Yet, going to the polls without the Maoists will minimise, to a large extent, the prospect of a foreseeable end to the 12-year old Maoist-led insurgency that has taken a toll of 13,000 lives. It’s equally challenging to hold them to their earlier pledge in Delhi, under a government initiative (in which Saran played the key role), that they would renounce the politics of violence and partake in competitive parliamentary politics. In the current context, however, it was as much a failure on the part of Indian government to not be able to assess that elections were not going to take place on November 22.

India’s Nepal policy seems to have failed. Similarly, there is a debate going on about whether the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN), headed by the Secretary General’s Special Representative Ian Martin, should be allowed to stay (with an enlarged mandate) beyond January 22, when its current tenure ends. While the government of Nepal is likely to write to the security council to have its tenure extended by another year, it is unlikely this will happen. UNMIN has been involving itself in Terai problems, where apart from peacefully agitating groups, more than a dozen armed groups, most of them based across the border, are demanding more political rights and inclusion in the decision making process.

India has backed the demands of the Terai groups, but the lack of consensus among the political parties in Nepal has delayed any action by the government. At the same time, China has been warning Nepal that the threat to the country’s stability because of the failure of the peace process will be a matter of special concern in the northern neighbourhood.

... contd.