C. Raja Mohan: India's options in Nepal are not many

As the political crisis in Nepal deepens, India will have to consider some difficult policy choices in the coming days. The blockade of the capital Kathmandu enforced this week by the Maoists in Nepal could be the tipping point in the brutal civil war in the Himalayan kingdom.

The final or penultimate phase of strategic offensive by the Maoists to wrest control of state power in Nepal is at hand.

The Maoists, who have gained considerable clout in the countryside in Nepal in the last few years have now demonstrated their power to paralyse the capital by the mere announcement of a blockade of the capital. The blockade has come amidst growing bomb attacks in the capital and the forced closure of many companies, including Indian ones.

The current blockade could provide the trigger of a general insurrection in Kathmandu that engineers the collapse of the state in Nepal. Alternatively, the Maoists could withdraw the blockade after signaling their capacity to mortally wound the state and extract many political concessions. Either way, the crisis in Nepal has entered a defining moment.

India's current Nepal policy has three components. First is military assistance to Kathmandu in enhancing the capabilities of the Royal Nepal Army to counter the violence of the Maoists. India sees the rise of Maoists as a threat not merely to Nepal but also itself.

India has a unique relationship with Nepal and is obliged under a 1950 treaty to offer protection to the state in Kathmandu. For New Delhi, Nepal's war against Maoists was intimately linked to its campaign against the terror of the left wing extremist groups within India.

Second, New Delhi called for a restoration of the balance between Constitutional monarchy and multi-party democracy to strengthen the ability of the Nepali state to deal with the grave crisis.

Third, New Delhi impressed upon Kathmandu that there can be no military victory against the Maoists and a political dialogue is necessary to address the genuine grievances of the people that the movement has articulated. As the Maoists gain ground, this three-fold policy of India has come under stress.

Position of strength

One option for India is to continue to press for a reconciliation between King Gyanendra and the mainstream political parties to get their act together and unitedly face the Maoist threat and negotiate peace from a position of strength. But there is no guarantee that is approach will find any better results than in the recent past.

It is this pressure from New Delhi that compelled Gyanendra recently to pick a new Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, and hand over executive powers to him.

But this has turned out to be too little and too late from an inept but ambitious monarch. His move has neither dissolved the divisions within the political parties nor bridged the growing gap between the monarch and the political parties.

Despite the threat of state collapse staring in its face, the notoriously fractious Nepali political establishment has not been either willing or capable to sink political differences within itself and face the national crisis in a purposeful manner.

The Maoists have mastered the art of playing elements of the Nepali establishment against each other and increase their own power steadily. There is nothing at the moment to suggest that the threat of execution will concentrate the minds of the Nepali establishment.

A second option for India would be to extend unconditional political support to Gyanendra. It is probable that the King has been betting on this outcome for quite some time and could be preparing to take all power into his own hands.

Gyanendra might have assessed that when the final crunch comes, and it is with us now, India and the international community will support him in the war against the Maoists. As the Nepali state teeters on the brink of extinction, the King's logic could go on, New Delhi and Washington have no choice but stay with the monarchy's attempts to preserve order with or without the constitutional niceties.

Aligning with Gyanendra, would make India deeply unpopular.

It would pit India against both the political parties who intensely dislike the monarch and the Maoists who want to overthrow the monarchy.

It would force India into sharply raising the levels of military assistance to the Royal Nepal Army, and drag it deeper into the civil war.

Under the third option, India could choose to reconcile itself to the inevitability of the collapse of the current political order in Nepal and begin to engage the Maoists. Offering assurances that they mean no harm to Indian interests, the Maoists have repeatedly demanded a dialogue with New Delhi.

While contacting the Maoists has always been an option for New Delhi, engaging them will not be an easy choice for India. Maoists have used terror as a deliberate instrument and engaging them could be a huge and costly compromise in India's own war on terrorism. Further, it could involve accepting a potentially hostile regime in a nation that shares open borders with India's heartland.

A fourth set of options would involve a military intervention either directly by India or an international force to prevent the emergence of the first left wing revolutionary government in the history of Subcontinent.

India's own ardour for military intervention in its neighbourhood has cooled considerably since its last disastrous experience in Sri Lanka in the late 1980s. India has also traditionally been opposed to letting the United Nations have a say in managing the regional conflicts within its neighbourhood.

As the crisis in Nepal unfolds, India will have to choose between many unpleasant and probably ineffective options. But the first step in New Delhi must be to devote urgent political attention to potential state failure in Nepal.

C. Raja Mohan is Professor of South Asian Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and a columnist on world affairs.