that provides India with the world’s, particularly the West’s, trust and respect is its virtually stable and reasonably functioning democracy. Like in Nepal, votes can still be bought by a glass of drink in many parts of India and millions don’t cast their vote but vote their caste. And many don’t even care about the democratic process. They ask a brutally simple question: “How does it matter to me who wins or loses?” Therein lies a challenge to all democracies all over the globe: indeed, how to attract people to the decision-making process and make it more inclusive? But still democracy in India is a matchless outlet for people to vent their anger, dissatisfaction, frustration and, at the same time, express their desires, aspirations and dreams. Read more »

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Madhav Kumar Nepal, veteran communist leader of the Himalayan republic who have been tipped to be the prime minister of Nepal several times in the past and lost from both constituencies in the April 2008 CA elections, is finally set to become the third Communist prime minister of Nepal.

The leader of the moderate Communist Party of Nepal United Marxist and Leninist (CPN UML) who resigned from the post of party General Secretary owing moral responsibilities to his party’s disastrous performance in the CA polls, have already been the deputy prime minister in the cabinet of Manmonah Adhikari, the first elected communist prime minister of Nepal, in 1994 for nine months. He is considered the moderate and inclusive leader in the communist party that, unlike the Maoists, have been taking part in parliamentary democratic elections ever since democracy was restored in 1990. He is criticized as a leader who sometime becomes indecisive and can’t take any firm stands on hard issues.

After the country plunged into political uncertainty with the abrupt resignation of Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal on May 4 the process of forming a non-Maoist government had started in the primary initation of opposition Nepali Congress. The hectic deliberations and possibly some amount of horsetrading finally appeared to have ended today (Sunday) when the CPN UML submitted the signatures of 350 lawmakers (out of 601 CA members) to the CA chairman to open up the way to form the new government. Madhav Kumar Nepal has been backed by 22 different parties representing in the CA including the second largest Nepali Congress. Read more »

Filed under: Maoist Politics | 38 Comments »

By Dinesh Wagle
Wagle Street Journal
[This article first appeared in today's Kathmandu Post. Here is PDF version. Shorter version in Nepali appeared in today's Kantipur.]

This is about this guy whom I have been seeing busy at his work all day, almost every day, since I came here to Jangpura Extension, one of south Delhi’s many residential complexes. He is there, right at the front of the building, on the side of the road that is attached to number B-19 whose third floor I live on. It’s been six months, and we have never talked. When leaving my apartment and returning, I see him busy at his work. Freezing cold? He is working. Scorching heat? He is busy. Every time I see him I can’t but appreciate his dedication to work. I am inspired. Look at this guy who is working so hard, standing and in harsh weather. How can you complain or possibly find difficulties in the comfort of a chair and air conditioner? How can you not complete the work that has been pending for a week? Read more »

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Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal who resigned earlier this month lambasting, among other things, foreign (Indian) intervention in Nepali affairs, had himself asked for the higher level involvement from Delhi in matters related to the sacking of chief of the Nepali Army (which is entirely an internal matter of Nepal). Dahal made that clear in an interview given to the Indian daily The Hindu yesterday and published today. Dahal (aka Prachanda) told Siddharth Varadarajan of The Hindu:

“Well, we expected that India would take a consistent position in favour of civilian supremacy because of its own traditions and because it had supported the struggle for democracy here. In fact, I want to make it clear that before taking any action against Katawal, I told the Indian Ambassador, Rakesh Sood, that if it is possible, could you please send a message that I want to have a serious discussion on this issue and if either the foreign secretary or some other senior person can come here to talk. We knew some confusion is there between the Maoist-led government and India on this question. I wanted to settle this issue through interaction and discussion with high-level officials from Delhi. But unfortunately, the ambassador informed me that this cannot happen now because the election campaign is going on, that nobody is there, that it is very difficult.

[Read the rest of the interview here]

Filed under: Foreign Affairs | 30 Comments »

The game in the background. How India played a role in the downfall of the first ever democratically elected Maoist government in Nepal.

By Akhilesh Upadhyay

KATHMANDU- The turn of events that first led to the sacking and reinstatement of Chief of Army Staff Rookmangud Katawal exposed that relations between New Delhi and the Maoists once on the mend after their surprise election victory last April have now hit a low. Read more »

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By Dinesh Wagle
Wagle Street Journal
This article appeared in today’s Op-Ed of The Kathmandu Post. Here is PDF of the page

Sometimes, I wonder why the official Nepal-India relationship doesn’t become as friendly and earthy as the down-to-earth friendship I enjoy with some Indians here in Delhi. Why doesn’t the bond between the two countries become as affectionate and emotional as the bond itself? The bond being that of roti aur beti (bread and daughter) that has brought families across the open border closer together.

[Somehow related: Indian parties spat over Nepal crisis (PDF)]

It seems friendship between the two nationals is not the same as the relationship between their respective countries. The diplomacy is ruthless, heartless and, in the words of a former Indian diplomat who was talking about Indo-Nepali relationship in Delhi a few weeks ago, immoral. Otherwise, a prime minister, in a nationally televised address, wouldn’t have complained about foreign intervention albeit without naming the country (but who doesn’t know the name!). And his finance minister wouldn’t have angrily told an Indian channel the story, in his own words, of the intervention of Delhi’s bureaucracy in Nepali affairs. Read more »

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UWB note: The issue resulted in the resignation of the first democratically elected (and Maoist) Prime Minister of the Republic of Nepal after his split cabinet fired the Army chief only to be rejected by the first democratically elected President of the Republic of Nepal. The country is now into a constitutional crisis with the Supreme Court issuing a show-cause notice to the President’s secretariat as to why he ordered the army chief, who was sacked by the cabinet, to stay on. Maoists and some members of the civil society are hitting the streets saying the Presidential letter to the ’sacked’ army chief was unconstitutional where as opposition parties representing more than 50 percent in the 601 seat constituent assembly feel the Maoist’s unilateral decision to fire the army chief was unconstitutional and improperly executed. Here is a research article, written before the resignation of PM Pushpa Kamal Dahal, that explains the issue that has almost threatened to put the fragile peace process in peril.
……………..

By Bishnu Pathak, PhD

Setting

The confrontation between the United CPN (Maoist) and the then Royal Nepal Army began when the former first attacked the Army barracks in Ghorahi, Dang on November 24, 2001 and continued up to the initiation of the Popular Movement (Jana Andolan II) in April 2006. When the present Prime Minister (PM), Puspa Kamal Dahal, popularly known as Prachanda, first appeared in the media two years ago, along with Dr. Baburam Bhattarai at Baluwatar, he harshly criticized the Nepal Army (NA). Even his retraction soon after did not untie the knot that had developed in the relationship. The result of Constituent Assembly (CA) widened the gap. This gap intensified more due to the Maoists having their own army, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). The anti-Maoists generals felt abandoned, and the national and international forces who were against the Maoists-led government were (are) able to exploit their feelings to serve their interests. Their traumatized psyche aligned them towards politics. They knocked on doors of their near and dear ones, forgetting their structured and disciplined duties and responsibilities. The NA generals, particularly the incumbent Chief of Army Staff, (CoAS) Rookmangud Katawal, started to deliver political lectures as if they were political leaders, against the Interim Constitution, elected government, peace process (integration or formation of a new national army), and so forth. The vested interests of a few generals fomented distrust with the civilian government. Read more »

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