13/04/06 - 20/04/06 Not Jana Andolan-2 but Sikkim-2, stupid! BY M.R. JOSSE Propagandists for the SPAM revolt aimed at regime change at the behest of foreign interests is not, as they claim, a “Jana Andolan-2” or a sequel of the movement to topple the Panchayat edifice in April 1990. It is, very simply, a desperate, last-ditch attempt to repeat the Indian annexation of Sikkim executed in stages between 1973-75, beginning with the overthrow of Chogyal Palden Thubden Namgyal. SIKKIM-2 That blatant land grab and transparent endeavour to affect geo-political transformations in India’s interest, as the worldly-wise well know, was executed in cold blood via the instrumentality of pliant political parties in Sikkim. Those groupings danced to the tune of India’s covert intelligence agency RAW, then flush with success after aiding in the “Bangladesh liberation” in 1971 for which it was initially created by Mrs. Indira Gandhi. The latter had, in anticipation of her future moves, hastened to enter into a 20-year pact with the then Soviet Union – nonalignment, or no nonalignment – before striking a lethal military blow at the erstwhile East Pakistan, having first ensured through the 20-year pact the Soviet Union’s veto for any international action to block India’s invasion. That, of course, was another brazen attempt to ensure India’s dominance in South Asia through the dismemberment of Pakistan, a long-cherished dream of hardliners. That included those who ardently aspired to neutralise the Partition of 1947 or had visions of an Akhanda Bharat (a Greater India) embracing not only Pakistan but also Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. With Bhutan completely under the way of India; Sikkim fully incorporated into the Indian Union; Pakistan truncated, but yet to be completely dismembered; it is now Nepal’s turn to face the combined wrath of the Indo-US-UK axis of deception that aims at regime change here to contain a rapidly rising China on her northern frontiers – disguised as a crusade for promoting democracy in Nepal. As all know, in the years between 1990 and 2002, democracy was shred into tatters by political adventurers and Quislings. After 1996, it was further emasculated by the bloody armed conflict unleashed by the Maoists who are as closely related to democracy as black is to white. Today, however, they have become full-time partners to the SPA, as the recent violence and mayhem clearly establishes. To reiterate, as in the case of Sikkim, India’s plans for territorial aggrandizement presently underway here in our land have been disguised as being driven by the purest of intentions – namely, that of promoting democracy and doing away with the feudal institution of the Monarchy, a claim that is not merely grotesque considering her role in Bhutan but also one that violates the hallowed principle of non-interference in the domestic affairs of other states that she claims to uphold in world fora. It is also salutary to recall today that the West has through their silence connived at the Indian Anschluss of Sikkim, as the attempted one here. In the case of Sikkim, their soundlessness was no doubt influenced by India’s argument that given the hostile state of relations between India and China then, Sikkim, which borders Tibet, had be brought wholly within its orbit, even if that meant getting rid of the Sikkimese monarchy. Lame excuses were heard, including from the US and the UK, that Sikkim was, after all, an Indian state. Yet, why is it that post-1947 India entered into formal treaty arrangement with Sikkim, if it had all along been Indian? THEN AND NOW Then, as now, the US and the UK believe that a Sikkim as an integral part of India would better serve their collective strategic interest in ensuring that China would not be able to make her presence felt south of the Himalayan range. Those were the days, it may be recalled, when the British-created myth of the impregnability of the Himalayas from a military or national security point of view was assiduously promoted by their former colonials, in positions of power in post-independence India. In that context, it should be remembered that the Chogyal had earlier made the fatal blunder of publicly demanding that the unequal 1950 Treaty between India and Sikkim be revised and made more consonant with the changed times. That, of course, was intolerable to a supposedly liberal, democratic India. In the case of Nepal – and in the context of a “Vulcan”-driven United States out to ensure that her plans to ensure a unipolar international order is not challenged by China – she no doubt finds it convenient to coordinate plans and strategy with India to ensure a regime change that will promote both their strategic goals: for India, dominance of Nepal; for the US and the West ensuring an excellent base from where it may plan, plot and promote the cause of an independent Tibet, considered China’s “soft underbelly.” For those who may raise eyebrows, let me just remind them of the not-too-distant days of the 1960s when Kathmandu as a China-watching base for the US was used to forment and facilitate the anti-China revolt of the Khamba tribesmen from Nepalese soil. It was only when the US and China opened direct contacts – largely to thwart the Soviet Union – in the early 1970s that the Americans dropped the Khambas like the proverbial hot potato. What should not be forgotten in the above context is that it is in India that the Dalai Lama resides and in India that his supposed government-in-exile apparently functions, with the Indian government fully aware of their activities, despite all the hoopla from time to time about how Sino-Indian relations have normalised. Interestingly, though, while it was with the help of the Soviet Union that India dismembered Pakistan, today she is attempting to take over Nepal, a la Sikkim, through the help of the US/West. Oddly enough, Russia the successor state to the erstwhile Soviet Union is, like China, sympathetic to the challenges that are being posed to the Nepali state from India and the West. However, like in Sikkim, it is still the China bogey that seems to have cemented the “strategic alliance” between the US and India, exemplified most recently by the Indo-US nuclear deal last month. BOUCHER In is in that context that one dismisses the hackneyed suggestion of Richard A Boucher, the US’s new pointman for South Asia, for the King to restore democracy. As already pointed out, it is not the King that has butchered democracy but the political parties that are out on the streets today terrorising the ordinary people and trampling on their human rights to work, study, travel and play as they wish. It is they who have boycotted the municipal elections and who say they would do the same for parliamentary elections. What makes Boucher’s remarks ludicrous is that he does not find the time or the occasion to remind India of its dual role in joining hands with the US in her war on international terrorism and then openly aiding and abetting the Maoists, who even today are on the US’s terror watch list and were formally declared as terrorists by the BJP-led government. Indeed, even as the Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh makes a joint appeal with Afghan President Hamid Karzai for Pakistan to help counter terror, he does not lift a finger to contain or control Nepalese Maoists whose leadership has found safe sanctuary on her soil! And the US keeps mum. Is such silence not tantamount to US support for the Maoists, Mr. Boucher? If not, why not come out openly and support them? The truth is, of course, that the “democracy” clamour in Nepal is a huge charade, like the WMD issue prior to the invasion of Iraq. Else, why should the US and others not ask the SPA to participate in general elections, elect a new parliament and then allow it to decide what needs to be done to resolve Nepal’s numerous issues, including key constitutional and political problems? The real issue for the West, the US included, is the containment of China from this part of the world, affected through changing a regime that will not permit anti-China/pro-Tibetan independence activities on her soil. For India, of course, the real issue is not the promotion of democracy in Nepal – which, in any case, is not her business but ours – but affecting political changes, through her Quislings, in order to reenact another Sikkim. It is, thus, not Jana Andolan-2, but Sikkim-2, stupid!