On/Off the Record
By P.R. Pradhan
This scribe had expected that Prime Minister Pushpakamal Dahal and Nepali Congress President Sher Bahadur Deuba and their respective parties would react to the new title given to them by a retired Indian Army general, Ashok Mehata, that Pushpakamal Dahal is a “good horse” for India and another leader, Sher Bahadur Deuba, is “a horse in the stable”. Both of them have wished to remain silent or say, they have accepted this new title. Moreover, they felt that it could be an honor for them.
In his recent book, Dabbling in Diplomacy: Authorised & Otherwise, Recollections of a Non-Career Diplomat, Professor S.D. Muni, an Indian scholar, quoted Pushpakamal Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai as having written a letter expressing commitment that they would never act against India or say “the Indian interests”.
Muni has revealed that Nepal’s current Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ and former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, when they were leading a bloody “people’s war” travelled to Delhi and met him, initiating a process that ultimately led to the overthrow of the monarchy.
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, 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”.
Explaining the book authored by Muni, Kallol Bhattacherjee writes that Nepal’s top Maoist leaders reached out to the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra through Muni.
Be that as it may, Muni has clearly stated that both Bhattarai and Dahal were serving the Indian design in Nepal.
The above two “Nepal experts,” Mehta and Muni have clearly exposed that Dahal and Deuba, and also Bhattarai, were and are serving Indian interests.
Just to recall, going out of the way, the citizenship amendment bill, which was kept pending by erstwhile President Bidhya Devi Bhandari, was sealed by Ramchandra Paudel even by violating the legal norms and natural practices, when Dahal was the prime minister.
PM Pushpakamal Dahal granted permission to the Indian Embassy to spend 200 million rupees on projects in different parts of the country without informing the Nepal government.
Both Deuba and Dahal, just to become the prime minister of Nepal, are serving Indian interests. Water is important for India, therefore, the Nepali prime ministers are handing over one after another river to India. They have been asked to reduce the Chinese presence in Nepal. With the plan of monitoring foreigners’ movements, the Indians are planning to operate all three international airports, including Tribhuvan International Airport. Prime Minister Dahal is preparing to hand over the three international airports to the Indians under the PPP model. Against the handover of the three international airports, Nepal is going to request India for the construction of the proposed Nijgadh International Airport, which is known to be a game-changer project. As far as we are concerned, the Indians will occupy the Nijgadh project but never construct a modern airport there. When India is not ready to give new air routes for aircraft inbound to Nepal and when India is not ready to allow the operation of the Instrumental Landing System (ILS) that is already installed at the Gautam Buddha International Airport, should we trust that India will construct the Nijgadh airport? If India had good intentions, the Mahakali (Pancheshwor) Project and the Upper Karnali hydropower project should have already been constructed.
Let’s not forget that the 12-point agreement was endorsed in New Delhi to keep all the political parties under the Indian grip and the first mission of the Indians was to destroy the Nepali economy, which is essential for Nepal to remain a sovereign and independent nation. The ultimate Indian plan is to bring Nepal under the Indian security umbrella and the parties in the government are in a race to serve the Indian interests.
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