By Siddharth Srivastava
NEW DELHI – It was an unexpected yet important statement, especially in the context of Washington seeking to build new bridges with New Delhi, with the purpose of countervailing Beijing’s overpowering influence in the region. China’s top envoy recently announced that Beijing was ready to help India crush its nagging Maoist insurgency that it one time directly promoted.
Chinese ambassador Sun Yuxi has said that Beijing did not even know why the Maoist guerrillas in India with strongholds in the states of West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh called themselves followers of the man who led the communists to victory in China in 1949.
“If there is any help [you expect] from us to India to get rid of them, we will try to do our best,” the diplomat told a news agency. “We are also wondering why they call themselves Maoists. We don’t like that. We don’t like that at home. We don’t have any connection with them at home. If they call themselves Maoists, we can’t stop that way. But definitely it [the Maoist movement in India] does not have any connection with the government of China.”
The ambassador said it was likely that some of the Maoist guerrillas possessed Chinese weapons, but this did not mean that they had any links with Beijing. He explained that China had channeled weapons to the anti-Soviet mujahideen guerrillas in Afghanistan during the 1980s in cooperation with Pakistan and the US. “A lot of them [were] lost in the black market and they spread everywhere. Even some Chinese terrorists were trained in Afghanistan. They went back with the Chinese weapons and they waged terrorist activities inside China. So, we were very sorry to see that … If there is anything that we can help to stop them [Indian Maoists], we would do.”
Yuxi’s pronouncements look very good on paper, but there is actually not much that China can do to help on Indian soil. Rather, officials in India see this sudden development as a diversion by Beijing to cover it extending its arms dealings with India’s neighbor Nepal, which is fighting a bitter battle against Maoists rebels who also draw support from the Indian rebels.
Beijing has been supportive of the royal dispensation in Nepal headed by King Gyanendra, who usurped power on February 1 this year by dismissing a democratically elected government. King Gyanendra has vowed to take on the challenge of the Maoist rebels that has cost over 12,000 lives in the past decade in Nepal, apart from disrupting business and tourism, the highest revenue earner.
India, on the other hand, has never been happy with King Gyanendra seizing power and, along with Britain and the US, imposed military sanctions immediately after the takeover. These were later removed for fear of Nepal seeking out China or Pakistan. Islamabad had quickly announced that it was willing to supply arms.
New Delhi has always been especially wary of Beijing extending military help to Nepal, with which it shares a porous border. It prefers a political rather than a military solution to the Maoist problems. India has thus kept a keen eye on recent interactions between Kathmandu and Beijing.
The chief of the Royal Nepalese Army, which is fiercely loyal to the king, recently visited Beijing and announced that Nepal had decided to buy military equipment from China, including AK-47 rifles and possibly aircraft. Nepal’s foreign minister, too, has visited China and brought back US$12 million in hard cash.
India has provided arms worth over $100 million to Nepal over the past three years, and these form the key resource in the battle against the communist rebels. However, it is extremely squeamish about any other nation’s involvement in the affairs of Kathmandu. Both the US and Britain see India as the “lead” nation through which all negotiations with Nepal are conducted.
Officials say that it is significant that Yuxi’s statements came in the wake of the US pushing relations with India to a higher plane, including recognition as the sixth nuclear state of the world, joint production of arms and higher business activity.
India and China, meanwhile, have made considerable progress in setting aside niggling border issues, with India toning down its diatribes on Tibet and concentrating on building trade ties. But the US shadow still hangs over this relationship.
And just as US support for India comes with the added condition of New Delhi bowing to Washington’s dictates on Iran and its nuclear program, the Beijing posturing over the Maoists comes with a pill that could be just as bitter for India. With Beijing looking to support King Gyanendra, India may not be left with much of a choice but to also back the king to rein in Beijing’s influence, even though the king’s uncompromising approach to the Maoists goes against what India is trying to do.
New Delhi feels that it is in its best interest that a solution to the Maoist insurgency in Nepal emerges within the precincts of the kingdom without any spillover into India. A collapsing Nepalese economy and the specter of thousands of unemployed Nepalese citizens illegally migrating to India creates a fresh set of humanitarian as well as law and order problems.
A democratically elected government is Nepal is the best cushion not only against an all-out assault against the Nepalese Maoists, but also the best bet for any form of dialogue happening, with the king playing an indirect role at best. India believes that the dismissal of democracy in Nepal will only fuel the Maoist cadres, who will be easily convinced of the anti-people nature of King Gyanendra’s administration and add fire to the already existing angst against the monarchy.
In April this year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met King Gyanendra in Jakarta and persuaded him to lift the state of emergency in the Himalayan kingdom, though the clampdown on politicians and the media continues, amid popular protests.
Indeed, New Delhi has also been orchestrating several back-channel efforts to restore democracy in Nepal. According to reports, Indian intelligence agencies have been chaperoning Baburam Bhattarai, one of Nepal’s top Maoist leaders, organizing meetings with Indian left party leaders. India is trying to convince the Maoists to join the pro-democracy alliance in Nepal, not crush them, as Beijing and Kathmandu want to do.
Siddharth Srivastava is a New Delhi-based journalist.
