The Nepali chrysalis: testing time for India

If Nepal fails to bring its Leftwing extremism into its fledgling democratic process, India could face the brunt of crossborder malcontents,
says C Uday Bhaskar

In early May, the Washington-based journal, Foreign Policy, released an index of “failed states” on a scale of 1 to 146. South Asia has the dubious distinction of having the largest regional representation and the rankings are Pakistan (9), Afghanistan (10), Myanmar (18), Bangladesh (19), Nepal (20), and Sri Lanka (25). India, for the record, is placed at 97, while China is at 53. The determinants used to arrive at the assessment about the health of a state included: mounting demographic pressures; massive movement of refugees and internally displaced peoples; legacy of vengeance-seeking group grievance; chronic and sustained human flight; uneven economic development along group lines; sharp and/or severe economic decline; criminalisation and de-legitimisation of the state; progressive deterioration of public services; widespread violation of human rights; security apparatus as state within a state; rise of fictionalised elites; and intervention of other states or external actors.

Predictably, there was considerable dismay and anger among the states so classified, none so more than in Pakistan, where the intelligentsia was outraged that the country was deemed to be even more “failed” than neighbouring Afghanistan. While there is little doubt that India's periphery is becoming increasingly turbulent and internally fragile, thereby posing a complex security challenge, no other nation poses a more immediate and long-term problem than land-locked Nepal.

Nepal has been in the news for the demonstration of what is being described as “people's power”. To resolve a brittle stalemate, the streets of Kathmandu were filled with thousands of determined citizens who forced an unpopular and hated king to restore power to Parliament. Much to everybody's surprise, this demonstration of the people's will succeeded, and today a government headed by a seven-party alliance is in place, even as the country prepares to elect a constituent assembly that will revise the Constitution and usher in a new political phase. Despite this dramatic turn of events, it may be averred that the most difficult phase of consolidating Nepal's nascent democratic fervour has just begun and the contestation will be intense. Nepal, which has a tradition of 250 years of absolute monarchy, has been beset with multiple problems in adapting to the modern sociopolitical context. In 1990, the country adopted a new Constitution, with the monarch as Head of State; an elected prime minister was expected to manage the governance with the 70,000-strong Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) that owed allegiance to the Palace.

However, a decade-plus of poor governance and bitter infighting among fractious political parties led to the rise of the Maoists, and a simmering low-level civil war saw the emergence of three rival centres of power—the monarchy, the political parties and the Maoists. The Maoists control large tracts of the rural areas and the RNA has been engaged in incessant low-intensity conflict for years, resulting in the deaths of almost 13,000 people. In February 2005, King Gyanendra carried out a palace coup, suspended Parliament and seized all power—ostensibly to save Nepal from further anarchy. The repressive rule that followed only exacerbated matters till the stalemate was finally resolved this year, with the people asserting their will against the dictates of the king.

The challenge for Nepal and, by extension, India is reflected in some hard data. Nepal, with a population of 27 million, is among the poorest countries in the world. Its per capita income is $250, and it has a low modern techno-economic base for growth. More than 80 per cent of the workforce is in the rural-agricultural sector, and due to the unrest, the urban population has trebled from 5 to 15 per cent in the past 25 years. Nepal's population by 2020, it is estimated, will be 36 million. Concurrently, deforestation is on the rise: as per World Bank figures, in 1990-2005, the total deforestation was 787,000 sq km.

Consequently, the environmental damage is considerable, adding to the demographic pressure on available land, and there is no matching investment in harnessing technology. Nepal's tractor use, for instance, has remained static from 22 per 100 sq km in 1989 to 24 in 2003. The divide between the vast rural poor and the small urban affluent is increasing, thereby providing fertile soil for increasing Maoist influence.
Nepal's GDP growth rate has declined from 4.9 per cent in 1990-2000 to 2.5 per cent in 2001-04. Thus, redressing this downslide in economic growth and ensuring equitable distribution will be paramount for the new leaders.

Simultaneously, the status of the Maoists in the new political dispensation and their ability to arrive at a consensus with the other political parties is yet to be proven. The Maoist ideology has swung from one extreme to the other in terms of challenging the principal organs of state, including the monarchy and the RNA, to seeking political accommodation now. However, they are not willing to immediately disband their irregular but potent armed cadres, estimated at between 8,000 and 14,000. Thus, the nature of the legitimacy accorded to the use of force in the new Nepal, and its command and control, will be critical to the country’s future. Will Nepal be a truly democratic republic and will the former RNA, now called the “National Army”, accept the new framework without bloodletting and infighting? Will the Maoists lay down arms and join the Nepalese army? Will the traditionalists and those constituencies who have benefited from royal patronage for decades accept the abolition of the monarchy? These are complex issues and consensual resolution may not be easy or swift. In the interim, greater turbulence in Nepal will delay or deflect the delicate process of laying normative foundations that will redress long standing inequities across the board. The religious dimension cannot be ignored either: as the world's only Hindu kingdom, Nepal has a pedigree and inheritance of almost 250 years. Protests from the palace loyalists are sporadic but cannot be ignored.

The vitality and resilience of a state is ultimately predicated on its economic sinews, rectitude of military capability and social tranquillity, with credible and equitable governance. Nepal has been weakened on all fronts, and if this is not addressed in an abiding manner, the internal dissonance can acquire alarming proportions. India has a very special relationship with Nepal, including open borders and the inclusion of its citizens in the Indian army. Consequently, the churning in Nepal is not devoid of immediate and long-term implications for India. In the immediate future, the linkages between the Nepalese Maoists and Indian Leftwing groups will have to be monitored carefully—particularly, in states like Bihar. Whether the Maoists have undergone a fundamental transformation will be evident over the next few months as Nepal begins its complex and axiomatically contested sociopolitical transmutation process.

India has a latent Leftwing extremist problem and the ministry of home affairs has noted that almost a third of the country's nearly 600 districts have been afflicted by this virus—some like Chhattisgarh and Bihar more than the others. The most desirable outcome in Nepal will be a demonstration that Leftwing extremism is brought under the rubric of the political process so that the myriad manifestations of disaffection can be addressed through negotiations and the electoral process. The more negative fallout can be a breakdown of consensus and accommodation, leading to a malignant virulence of earlier patterns that spread into and embolden Indian Leftwing extremism. Thus, India has a stake in the current churning process in Nepal and it must seek to facilitate the larger objective of enabling its smaller neighbour towards the participatory, democratic process that it has traversed for 60 years. Nation-building is a long and fragile process and it takes both perspicacity and perseverance to stay the course. This is the only path to restore the internal health and resilience of states that are deemed to be vulnerable or on the brink of failing—and the chrysalis that Nepal is emerging from may well become a litmus test for the entire region and, by extension, the world at large.