India & Kashmir: Breaking the silence

David BARSAMIAN interviews Pankaj MISHRA, ISR

27 April 2013

In Kashmir, the scale of human rights violations—from collective punishment and assassinations, to custodial deaths and disappearances—is staggering. Yet little of what goes on in that Himalayan region reaches the outside. Those who resist Indian rule, the Indian government tells the world, are fundamentalist jihadis backed by Pakistan. But the reality is quite different. Kashmir is an unsettled issue, dating back to the disastrous 1947 British partition plan to divide the subcontinent in two: a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan. Today, Kashmir is one of the most volatile places on the planet.

Pankaj Mishra writes for the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times Book Review, and the Guardian. He is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, An End to Suffering, Temptations of the West, and From the Ruins of Empire.

ISR regular contributor David Barsamian, host and founder of Alternative radio (www.alternativeradio.org), spoke with Mishra in Boulder, Colorado.

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David Barsamian: In your introduction to a collection of essays Kashmir: The Case for Freedom, you wrote: “Once known for its extraordinary beauty, the Valley of Kashmir now hosts the biggest, bloodiest and also the most obscure military occupation in the world. With more than 80,000 people dead in an anti-India insurgency backed by Pakistan, the killing fields of Kashmir dwarf those of Palestine and Tibet.

In addition to the everyday regime of arbitrary arrests, curfews, raids, and checkpoints enforced by nearly 700,000 Indian soldiers, the Valley’s 4 million Muslims are exposed to extrajudicial execution, rape and torture, with such barbaric variations as live electric wires inserted into penises.”

And then you proceed to ask the logical next question: “Why, then, does the immense human suffering of Kashmir occupy such an imperceptible place in our moral imagination?”

Pankaj Mishra: There are several reasons for this, particularly in the last decade or so, there has been this idea of India emerging as a great economic power and also as a strategic ally of the United States. There has been a lot of bad news coming out of India that’s not been reported internationally, certainly not in the Western press. I think the government also places very heavy restrictions on reporting out of Kashmir, even on foreign correspondents.

Many of them start their tenure by going to Kashmir and being shocked and appalled, because nothing has prepared them for what they see there, so they go and do these anguished reports about this horrific situation. Very soon the government cracks down on them, and they are told to stay within their limits. And for the next of their three or four years in India , they observe those limits, because the price is you might have to leave your job or it might become harder for your newspaper to maintain a bureau or an office there. So there isn’t really enough reporting happening of the kind that happens, for instance, in Tibet. Even though the Chinese government does not allow journalists to go there, still reports filter out all the time. And when there is a massive event there, like the riots in Lhasa back in 20 08 09, it’s on the front pages and in the headlines for days on end.

How Occupied Kashmiris “Celebrate” Freedom

Jashn-e-Azadi (How We celebrate Freedom)

a film by Sanjay Kak (2008)

Synopsis

It’s 15th August, India’s Independence day, and the Indian flag ritually goes up at Lal Chowk in the heart of Srinagar, Kashmir. The normally bustling square is eerily empty – a handful of soldiers on parade, some more guarding them, and except for the attendant media crews, no Kashmiris.

For more than a decade, such sullen acts of protest have marked 15th August in Kashmir, and this is the point from where JASHN-E-AZADI begins to explore the many meanings of Freedom – of Azadi – in Kashmir.

In India, the real contours of the conflict in Kashmir are invariably buried under the facile depiction of an innocent population, trapped between the Terrorist’s Gun and the Army’s Boot. But after 18 years of a bloody armed struggle, after 60,000 civilians dead (and almost 7,000 enforced disappearances), what really is contained in the sentiment for Azadi, for freedom?

Indian Maoists’ message to Nepal Maoists CPN-Maoist — August 31, 2012

[We have recently seen this message from the CPI (Maoist) to the new CPN-Maoist party, sent in late August of last year.  The new party in Nepal has, since this statement was issued, held its Congress early in 2013 — and while it decided not to return to the revolutionary path of Protracted People’s War, there are indications that an intense struggle continues within the new party to adopt this revolutionary course.  The content of this statement reveals some of the reasons Indian Maoists appear to be hopeful as well as cautious in in their assessment of events in Nepal as of late August, 2012. — Frontlines ed.]

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COMMUNIST PARTY OF INDIA (MAOIST) — CENTRAL COMMITTEE

Hail the formation of Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist

Message of CC, CPI (Maoist) to the CC, CPN -Maoist

 August 31, 2012

To Comrade Kiran, The Chairman, CPN-Maoist

The CC, CPI (Maoist) is sending its warmest revolutionary greetings to you and all the CC members and the entire rank and file of the CPN-Maoist on the formation of the new revolutionary party in Nepal after a prolonged internal ideological and political struggle against the opportunist and neo-revisionist leadership within the party who betrayed the Nepalese revolution and by demarcating and making a break with them.

Even while the Nepal Revolution reached the stage of strategic offense, the UCPN (Maoist) leadership assessed the national and international situation subjectively, took erroneous tactics which themselves led the party get bogged down in the quagmire of parliamentarianism with capitulationism uninterruptedly since end 2005. The opportunist faction that was dominant in the party rapidly went on taking modern revisionist positions including 12-point Agreement, 8-point Agreement and Comprehensive Peace Agreement etc thus betraying the cause of the Nepal people and causing enormous harm to the New Democratic Revolution. The revolutionary faction of the UCPN (Maoist) led by Comrade Kiran and other revolutionaries put up a fight against the neo-revisionist stands that harmed the interests of the Nepal oppressed masses and have split at various stages from the revisionist leadership. Our CC considers such splits resorted to by genuine revolutionaries demarcating from the neo-revisionist leadership and its erroneous right opportunist line as correct steps that would advance the revolution in Nepal and serve the interests of the oppressed classes and all oppressed social sections in Nepal.

Indian Govt should restore ‘civil and political rights’ of Geelani Sahib immediately: Dal Khalsa

Amritsar (Punjab)
25 Feb 2013

Chairman of Hurriyat Conference  Syed Ali Shah Geelani

Condemning his continued house arrest in New Delhi, the Dal Khalsa has urged the Government of India to release chairman of Hurriyat (G) Conference Syed Ali Shah Geelani immediately.

In a statement party head H S Dhami termed the detention of Geelani Sahib ever since the hanging of Afzal Guru on Feb 9 as ‘illegal and unjust’. Taking a dig at Indian civil society and eminent human rights activists based in the capital for their stoic silence, he said the government has stooped too low to gag the voice of Kashmiri people.

Urging the civil society to speak up against state’s highhandedness, he urged the officials of UNHRC, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to intervene and take stock of the ground situation vis-à-vis rights violations.

He said the government was highly mistaken that by detaining Geelani Sahib it could break his resolve for carrying forward the struggle for Kashmir’s self-determination.

Accusing the Union Home Minister for his flip-flop position on “Saffron terror and RSS sponsored terrorism”, Mr Dhami urged Mr Sushil Kumar Shinde to restore the civil, political and human rights of Geelani Sahib immediately and allow him to be with his people and family members.

Arundhati Roy on Indian-Pakistani war clouds and the ‘secret’ hanging of Afzal Guru

Does Your Bomb-Proof Basement Have An Attached Toilet?

Afzal Guru

An execution carried out to thundering war clouds

by Arundhati Roy

What are the political consequences of the secret and sudden hanging of Mohammed Afzal Guru, prime accused in the 2001 Parliament attack, going to be? Does anybody know? The memo, in callous bureaucratese, with every name insultingly misspelt, sent by the Superintendent of Central Jail No. 3, Tihar, New Delhi, to “Mrs Tabassum w/o Sh Afjal Guru” reads:

“The mercy petition of Sh Mohd Afjal Guru s/o Habibillah has been rejected by Hon’ble President of India. Hence the execution of Mohd Afjal Guru s/o Habibillah has been fixed for 09/02/2013 at 8 am in Central Jail No-3.

This is for your information and for further necessary action.”

The mailing of the memo was deliberately timed to get to Tabassum only after the execution, denying her one last legal chanc­e—the right to challenge the rejection of the mercy petition. Both Afzal and his family, separately, had that right. Both were thwarted. Even though it is mandat­ory in law, the memo to Tabassum ascribed no reason for the president’s rejection of the mercy petition. If no reason is given, on what basis do you appeal? All the other prisoners on death row in India have been given that last chance.

Since Tabassum was not allowed to meet her husband before he was hanged, since her son was not allowed to get a few last words of advice from his father, since she was not given his body to bury, and since there can be no funeral, what “further necessary action” does the jail manual prescribe? Anger? Wild, irreparable grief? Unquestioning acc­eptance? Complete integration?

After the hanging, there have been unseemly celebrations. The bereaved wives of the people who were killed in the attack on Parliament were displayed on TV, with M.S. Bitta, chairman of the All-India Anti-Terrorist Front, and his ferocious moustaches playing the CEO of their sad little company. Will anybody tell them that the men who shot their husbands were killed at the same time, in the same place? And that those who planned the attack will never be brought to justice because we still don’t know who they are.

Indian reactionaries have high hopes for Nepali revisionists, but not sure they will last

[Nepal’s UCPN(M), led by Pushpa Kamal Dahal and Baburam Bhattarai, has now consolidated their abandonment and renunciation of the Nepali revolution and People’s War, in a Convention which declared their adoption of capitalism.  Recently, revolutionary activists have broken with the UCPN(M) and its capitalist road, and re-established the Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist, which in ITS recent re-founding meeting struggled over how to re-set the Nepali revolutionary course — amid sharpening differences between advocates of re-starting People’s War in the countryside, and those who advocate peoples revolts (protest demonstrations and, possibly, strategic urban insurrections at some time in the future).  The “people’s (reform and) revolt” line prevailed over the “people’s (revolutionary) war” line at the recent meeting, but the struggle between these lines continues.  The Indian reactionaries’ views, reported below, are assessing the prospects of UCPN(M)’s capitalist consolidation. — Frontlines ed.]

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India’s Nepal hands watch Maoist shift

While some say the party’s change in the political line is positive, some argue that the change could hurt the party if it fails to clean internal issues like corruption and cadres’ problems

Mahesh Acharya, ekantipur.com

NEW DELHI, February 12, 2013–The change in the UCPN (Maoist) ’s political line, adopted during the party’s seventh General Convention in Hetauda, is being observed with great interest by neighbouring India .

Describing the change as a “huge and significant shift” in the party’s principles, India ’s Nepal hands claimed that the development would “undoubtedly have a positive impact on improving the New Delhi-Maoist relationship.”

The recently concluded jamboree of the largest Nepali political force endorsed Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s political document, which envisages embracing a ‘capitalist revolution’ by abandoning its previous line of ‘people’s revolution’.

The hanging of Afzal Guru is a stain on India’s democracy

Despite gaping holes in the case against Afzal Guru, all India’s institutions played a part in putting a Kashmiri ‘terrorist’ to death

Arundhati Roy, The Guardian, Sunday 10 February 2013

Indian police bring Afzal Guru to court in Delhi in 2002. Photograph: Aman Sharma/AP

Spring announced itself in Delhi on Saturday. The sun was out, and the law took its course. Just before breakfast, the government of India secretly hanged Afzal Guru, prime accused in the attack on parliament in December 2001, and interred his body in Delhi’s Tihar jail where he had been in solitary confinement for 12 years. Guru’s wife and son were not informed. “The authorities intimated the family through speed post and registered post,” the home secretary told the press, “the director general of the Jammu and Kashmir [J&K] police has been told to check whether they got it or not”. No big deal, they’re only the family of yet another Kashmiri terrorist.

In a moment of rare unity the Indian nation, or at least its major political parties – Congress, the Bharatiya Janata party and the Communist party of India (Marxist) – came together as one (barring a few squabbles about “delay” and “timing”) to celebrate the triumph of the rule of law. Live broadcasts from TV studios, with their usual cocktail of papal passion and a delicate grip on facts, crowed about the “victory of democracy”. Rightwing Hindu nationalists distributed sweets to celebrate the hanging, and beat up Kashmiris (paying special attention to the girls) who had gathered in Delhi to protest. Even though Guru was dead and gone, the commentators in the studios and the thugs on the streets seemed, like cowards who hunt in packs, to need each other to keep their courage up. Perhaps because, deep inside, themselves they knew they had colluded in doing something terribly wrong.

Nepal ex-Maoists declare “We will follow ‘the path of capitalism’ to achieve ‘communism'”

[Seven years after abandoning the revolutionary People’s War and dismantling the emerging liberation political powers in the countryside, and ending the revolutionary challenge to feudal and semi-feudal relations, and the People’s Liberation Army, the former Maoists led by Prachanda and Bhattarai are now shedding their “Maoist” cover.  A good number of purported revolutionaries who supported these revisionists soon after their abandonment of the revolutionary road–(some even called Prachanda and Bhattarai the “creative Maoists” of our time, and the leaders of 21st Century Communism)–will now be challenged to sum up their promotion of these anti-revolutionaries, and help those they may have influenced to understand how to avoid such retreats in the future.  The world of revolutionary Maoists will be watching.  We encourage our readers to comment on these developments.  Frontlines ed.] Nepal Maoists to change ideology, hint at giving up anti-India stance” Friday, Feb 1, 2013

By Shirish B Pradhan | Place: Kathmandu | Agency: PTI

In a major policy shift, Nepal’s ruling Maoists will adopt a new path to socialism through capitalism and may also give up their anti-India stance at the upcoming national convention of the party. Some 2,500 delegates of the ruling UCPN-Maoist will attend the six-day general convention, to take place after a gap of over 20 years, starting on Saturday in central Nepal’s Hetauda Municipality in an attempt to revamp the guerrilla group-turned-mainstream political party. “We will follow ‘the path of capitalism’ to achieve communism instead of pursuing ‘New Democracy’ as propounded by chairman Mao Zedong,” said Narayan Kaji Shrestha, vice-chairman of UCPN-Maoist and deputy prime minister.

Nepal: An inteview with Kiran about Nepalese struggle against Indian regional domination

[The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists have launched a campaign against Indian domination of trade, transport, and culture in Nepal.  The Associated Press reports:  “Movies theatres in Nepal have stopped screening Bollywood movies because they fear violence after a Communist Party offshoot alleged the films are vulgar and unsuitable for the Nepalese society…The Communist Party of Nepal-Maoist is demanding the government give priority to locally made movies and strictly censor Hindi films. Party spokesperson Pumpha Bhusal said Friday it was giving the government until next week to comply…In another dispute earlier this week, supporters of the breakaway Communist party gathered at border crossings to stop Indian vehicles from entering Nepal. The party later said it was going to allow trucks with essential goods like oil, gas and food to enter…(The campaign opposes relations where) Indian trucks and vehicles are allowed to enter Nepal, while Nepalese vehicles are not allowed in Indian territories.” — Frontlines ed.]

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SATURDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2012

Nepal & India: Questions to Comrade Kiran

This interview was originally posted in Nepali on weeklynepal, an online Nepali news portal, then translated into English. There is a minor edit for clarity. 

Are you an anti-India leader?

I’m not anti-India but inimical to the Indian oppression and hegemony. I’m not against India and the normal Indian people. Those who call me an anti-India are seriously flawed. We are internationalists and patriotic at the same time. Therefore, we have no antagonism with India and the normal Indian people. Our belief is that Nepal should not face Indian oppression. Alongside this we have opposed Nepalese puppets as well.

Who are the puppets in the nation, today?

Nepal is a semi-colonial and semi-feudal country. Post WW-II, the usual practice of direct colonisation has come to an end. In these modern days oppression and exploitation is widely maintained by inducting domestic puppets within oppressed nations itself.

Has your protest against India benefited Nepal?

Lets not take the issues that we have raised as simple as a protest. There are problems, how this government will act upon to solve these problems is the principle theme. CPN-M is a political party. We have raised issues through surfacing the problems. In the past Baburam had raised the same issues himself. If there are problems, they need to be resolved. Now, we still need to see what happens between Indian oppression and the Nepalese government. We come across problems almost every day, like the border encroachment, removal of original border pillars, installation of new border pillars in wrong places etc. Don’t we need to look at these things?

On Kashmir India acts as a police state, not as a democracy

Delhi has been unwilling to solve this tragic and brutal conflict, and has scuttled any attempt at meaningful discourse

Mirza Waheed, guardian.co.uk,

Sunday 29 May 2011

Kashmiri women confront Indian soliders during a protest over the killing of a student in Srinagar. Photograph: Farooq Khan/EPA

Many years ago, I met two journalists from India in London and we found ourselves talking about Kashmir. Mostly, they listened patiently to my impassioned tale of what goes on, but the moment I touched upon the brutal counter-insurgency methods employed by the Indian security apparatus in the disputed territory – among them notorious “catch-and-kill” operations to execute suspected militants – they looked incredulous, made a quick excuse and left. Later, I learned that at least one of them believed that Kashmiris liked to exaggerate the excesses of the Indian armed forces.

In the reaction of those two men, I had witnessed the frightening success of India’s policy of denial and misrepresentation on Kashmir. India’s decision to censor the Economist last week, following the publication of a map that shows the disputed borders of Kashmir, represents two unsurprising but ominous things: that the country’s age-old intransigence over Kashmir still runs deep; and its willingness to curb freedom of speech over what it sees as sensitive matters of national interest. On Kashmir India continues to behave as a police state, not as the champion of democracy and freedom that it intends to be.

Economic investment by Chinese imperialists in Pakistan rises to $15 billion a year

The Chinese imperialists financed this deepwater port at Gwadar in Baluchistan province. The port is just 180 nautical miles from the Strait of Hormuz through which 40% of all globally traded oil is shipped.

[This article describes China’s growing economic stake in Pakistan. It also states that “in the second half of next year, American aid packages, in the wake of the beginning of the US troop drawdown in Afghanistan, will be reduced or even stopped,” and thus Pakistan is using China as a “hedge.” In reality, the US military is not leaving Afghanistan any time soon, and US economic and military aid to Pakistan will increase in order to prop up the economy and pressure the Pakistani government to undertake more aggressive military action against Taliban bases. Thus, Pakistan will continue to be heavily dependent on the US imperialists, with Chinese investments playing a secondary economic role.–Frontlines ed.]

Pakistan heads down China road

By Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times

ISLAMABAD – Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has visited China on several occasions since taking office in September 2008, but these visits have been more ceremonial than of substance, in part because his Washington-backed government had gravitated so close to the United States orbit that even the Chinese envoy in Islamabad publicly complained.

The Pakistani military establishment’s pro-China lobby, highly influenced by now retired General Tariq Majeed, frowned on this tilt towards the US, and was especially upset that the Americans were allowed to establsh a naval base in Ormara in Balochistan province, and that US defense contractors were given a free rein in the country.

However, the post-Pervez Musharraf-era army was weak and didn’t have much choice except to turn a blind eye. This situation continued until 2009, by which time the army had regained its influence in the corridors of power and had begun to prevail over the country’s decision-making process.

Hence, Zardari’s scheduled visit to China on November 11 takes on a special significance. Notably, he has not sought the counsel of his pro-US envoy in Washington, Husain Haqqani, who has consistently advised Zardari to keep his distance from Beijing. Instead, the president on Monday held a long meeting with Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kiani. Zardari will attend the opening ceremony of the 16th Asian Games in Guangzhou, as well as meet with his counterpart Hu Jintao and senior officials.

On the surface, the leaders will discuss the Washington-opposed plan for a fifth Chinese-built nuclear reactor in Pakistan. However, the underlying emphasis will be on new moves on the grand chessboard of South Asia.

Military ties between India and Israel expand over past decades

[This article detailing Israel and India’s extensive military ties has an important omission. In its descriptions of the launch of a spy satellite by India with Israeli assistance and India’s purchase of drone aircraft from Israel, the article does not mention the fact that these pilotless drones and the satellite are not just spying on Pakistani forces; they are being used to gather intelligence on the people’s uprising in Kashmir and the Maoist-led resistance of the adivasi people in eastern and central India to a massive assault of 200,000 troops called Operation Green Hunt.–ed]

by Isabelle Saint-Mézard,  Le Monde Diplomatique

From antipathy to military cooperation–India and Israel: an unlikely alliance

India has the world’s third largest Muslim population, and political and economic ties with Arab nations. It is also buying weapons and military expertise from its new friend Israel.

India and Israel were born (in 1947 and 1948) through long and violent partition processes, from the ruins of the British empire. Both were caught up in inextricable armed conflicts. Yet this did not make for any particular affinity between the countries: rather the reverse.

From the 1920s onwards, the leaders of India’s nationalist movement sided with the Palestinian Arabs against British imperialism, opposing the Zionist aim of establishing a Jewish state. India voted against the partition of Palestine at the UN General Assembly of 1947, and only recognised Israel in 1950. Until the 1980s it formed a bloc with the Arab countries at the UN and within the Non-aligned Movement, in defence of the Palestinian people’s right to a sovereign state.

India had its reasons: it was worried that the Muslim world would side with Pakistan over its claim to Kashmir; it was concerned about energy security (India depends largely on the Middle East for its oil); and in the late 1980s and 1990s, when it had a serious payments imbalance, it relied on money sent back home by the many expatriates working in the Gulf states .

Obama’s trip firms up US-India economic and military alliance, strengthens India’s role as a regional power

Obama and President Singh receive military salute

 

[This article from the New York Times, the leading bourgeois paper in the US, is a useful description of the results of  Obama’s trip to India. However,as expected,  it leaves  many things unsaid and not analysed such as:  The substance of Obama and President Singh’s agreement on “homeland security”– focused on helping the Indian military suppress the rebellion for “azadi” (freedom) that erupted in Kashmir this summer, and on supporting the 200,000 Indian troops which are at present trying to suppress the struggle of the tribal peoples of India and clearing them off their land for the exploitation of their natural resources ( “Operation Green Hunt”); and the significance of the new trade ties that were negotiated that will facilitate increased investment and penetration by US corporations and military suppliers in India. The article also mentions only in passing China’s unhappiness with the agreements struck by Obama and Singh, which were in large part aimed at building tup the Indian economy and military as an counterweight to the  expansion of  China’s imperialist influence in South Asia through military and economic agreements with Pakistan and Sri Lanka.–Frontlines ed]

NEW DELHI — By endorsing India for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council, President Barack Obama on Monday signaled the United States’ intention to create a deeper partnership of the world’s two largest democracies that would expand commercial ties and check the influence of an increasingly assertive China.

Obama’s announcement, made during a nationally televised address to the Indian Parliament, came at the end of a three-day visit to India that won high marks from an Indian political establishment once uncertain of the president’s commitment to the relationship. Even as stark differences remained between the countries on a range of tough issues, including Pakistan, trade policy, climate change and, to some degree, Iran, Obama spoke of India as an “indispensable” partner for the coming century. “In Asia and around the world, India is not simply emerging,” he said during his speech in Parliament. “India has emerged.”

Mr. Obama’s closer embrace of India prompted a sharp warning from Pakistan, India’s rival and an uncertain ally of the United States in the war in Afghanistan, which criticized the two countries for engaging in “power politics” that lacked a moral foundation. It is also likely to set off fresh concerns in Beijing, which has had a contentious relationship with India and has expressed alarm at American efforts to tighten alliances with Asian nations wary of China’s rising power.

India: Demonstration called in Delhi to protest Obama’s visit

Obama speaking to US occupation forces in Afghanistan

Leader of War Mongers Looters and Exploiter of World People, US President Obama Go Back!

 

Join Demonstration at Jantar Mantar at 2 PM on 8 November, 2010

At a time when US imperialism has escalated the war against Afghanistan and is even extending this war by assaults by NATO forces led by it against northern districts of Pakistan, leader of warmongers, looters and exploiters of the world people, President of USA, Barack Obama, is visiting India from 6^th Nov. 2010.

Since Obama came to power, US forces have increased their numbers several times over in Afghanistan. There are innumerable proven instances of deliberate targeting of innocent civilians by these forces in the name of “targeted” attacks on “enemy”.  In essence, US imperialism under Obama administration is continuing the Bush era attempt of a permanent base in Afghanistan from where it will interfere in central Asia. India should be in the forefront of opposing the US move. Let us use the opportunity of Obama’s visit to strongly demand that US and NATO forces immediately withdrawn from Afghanistan.

It was 2001 that US imperialism under Bush had launched its current war, which the world people were told was against ‘terrorism’. War was launched first against Afghanistan and later against Iraq. In reality wars were launched to further the quest of US imperialism for hegemony over the world’s oil resources and also to establish military dominance over the world.

In essence, the Obama administration is continuing the aims of Bush era but it has only changed rhetoric. US under Obama has made a mockery of his promises of withdrawal of forces from Iraq, keeping a huge army stationed there in the name of ‘aid’ to local troops. While Afghanistan is the main theatre of war, US continues a sharply aggressive stance on West Asia and Central Asia. On Palestine, Obama has no policy different from the earlier one and continues backing Israel against the just fight of the Palestinian people.

India-China Power Games in Nepal

Pramod Jaiwal, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses

September 16, 2010

A month after the visit to Nepal by Shyam Saran as special envoy of the Indian Prime Minister, a delegation of 21 senior Chinese leaders led by He Yong, vice-premier and secretary at the secretariat of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, arrived in Kathmandu on September 11, 2010 on a six-day visit.

This is the highest-level Chinese delegation to visit Nepal since the beginning of the peace process.  The visit also coincided with news about a controversial audio tape purportedly containing a conversation between Krishna Bahadur Mahara, International Bureau Chief of the Unified CPN-Maoist, and an unknown Chinese, in which Mahara is heard asking for 500 million rupees to buy off 50 lawmakers required to form the government under Prachanda’s leadership. This tape brought China into the internal political debate of Nepal for the first time. As of now, it is not known whether the tape is genuine or not. If it is genuine, then it indicates a serious shift in China’s policy towards Nepal. It can be seen as the beginning of Chinese interference in Nepal’s internal affairs.

The Chinese have always adopted a pro-establishment policy towards Nepal. Experts emphasize that Nepal-China relations are based on the Five Principles, or Panchsheel, according to which China will not intervene in Nepal’s domestic politics and Nepal will respect China’s sovereignty and territorial integrity with respect to Tibet and Taiwan.