1. We salute the people of Nepal whose heroic struggle and overwhelming participation by the masses has won the first round of the battle.

2. We congratulate the seven party alliance who have maintained their unity and have agreed on a name for the Prime Minister with a genuine unanimity. We also note with satisfaction that in the ultimate analysis the king and his apologists saw the writing on the wall and returned the power where it actually belonged. We only wished that the king should not have usurped the power in the first place so that the life of dozens of martyrs for democracy; injury to thousands of people and inconvenience to millions would have been avoided. We are only sad that even in this era of democracy, Nepali people had to pay a heavy price to win back their freedom.

3. We are also satisfied that in spite of occasional wavering, the overall thrust of Indian state including its security and its foreign establishments has been in favour of democracy. But this is more because of millions of Nepali people on streets, legacy of anti-imperial, anti-colonial struggle led by Gandhi ji and other patriotic forces that even our foreign policy bureaucrats and security agencies had to engage with the crisis in a manner which eventually went in favour of the Nepalese democracy.

4. However, as Indians we are very embarrassed at the initial reaction of the Indian government and Mr. Karan Singh in welcoming the first Address of King Gyanendra on Friday last which sought to draw a wedge between the seven party alliance and the Maoists. We are only sad that our political leadership of the ruling alliance has lost its confidence and forgotten country’s glorious and vigorous traditions of Indian democracy. Howsoever competent or patriotic our foreign secretaries and defence secretaries might be, they are always likely to commit the kind of mistakes of welcoming a speech which did not offer anything to the struggling people of Nepal. Although this round has been accomplished fairly satisfactorily primarily by the bureaucrats, it will not be advisable to carry on in this manner. Because, the future transition is much more complex and requires good amount of political goodwill and sagacity from India.

5. We are very clear that it is the political leadership in tandem with think tanks in the country and movement organizations working among the poor masses who should join forces in India to lend a helping hand not only to the fragile democracy of Nepal but also to the democratic forces in Myanmar and other parts of Asia.

6. People to people dialogue on the challenges faced by the democratic forces is different and has to be different than the EU and US model of exporting democracy through the structures of corporate led states and their regimes irrespective of their colour. The way EU and US were trying to pressurise the Nepali political parties is really a source of anguish and pain. It raises a real alarm in the minds of democratically minded people in the entire planet that how the regimes from the states claiming to be robust democracies almost side with the King and not with millions of people.

7. We only assure all shades of Nepali political opinion that all shades of Indian polity with the sole exception of BJP RSS stream, we will always be with the people of Nepal and their absolute sovereignty in charting out their course of nation building and development.

8. We must convey to the SPA + 1 alliance that Indian struggling people are hopeful that Nepali political leadership will innovate in the multi party democracy in a way that the idea of last person first and ensuring the participation of marginalized majority in to the nation building process becomes integral part of their polity. The Indian polity has still not been able to stop chasing the mirage of corporate controlled consumer paradise. The adversarial and populist framework of our polity allows the continuation of old exploitative structures and gives space to new neo-imperialist penetrations.

9. We are confident that the phenomenal proportions of peoples’ participation (without arms) has generated enough democratic energy in the country and political goodwill globally that a strong, sovereign, prosperous, open and egalitarian polity and society will be reconstructed sooner than many of us can ever imagine today.

With revolutionary greetings,

Vijay Pratap
National Convener - Socialist Front

Harsh Mander
Democratic Socialism Globally Forum

Socialist Solidarity Centre For Nepali Democracy
Conveners : Raghu Thakur, Subhash Lomte, Harsh Mander, Vijay Pratap
147 A, Uttarakhand, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi - 110067