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M.R.
JOSSE
SPAM [Seven Party Alliance and Maoists]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
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
Asia
dismemberment of
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
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
Indian state. Yet, why is it that post-1947
treaty arrangement with
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
national security point of view was assiduously promoted by their former
colonials, in positions of power in post-independence
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
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
resides and in
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
Union
attempting to take over
the US/West. Oddly enough,
to the erstwhile
Union
challenges that are being posed to the Nepali state from
However, like in
have cemented the "strategic alliance" between the
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
terror, he does not lift a finger to contain or control Nepalese Maoists whose
leadership has found safe sanctuary on her soil! And the
silence not tantamount to
Maoists, Mr. Boucher? If not, why not come out openly and support them?
The
truth is, of course, that the "democracy" clamour in
like the WMD issue prior to the invasion of
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
containment of
world, affected through changing a regime that will not permit
anti-China/pro-Tibetan independence activities on her soil.
For
issue is not the promotion of democracy in
is not her business but ours - but affecting political changes, through her
Quislings, in order to reenact another