New Delhi, May 21
The latest fiat from Nepal’s royalist government of not tolerating public criticism of King Gyanendra during pro-democracy protests beginning tomorrow is being seen here as a signal to India and the international community that the King is not prepared to blink first.
Indian Ambassador to Kathmandu Shiv Shanker Mukherjee, who went to the Nepalese Foreign Office yesterday, was given a hard talk on how Kathmandu did not like the Indian Government’s public support to Nepalese political parties’ struggle for restoration of multi-party democracy in Nepal.
Significantly, Mr Mukherjee had not been summoned by the Foreign Office and had gone on his own.
The perception in South Block is that it is a no-step-forward-and-two-steps-backward kind of situation in Nepal as King Gyanendra continues to project an anti-India approach in the belief that this is his best bet to consolidate his position.
The Indian Government is keeping a close watch on the dynamic situation in Nepal.
An Indian defence consignment is set to be dispatched to Nepal. The consignment, comprising binoculars, jeeps, trucks, night-vision devices and bulletproof jackets, will be the first since the February 1 royal coup of King Gyanendra.
However, India has not sent — and is unlikely to send in near future — lethal arms and ammunition to Nepal.
The official Indian position is that no lethal arms have been sent to Nepal since February 1 and whatever the Indian Government has agreed to send to Kathmandu are those non-lethal defence goods that were in the pipeline when India suspended its military supplies to Nepal.
The question of Indian arms supplies to Nepal was raised by a delegation of Nepal’s six political parties, which met External Affairs Minister K. Natwar Singh in his South Block office yesterday.
Mathura Prasad Ghimire of the Nepali Congress, who was part of the delegation, told this correspondent today that the minister assured them of sending only a non-lethal defence consignment to Nepal and withholding supply of lethal weapons to the country till democracy was restored there.
However, diplomatic sources countered this and said Natwar Singh did not give any such assurance to the Nepalese
delegation.
