Red Star Over Nepal

Nepal is now the sixth country in the world to have a Communist government in power, possible with the merger of various Leftist factions who fought a competitive democratic election to come to power. While it is premature to predict how long this Left unity will survive, the new government is a big foreign policy challenge for India.

- Subramanyam Chandrasekharan

On February 15, a Communist government took over power in Nepal sending shock waves not only to the democratic groups within the country but also to some in the neighbourhood.

This takeover was made possible when two major Communist Groups –United Marxist Leninists and the Maoist Centre – combined to form a ‘Grand Alliance’ to contest the elections jointly both at the provincial and national level elections.

The surge of the Communist parties was not unexpected but, perhaps, the surprise was the magnitude of the victory of the Leftists. The Leftist alliance swept the polls at both the national and provincial polls with the exception of Province No. 2 where the Madhesi groups (plains people of Indian origin) prevailed.

In terms of performance, it was one of the worst for the democratic groups led by the Nepali Congress who have themselves to blame for this huge setback. For India, which had supported shifty and incompetent leaders of these parties for quite some time, the decimation of the democratic groups was equally shocking and there was some initial panic. What must have caused concern to the Indian political circles was not the popularity of the Leftist groups but that these groups, particularly the CPN-UML, won an overwhelming majority on a campaign of ultra-nationalism and anti-Indianism.