Nepal and JNU

Believe it or not, the seeds of the joint agreement between seven Nepali political parties and Maoists were sown in Capital’s Jawahar Lal Nehru University. Rajan Bhattarai, foreign department secretary of Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) (CPN-UML), says, “After the February 1 incidents (when King Gyanendra dissolved coalition government and assumed power), my party sent me to India. It is here when we got in touch with Maoist leaders and had a joint understanding with them. JNU is the place where the seed of this pact was planted.”
However, Bhattarai refused to divulge the details about the meetings between seven political parties and Maoists. Bhattarai came to India as a representative of his party to lobby for restoration of the democracy in Nepal. He along with other political activists have been leading the agitation here in Delhi.
Alongside all these activities, Bhattarai is also utilising his time to do something productive. He has enrolled in PhD degree in International Studies in JNU. In fact Bhattarai is not the only one, some of his peers too are enrolled in Phd. “I was here in India for four-five months when I enrolled in the course. There are around 15-20 political leaders and activists enrolled in JNU,” he says.
Prominent among them are Deepak Bhatt (UML), Yogendra Shahi (UML), Human rights and Nepali Congress activist Dinesh Prasain, Nepali Congress activist and Terai leader Amresh Kumar Singh and Hari Roka. Apart from these the rest too have who are pursuing their PhD programmes have joined the agitation and help them in organizing protest marches, rallies, etc.
However, presently Amresh Kumar Singh is in jail as he was arrested there and Hari Roka has gone to Nepal too.
Dinesh Prasain of Nepali Congress feels at home in JNU. “After Feb one incidents, I was very active for two weeks in organising protests and keeping track of information flow. But cops were hounding me to arrest so I fled the country and came to JNU and enrolled in a PhD degree in political sociology.
Another student leader Deepak Bhatt too has enrolled in a PhD programme, but he got enrolled in 2003, before the Feb 1 incident and is in Delhi for several years now. JNU not only has been a hot seat of learning to these leaders but in the past too Maoist leader Dr Baburam Bhattarai completed his doctorate from here. Nepali Congress Democratic leader Pradip Giri also came here for further education.

Nepal is burning

Top revolutionary leader and second in command of banned outfit Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), Dr Baburam Bhattarai has described King Gyanendra’s new year message as “an attempt to hoodwink the world opinion and perpetuate his unconstitutional and autocratic rule.” In an exclusive interview, the Maoist leader spoke at length about problems gripping Nepal and their struggle for getting Nepal rid from Monarchy.

Q: Do you think King Gyanendra’s declaration of holding elections in Nepal is a positive step towards restoration of democracy?
A: The real issue is transfer of sovereignty and state authority to the people through the election of a genuine Constituent Assembly. The talk of election to Parliament at this moment does not make any sense. So it is wrong and misleading on the part of certain media to see the King’s statement as a positive move. The King’s statement has been rejected by the CPN (Maoist) and the Seven Party Alliance. The people’s movement will continue until the monarchy is toppled and a democratic republic set up in the country.

Q: Indian Intelligence reports say that they are seriously working towards countering the growing nexus between Nepal Maoists and Indian Naxalites…
A: The reports of so-called nexus between the Maoists of India & Nepal are not only highly exaggerated but also mischievous and preposterous. Being proletarian internationalists by ideological persuasions, Communist revolutionaries of all countries, including India and Nepal, have ideological affinities to each other, but nothing more than that. It is highly irresponsible on the part of certain forces both in India and Nepal to spread such baseless romours and vitiate the political atmosphere in the midst of the decisive anti-monarchy democratic movement in Nepal.

Q. They also say that there was a hand of Nepali Maoists in the recent hijacking of train in Jharkhand and supplying of arms to Naxalites…
A: It is the concrete example of a motivated disinformation campaign on the part of certain pro-monarchy forces in India to scuttle the growing sympathy for the Nepalese democratic movement there. We challenge these forces to prove the veracity of such baseless allegations with concrete evidence.

Q. Aren’t you concerned about the situation of Nepal. Most of the areas in Western Nepal are facing an exodus of men. Because of the fear of Maoists, they are fleeing Nepal for India. (Perhaps, if you do a census of some districts in the apple belt of Himachal Pradesh, Nepalis will easily outdo the local Himachalis in terms of numbers.)
A: Yes, we are seriously concerned about the large-scale out-migration of the unemployed youths from the hills of Nepal. However, it is not because of the Maoist People’s War (PW), which started only ten years back, but because of ‘development of underdevelopment’ under the feudal monarchical rule for the past two and a half century. The millions of poor Nepalese seen in the streets of India doing sundry menial jobs or joining as mercenary soldiers in Indian and British armies have been forced to leave their hearth and homes because of lack of economic development in the country under a semi-feudal and semi-colonial set-up. Our revolutionary democratic movement currently spearheaded in the country is basically aimed at ending this pathetic situation and creating a democratic, peaceful and prosperous Nepal.

Q. Tourism, which contributes to Nepal’s economy in a big way, is affected by this war considerably. Don’t you think people of Nepal suffer from this movement?
A: Not only tourism but the entire economy is suffering for long. It is wrong to say that economic decline started after the Maoist PW. If you look at the growth trend of the economy for the last 40 or 50 years, it hovers around one or two per cent per annum. That is why we are fighting for a progressive restructuring of the society and economy by overthrowing the feudal monarchy.

Q. Do you think that King Gyanendra will be perturbed by these activities (like strikes, demonstrations, etc.) and you will achieve success?
A: If Nepal is to develop and prosper, the monarchy has to be abolished. The rising tide of people's movement seen for the past week is enough proof that the monarchy's days are numbered.