#441 6 - 12 March 2009 16 pages Rs 30 Weekly Internet Poll # 441 Q. How do you grade the six months of the coalition on development issues? Total votes: 3,181 Weekly Internet Poll # 442. To vote go to: www.nepalitimes.com Q. How confident are you that the constitution will be written by April 2010? PICS: KIRAN PANDAY Present arms he tit-for-tat recruitment by Last month, while addressing insider, who said applications FORWARD MARCH: The Nepal the Maoist army this week in the PLA in Chitwan, Dahal told were being sought but the PLA did Army (top) and the Maoist army T response to the Nepal Army them they were no longer a Maoist not necessarily want to follow are bogged down in a dispute over taking in 3,000 new soldiers has army but would take orders from through with actual recruitment. recruitment and integration. escalated tensions between the the Army Integration Special The other reason the PLA two armies, but it has also Committee. This didnít go down recruitment may be a moot point is exposed a serious rift within the well with the fighters, and party because up to 6,000 soldiers from by Narayan Kaji Shrestha, Maoist party. hardliners quickly cashed in on various cantonments have endorsed the Nepal Army Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal the murmurings of discontent. voluntarily retired since UNMINís recruitment on Saturday. The battle Dahalís mediation skills, praised The announcement by PLA verification process, according to moved to the courts after a single even by his adversaries, will be commander Nanda Kishore Pun PLA sources. bench gave severely tested this week as he that the Maoists would begin their Even so, Dahal is playing a opposing tries to bridge the gap between the own recruitment appears to be two-track game. He hopes to also decisions on EDITORIAL two armies he commands, while more of an effort to quell internal use the threat of PLA recruitment the case on Doublethink p2 simultaneously trying to appease dissent rather than challenge the to improve his bargaining strategy Tuesday, his own restless guerrillas. Nepal Army. Pun is regarded as a vis-‡-vis Army Chief Katawal who forcing the issue to a full bench of staunch Dahal loyalist. has stubbornly refused to bow the Supreme Court. ìThe PLA recruitment is down to Defence Minister Ram The Special Committee is a symbolic gesture,î Bahadur Thapaís insistence that meeting again on Friday to resolve admitted one Maoist the armyís own recruitment the issue once and for all, but process be aborted. indications are it will not go away The high-level Political until the two armies learn to trust Coordination Committee, chaired each other more. Dewan Rai 2 EDITORIAL 6 - 12 MARCH 2009 #441 Published by Himalmedia Pvt Ltd, Editor: Kunda Dixit CEO: Ashutosh Tiwari Design: Kiran Maharjan Marketing Manager: Sambhu Guragain Asst Manager: Subhash Kumar Marketing: Arjun Karki Subscriptions: 5542535/5542525 Hatiban, Godavari Road, Lalitpur GPO Box 7251, Kathmandu 5250333/845 [email protected] Fax: 5251013 www.nepalitimes.com Printed at Jagadamba Press 5250017-19 Forward march The Nepal Army should reflect the diversity of the nation it defends DOUBLETHINK n the late 1980s, while Army Chief Rukmangat the Pakistan Army been the reason With only a year to go for writing a new constitution, teams of CA working at a college in Katuwal wants to keep the Nepal for Pakistan’s recurrent military members have fanned out across the country this week to collect I Kathmandu, I had gone to Army politics-free and rule? Has the Sinhalese folk wisdom. the then-Royal Nepal Army’s professional during this domination of the Sri Lankan In many places, this is the first time that elected Bhadrakali recruitment centre confusing transition, and this Army been the cause of Sri representatives have gone back to their constituencies for a year. with an applicant from my deserves support. But eyebrows Lanka’s long civil war? A The questions from voters are more about jobs, inflation, health and education than about demarcating the boundaries of Nepal’s village in the eastern Tarai. were raised when he told the budding democracy like ours proposed federal units. They are flummoxed by the questionnaires. This young man’s dream was National Interest Preservation must ponder these questions. There was always a mismatch in this country between the to be an officer in the army. A Committee recently that army There was a time when only obsession with politics of Kathmandu’s rulers, and the people’s major had endorsed his recruitment was like Ranas could be high ranking overwhelming desire for development. That gap, instead of application, a requirement for mountaineering expeditions officers. In the Panchayat period, narrowing after the most inclusive election in our nation’s history hiring only Sherpas. the scope was widened to include last April, has actually widened. The rulers look for power and This was an unfortunate Thakuris. Then on, a mix of hill GUEST COLUMN how to retain it, and haven’t made the correlation that the best statement and showed that many ethnicities were inducted into the way to stay in power is to deliver on promises made to improve Pramod Mishra in the Nepal Army still harbour officer corps. And even the people’s lives. the colonial myth of genetically- Bahuns, whom the British The Maoists beat everyone else by proposing a federal recruitment. I had heard that determined bravery, that courage expressly barred from its Gurkha structure, and this week they scored again by leaking a draft constitution. Even if it is not accepted in totality, the draft will now Madhesis were not taken, but I is intrinsic to specific ethnic regiments, went into combat roles. set the agenda for future discussions. By putting the prototype didn’t quite believe that. groups. The army needs to But there have been few visible constitution up on his website, Baburam Bhattarai could be I walked into the office and seriously rethink its history and efforts to open its doors for Tarai pre-empting an even more radical formulation from warriors in placed the application before an role if such myths are still held people in its officer corps despite the camps. amiable young officer in charge of as given. The composition of changes in the political system But even this ‘soft’ draft gives an handling armies in multicultural since 1990. ominous whiff of totalitarianism with recruitment. He democracies shows that bravery Change, however, doesn’t its provision to ban all groups with looked at me, is not genetic but depends on mean that anything goes in the ‘feudal’ and ‘imperialist’ tendencies. looked down at the creation of historical name of inclusivity. However, This is newspeak for ensuring that the application circumstances and needs. what defines capability in a only the group that reserves the and said: “Where In the United States, the colonial or authoritarian political right to declare others ‘feudal’ will prevail. The Maoist draft envisions is he from?” I Blacks were not considered battle culture may not work in a an Orwellian world where ignorance told him. He worthy until they took part by pluralist democracy. It may not is strength and thoughtcrimes are smiled and said necessity and demonstrated their produce the kind of bravery and punished by Big Brother. that although he courage while fighting for their courage needed to defend a Just about every clause of the would give the liberation during the Civil War. heterogeneous state and its draft statute prepared by the documents to It took two World Wars, Vietnam complex sovereignty. A coordinator of the Maoist his boss, as far as and Korea to make the US multicultural army that represents Constitution Suggestion Collection he knew nobody military inclusive and change all groups and classes is the best Committee is objectinable. Ok, its from the Tarai the idea of bravery associated safeguard for democracy. stated objective is to spark debate, had ever been with ethnicity. The Nepal Army has so far but the timing is suspicious. It has given The Mahars and Bengalis in shown professionalism during the come out just as the CA members have gone forth to collect inputs commission in India were thought to be ‘not transition from monarchy to from the people. the army. man enough’ and ‘unwarlike’ by republicanism. It has had to Those familiar with the working I still don’t the British in comparison to the overcome naysayers to respond to style of Maoist organisations know know if it was mythical valour of the Marathas, the changing times as it adapts to what to expect when opinions are written policy the Sikhs and the Rajputs. But help in the birth of a new, solicited by young toughs with red not to recruit there are Bihari, Mahar and inclusive Nepal and a new, bandanas who ask for a unanimous Tarai people in Bengali regiments in the Indian vibrant army that reflects the show of hands. the officer rank or an unstated but Army. Nehru and Ambedkar nation it defends. It needs to In one revealing passage in Orwell’s 1984, a member of the understood code to disallow made sure that the Indian Army continue its flexibility and Thought Police explains to Winston Smith how the system Madhesis. The army is still represented all castes and dynamic history while functions: “The motivation of the Inner Party is not to achieve a struggling to march with the ethnicities to make it truly maintaining its core values to future paradise but to retain power, which is an end in itself.” cultural and political inclusive of Indian diversity.