NEW DELHI: Nepal’s Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli criticised India on Friday for taking alleged human rights abuses in the Himalayan nation to a UN Human Rights Council meeting in Geneva, Indian reports said.

India, in a break from tradition, raised the issue of alleged war crimes committed during the decade-long conflict at an international forum and urged Nepal to carry out the transitional justice mechanisms in an effective way.

Also read: Nepal tells India to mind its own business

Nepal got strong support from major Indian groups. Launching a scathing attack on the Indian government’s handling of the situation, the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of adopting a “confrontationist attitude to bully” Nepal.

An editorial of the party’s weekly journal ‘People’s Democracy’ said that the party supported the Madhesis with an eye on Bihar polls.

“Narendra Modi and the BJP were also willing to harm relations with Nepal for the sake of winning support of the Madhesis who have a substantial trans-border presence in the neighbouring areas of Bihar, keeping in mind the assembly elections there,” the editorial read.

Speaking to the media in Kathmandu, Mr Oli wanted to know how India could be ignorant that the UN was involved in Nepal’s peace process.

He said India had not made its position public earlier on Nepal’s transitional justice mechanisms or their efficacy but raised the issue at an international body.

India’s representative in Geneva had said that Nepal should “ensure the effective functioning of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and full implementation of its recommendations, including prosecution of those responsible for violent insurgency”.

India’s rightwing Hindu revivalist Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), of which Prime Minister Modi has been a leading official, has traditionally supported the deposed Hindu king of Nepal. RSS leaders want to see Nepal as a role model of a Hindu Rashtra, which they also want to establish in India.

However, the recently promulgated secular constitution in Nepal has robbed them of that dream.

India’s criticism of Nepal at the UN is being widely interpreted in Kathmandu as another example of Delhi’s harsh stand vis-a-vis Nepal, reports said.

“Some days back, one of the leaders from our neighbourhood publicly warned that India will show its mettle against Nepal.”

“Now, they are digging out a decade-old-issue,” he added.

The prime minister said Nepal had formed the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and another commission to investigate the disappeared people to address war crime issues such as killings, torture and rape.

“We faced war in the past. Then we realised it was not possible to have war all the time. So we initiated the peace process,” said Mr Oli, adding that Kathmandu also invited the UN to resolve the armed conflict.

“The conflicting parties in the past are together today and carrying out democratic and peaceful reforms, whether they are in the government or not,” he said.

It may be added that CPI-M chief and editor of the ‘People’s Democracy’, Sitaram Yechury, is a popular figure among Nepali politicians and played a key role in bringing the Nepal’s Maoists and its chief Prachanda to mainstream politics.

The CPI-M weekly echoed foreign policy experts who have expressed concerns that India’s tough position has moved Nepal closer to China.

“Nepal was compelled to approach China and an agreement was arrived at whereby 1,000 metric tonnes of petrol are being supplied by China through the land route from Tibet. The foreign minister of Nepal has gone to the United Nations to complain about the Indian-inspired blockade. Most of the Saarc countries have expressed concern about the blockade faced by the Nepali people,” said the CPI-M editorial.

Published in Dawn, November 7th, 2015

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