That saw the Maoists toning down their rabidly anti-Indian stance, so it was a surprise to hear Maoist supreme Prachanda proclaim, in an interview to BBC’s Nepali service, that he was in favour of the people of Kashmir being given the right to self-determination to resolve the problem. Prachanda also said the same right should be given to people in India’s north-east states.

New Delhi’s reactions aren’t yet known but the statements will certainly not go unnoticed, and Prachanda’s main interest also seems to be to generate some kind of reaction. But why did he choose to comment on something which Nepal has long considered an ‘internal matter’ of India?

One explanation is that Prachanda, faced with doubts over his party’s anti-imperialist and anti-feudal credentials after pursuing ‘politics of compromise’ with Indian assistance, felt the need to dispel the impression effectively. What could be a better way of doing things than what he did?

Prachanda’s statements came, no doubt, as justification of the CPN-M policy that Nepal should have about nine ethnic provinces with all of them enjoying the right to self-determination. Does this stretch to the right to secede? Not always, was what Prachanda hinted. In fact, West Bengal’s very anti-Maoist (Nepali) policy is dictated, of course, by the state’s history or behavior of intolerance towards naxalites in the early 70s. Large-scale presence of the Nepali Maoists there, especially after 2001, and their instigating the Nepali speaking hill people to assert the right to self-determination, gave fresh evidence to the state government to treat the Nepali Maoists almost at par with the Naxalites of the past. SitaramYechury’s encouraging the Nepali Maoists to join the political mainstream ostensibly in the hope that this could set an example for Indian Maoists to follow may not have full concurrence of the CPM Government in West Bengal. In fact, it would be for the CPM in general and Yechury in particular to react to what Prachanda has said.

Maoists who are engaged in dialogue with the government in search of a negotiated settlement of the insurgency that has already taken a toll of around 13,000 lives have said they would not go back to the jungle even if the talk fails. They know, more than anyone else, that they cannot resume activities in India as they had when the anti-Royal political movement was gathering steam, with full Indian support. Encouraging Maoists to be part of the competitive parliamentary party system was part of that plan. But India is also insisting that the Maoists should not be included in the interim Government till they have laid down arms.

This, Prachanda feels, is a betrayal by India. And on this pre-condition, Maoists also see India moving closer, in alliance with the US, to retain the Monarchy¿something the rebels want to uproot once and for all. Even Prime Minister Koirala was accused by the Maoists of having followed a “diktat” from these two countries when said he wants the ‘ceremonial monarchy’ to retain some space.

Clearly, for the Maoists, those who do not concur are either supporters of the US or India at the moment. But it would be interesting see if Prachanda sticks to his opinion on Kashmir and north-east once the decks are cleared for his party’s entry into the interim Government. A retreat from that¿either out of pragmatic realization or under pressure¿would be at the cost of his image of a ‘revolutionary’.