Recently, Nepal’s finance minister and a senior Maoist leader Baburam Bhattarai asked leaders not to visit India and instead make indigenous efforts to complete the constitution making process. Bhattarai’s appeal came at a time when leaders belonging to various parties as well as former King Gyanendra had undertaken the journey southward. But coming from someone perceived as India’s most trusted man in the Maoist party, the appeal has become a matter of intense speculation. Is it an indicator of growing distrust over India’s policy and attitude towards Nepal less than three years after it encouraged the Maoists and the pro-democracy parties to join hands on the anti-monarchy agenda and work together for peace and democracy?

And strange enough, Bhattarai’s sermon comes at a time when his hero and prime minister Prachanda is all set to make an official trip to China — his second in less than nine months — in the midst of the exchange of high level visits of the Maoists and Chinese groups in an unprecedented number — something that India is not at all comfortable about. The last few months of Maoist rule in Nepal has seen China’s level of presence and interest in Nepal going far beyond the Tibet issue. China is keen to sign a new treaty of peace and friendship with Nepal when the prime minister visits Beijing, most likely in early May. Experts say that as Nepal is passing through a far more unpredictable and unstable phase, China wants its enhanced role defined and legitimised. The projection of India as a factor of instability and the undue ‘beneficiary’ of Nepal’s resources, mainly hydro-power, apparently make Nepal’s tilt with China all the more desirable,

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