Royal pilgrimage of a Hindu kind

[Guest guest]

Royal pilgrimage of a Hindu kind

By Dhruba Adhikary

 

KATHMANDU - King Gyanendra and Queen Komal of Nepal begin an 11-day

pilgrimage on Thursday, visiting a number of Hindu shrines in

southern India. The palace announcement to this effect indicated that

the royal tour will be of a private nature, and an official of the

Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed this by saying that the

entourage will have only one officer (deputy chief of protocol) to

represent the ministry; all others are to be from the palace

secretariat.

 

But the involvement of India's envoy in Kathmandu, Shyam Saran, in

the trip promises to make the royal presence in New Delhi a "formal"

event.

 

This is King Gyanendra's first religious trip abroad since he

ascended the throne in extraordinary circumstances in June 2001

following a mass murder at the palace. Constitutionally, Nepal is a

Hindu country, but it shuns theocratic features. Shankaracharya

Jayendra Saraswati of Kanchipeeth, located near Madras, has invited

the world's only Hindu monarch to a festival of kotihom (sacred

fire). The royal couple are then scheduled to visit temples, some of

which have a tradition of extending the King of Nepal privileged

access to the inner sanctum. Normally, access to this area is

confined to the concerned priest, hence the gesture is exceptional,

and presumably based on the belief that a king is the living

incarnation of the Hindu deity Bishnu.

 

The cultural dimension of the traditional Nepal-India relationship is

obvious; but it is the political arena where the attention is

focused, as and when a high-level visit takes place in each other's

capitals. Bilateral relations at the political and diplomatic level

started in 1947 after India and Pakistan emerged as independent

countries. Nepal's independent status existed long before these two

states emerged in South Asia.

 

King Gyanendra's itinerary will commence in New Delhi, where he will

meet President A P J Abdul Kalam, Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee

and other Indian leaders. While his meeting with Kalam will be of an

introductory nature, the talks between the 56-year-old Nepali monarch

and Vajpayee are expected to be substantive, mainly concentrating on

issues relating to Nepal's Maoist insurgency and the latest efforts

for a peace dialogue.

 

The king is also likely to seek New Delhi's cooperation as Nepal's

1,800-plus kilometer border with India remains unregulated, and

thereby abused by Maoist rebels and criminals alike. Kathmandu is in

favor of regulating it, but it remains open at New Delhi's

insistence. Other possible subjects of discussion include Bhutanese

refugees, who have crossed over to Nepal through Indian territory,

water resources and demarcation of the international border.

 

Important changes have taken place in Nepal since last June when King

Gyanendra paid a state visit to India. Significant among these has

been the royal proclamation of October 4, through which the king

sacked the elected prime minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and assumed

all state powers. The parliament had already been dissolved - in May.

 

Although the king has repeatedly expressed his commitment to

democracy and a multiparty system, no precise dates have yet been set

for parliamentary elections. Presently, a government consisting of

royal nominees is in place and whose constitutionality has been

openly challenged by the political parties with representation in the

205-member House of Representatives. There is no indication how and

when the democratic constitution enacted in 1990 will again be

activated. India's position on this has been that it considers

constitutional monarchy and a multiparty system as the two supporting

pillars of Nepal's democratic process.

 

On the bilateral plane, the visiting Nepali head of the state may

utilize the opportunity to dispel fears from the minds of Indian

leaders that the enhanced international attention Nepal has been

receiving in the past couple of years - in the context of efforts to

end the Maoist insurrection - will not affect Nepal's close relations

with India; nor will Nepal ignore India's legitimate security

interests in the region. The monarch may also tell his Indian hosts

that Nepal's other neighbor, China, also has similar security

concerns, primarily because of the ongoing agitation for a free

Tibet.

 

The United States and the United Kingdom are among the donors who

have come forward to help Nepal in its bid to contain the Maoist

movement. The insurrection has claimed over 7,000 lives since the

rebels launched a "people's war" in early 1996. Last week, Britain's

special representative for Nepal, Sir Jeffrey James, visited

Kathmandu to discuss initiatives to be taken at the international

level. The British envoy, who is to be the focal point on this issue,

later flew to New Delhi to coordinate matters with Indian

authorities.

 

Earlier, US deputy assistant secretary of state Donald Camp told a

Heritage Foundation audience in Washington about a perception

that "Nepal is one part of the world in which Indian, Chinese and

American interests are in almost perfect consonance". Camp

stated, "In close coordination with India and Britain, we plan to

continue our efforts to help Nepal right itself, end the violence,

and return to the path of peace and democracy."

 

In addition to this, both Washington and London are reported to have

assured New Delhi that the West's willingness to help Kathmandu need

not be viewed with suspicion. But these pledges do not seem to have

satisfied the hardliners in New Delhi who still prefer to think the

way that they thought in the 1950s. K R Malkani, a senior leader of

the ruling Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party, is

one such person. At one point, the Vajpayee government was compelled

to dissociate itself from his controversial remarks on Nepal.

 

More recently, on January 29, Maoist rebels and representatives of

the king announced a ceasefire to initiate talks for finding a

political solution. But India's reaction to this and other related

developments has remained lukewarm. Some Indians in authority appear

uncomfortable because Kathmandu did not hold consultations with New

Delhi before agreeing to the ceasefire with the Maoists.

 

Their argument is that since Nepali Maoists have links with similar

groups in India, New Delhi needs to take interest in how the

ceasefire was agreed on. "This contention can be easily construed as

a pretext for interference," says a senior Nepali army officer who

did not want to be identified. "What are the India's SSB forces doing

if they are not already picking up Maoist suspects?" countered the

officer, alluding to India's 70,000-strong Special Security Bureau

that recently deployed some of its forces along the Nepal-India

border.

 

How parochial an outlook India's Ministry of External Affairs holds

regarding India's relationship with its smaller neighbor surfaced at

a February seminar in New Delhi at which Foreign Secretary Kanwal

Sibal was a participant. Media reports said that Sibal, who once

served as a junior Indian diplomat in Kathmandu, spoke "in his

personal capacity" to express concerns over activism in Nepal by the

international community.

 

Such an alarmist view has been criticized even within India. "New

Delhi needs to shed its untenable expectations," said C Raja Mohan of

The Hindu newspaper, "that the world can be kept out of Nepal, and

that the problems in Kathmandu can be resolved purely in a bilateral

framework with India."

 

King Gyanendra has yet another unenviable task of convincing his own

people. He has to assure them that he will not agree to deals -

covert or overt - which would compromise Nepal's national interests.

While a sizable proportion of the population accepts the monarchy as

a nationalist institution, there are individuals who hold critical

views on particular kings who have ruled Nepal in the past. They

often cite examples when kings with excessive lust for absolute

powers forgot patriotism. "India has an eye on our water resources,"

says Shankar Pokharel, a member of the Unified Marxist-Leninist

party - the dominant party in the opposition.

 

"And Indians know, said Pokharel, "that the incumbent king is in a

difficult position. They may throw all kinds of bait; the king must

be careful about that."

 

Madhav Kumar Rimal, editor of Spotlight weekly, says the following in

his latest column: "We do trust King Gyanendra will be able to meet

the expectations of his people to convince the Indians the

imperativeness of following a transparent and friendly policy towards

Nepal."

 

Analyst Jayaraj Acharya, a former ambassador to the United Nations,

appears in favor of a more pragmatic approach. "Adopting suitable

measures to convince India for its uninterrupted cooperation should

get the top order of priority," says Acharya. Geography demands that

Nepal should maintain a high level of understanding with India at all

times. Seasoned diplomat Keshav Raj Jha, who now heads the Nepal

Council of World Affairs, is of the opinion that India, too, stands

to gain if there is stability in Nepal. New Delhi therefore should

continue to make contributions toward curbing Maoist violence.

 

"For example, India could help sever their supply lines and deadly

connections," says Jha. Needless to emphasize, these lines exist in

India - not in the UK or the US.

 

All in all, Nepal's relationship with India is unique - often

compared with the ties that exist between Canada and the United

States. Yadunath Khanal, the grand old man of Nepali diplomacy,

recalls his tenure in Washington (along with responsibilities in

Ottawa) and offers a different viewpoint: "As sky is comparable only

with sky, the battle between Rama and Ravana can be compared only

with the same fight; there is no other analogy to liken relations

between Nepal and India," he says with a reference to the Hindu epic

poem Ramayana.

 

But the hawks in India's foreign relations apparatus do not appear

keen to retain the uniqueness of the existing friendship. Analyst M R

Josse suspects that there is an ongoing ploy to make Nepal more

dependent on India, and eventually to bring it down "almost to the

level of Bhutan". Through a treaty signed in 1949, India continues

to "guide" Bhutan in matters relating to defense and external

relations.

 

However, will King Gyanendra let this kind of thing happen, even if

there is a quid pro quo in the form of New Delhi's support for an

active monarchy? Probably not. Those who are familiar with

Gyanendra's shrewdness do not think that he will go for expediency at

the expense of the monarchy's long-term interests. After all, there

is no substitute for strength derived from one's own people.