All roads lead to Delhi
Kathmandu: The medical check-up of Nepali leaders in Delhi continues. Some have recently come back after being thoroughly examined by India's noted and widely acclaimed medical practitioners.
Some are scheduled to make yet another trip to New Delhi to get the "report".
It is only after the publication of the report, the Indian doctors would offer their medical advices to the Nepali leaders on how, when and where they could buy the medicines for their respective ailments.
Certainly, the medicines that Nepali leaders need are available only in Delhi and thus their making trips to Delhi becomes logical and farsighted as well.
President of the Nepali congress, Girija Prasad Koirala has already returned after having his medical check up in Delhi and appears quite confident of his health now. So is the case with UML leader, Madhav Nepal, who also landed Kathmandu the other day but with a promise to the doctors there that he would soon come to see them to fetch his medical report.
Upon his return from Delhi, Mr. Nepal beamingly said that the doctors there not only have assured him that they will cure his ailments, if any, but would also contribute significantly in providing a better medicine for the country's ailments. Madhav Nepal, the UML leader is all set to go to Delhi soon.
Sounds interesting.
So this way Nepali politics came into action the whole of the last week leaving the majority of the population to guess as to what would happen now after the Delhi meet of Nepali leaders including those from the Maoist with the Indian leaders and men belonging to the Indian officialdom.
The speculation thus continues yet.
So far what has become increasingly clear is that Delhi has begun taking special interest in Nepal's issue. What is also now clear from what have appeared in both the Nepali and the Indian press is that New Delhi invited practically all the major political actors and managed a platform for talks with each other. The talks were held in a cordial atmosphere in between the leaders of the congress, the UML and the Maoists.
The sudden landing in Delhi of American Ambassador James Moriarty last week also made it abundantly clear that New Delhi remains pivotal to the solution to the Nepali ailments and that without Delhi's consent on these matters a solution can't be found. Moriarty's trip to Delhi suggests that the US has now no illusion that India's overt and covert support were always with the Nepali Maoists and that the rebels deliberately or otherwise accorded nice treatment by the establishment there. This gets reflected from a news story printed in a prominent Indian newspaper Sunday which claims that the meeting in between the Nepali leaders with the Maoists were conducted under the aegis of the Indian establishment. The paper even says that the government there set the meeting place at an official guesthouse. The Indian government so far has not refuted the claims made by the Pioneer daily which means the talks were sponsored by the establishment there.
Analysts say that the happening of such secret parleys in between Nepal's major political actors does tell the gravity of the situation in Nepal and also speaks of the need to get the country out from the continuing constitutional crises. But then again the question comes: why such meetings be held outside the boundaries of the country? Why can't we all meet right inside our own territories?
Some congressmen said that why not Delhi? They forward the claim that the Maoists can't be invited to Nepali places for talks as they have been dubbed as terrorists?
Detractors on the other side hasten to answer by saying that New Delhi was the one to declare the Nepali rebels as terrorists much ahead of Nepal 's declaration of the same.
It is said that New Delhi simply managed the platform for the talks this time and maintained a silence as if nothing were happening in Delhi. This could have been done to show the world community that look how concerned we are about Nepali crisis.
Thanks that some Nepali leaders have assured the population that national interests will noit be put to jeopardy while having talks in Delhi. This announcement is not that bad.
But what are New Delhi's intentions? What political gains she has in her mind to extract benefits from a somewhat weakened Nepal? Or is it a free lunch?
Questions galore indeed. But the hard fact is that all the Nepali roads appear to be directed towards Delhi. What a mockery of Nepal's integrity and sovereignty?
