Formal democracy has once again been suspended in Nepal. On February 1, King Gyanendra dismissed the hugely discredited and unpopular Deuba government and clamped down a state of ‘constitutional’ emergency! In 2002, he had done a similar thing in the name of tackling the Maoist insurgency. That was the first time the Royal Nepalese Army was pressed into service to combat the Maoist military campaign and most political parties including the CPN(UML) had supported the Emergency! This time round, the king has invoked his emergency powers with a promise of holding talks with the Maoists even as senior leaders of the Nepali Congress and the UML have been put under house arrest! While the Nepali Maoists have responded with a countrywide economic blockade, the NC, UML and other parties have announced a mass campaign for restoration of democracy.
Three decades ago, India too had suffered a similar state of ‘constitutional’ emergency and it took nearly two years and a dramatic and decisive electoral battle for India to return to the path of parliamentary democracy. In recent years India was once again faced with a major anti-democratic threat with the BJP and the Sangh Parivar launching a no-holds-barred campaign to penetrate and dominate every arena and institution of state power. Once again elections have played a major role in halting this campaign. The people of India are therefore best placed, both geographically and historically, to appreciate the intensity of Nepal’s yearning for a new constitution and a democratic republic free from the clutches of a reactionary, pro-imperialist monarch.
True, the UPA government in New Delhi has expressed concern over the developments in Nepal and even threatened to stop military aid. So have many other countries including the US, UK and some of Nepal’s European donors. But the Indian government still considers monarchy to be the most crucial factor for Nepal’s survival and stability. The essential ‘concern’ of the Indian ruling classes is over the future of monarchy in Nepal, especially its ability to prevent Nepal from making any radical rupture with its feudal past. The Western powers too are basically interested in preventing Nepal from going the Maoist way, and for the US the overriding concern is of course to have strategic access to Nepal so that the US can always use this Himalayan kingdom to encircle China.
The ruling elite in our country and their allies believe in repression with a human face, it is in favour of a two-pronged strategy where ruthless repression is combined with political engagement within a parliamentary set up to obtain better results. This is the model they want the Nepal naresh to follow. Meanwhile, in the name of preventing ‘Maoist infiltration’ into India, authorities here have intensified repression on revolutionary communists and their support base in the bordering regions of India. So rather than expecting Indian rulers help the cause of democracy in Nepal, democrats in both countries should cry out in one voice: no interference in Nepal, no arms or concession to the tyrant who is running roughshod over his own people.
Clearly, the cause of democracy in Nepal is inseparably bound up with the battle for a genuine people’s democracy in India. The revolutionary democratic forces of India and the Indian democratic opinion will never hesitate to extend every possible support to the people of Nepal in their great battle for a people’s republic.
King Gyanendra’s atrocious adventure has served to win newer adherents to the slogan of abolition of monarchy. The democracy that emerged out of the movement of 1990 was of a partial nature in that the monarchy itself – the bulwark of feudal reaction and the source of many associated evils – was not abolished. Now with the royal backlash the movemental cycle that started some 15 years ago has completed itself and a new, higher one has begun. The challenge today is not only to resist the crackdown and restore status quo ante, but to carry the struggle further ahead – to its consummation, to the replacement of an interventionist monarchy by a full fledged democratic republic. The need of the hour is to build a broad front on this platform and to launch a powerful mass movement for an elected constituent assembly that would open up a new era in the history of the mountain kingdom. We are confident that the brave and fighting people of Nepal would definitely be victorious in this protracted war.
DOWN WITH THE DESPOT !
NO ARMS, NO INTERFERENCE FROM INDIA !!
FORWARD TO A PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC IN NEPAL !!