Gajurel (Rupinder Sharma)

New Delhi, Jan. 30: To forestall any “mischief” by King Gyanendra and to address the concerns of the people of Terai, Nepal Maoists want several steps taken immediately, including the interim legislature declaring Nepal a democratic republic.

Central Committee member of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) C.P. Gajurel, currently visiting India, said: “We want all parties to agree to a common formula of proportional representation in the Constituent Assembly. We want that everybody agree to a federal and not unitary state. And we want the parties to declare Nepal a democratic republic right away and then go for the Constituent Assembly election or else the king will continue with his mischief.”

The royalists have been stoking the fire in Nepal’s Terai, taking advantage of the people’s discontent there. Two of the main demands of the Madhesis, the inhabitants of Terai, have been a presence in the Constituent Assembly and the state structure in proportion to their population and a federal state.

Gajurel, who was in Delhi to attend a conference of expatriate Nepalese (Nepali Janadhikar Suraksha Samiti India), said: “We would like to make a request to India and all Indian political parties that they should not allow hooligans from Bihar and UP to go inside Nepal and indulge in looting and arson. As far as the problem of the people of Terai is concerned, we are capable of dealing with it.”

The Maoists in Nepal were “instrumental in making the people of Terai aware of their right to self-determination, federalism and proportionate representation even though Madhesi resentment had existed for quite some time”, he pointed out.

The Maoist leader rejected the notion that raising the demands of various “nationalities, ethnic and linguistic groups” could lead to separatist movements. “It is only by strengthening the rights of all ethnicities and nationalities in Nepal would our national unity be strengthened,” he argued.

Gajurel, who spent 40-months in Indian jails — 38 months in Chennai and two in Jalpaiguri — on charges of travelling on a fake passport and sedition, respectively, displayed no bitterness towards India.

The Bengal government had slapped sedition charges and cases under the National Security Act against him for allegedly organising a Maoist meeting in north Bengal earlier.

He recalled: “After interrogation at Chennai airport, at one point the Indian authorities asked me whether I would like to go back to Kathmandu or go to Frankfurt instead. I preferred Frankfurt. So they knew that I was doing nothing against Indian interest and was going to Europe only to get support for the people’s revolution in Nepal. Where was the need then to implicate me in different cases and incarcerate me for so long?”

Was he more upset with New Delhi or Calcutta? “One of the leaders of the CPM, Sitaram Yechury, was working for our cause. At the same time the party government in Bengal was implicating me in false cases. This was the dubious treatment meted out to me by the CPM government,” he recalled with a wry smile.

Denying that his attitude towards India had become negative, Gajurel argued that when his party said “equi-distance” from China and India, it was at the policy level. He commended the Indian policy of supporting an alliance between the Maoists and the political parties, although after failing in attempts to keep them out.

He pointed out: “There are specificities in the Nepal-India relations which no one can ignore like open borders and free travel. We do not have an open border with China and whatever border we have is neither easily accessible nor sees much traffic. Almost nine million Nepalese live in India. Can we ignore that? So it is not correct to say that the Maoists want to keep India at a distance.”