On the face of it, a ceremonial president asking an army chief to stay on after being sacked by the prime minister — even if arbitrarily — cannot be considered healthy in a democracy. While it could spark protests capable of causing serious injury to a nascent republic, it might also create precedents for any head of state in a time of crisis. But the extreme step that President Ram Baran Yadav took in Nepal has a background. Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (Prachanda) has since resigned in protest against the “conspiracy” that Yadav executed “at the instigation of foreign forces”; his most trusted colleague, Baburam Bhattarai, identified India as influencing the president’s move. Prachanda in particular, and the Maoists in general, are trying to create a martyr’s halo out of it. How tactical is that on the part of the Maoists, or is it real?

A close look at the situation, and at the background behind the stand-off between the Maoists and the Nepal army, shows that things took a turn for the worse when Prachanda sacked Gen Katawal, given that he bulldozed through all cautions and warnings — from his partners in the governing coalition, from the opposition, and from President Yadav. In the process, the PM not only undermined the office of the president, but also refused to recognise its existence, as he simply informed Yadav telephonically about the army chief’s sacking and the appointment of his successor — denying the president, as supreme commander of the army, the ceremonial role of formalising the change. The president’s role and rights are yet to be defined and articulated in the interim set-up, hence the PM’s refusal to recognise his ceremonial role and the president’s retaliation by directly ordering the sacked army chief to continue in his office. After all, the president had at least 20 of the 24 political parties in the country telling him that his failure to undo what Prachanda had done would lead to total capture of power by the Maoists.

... contd.