New Delhi, Aug 25 - The big question went unanswered during Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal’s five-day visit to New Delhi because it got lost amid details and the last-minute rush to ink a complicated trade deal: Is India open to getting the Maoists back in the government?
The Indian establishment was happy not to mention the Maoists, and Prime Minister Nepal was entirely fine with that. After all, the visit held strong political symbolism for him: he wanted to be seen as a more pliant prime minister than Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, whose nine months in office had made New Delhi deeply suspicious about whether his party was making a strategic shift away from New Delhi in redefining Nepal-India ties. And the prime ministerial entourage was eager to make political capital from India’s perceived hostility towards the Maoists. The longer the hostility remained, according to this thought, the more would be the longevity of the Nepal-led government.

So the prime minister enacted the script well. On Aug. 20, a day after he met his counterpart Manmohan Singh for more than an hour at Hyderabad House, Nepal stressed that the Maoist commitment to the peace process and democracy still remained questionable. Clearly, he was in no mood to miss any opportunity to score points over the Maoists with the New Delhi establishment.

“Nepal’s visit was purely political, though a proposed trade treaty dominated media coverage in the latter half of the visit,” said an Indian official. “We were given to believe that it was a goodwill visit and we stuck to it.” The last-ditch negotiation to upgrade the trade treaty was conducted at the behest of the Nepali team, which was keen to bag as many accords as possible during the visit, he said.

While Nepal’s visit can be seen as a success in garnering political capital in the short term, there is broad concern in New Delhi that the Constituent Assembly will lose its legitimacy in the long term if the Maoists stay out of the CA process. As the largest party in the assembly, the Maoists have the legitimate claim to lead the government.

“Keeping the single largest party outside the government is not a politically tenable situation,” says Sitaram Yechuri, leader of the Communist Party of India-Marxist.

From New Delhi’s viewpoint, what are the conditions that will bring the Maoists back in the government? And what is the timeline for such a measure?

Clear-cut answers to these questions are hard to come by, because of the political nature of the “course correction” that Delhi desires. The Maoists have been out of government for only three months, and it is perhaps too early for New Delhi to even start engaging with them at the top level. But there are indications that the two are at least keeping the communication channels open.

The Delhi-Maoist relation will ultimately be decided by a complex web of individuals in various agencies that define Nepal policy. Among the key players are the National Security Advisor M. K. Narayanan, Joint Secretary at the Prime Minister’s Office Pankaj Saran (he deals with foreign affairs at the PMO), Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao, RAW Chief K. C. Verma and Indian Ambassador to Nepal Rakesh Sood.

“Narayanan and Sood are seen as hardliners,” says an Indian analyst who closely follows Nepal-India ties. “Pankaj Saran

is more a moderate. Nirupama Rao is new to the job. She is approaching Nepal with an open mind and is likely to have a lot of influence on India’s Nepal policy.” A greater clarity in India’s Nepal policy should emerge in another month or so.

For now, the Delhi-Maoist stalemate will continue. “This is a litmus-test period for the Maoists,” says an Indian official. “How far can you buy the argument that Prachanda and Baburam are committed democrats but that they have a problem reining in their hardliners? They are leaders and we will soon find out whether they can lead the party.”

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