Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Second Impression

Comrade Prachanda, the new and promising star of Nepali politics as some would see him, is a changed personality.

He is not what he was till the other day. From a rebellion to a democrat.

From a revolutionary of the highest order, he is now a sophisticated politician. Or at least he is working hard to become a benign leader of this country.

Prachanda in the recent days and months has promised so many things to so many people.

His new vision is for converting Nepal from an agrarian society to the one that is a highly developed. Switzerland is his ultimate goal.

However, how he converts Nepal into what the Swiss nation is today will have to be watched.

Some even cut joke at him and say that if Prachanda is allowed to function with whatever state machinery and functionary we have at the moment in the country, then it is not Nepal attaining the Swiss height but it would be the Swiss nation coming below to the Nepali stature. However, this is just a joke.

Prachanda recently said that he found Indian establishment changing her dogmatic attitude towards Nepal. Well this is undoubtedly his perception.

His detractors say that it is not India that has changed its attitudes towards Nepal but it is Prachanda's considerations that have changed towards India.

To recall, it was Prachanda and his party colleagues who dubbed India as an "expansionist force". It was Prachanda and his party that prior to entering into the jungles had forwarded some forty point demands whose first four points were purely nationalistic to which the Indian establishment say as "anti-Indian" which were not as dubbed by India.

If Prachanda says that Indian attitudes towards Nepal have changed of late then this should mean that he and his party would not demand the outright abrogation of the 1950 treaty with India; if it were so then Prachanda would dismiss the nepali claims that India in the past encroached upon our lands; and this would also mean that Indian "hegemony" in Nepal have ceased to exist.

But then qualified intellectuals say Prachanda is wrong. India is same and will in no way change her attitudes towards Nepal. The fact is that Prachanda's observance of India could have changed in the process.

Be careful Prachanda! India is a different stuff. India can bend easily others. No one can bend India except Pakistan and China as has been experienced in the past. Your changed perceptions as regards India might lead you and your party to nowhere. At best what the UML is today, the Maoists will be the same tomorrow.

Handle with care! Politics is brittle.