Nepal’s Road to Chaos-Struggle for Sovereignty

Nepal, a multitude of petty principalities in the Himalayas, was built up into a single monolithic state by King Prithvi Narayan Shah in the 18th century . Once unified, Nepal managed to retain its sovereignty despite the presence of expansionist East India Company in the Indian plains. In the north Tibet and China were ancient polities. Nepal’s expansion following King Prithvi Narayan Shah’s death brought it into confrontation with East India Company. In the Anglo-Nepal war (1814-1816), Nepal was defeated. Earlier in 1792, in a confrontation with Tibet, Nepal was able to stop invading Chinese forces in 1792.

The rise of the Ranas after 1849 saw Nepal as a firm ally of the British interests in the subcontinent. Jung Bahadur’s support to the British facing Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 brought back Butwal plains to Nepal. Following Bhimsen Thapa’s hardline anti-Company policy would have been disastrous. Nepal’s support of Indian mutineers would have resulted into British punitive expedition against Kathmandu and subsequent occupation of Nepal. Nepal would have thus lost its sovereignty as one of the princely Indian states. The Ranas also managed to persuade Britain to recognize Nepal’s sovereignty in 1923 and Nepal was able to maintain diplomatic ties with Britain in the form of an ambassador to London. The British maintained a resident in Nepal since 1816 Sugauli Treaty.

As Mao’s communists defeated and drove Kuomintang to Formosa in 1948, a new threat emerged toward Nepal’s northern frontier. Communist China marched into Tibet in 1950 to consolidate its claim altering Nepal’s strategic scenario. At the same time, anti-Rana politicians influenced by Indian Congress sought to establish democracy and socialism, a system foreign to Nepal. Used to authoritarian centralized rule, these ideas were bound to invite radical change and threat to Nepal’s existence as an independent country.

Before India and China clashed in 1962, Nepal gave up its experimentation with democracy and established a semi-democratic polity with considerable power in the hands of King Mahendra. In the heights of the Cold War, King Mahendra chose neutral foreign policy and adherence to non-aligned movement primarily to keep Nepal away from being entangled in Sino-Indian schism. Nepal thus was isolated from Western countries, its principal friends. Foreign investement into exploiting water resources was thus not forthcoming from the rich Western countries while the masses remained poor, mainly into subsistence farming, employment into British and Indian armies and as laborers in India.

After 1990, political change was idiosyncratic. While communism failed in Eastern Europe, Nepal saw a resurgence in appeal to communist parties. Populist slogans appealed to poorer, uneducated classes and from 1996, a radical wing of Nepal’s communists, the Maoists began armed revolution in the rural areas. Political violence unleashed in Nepal cost 15,000 lives and it propelled Nepal’s Maoists into the major political party. Its radical and revolutionary ideals has brought into conflict with the old order. This movement has managed to eliminate Nepal’s royal family from power. Its current aim is to integrate its armed cadre into Nepal’s army and take control of this oldest institution of Nepal. Absolute control is the supposed goal to transform Nepal into a one party communist state.

Nepal’s democracy has been skillfully infiltrated and brutally exploited by communists. Popular King Birendra should never have yielded to demands to liberalize the political system in 1990. Without a firm mechanism to check the growth of illiberal and extremist organizations, Maoists emerged and catapulted themselves to power employing unchecked political violence. King Birendra lost his life and his family in mysterious circumstances in 2001, which harks back to times of Nepal’s bloody past coups of the 19th century. King Birendra’s brother, King Gyanendra, failed to restore order in 2006 when the drive to republic gained momentum resulting in loss of monarchy, an institution with greatest contribution to Nepal’s unification and consolidation. Loss of the King as head of the state has resulted in a leadership vacuum.

March toward federalism could end up with disintegration of the state along ethnic lines aka Bosnia Herzegovina leaving room for future discord and armed conflict. The notion of federal states within a small territory as Nepal sounds impractical. The idea of these federal states negotiating with India to export power sounds farcical. Nepal’s move toward unfamiliar terrain could well take it to a point of no return.

The neo-elite of Nepal, primarily Brahmins, does not have a lasting legacy of statesmanship. Demolishing institutions in the name of restructuring is eliminating Nepal’s identity.
In the multipolar world, Nepal may well fall into the trap of emerging powers and their national interests. China’s emergence into a world power may influence pro-China elements in Nepal into suppressing Tibetan refugees and their deportation to uncertain fate in Chinese prison camps.

Communists and Maoists are already into anti-Western line. Nepal’s water resources need massive capital injection for development if it were to sustain projects capable of meeting Nepal’s rising energy demand. The hope of creating projects to export energy will always require technical expertise from the West. Nepal’s good relations with US and EU, including its traditional special ties with UK, cannot be surrendered to suit the short term foreign policy interests of its immediate neighbors. Nepal should cooperate in regional groupings like SAARC and BIMSTEC and exploit Nepal’s unique status as a center for sustainable tourism.

Radicalization of the youth by extremist political organizations and elimination of traditional institutions will erase Nepal’s appeal as a center of its unique culture. Heated political controversies with propensity for armed conflict has already earned Nepal’s image as a failed state among Nepal’s friends and donors. Further deterioration of law and order may invite intervention by India. Nepal may lose its sovereignty the same way Tibet lost it to China and Sikkim to India. The Himalayan Kingdoms were lost to expansionist designs of neighboring powers with deteriorating conditions expediting the loss of sovereignty. Therefore it is imperative that Nepal maintain partnership with NATO to maintain its territorial integrity. Nepal could well learn more from participation in NATO operations. Also, revenue in the form of pay and security assistance would be welcome.

Under no circumstances should Nepal join Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) despite shortsighted arguments like it would ensure energy supply. Russia and China who are key members of this alliance are keen to develop an anti-Western front through this new Warsaw pact. The SCO member states are mostly totalitarian dictatorships bent on suppressing political freedom and human rights. Nepal’s membership into SCO would ensure the rule of anti-democratic forces like Maoists who would be more than happy to suppress individual rights and establish authoritarian political order.

Goldstone Debunked

Pritam S. Rana
Los Angeles, April 28, 2011

In a superb evening organized by Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivor, Los Angeles witnessed a fine evening amid an eye-opening academic discourse on the debunking of Goldstone Report. Various experts questioned the legitimacy of the report, particularly its claim that Israel commited war crimes and alleged crimes against humanity. Professor Avi Bell, noted Israeli scholar from Bar Ilan University asked audience not to be duped by legal maneuverings. “Politics (is the driving force)” in the Goldstone Investigations and not the principle of legality.

JJ Surbeck, a Swiss trained legal analyst compared the oft international efforts to link Israel’s Arab policy to South Africa’s apartheid. To debunk this association, Surbeck alluded China, Morocco and Turkey as other examples where the world has chosen to ignore while penalizing Israel. China took over Tibet in 1950 while Morocco took over Spanish Sahara in the 1970s. Turkey formed Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in Northern Cyprus ignoring worldwide opposition. The three states got away with imposing their unilateralism on questionable grounds amid the Cold War where political loyalty surpassed international legal regimes.

The nature of Goldstone investigation and its pursuit by human rights organizations show a hidden agenda to chastise Israel. The entire accusation based on the validity of customary laws on international humanitarian law is a matter not compelling for Israel to uphold while the other side loses no effort to diplomatically isolate Israel while pursuing war against Israeli population centers.

Academic Rick Richman spoke of the crisis facing US foreign policy makers if the September declaration of Palestinian statehood goes ahead.

Goldstone Report, named after the presiding judge from South Africa, followed an investigation in 2009 following the Gaza War. It accuses both Israel and Hamas of intense violation of international conventions on the laws of war to the point of stating whether crimes against humanity actually occurred. The report rounds up 40 years of history in a twenty page document. Israel refused to cooperate citing negative bias against its longstanding position while Hamas openly cooperated on the report. The majority of UN members from Third World led by China chose to support the document’s findings.

(Goldstone Report sourced from www.wikipedia.org)

The day we landed
by Pritam S. Rana

It was six in the morning
as we climbed down the nets
to the old wooden boats rolling fiercely
huddled together in groups of eights.

Our hopes were high for all of us expected
the Turks would simply turn and run
at the sight of our mighty fleet which had blasted
beaches, forts, man and gun.

We went forward to the beaches and the rocks
of Achi Baba and Kilid Bahr defiant and proud
crushing the silence of many peaceful nights.
Black and white smoke obscured beaches, explosions
were loud.

Thunderclaps, machine guns, and whizzing bullets,
the Turks had prepared a nasty welcome.
Men fell screaming as bullets hit chests and limbs
even before they had stepped on the beaches.

Chanting ‘Hail Mary!’ the men went ahead,
jumping out and running forward,
carrying rifle and rucksack, holding on to the helmet,
desperate for cover.

Men may have lost hope as they lay prone on the round
pinned down by enemy fire, shellshocked.
The wounded and the dead littered the ground.

The enemy was well dug-in
while our fellows were scattered about,
Oh, how much we wished for the days in Dublin,
the officers barked to keep our hearts stout.

We prayed for the day to die soon
for the darkness would shield us for the night.
In the cool light of the waxing moon
we began to dig for the next day’s fight.

Sourced from www.spinybabbler.com

Vision

I had gone back to Nepal. The return journey took us to Gorusinge from somewhere east of it. We had to pass on foot through a lowland toward a higher ground where I saw a road. As we climbed toward the road, we passed through a border checkpoint of Bangladesh. I knew very well that Bangladesh was not supposed to be in our route. It was much further toward the west. Lungi clad guards manned the post; a prominent woman, big built, dark featured, of a non-Aryan tribal stock made gestures with a Kalashnikov. I got very scared at this moment and fled toward the road, again within Nepalese territory.

In my destiny, supposedly Nepal, I enrolled in St. Xavier’s as a tenth grade student. With the sky blue shirt and blue tie with golden superimposed SX emblem on my breast, I was in a class. I moved away in a break and I lost my orientation. Found myself in another class taught by a stocky European woman with glasses but no attractive features. I met several boys who said I had to go through Shankardev premises to the St. Xavier’s section. I went through construction area with usual brick and mortar structures supported by wooden scaffolding. The dark passage led to somewhere.

Then I met some of my old friends. They shared their experiences which I found were not distinctly unlike mine. Told them all about my academic (and professional) journey. I had come back to tenth grade to retrain. I was also justifying the reason for marriage.

Another setting involved a huge house with a lot of women and girls. It looked as if there was a marriage ceremony, a huge gathering. I was passing through the many rooms. At the top floor of the house, I was with Wishdream. Showing amazing affection, Wishdream cuddled me. I spoke intimately, felt happier until I had to leave for downstairs. I was looking for my mother. Then I was back there at the same room where I tried to change to a blue tracksuit. Then I found another woman on the bed with her whole body covered buy a blanket. As I talked to her I found one of her eye looked like that of a snake. “I will cut of your head…”, I screamed. And that was the end of it.

Note:- This is not a fiction but describes a dream I saw on April 20-21, 2011. The description is accurate as possible. Episodes are biographic as well as surreal.

Altruism tested

On the bus back from Westwood today, I witnessed an example of behavior which tests public altruism. A mild smell of urine and women shut their noses in disgust. At first I thought I might be the cause célèbre. Earlier in the morning, I was in a terrible situation myself when I almost felt I would pass out. After 45 minutes of agony, I moved from the Space Park station to Manhattan Beach boulevard and rapidly walked toward the nearest plaza. After several miles, I was overjoyed to see a distant sign of some outlet. At the plaza, I marched toward the gas station and asked for relief. The lady who worked there pointed to the nearby 99 Store. At such pressure, I painfully moved inside the huge store and asked another Latin lady for restroom. She pointed toward one corner. A sigh of relief, I finally managed to relieve myself.

The man, an elderly Armenian looking gentleman finally got down. To the horror of passengers, another apparently homeless person boarded the bus. Smell was foul, much stronger than the earlier episode. As this gentleman settled down near the rear section of the bus, most passengers mainly women quickly shut their mouth. They quickly moved away to a safer distance. The whole bus must have experienced distress. I was totally stoic however. My experience of life has taught me virtue and altruism, despite my imperfect existence. I just stared at this person and observed him closely. I saw the person shaking his head. I quickly realized he was suffereing from some serious condition of the mind. I quickly felt sympathetic and even thought I would have invited this person into my apartment, allow him a pleasure of a clean shower and even buy him some new clothes. As I was on my way back from a job agency, clearly there was no way I could really help this person. Even handing him a couple of dollars was out of the question. As I saw this bearded figure, my thoughts roamed and it seemed he looked like St. Nicholas or Roald Amundsen. I honestly wanted to help but did nothing. I always see myself as guest of Americans in this country, rich or poor.

I wonder why altruism is conscientious in my nature. Just why? But if this person would have been a black man, a Latino or an Asian. I certainly think I would have been less motivated. I would feel something though, although helping a white man, especially someone who is elderly and in a sorry state with similar episodes to my near and dear. Also the feelings come from my schooling, I suspected my teachers. I had white American teachers in my fourth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade and tenth grade and college, all volunteers from America. Although I am not a Christian, these people I believe have injected some values.

Some feelings were outright controversial. A heavy Latino young man made comments which conflicted with my ideals. He said he could excuse the poor but they had to be “clean by choice”. The young man was completely not aware of the mental deficiency of the person concerned. The old man obviously had no control over his life. He did not deserve ridicule. Worse was a uniformed nurse trainee who could not sit next to this person. After all the nurse wannabe expects to serve the sick. I wonder how this guy can last in a hospital if he lacks patience and perseverance.
02/22/2011