04-21-2008, 05:24 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->K for clueless
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Kathmandu to Kabul, MEA is napping
Just hours before the results of the Nepal election began coming out, a Secretary-level officer in the Ministry of External Affairs conducted a briefing of Foreign Office beat correspondents in New Delhi. He confidently announced that a variant of the Seven-Party Alliance would continue in Kathmandu following an unclear mandate. Implicit in this assessment was the argument that there was limited popular support for the Maoists. Now, in the week following Nepal's election of a Maoist regime, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon have gone out of their way to tell the media that India was not surprised. This is plain disingenuous, given that, for months the Indian establishment has been fairly categorical that it saw no danger of a Maoist takeover and apprehended no danger to India's strategic influence in its near neighbourhood. No contingency plans were drawn up in terms of what could and what couldn't be re-negotiated in the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty, the severe alteration (if not effacement) of which is a key Maoist demand. No efforts were made to safeguard Indian capital - from hydropower to consumer goods factories, Indian business has substantial investments in Nepal - in case the Maoists emerged strong enough.
The point here is not so much to discuss India's options in Nepal as to focus on the Government's unerring ability to get its intelligence wrong. When the turbulence began in Nepal two years ago, external powers looked to India for inputs and guidance. The MEA was paralysed, the political leadership confused. It encouraged and legitimised the Maoists, believing the CPI(M) had some hold over them - it doesn't, as is increasingly clear - and then, having weakened mainstream forces, began talking of the inviolable triad of the King, the Army and the political parties. In short, India's Nepal strategy soon became a joke, with nobody clear what it wanted in that country, let alone if it could influence events anyway. India's predicament vis-Ã -vis Pakistan is scarcely better. Till late 2007, the National Security Adviser was giving interviews saying Gen Pervez Musharraf was a safe bet for India and that there was no danger to his authority. Today, between an admittedly shaky civilian coalition and an Army under a new leadership, Gen Musharraf finds himself isolated. Once again, India got it completely wrong. The next big security challenge is Afghanistan. It is obvious that a resurgent Taliban has been much more lethal this spring than at this time in 2007. Indian economic interests are being specifically targeted. Aside from hoping the Americans will never leave, the MEA does not seem to have a back-up blueprint. Already, fellow traveller foreign policy intellectuals - who have leverage within the CPI(M) - are talking of a Taliban struggle for Afghanistan's "perceived national liberation" and cautioning India to stay away. Will the UPA Government repeat Kathmandu in Kabul?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
The Pioneer Edit Desk
Kathmandu to Kabul, MEA is napping
Just hours before the results of the Nepal election began coming out, a Secretary-level officer in the Ministry of External Affairs conducted a briefing of Foreign Office beat correspondents in New Delhi. He confidently announced that a variant of the Seven-Party Alliance would continue in Kathmandu following an unclear mandate. Implicit in this assessment was the argument that there was limited popular support for the Maoists. Now, in the week following Nepal's election of a Maoist regime, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon have gone out of their way to tell the media that India was not surprised. This is plain disingenuous, given that, for months the Indian establishment has been fairly categorical that it saw no danger of a Maoist takeover and apprehended no danger to India's strategic influence in its near neighbourhood. No contingency plans were drawn up in terms of what could and what couldn't be re-negotiated in the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty, the severe alteration (if not effacement) of which is a key Maoist demand. No efforts were made to safeguard Indian capital - from hydropower to consumer goods factories, Indian business has substantial investments in Nepal - in case the Maoists emerged strong enough.
The point here is not so much to discuss India's options in Nepal as to focus on the Government's unerring ability to get its intelligence wrong. When the turbulence began in Nepal two years ago, external powers looked to India for inputs and guidance. The MEA was paralysed, the political leadership confused. It encouraged and legitimised the Maoists, believing the CPI(M) had some hold over them - it doesn't, as is increasingly clear - and then, having weakened mainstream forces, began talking of the inviolable triad of the King, the Army and the political parties. In short, India's Nepal strategy soon became a joke, with nobody clear what it wanted in that country, let alone if it could influence events anyway. India's predicament vis-Ã -vis Pakistan is scarcely better. Till late 2007, the National Security Adviser was giving interviews saying Gen Pervez Musharraf was a safe bet for India and that there was no danger to his authority. Today, between an admittedly shaky civilian coalition and an Army under a new leadership, Gen Musharraf finds himself isolated. Once again, India got it completely wrong. The next big security challenge is Afghanistan. It is obvious that a resurgent Taliban has been much more lethal this spring than at this time in 2007. Indian economic interests are being specifically targeted. Aside from hoping the Americans will never leave, the MEA does not seem to have a back-up blueprint. Already, fellow traveller foreign policy intellectuals - who have leverage within the CPI(M) - are talking of a Taliban struggle for Afghanistan's "perceived national liberation" and cautioning India to stay away. Will the UPA Government repeat Kathmandu in Kabul?<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->