VZCZCXRO9237
PP RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHLH RUEHPW
DE RUEHCI #0134/01 1190410
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 280410Z APR 08
FM AMCONSUL KOLKATA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1978
INFO RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHINGTON DC
RUEILB/NCTC WASHINGTON DC
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC
RUEIDN/DNI WASHINGTON DC
RHMFIUU/CDR USPACOM HONOLULU HI
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING PRIORITY 0149
RUEHCI/AMCONSUL KOLKATA 2415

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KOLKATA 000134 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR SCA/INS AND INR 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PTER PREF PGOV PINR IN NP
SUBJECT: THE EFFECT OF NEPAL'S MAOIST VICTORY ON INDIA'S LEFT 
 
REF: A) KOLKATA 104, B) KOLKATA 127, C) 07 KOLKATA 109,  D) KOLKATA 66, E) 07 KOLKATA 297 
 
KOLKATA 00000134  001.2 OF 003 
 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary:  Eastern Indian security officials are 
concerned about the implications of the Communist Party of Nepal 
- Maoist (CPNM)'s victory in the April 10 Constituent Assembly 
(CA) elections for regional stability.  Indian leaders have 
sought to put the best face on the CPNM's success, but security 
analysts are concerned about the implications for India.  Senior 
Nepali Maoists such as CPNM Politburo Member Chandra Prakash 
Gajurel and others have been arrested or detained in India, 
Nepali Maoists are believed to have in the past conducted 
attacks in Bihar, and Indian and Nepali Maoists have issued 
statements of mutual support.  In addition, local Indian 
officials are also concerned that the Nepali Maoists could take 
advantage of the recent agitations of ethnic Nepalis in northern 
West Bengal for a Gorkhaland state.  The Gorkhaland agitations 
build on concerns about earlier Nepali Maoist efforts to support 
the formation of the Communist Party of Bhutan 
-Marxist-Leninist-Maoist (CPB-MLM).  Indian officials hope that 
the CPNM's victory in the CA elections will bring them within 
the democratic fold and away from their earlier rhetoric of 
South Asia-wide revolution.  However, even if the Nepali Maoists 
change their behavior and rhetoric, India's Maoists are unlikely 
to lay down their weapons soon.  Rather, the CPNM's success 
serves as encouragement to Indian Maoists to continue their 
violence until they have the leverage to gain greater political 
advantage.  It also should be a lesson to senior GOI policy 
makers that Indian Naxalite/Maoists movements could end up 
bidding for power at the top unless the legitimate grievances 
they channel are addressed with urgency and unless the violence 
and the terrorism these movements embody is suppressed early on 
by a combination of hard and soft power.  End Summary. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) Indian leaders are seeking to portray the CPNM's CA 
election victory in a positive light.   On April 15, Minister 
for External Affairs Pranab Mukherjee called CPNM Leader Pushpa 
Dahal (aka Prachanda), congratulating him and expressing a 
desire to work with the Maoists.   Indian leaders hope that the 
CPNM, will end its revolutionary violence and rhetoric, and 
serve as a model for the Communist Party of India-Maoist 
(CPI-Maoist). Speaking in West Bengal on April 14,  Communist 
Party of India - Marxist (CPM) Politburo member Sitaram Yechury 
exhorted India's Maoists to follow the Nepali Maoists' example, 
saying publicly in an April 14 speech in West Bengal that, "The 
most militant practitioners of the Maoist ideology in South Asia 
have opted for peaceful elections realizing the futility of 
armed struggle.  Indian Maoists should learn from them and 
consider coming back to the peaceful democratic process." 
(Comment:  Yechury has spent the past few years carving out a 
role for himself in mediating India's engagement with the CPNM. 
 In 2006 he served as an interlocutor between the then 
Seven-Party Alliance and the Nepali Maoists (though it was clear 
that he shared ideological sympathies and supported the Maoists) 
and held talks with Prachanda and PM Koirala on Nepal's peace 
process. End Comment.)  Yechury and the CPM leadership have been 
keen to encourage the CPI-Maoist to follow the CPNM as the 
CPI-Maoists have been waging an ideological battle against the 
CPM and have consistently targeted and killed CPM politicians in 
West Bengal (reftel a). 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  However,  local officials do not believe that the 
Indian Maoists will give up their weapons any time soon.  Sikkim 
University Vice Chancellor Mahendra Lama, who was an election 
observer in Nepal, and who maintains an extensive network of 
connections in the narrow "chicken's neck" between Nepal, 
Sikkim, Bhutan and Bangladesh, told Post that the Nepal election 
results will have little impact on Indian Maoists as, "their 
objectives and visions are quite different."  Rather, the CPNM's 
success will likely inspire the CPI-Maoists to continue their 
violence.  Attacks in India have continued since the CPNM's 
victory.  On April 13 in Bihar, over 100 Indian Maoists attacked 
the busy Jhajha railway station, killing six people including 
four railway security personnel (reftel b). 
 
¶4.  (SBU)  In addition to the inspiration that India's Maoists 
may take from the CPNM, local officials fear that the rise of 
the CPNM may have security implications for India.  In August 
2002, the CPNM and the CPI-Maoists were instrumental in 
establishing the Conference of Co-ordination Committee of Maoist 
Parties and Organizations of South Asia (CCOMPOSA).  The 
CCOMPOSA Declaration states,  "The unity of Maoist forces must 
primarily be based on upholding M(arxism)-L(eninism)-M(aoism), 
not only in theory, but more in particularly in its application 
 
KOLKATA 00000134  002.2 OF 003 
 
 
to practice, of which advancing the People's War is the 
principal task.  Besides, as one of its main tasks, CCOMPOSA has 
to focus its attack on Indian expansionism, which is the main 
bulwark of reaction."  The Declaration adds that "The Indian 
Expansionist State, backed by  . . . U.S. imperialism, 
constitute the common enemy of the people of South Asia.  This 
provides a concrete political basis for building unity of the 
South Asian revolutionary forces."  (Note:  The full text of the 
Declaration is available at 
http://cpnm.org/new/ccomposa/ccomposa_index.h tm.  End note.)  A 
series of ten points for achieving unity of Maoist Parties in 
South Asia includes the following problematic language: 
 
Build a broad front with the on-going armed struggles of the 
various nationality movements in the subcontinent. 
 
¶8.      Lend mutual assistance and exchange experiences  . . . 
amongst Maoist forces. 
 
¶9.      Coordinate and consolidate the unity of Maoist Parties and 
Organizations in South Asia. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The CCOMPOSA Declaration could be dismissed as simply 
aspirational language.  However, other factors appear to 
demonstrate that the Maoist presence in Nepal has had an impact 
in India. For instance, Bihar police officials have noted to 
ConGen the significant number of Nepali Maoists detained in 
local prisons and the regular movement of insurgents back forth 
across the porous Nepal-India border.  Reflecting this, high 
level Nepali Maoists arrested in India have included CPNM 
Politburo Member Chandra Prakash Gajurel, Standing Committee 
Member Mohan Baidya, and Central Committee Member and General 
Secretary of the All Nepal Peasant Organization Chitra Bahadur 
 
SIPDIS 
Shrestha.  (Note: Embassy Kathmandu notes that no senior Nepali 
Maoist leaders have been arrested after April 2006.  End note.) 
In June 2004, Prachanda issued a press release condemning 
Shrestha's arrest noting, "The Indian police has arrested some 
cadres and leaders including the Central Committee members of 
our Party Comrade Kul Prasad KC, Comrade Lokendra Bista, Comrade 
Kumar Dahal, Comrade Hitbahadur Tamang Comrade Anil Sharma, 
Central Advisory Committee member Comrade Chitra Bahadur 
Shrestha while coming to Patna the capital of Bihar state of 
India in relation to the Party work and physical treatment.  Our 
Party, having denouncing the arrest against those 
revolutionaries who have been fighting against the feudal 
autocrats for the real democracy, forcefully urges the immediate 
release of them."  Strikingly, Prachanda's release admits that 
the officials were conducting "party work" and "fighting feudal 
autocrats" while in Bihar.  The GOI later released Gajurel, 
Baidya and Shrestha in 2006 after much prodding from Yechury as 
a confidence building measure with the CPNM. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) An apparent example of Nepali-connected violence in 
India was the attack in March 2007 when about 200 suspected 
Nepali Maoists attacked a small village block in the Sitamarhi 
district of North Bihar, killing one security guard and injuring 
a dozen civilians.  The Maoists assaulted the local police 
station for weapons and a bank branch for money (reftel c) and 
escaped across the border to Nepal. 
 
¶7.  (SBU) The CPMN's rise presents concerns as it comes at time 
of changing political dynamics in the Eastern Himalayas.  In 
March, Bhutan had its first democratic parliamentary elections. 
In January and February, prior to the elections, Bhutan 
experienced a series of bomb explosions.  Following the February 
4 explosions, a Royal Bhutan Police spokesman said that 
"Investigating officials recovered leaflets of the Communist 
Party of Bhutan based in Nepal from the scene threatening to 
stop the national Assembly elections."  The CPNM supported the 
creation of the CPB-MLM and the CPB-MLM's first press release 
was published through the CPNM website.   Local security 
officials have expressed to ConGen the concern that the CPNM, 
flush from its success in Nepal, could seek to replicate its 
approach in Bhutan, using the disgruntled Nepali community in 
Bhutan as a wedge.  During a March 22-26 visit to Bhutan by 
Political Minister Counselor, Bhutanese officials unanimously 
attributed the violence in the run-up to Bhutan's first 
parliamentary elections to Nepal-based groups supported by 
Nepal's extremist communist parties.   (Embassy Kathmandu 
Comment:  Despite this history, it is uncertain how the CPNM 
will behave towards Bhutan and ethnic Nepali Bhutanese refugees 
in Nepal.  End Comment.) 
 
KOLKATA 00000134  003.2 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶8.  (SBU) PolOff discussed these connections with IPS officer 
Gaurav Dutt (protect) who is the Inspector General for 
Intelligence in north Bengal.  Dutt was emphatic that Nepali 
Maoists were heavily active in the area, particularly in 
training and arming almost any underground group that might 
share its anti-government sympathies. 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  India has also been experiencing agitations since 
December 2007 among the Nepali population in northern West 
Bengal, which has reasserted demands for a new Gorkhaland state 
(reftel d).  The Gorkhaland movement is being led by Bimal 
Gurung and his Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJMM) party.  According 
to Dutt, Gurung recently sent 20 members of his GJMM to Nepal 
for weapons training with the Youth League of the Communist 
Party of Nepal.  In March Gurung met with the leadership of the 
Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party and Kamtapur Progressive 
Party, representing tribal and adivasi separatists in the Cooch 
Behar area, to expand the proposed Gorkhaland state into the 
narrow Siliguri corridor.  The Siliguri corridor, or "chicken's 
neck," is only 13 miles wide between Nepal and Bangladesh at its 
narrowest point and is the only land access to India's sensitive 
Northeast hinterland.  Gurung and GJMM have already at times 
shut down transportation through the Siliguri corridor during 
the height of agitations in March.  India faces the disturbing 
prospect of access to its Northeast, including areas in 
Arunachal Pradesh which are in dispute with China, subject to 
the whims of the firebrand Gurung and the Nepali community. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Comment:   Indian officials as well as CPM leaders 
hope that the CPNM's victory in the CA elections will bring them 
within the democratic fold and away from their earlier rhetoric 
of South Asia-wide revolution.  However, even if the Nepali 
Maoists change their behavior and rhetoric, India's Maoists are 
unlikely to lay down their weapons soon.  Rather, the CPNM's 
success serves as encouragement to Indian Maoists to continue 
their violence until they have the leverage to gain greater 
political advantage.  In addition, Nepali communities in West 
Bengal and Bhutan are looked at with suspicion as they may serve 
as a fifth column for the CPNM, should it retain its 
revolutionary ways and seek to expand its Himalayan red bastion. 
 
 
¶11.  (SBU) Comment continued:   While the Prime Minister and 
other senior GOI have occasionally raised India's 
Naxalite/Maoists movements as a serious internal security 
threat, the Indian state has yet to develop a comprehensive 
policy to address the issue.  For the most part, poorly trained 
and ill-equipped local police forces are the ones that deal with 
the Naxalites/Maoists and their response is wholly inadequate 
for the threat at hand.  The CPNM's runaway success in the Nepal 
election should be a lesson to senior GOI policy makers that 
Indian Naxalite/Maoists movements could end up bidding for power 
at the top unless the legitimate grievances they channel are 
addressed with urgency and unless the violence and the terrorism 
these movements embody is suppressed early on by a combination 
of hard and soft power. 
 
¶12.  (U) This cable was coordinated with AmEmbassies New Delhi 
and Kathmandu. 
JARDINE