(Kashmir Times
11 April 2007)
Editorial
Nepal and Indian saffron
Hindutva forces sinister designs must be frustrated
Reportedly, during his stay at Delhi, in connection with the recent SAARC summit, Prime Minister G.P. Koirala of Nepal had meetings not only with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but also with his predecessor, A.B. Vajpayee, imploring them to use their official and moral power, respectively, to prevent the saffron brigades of the RSS and the VHP from aiding and inciting the Madheshis against the interim government at Kathmandu. The Madheshis of Nepal's sub-Himalayan Terai belt are ethnically Indians, unlike the so-called Mongolian Gorkhas of the hills and the Nepal valley, and constitute around 48% of the country's population, inhabiting 39 of Nepal's 75 districts. They have remained politically disempowered since the days of the Ranas and the Kings, and even now they control only 44 of the 205 seats in Nepal's parliament. They are now asking for a more equitable change in the old setup they had so far accepted under the monarchy. So, the entire Terai belt of Nepal is now seething with discontent, and there are reasons to believe that saffronites in India are taking full advantage of the open border to create problems for the new government opposed to their monarchy. The Hindu Right had always a soft corner for the Nepali monarchy, represented either by the Ranas or later by the Maharajas. When Rama Padma Shamsher Bahadur visited India in the mid-thirties he was hailed by the Hindu Mahasabha leader, V.S. Munje as the ruler of the sole Hindu kingdom in the world. Subsequently, on the eve of India's independence and partition, the champions of Akhand Bharat used to speak of a greater Hindu-India of their dream extending beyond the then British India to include Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and Nepal, with the king of the last-named country as its head. True, Nepal was then the only independent Hindu majority country in the world, with the Hindus constituting nearly 86% of its total population, but it never declared itself as a Hindu state. It was only in 1961 that King Mahendra, for the first time, declared Nepal officially as a Hindu state. The Hindu Right then made much of this announcement, and expressed sorrow when last year the present democratic government of Nepal declared that theirs was a secular country. A former foreign minister of the NDA government even went to the extent of confessing that he felt diminished. No wonder, with their not-so secret sympathies for the Hindu King Gyanendra, Indian saffronites are now busy provoking unrest among the Madheshis, so that the beleaguered king might succeed in carving out for himself an influential political space.
It is high time that the Hindu Right is firmly told that such secret sinister activities not only amount to illegal interference in the internal affairs of a friendly neighbour, but also to virtual anti-Indian manoeuvres. India is in sympathy with the democratic aspirations and government of the Nepali people, extending all possible help to them to tide over their economic difficulties, internal differences, and royalist intrigues. India, in its own interest, wants a friendly stable Nepal, so that it does not fall a prey to the intrigues and ambition of its hostile neighbours, present and potential. So, any one active in making life difficult for the present Nepal government is acting against India's national interest, and they must not be allowed to misuse Indian soil for their nefarious purpose.
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