Nepal : Political instability

Another commissar falls in Nepal! On August 14, 2011, Jhalanath Khanal resigned as the Prime Minister of Nepal after serving the office for merely 6 months thus plunging the country into further tumult — touchstone to one of the worst political crisis the country has ever faced! The political turmoil of Nepal is afoot for over a decade now and Jhalanath Kanal himself acceded to the top post after 10 months of political gridlock.

It is an open secret that Maoists of Nepal and banned outfits of Indian extremist Naxal groups like People’s War Group (PWG) and Maoist Communist Center (MCC) work in concert and in tandem to carry out terror acts inside India! The repository of extremist communist groups of South Asia has similar discourse — about 10 of them have together formed a Coordination Committee of Maoist Parties and Organization of South Asia (CCOMPOSA) — the consortium which actually comprises Nepalese Maoists, PWG, Purbo Banglar Movement (Bangladesh), Communist Party of Ceylone (Srilanka) and other Indian extremist groups. The Nepali Maoist’s outreach beyond their borders have embraced especially MCC as their Indian partner to expand Naxalite activities in Bihar as a part of their larger goal of creating “Compact Revolutionary Zone” stretching from Andhra Pradesh to Nepal. ISI's involvement with such groups is rampant and they specially facilitate the Maoists links with Indian Naxalite groups through the hallway of Siliguri in West Bengal. The Maoists also have well established associations with North Eastern insurgent groups like ULFA, Kamtapur Liberation Organization (KLO) and Gurkha Liberation Organization (GLO).

However, all these linkages are effete compared to the common thread of behemoth China! The Home Secretary of union government (of Nepal) recently confirmed that the Chinese supplies small arms to the Maoists which eventually serve Chinese insurgency interests in India. The testimony to this very fact is the incalculable damages they contrive in the mineral belts of Eastern and Southern India, in their endeavour to subvert the country’s growth story and simultaneously shipping the illegally mined minerals to their facilitator, China!

Having said all these, Nepali Maoists and Indian government were old-time-chums before 2008 and our union government was one of the benefactors for their cause! But after coming to power their (Maoists) ideological proximity with China made them execute numerous anti-India operations including Chinese backed insurgencies! To top it up, the political instability of Nepal is complicating the situation further. The concerned Indian government has taken up the matter with Nepali authorities more than a few times — Nirupama Rao being the most exhortative, when in September 2009 she accused the then Prime Minister Madhav Kumar of exploiting their soil for subversive activities against India! But consequent and frequent change of guards in Nepal has created vacillation over the entire process — which makes it imperative that for a long term solution — a stable and democratic Nepal is must for India’s internal security reconciliation.