“If and when Sri Lanka comes to peace with itself it too may become more eager than it is today to resume the role it had been the first to play in South Asia, after India, in bringing constitutional democracy to South Asia.”______________________
by Pran Chopra in New Delhi
(April 23, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) In my column on February 5 this year, I had touched upon my first meeting with Mao Zedong, which had taken place in China in 1944. In that article, I had talked about Mao’s impact on China’s neighbours. I am reminded of much of that by the current debate on Nepal in the context of "Mao" and "Maoism".
Two themes stand out in this context. First, the influence of physical proximity of China on the concerned neighbour, and second, the influence of societal similarities or dissimilarities between China and that particular neighbour.
Whether this proximity arouses apprehensions, as it does among some neighbours of China, or it arouses hope, which also it does among other neighbours, it is certainly a factor in determining the strength of China’s influence on its neighbourhood.
Both themes can be well illustrated by the examples of India and China in their respective neighbourhoods. Geographically, the two countries are as close as any two large countries can be. But, in spite of the similarities between the cultural history, they have also become very dissimilar in recent years in socio-political terms.
Their bilateral relations offer examples of both themes mentioned above. These examples need to be kept in mind as we look, first, at the recent events in Nepal, second, at the impact of these events upon Nepal’s relations with India and China, respectively, and third, their influence on the relations between India and China themselves.
Of all countries in South Asia, it is Nepal that been passing through the most far-reaching changes in the past year or two. Pakistan may be a close competitor, but Nepal is closer to the context.
First, the newer leaders of Nepal have proved to be outstandingly — and unexpectedly — able to rise well above their numerous internal cleavages, and thus have risen to the fullness of their new role as the latest exemplars on the democratic path. There will be many in Bangladesh who will take note of this example, and should the example catch on there as well, it may stir new hopes in another neighbour of Nepal, Myanmar.
Nepal may be too small in size for its example to wield that much influence. But it might have been made more potent by
the speed and efficiency with which Nepal has seized its chance despite its inexperience.
If and when Sri Lanka comes to peace with itself it too may become more eager than it is today to resume the role it had been the first to play in South Asia, after India, in bringing constitutional democracy to South Asia.
What role has Nepal’s "proximity" to China played in the events evolving in Nepal? Has it been so great as to make Nepal a satellite of China? Or so little as to show that India has no role as a counter-balancer in the Himalayan region?
And how potent has been that word "Maoist" which has been so often used to label Prachanda’s party? The label also occurs in the name of another party, "Unified Marxists-Leninists," which might soon have some role to play on the opposition benches in Kathmandu (unless it is co-opted before then by the "Marxist" government). But so far that word has not carried UML very far.
All this means only that the influence of one party upon another, whether within
the same country or on neighbours, depends much less upon words and names than upon the socio-political identities of the parties and countries in question.
In fact, an Indian does not need to go out of his country to see evidence of that. The Communist parties in power for years in Kerala and West Bengal have found it hard to penetrate the politics of districts which are not only near but contiguous with either of the two states. That fact of the imperviousness of the Indian areas adjoining West Bengal and Kerala is meaningful in the present context.
It is relevant to the fear that is sometimes expressed about what is often seen as an unbroken corridor running from the Sino-Nepal border to the jungles and wastelands of Andhra. This corridor is probably more open to political traffic, whether benign or subversive, than the country in and around Kerala and West Bengal. But whether subversion or more benign politics will pour through it from the Sino-Nepal border depends more upon what happens in the towns and villages of the corridor than upon the ruling regimes in China or Nepal.
Nepal itself is also proof enough of that. What has happened there is not the victory of either Chinese inspired subversion or any other communist or other plots
against India. It is only a by-product of years of wholly indigenous misrule and wrong-headed politics by the rulers of Nepal.
One should also remember the attrition, which the word Maoist has suffered even in the country of its origin, China. From being a word of honour for those for whom it was used once, it has become a word of political abuse. Its misuse now will have the same consequences.
Even currently, and in India too, that word has gained wider currency in areas, and about areas, which are better known for the socio-political and economic misrule by their present or past rulers, and which have yet to emerge into the broader pastures of democratic development.
Therefore, in looking for answers to what, where next and when after Nepal, one should not look for countries, which are qualified more by their proximity to a country identified with an ideology of choice. The "next" country is more likely to be found among those which are closer to being persuaded, as Nepal has proved, by the democratically determined will of its own people, than by external influences, whether they may have been pushed in by a close or a distant neighbour. Any other "next" chosen by criteria alien to the indigenous preference will not remain chosen for long.
This will also be the key to the direct bilateral relations between India and China. These will be influenced much more by their own judgments of what kind of equation between them is in their own best interests than by judgments made for them by others.
. - Sri Lanka Guardian
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