Here is the whole commetry from newssight...
http://www.indiareacts.com/archivedebates/nat2.asp?recno=1179
C O M M E N T A R Y
Nepal crisis II
Once again, India is being tested, on drug-related charges against Nepal?s royal family.
7 July 2005: India has a new Nepal problem. The US FBI and Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) are investigating Nepal?s crown prince, Paras, for international drug running. Paras has a terrible reputation, as a bully and a thug, and his role was never cleared in the assassination of King Birendra and his family in 2001. To that extent, anything suspected against Paras should not surprise.
But the size of the drug charges against him are huge, and what amazes is that he has escaped exposure so far, and not even a whisper upto now, although that he had a drug habit is well known. In December last year, a US ally in South East Asia (Intelligence, ?CBI, DEA probe Nepal prince?s drug links,? 6 July 2005) began investigating new drug markets in the region, and the trail lead to Nepal.
That country?s investigators visited Nepal in the guise of tourists, and further inquiries implicated Paras. Paras was invited for a tourism promotion event in the country, and when Paras went over, he consorted with druglords who were under surveillance. Their taped conversations further nailed Paras, at which point, US agencies were tipped off for independent corroboration. Less than three weeks ago, the FBI and DEA sought the assistance of the covert agencies, the CBI, and the Narcotics Control Board.
Officials said they knew Paras had a drug habit, but nothing that warranted this scale of international investigation. But US agencies are panicking, because the interests of the Nepalese royal family in drugs, and not Paras alone, are growing by leaps and bounds. Seven years ago, when Paras is said to have entered the drug business, the stakes of the royal family were less, but they have grown enormously now.
This is not a matter for India to deal alone, because Paras?s drug networks reach beyond South Asia, and he is therefore, if FBI and DEA reports are to be believed, an international criminal. Moving against him would destabilise the Nepal monarchy, and possibly deprive King Gyanendra of an early male successor, since Paras?s son, Hridayendra, is four years old.
It is not a matter of Paras alone, though. The royal family as a whole, or a majority of it, is involved in the drug trade, and it is their fast expanding role which is panicking US agencies. This would suggest the drug charges have a hot chance to rock the Nepalese monarchy as a whole, which is when the issue explodes from a drug rap to one having major international implications, and one constituting a manner of foreign policy crisis in the neighbourhood for India. Nepal without a monarchy, or a monarchy bust apart by drug charges, is unthinkable.
A section of government lead by Natwar Singh and the Left would rather have Nepal without the monarchy, a model republic that shares very good relations with India, without the royalty flirting with China/ Pakistan, flirting with ideas like a Nepalese nuclear-free zone, and entertaining notions of spirited independence. No one can bet that Nepal-India relations will be wonderful without a monarchy, and no one can say with any certainty that the majority of Nepalese will accept such a situation.
Anyhow, the prime minister, Manmohan Singh, was not willing for such hare-brained schemes when he resumed military aid in principle to Nepal to fight the Maoist insurgency after a meeting with Gyanendra in Jakarta in April. Days ago, non-lethal military supplies were cleared for the Royal Nepalese Army despite Left opposition. Since these supplies were cleared with knowledge of the drug rap against Paras and potentially involving the entire Nepalese royal family, it is fair to assume that the government wants to wait and watch the situation. Nothing can be more sensible, but it is necessary that we have our own calculations.
It is key to resolve if we are looking at Nepal without a monarchy, and to this writer, it looks a scenario fraught with risks. Regime change, replacing an ancien regime with a new one, always excites strategists and foreign policy hawks, but if Iraq?s example is anything to go by, or Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion in 1979, the experiment can turn into disaster. One cannot determine what turn nationalism will take, and Afghanistan first and Iraq, one each for superpowers, the USSR and the US, turned into jihadi training grounds.
Better perhaps a known enemy than an unknown friend, and this is truest for Nepal, bordered by India?s strategic rival, China, and penetrated by India?s enemy agency, the ISI. Without the king, who gives identity to the Nepalese, gives them a sense of nation, the Chinese could carve out territories in Nepal producing fake Tibetan maps, if anyone dared ask them to prove their claims, that is, the Maoists will have the run of other areas, and the ISI and jihadis will grab most of the border areas with India to press down on us. Nepal?s border areas with India are hot with jihadi fervour, and it would surprise no one if the Ayodhya terrorists penetrated from there. So, can we handle the situational crisis of Nepal without the monarchy?
Soviet Russia lost Afghanistan, and broke up shortly thereafter, and sooner or later, America is going to give up on Iraq. We set up a new nation called Bangladesh, Indira Gandhi with her enormous energy, vision, and dare, did so, but what a monstrosity we have created, which kills our border troops, succours our North East terrorists, and illegally migrates masses of its population into this country. Are we upto taking the burdens of Nepal after this?
Nepal requires cool thinking and calculation, after the military aid mess up courtesy Natwar Singh and the Left. On one hand, it is none of our business, because like with Gyanendra?s dismissal of an elected government on 1 February, the drug trading of Nepal?s royal family and crown prince Paras are Nepal?s internal affair. But at the same time, subtly to begin with and more savagely as it progresses, it is not, not Nepal?s internal matter, but cause for our concern as well.
But the important lesson from the last blunder is to weigh our interests completely and entirely, and then proceed to fulfil it by our light, and not depend on anybody to do so, beyond taking such small international assistance as becomes unavoidable. But no grandstanding, no Natwar Singh-type display of idealism and pomposity, because they wear well on no one, especially together. It is inescapable that we have to address the Nepal drug crisis, but let us do it away from the limelight, and with nil media glare. Let us see if we can do something sensibly after all.
