By Kallol Bhattacherjee
Nepal’s top Maoist leaders reached out to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra through an Indian academic known for being close to the Nepali political players, a new book has claimed. In Dabbling in Diplomacy: Authorised & Otherwise, Recollections of a Non-Career Diplomat, Professor S.D. Muni, who taught at Jawaharlal Nehru University for more than three decades, has revealed that Nepal’s current Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai travelled to India and met him, initiating a process that ultimately led to the overthrow of the monarchy.
“In late 2003, Bamdev Chhetri, a Nepali national working in JNU library and known to me, visited my home one day. He said Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, who was then Maoist second in-command, was in town and wanted to meet me urgently. He said that Baburam would not be able to come to JNU, because he is operating underground, so I will be taken to him,” Mr. Muni has written in the book that has been published by Konark Publishers of New Delhi.
Man in the know
Professor Muni, who is well known for his widespread social and political contacts in Nepal, hails from Jodhpur in Rajasthan and began studying Nepal in the mid-1960s as a research scholar. Over the subsequent decades, he happened to meet former Nepali Prime Minister B.P. Koirala, Girija Prasad Koirala, Sher Bahadur Deuba and other leading leaders of the Nepali Congress and a vast spectrum of the Maoist rebels who fought a battle against the Nepali royal system to end the monarchy.
Mr. Bhattarai met Professor Muni in a two-room flat in South Delhi’s Moti Bagh and explained that the Maoists had noted a growing consensus between India and the United States in supporting King Gyanendra (who took charge after the assassination of King Birendra and his family in 2001) in crushing the Maoist insurgency. Alarmed by this possibility, Mr. Bhattarai had been sent by the Maoists to the Vajpayee government “to explain to them that the Maoists were not terrorists, as then External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh had labelled them during his August 2001 visit to Nepal”.
The Maoists probably had reached out to Professor Muni as he was well connected to Nepali Communist leaders like Pushpa Lal Shrestha and renowned politician and human rights activist Rishikesh Shah. It was Shah who introduced Hisila Yami, a Nepali PhD scholar at the School of Social Sciences in JNU, to Professor Muni. On one occasion, Hisila was accompanied by her husband, a young Mr. Bhattarai who later became the interlocutor between the Maoists and India. It was during those days that Mr. Dahal and his late wife Sita Dahal visited Professor Muni at his residence. Later, Mr. Dahal became known as ‘Prachanda’ during the years of the Maoist insurgency.
A policy change
The decision to adopt a soft line towards the Maoists was a serious turn in the road and Indian policymakers were cautious about Mr. Bhattarai’s proposal that Professor Muni had carried to R.K. Mishra, President of the Observer Research Foundation. Mishra consulted Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee who asked the Maoists to provide a “written commitment” that they would not act against India’s interests, especially as the they had been campaigning against the 1950 India-Nepal treaty. Mr. Bhattarai consulted his leader ‘Prachanda’ and provided such a letter. Professor Muni next approached former Prime Minister I.K. Gujral but the channels of Mukherjee and Gujral did not deliver the formal channels that was required by the Maoists.
It was then “in desperation” that Professor Muni went to National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra, who asked, “What do they really want?” “They want to remove monarchy, change the system and join the mainstream Nepal politics,” came the answer. Mr. Brajesh Mishra lost patience momentarily. “This is not possible. I have nothing more to talk on this issue.”
Not giving up, Professor Muni argued, “What has the King done to promote India’s national interests? Is he not inviting China, Pakistan and Western powers to counter India in Nepal?” Mr. Brajesh Mishra cooled down and repeated the line that was earlier used by Pranab Mukherjee. “Will they put in writing that they will not do anything that harms India’s interests in Nepal?” This time, too, a letter of commitment from the Maoists was handed over to Mr. Brajesh Mishra. A few weeks later, Professor Muni had a chance to meet Prime Minister Vajpayee at an event in Hyderabad House. “Muni ji, we have got your message on Nepal. Will do something,” he had said. A few months later, intelligence surveillance on the Nepali Maoist activists inside India was relaxed, allowing them to move relatively freely.
Thus began a process of intense consultation with the Vajpayee government, followed by the Manmohan Singh government when negotiations by Karan Singh and Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran with King Gynanendra yielded results. The proclamation of April 21 2006 led to the restoration of the Nepali parliament. Another proclamation three days later reinstated Mr. G.P. Koirala as the Prime Minister, opening the gates of democratic transition and mainstreaming of Maoist parties.
India’s current stand
Over the years, Professor Muni has continued to engage with the Nepali political system and has often been consulted by its current rulers. After the arrival of the Narendra Modi government in New Delhi, Asarfi Shah, former Minister of Nepal, reached out to Professor Muni and helped him perform a special worship at the Pashupatinath Temple in Kathmandu.
Thereafter, in a meeting in Delhi, Mr. Shah informed him that the Modi government has assured the deposed King Gyanendra that “monarchy and Hinduism represent two faces of the same coin that India would support in Nepal”. Professor Muni responded by saying, “If that is the case, then why does the King need support from someone like me?”
In 2017, a former official of India’s external intelligence agency, Research & Analysis Wing (R&AW), met Professor Muni at Delhi’s Gymkhana Club and informed him that Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath was “keen to get monarchy restored in Nepal” and sought his help. “I firmly communicated that he had approached the wrong person for a wrong cause,” Professor Muni records in his book.
The Hindu, India
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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