What’s cooking in Delhi?

By Anand Gurung
High-profile meetings by former king Gyanendra and G.P Koirala in India raise doubt back home about the longevity of the Maoist-led government.
By Anand Gurung
It all looked like a publicity stunt. On Friday, in a break from the usual press photos, pictures of former king Gyanendra Shah, who is currently on a two-week long India visit (the first after monarchy was abolished in June last year), splashed across the front pages of few national dailies. Having read little of the last Shah King in the media in the past two years and almost none since he left the palace, the rare picture and accompanying news story about his parley with an Indian leader was indeed quite surprising for many newspaper readers.
Former King Gyanendra learning to operate the spinning wheel at Gandhi Ashram in Gujrat, India on Thursday.
Wearing a casual half-sleeved shirt, gold watch and sporting dark sun glasses and tika on the forehead, the former King did what royals around the world are best at -- visiting landmarks and places of historical importance and in a mild, carefree manner engage in freelance activities. The former King was pictured Thursday making an entry in the visitor’s book at the Gandhi Ashram in Ahmedabad in Gujrat State of India and later was seen trying to learn the art of operating a spinning wheel with enthusiasm.
The same day he also met Gujrat’s chief minister Narendra Modi in Ahmedabad. Details of the meeting with Modi, who is an influential leader of India’s main opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), was not known. However, the meeting is seen with special significance by political observers in Nepal especially because Hindu supremacist BJP has been a long time backer of monarchy in Nepal and expressing severe reservation on former Hindu kingdom of Nepal being declared a secular country. Alleged by Maoist leaders of having embarked on the Indian tour to revive monarchy in some form by garnering support for the ascension of his grandson Hridayendra to the throne in Nepal, the hobnobbing of the former king with BJP leaders has only worked to add fuel to claims that the visit has more to it than meets the eye.
In his first foreign visit as a commoner accompanied by his wife and daughter, the former King attended marriage ceremony of his niece with a royalty scion in Bhopal, visited national parks and shrines in India including the Somnath Temple in Gujarat. Although there are rumours in Nepal that he will be meeting Indian leaders like ruling Congress (I) president Sonia Gandhi, influential opposition BJP leader L.K Advani including Dr Karan Singh, he has so far met only Modi.
It is still not clear whether he will spend some time in New Delhi meeting Indian leaders during the latter part of his stay in India, but if he indeed does then, observers say, it will surely run rumor mills about India cozying up to him.
India is said to be deeply concerned looking at the state of things in Nepal -- the current political uncertainty, dwindling state’s authority, increasing rift between the major political parties including the army and the Maoist leadership and China’s growing presence in Nepal (made clear by the flurry of high-profile visits Chinese civilian and military leaders have made of late).
And if past is any guide, India has always, to use a more casual term, wined and dined with the opposition forces in Nepal if it starts to get the feeling that its interests in Nepal will not be served well by the current administration. As some analysts put it, India always likes to keep its options open in Nepal. We have already seen this once three years ago when increasingly weary with then king Gyanendra led royal regime and its attempts to create a rapport with China, India didn’t hesitate even a bit to bring the Maoist guerillas, which it had classified as terrorists, close to Nepali opposition parties thereby heralding the fall of monarchy in the country.
But India may not see a formidable opposition in the former King. It is not that naïve. And that’s where former prime minister and president of main opposition Nepali Congress Girija Prasad Koirala comes in.
Koirala, who went to New Delhi accompanied by his daughter Sujata on Wednesday making his usual, readymade remark, “I am going there for health check-up, not for political consultation” (Let’s see what suggestions Indian leaders here offer on my health, as one newspaper cartoon quotes him as saying), spent a better part of Thursday holding series of meetings with Indian leaders.
During his meeting with BJP leader (and party prime ministerial candidate) L.K Advani, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and BJP president Rajnath Singh, the octogenarian leader, who once advocated “baby King” concept in his last-ditch effort to save monarchy during the transition government he led, made a case against the growing “Maoist dictatorship” in Nepal but did not ask the Indian leaders help to unseat the Maoist-led government, according to Sujata Koirala.
Although Sujata said that the NC president wasn’t here to seek help to topple the government and that the topic didn’t feature during the discussion with Indian leaders, the Kathmandu Post today quoted a source close to Koirala as saying that there will be no efforts from NC to bring down the government until a new government is formed in New Delhi (India is holding general elections in April).
Koirala is also planning to meet with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi in the next few days.
Whether India’s ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by Congress (I) does indeed see a formidable opposition in Nepali Congress – this can only be gauged from how cordial Singh and Gandhi will appear in their meeting with Koirala.
With both former king and his one time prime minister in India holding parleys with key Indian leaders, no wonder the Maoist leaders are a bit shaken.
Before Koirala even left for Delhi, the Maoist Finance Minister Dr Baburam Bhattarai had on Sunday pointedly said that the political leaders' upcoming visits to India were aimed at toppling the Maoist-led government. He also said that though the former king embarked on the Indian tour in the name of attending a marriage, his aim is to garner support for the ascension of his grandson Hridayendra to the throne in Nepal.
And on Thursday, when Koirala was meeting with Indian leaders, the Maoist minister claimed that that the former king and “parliamentary party leaders” (apparently UML leader and Maoist basher K.P Oli is also in India with pro-monarchist Surya Bahadur Thapa also in tow) are in India “to repeat Satra Sal”. By Satra Sal, Dr Bhattarai was referring to 2017 B.S (Nepali Calendar) when then King Mahendra (father of Gyanendra), purportedly with the nod from India, dissolved the elected government and replaced it with authoritarian Panchayati regime (headed by the ruling monarch) that ruled Nepal with iron fist for the next three decades.
However, since India can’t bear instability in its “diplomatic backyard” i.e Nepal, trying to topple the Maoist-led government, some analysts say, is the last thing that is presently on the mind of the Indian establishment.