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.