THE EFFECT OF NEPAL'S MAOIST VICTORY ON INDIA'S LEFT

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KOLKATA 000134

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SENSITIVE
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DEPT FOR SCA/INS AND INR

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PTER PREF PGOV PINR IN NP
SUBJECT: THE EFFECT OF NEPAL'S MAOIST VICTORY ON INDIA'S LEFT

REF: A) KOLKATA 104, B) KOLKATA 127, C) 07 KOLKATA 109, D) KOLKATA 66, E) 07 KOLKATA 297

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1. (SBU) Summary: Eastern Indian security officials are
concerned about the implications of the Communist Party of Nepal
- Maoist (CPNM)'s victory in the April 10 Constituent Assembly
(CA) elections for regional stability. Indian leaders have
sought to put the best face on the CPNM's success, but security
analysts are concerned about the implications for India. Senior
Nepali Maoists such as CPNM Politburo Member Chandra Prakash
Gajurel and others have been arrested or detained in India,
Nepali Maoists are believed to have in the past conducted
attacks in Bihar, and Indian and Nepali Maoists have issued
statements of mutual support. In addition, local Indian
officials are also concerned that the Nepali Maoists could take
advantage of the recent agitations of ethnic Nepalis in northern
West Bengal for a Gorkhaland state. The Gorkhaland agitations
build on concerns about earlier Nepali Maoist efforts to support
the formation of the Communist Party of Bhutan
-Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (CPB-MLM). Indian officials hope that
the CPNM's victory in the CA elections will bring them within
the democratic fold and away from their earlier rhetoric of
South Asia-wide revolution. However, even if the Nepali Maoists
change their behavior and rhetoric, India's Maoists are unlikely
to lay down their weapons soon. Rather, the CPNM's success
serves as encouragement to Indian Maoists to continue their
violence until they have the leverage to gain greater political
advantage. It also should be a lesson to senior GOI policy
makers that Indian Naxalite/Maoists movements could end up
bidding for power at the top unless the legitimate grievances
they channel are addressed with urgency and unless the violence
and the terrorism these movements embody is suppressed early on
by a combination of hard and soft power. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Indian leaders are seeking to portray the CPNM's CA
election victory in a positive light. On April 15, Minister
for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee called CPNM Leader Pushpa
Dahal (aka Prachanda),congratulating him and expressing a
desire to work with the Maoists. Indian leaders hope that the
CPNM, will end its revolutionary violence and rhetoric, and
serve as a model for the Communist Party of India-Maoist
(CPI-Maoist). Speaking in West Bengal on April 14, Communist
Party of India - Marxist (CPM) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury
exhorted India's Maoists to follow the Nepali Maoists' example,
saying publicly in an April 14 speech in West Bengal that, "The
most militant practitioners of the Maoist ideology in South Asia
have opted for peaceful elections realizing the futility of
armed struggle. Indian Maoists should learn from them and
consider coming back to the peaceful democratic process."
(Comment: Yechury has spent the past few years carving out a
role for himself in mediating India's engagement with the CPNM.
In 2006 he served as an interlocutor between the then
Seven-Party Alliance and the Nepali Maoists (though it was clear
that he shared ideological sympathies and supported the Maoists)
and held talks with Prachanda and PM Koirala on Nepal's peace
process. End Comment.) Yechury and the CPM leadership have been
keen to encourage the CPI-Maoist to follow the CPNM as the
CPI-Maoists have been waging an ideological battle against the
CPM and have consistently targeted and killed CPM politicians in
West Bengal (reftel a).


3. (SBU) However, local officials do not believe that the
Indian Maoists will give up their weapons any time soon. Sikkim
University Vice Chancellor Mahendra Lama, who was an election
observer in Nepal, and who maintains an extensive network of
connections in the narrow "chicken's neck" between Nepal,
Sikkim, Bhutan and Bangladesh, told Post that the Nepal election
results will have little impact on Indian Maoists as, "their
objectives and visions are quite different." Rather, the CPNM's
success will likely inspire the CPI-Maoists to continue their
violence. Attacks in India have continued since the CPNM's
victory. On April 13 in Bihar, over 100 Indian Maoists attacked
the busy Jhajha railway station, killing six people including
four railway security personnel (reftel b).


4. (SBU) In addition to the inspiration that India's Maoists
may take from the CPNM, local officials fear that the rise of
the CPNM may have security implications for India. In August
2002, the CPNM and the CPI-Maoists were instrumental in
establishing the Conference of Co-ordination Committee of Maoist
Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA). The
CCOMPOSA Declaration states, "The unity of Maoist forces must
primarily be based on upholding M(arxism)-L(eninism)-M(aoism),
not only in theory, but more in particularly in its application

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to practice, of which advancing the People's War is the
principal task. Besides, as one of its main tasks, CCOMPOSA has
to focus its attack on Indian expansionism, which is the main
bulwark of reaction." The Declaration adds that "The Indian
Expansionist State, backed by . . . U.S. imperialism,
constitute the common enemy of the people of South Asia. This
provides a concrete political basis for building unity of the
South Asian revolutionary forces." (Note: The full text of the
Declaration is available at
http://cpnm.org/new/ccomposa/ccomposa_index.h tm. End note.) A
series of ten points for achieving unity of Maoist Parties in
South Asia includes the following problematic language:

Build a broad front with the on-going armed struggles of the
various nationality movements in the subcontinent.


8. Lend mutual assistance and exchange experiences . . .
amongst Maoist forces.


9. Coordinate and consolidate the unity of Maoist Parties and
Organizations in South Asia.


5. (SBU) The CCOMPOSA Declaration could be dismissed as simply
aspirational language. However, other factors appear to
demonstrate that the Maoist presence in Nepal has had an impact
in India. For instance, Bihar police officials have noted to
ConGen the significant number of Nepali Maoists detained in
local prisons and the regular movement of insurgents back forth
across the porous Nepal-India border. Reflecting this, high
level Nepali Maoists arrested in India have included CPNM
Politburo Member Chandra Prakash Gajurel, Standing Committee
Member Mohan Baidya, and Central Committee Member and General
Secretary of the All Nepal Peasant Organization Chitra Bahadur

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Shrestha. (Note: Embassy Kathmandu notes that no senior Nepali
Maoist leaders have been arrested after April 2006. End note.)
In June 2004, Prachanda issued a press release condemning
Shrestha's arrest noting, "The Indian police has arrested some
cadres and leaders including the Central Committee members of
our Party Comrade Kul Prasad KC, Comrade Lokendra Bista, Comrade
Kumar Dahal, Comrade Hitbahadur Tamang Comrade Anil Sharma,
Central Advisory Committee member Comrade Chitra Bahadur
Shrestha while coming to Patna the capital of Bihar state of
India in relation to the Party work and physical treatment. Our
Party, having denouncing the arrest against those
revolutionaries who have been fighting against the feudal
autocrats for the real democracy, forcefully urges the immediate
release of them." Strikingly, Prachanda's release admits that
the officials were conducting "party work" and "fighting feudal
autocrats" while in Bihar. The GOI later released Gajurel,
Baidya and Shrestha in 2006 after much prodding from Yechury as
a confidence building measure with the CPNM.


6. (SBU) An apparent example of Nepali-connected violence in
India was the attack in March 2007 when about 200 suspected
Nepali Maoists attacked a small village block in the Sitamarhi
district of North Bihar, killing one security guard and injuring
a dozen civilians. The Maoists assaulted the local police
station for weapons and a bank branch for money (reftel c) and
escaped across the border to Nepal.


7. (SBU) The CPMN's rise presents concerns as it comes at time
of changing political dynamics in the Eastern Himalayas. In
March, Bhutan had its first democratic parliamentary elections.
In January and February, prior to the elections, Bhutan
experienced a series of bomb explosions. Following the February
4 explosions, a Royal Bhutan Police spokesman said that
"Investigating officials recovered leaflets of the Communist
Party of Bhutan based in Nepal from the scene threatening to
stop the national Assembly elections." The CPNM supported the
creation of the CPB-MLM and the CPB-MLM's first press release
was published through the CPNM website. Local security
officials have expressed to ConGen the concern that the CPNM,
flush from its success in Nepal, could seek to replicate its
approach in Bhutan, using the disgruntled Nepali community in
Bhutan as a wedge. During a March 22-26 visit to Bhutan by
Political Minister Counselor, Bhutanese officials unanimously
attributed the violence in the run-up to Bhutan's first
parliamentary elections to Nepal-based groups supported by
Nepal's extremist communist parties. (Embassy Kathmandu
Comment: Despite this history, it is uncertain how the CPNM
will behave towards Bhutan and ethnic Nepali Bhutanese refugees
in Nepal. End Comment.)

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8. (SBU) PolOff discussed these connections with IPS officer
Gaurav Dutt (protect) who is the Inspector General for
Intelligence in north Bengal. Dutt was emphatic that Nepali
Maoists were heavily active in the area, particularly in
training and arming almost any underground group that might
share its anti-government sympathies.


9. (SBU) India has also been experiencing agitations since
December 2007 among the Nepali population in northern West
Bengal, which has reasserted demands for a new Gorkhaland state
(reftel d). The Gorkhaland movement is being led by Bimal
Gurung and his Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJMM) party. According
to Dutt, Gurung recently sent 20 members of his GJMM to Nepal
for weapons training with the Youth League of the Communist
Party of Nepal. In March Gurung met with the leadership of the
Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party and Kamtapur Progressive
Party, representing tribal and adivasi separatists in the Cooch
Behar area, to expand the proposed Gorkhaland state into the
narrow Siliguri corridor. The Siliguri corridor, or "chicken's
neck," is only 13 miles wide between Nepal and Bangladesh at its
narrowest point and is the only land access to India's sensitive
Northeast hinterland. Gurung and GJMM have already at times
shut down transportation through the Siliguri corridor during
the height of agitations in March. India faces the disturbing
prospect of access to its Northeast, including areas in
Arunachal Pradesh which are in dispute with China, subject to
the whims of the firebrand Gurung and the Nepali community.


10. (SBU) Comment: Indian officials as well as CPM leaders
hope that the CPNM's victory in the CA elections will bring them
within the democratic fold and away from their earlier rhetoric
of South Asia-wide revolution. However, even if the Nepali
Maoists change their behavior and rhetoric, India's Maoists are
unlikely to lay down their weapons soon. Rather, the CPNM's
success serves as encouragement to Indian Maoists to continue
their violence until they have the leverage to gain greater
political advantage. In addition, Nepali communities in West
Bengal and Bhutan are looked at with suspicion as they may serve
as a fifth column for the CPNM, should it retain its
revolutionary ways and seek to expand its Himalayan red bastion.



11. (SBU) Comment continued: While the Prime Minister and
other senior GOI have occasionally raised India's
Naxalite/Maoists movements as a serious internal security
threat, the Indian state has yet to develop a comprehensive
policy to address the issue. For the most part, poorly trained
and ill-equipped local police forces are the ones that deal with
the Naxalites/Maoists and their response is wholly inadequate
for the threat at hand. The CPNM's runaway success in the Nepal
election should be a lesson to senior GOI policy makers that
Indian Naxalite/Maoists movements could end up bidding for power
at the top unless the legitimate grievances they channel are
addressed with urgency and unless the violence and the terrorism
these movements embody is suppressed early on by a combination
of hard and soft power.


12. (U) This cable was coordinated with AmEmbassies New Delhi
and Kathmandu.
JARDINE