The greatest advantage that the government of India can hope to gain from the Maoist victory in Nepal is that it would have a demonstration effect on the Maoists in India. However, Azad had addressed this issue directly: “It is the wishful, subjective thinking of these parties (CPI and CPM) that the developments in Nepal will have a ‘positive’ (by positive, what they mean is the Maoists shunning armed struggle and joining the so-called mainstream of parliamentary politics) impact on the Maoist movement in our country.” He added that the true Maoists would never accept the parliamentary path. However, this shows that Azad and his colleagues have been concerned about the impact these new developments in Nepal would have on their colleagues and cadres in India. Now that the Nepalese Maoists have won such a landslide victory, it would be difficult to convince Indian Maoist cadres that victory can only be achieved through armed revolution. The significance and the implications for India, resulting from the Maoist electoral victory, have to be seen from this point of view. In fact, for the Nepalese developments to be of any good to India, the Maoists had to win.

This is not to say that there is no cause for worry. The Nepalese Maoists have adopted tough postures all along the way, even after they signed their agreement with the Seven Party Alliance in November 2005. Bhattarai spoke, in the run-up to the elections, about the Maoists being capable of taking over the state within ten hours (in case the other parties rigged the elections). The Young Communist League has been accused of various acts of violence and aggression. However, it is not to be forgotten, as the International Crisis Group has pointed out in its report on the Nepal elections, that other political parties too resorted to their own brands of violence during the campaign, but it was the so-called Maoist atrocities which were highlighted by the media, both Nepalese and international.

... contd.