https://thehimalayantimes.com/opinion/dabbling-in-diplomacy-in-asia-the-focal-point-of-the-world
By Hisila Yami
Published: 01:33 pm Aug 27, 2024
Regarding the Maoist movement, he was a keen observer of political events in Nepal and an advocator of the monarchy’s abolition and a stable Nepal
S.D. Muni’s book ‘Dabbling in Diplomacy’, otherwise a very specialised book but written lucidly with his life intertwined with teaching, research and diplomacy combined with brushings with politicians and revolution, is interesting to read. What makes this book relevant for this region, in general, and Nepal, in particular, is that today the focus of the world is on the fast growing economies of China and India. And Nepal is sandwiched between the two.
Reading the introductory chapter on his upbringing and struggle to reach where he is today, is particularly interesting. The similarity in the upbringing of both S.D. Muni (SDM), the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) professor-turned ex-diplomat, and Baburam Bhattarai (BRB), the JNU student-turned former Prime Minister of Nepal, is striking. Both came from a lower middle class family away from the power centres, Delhi and Kathmandu. Both reached the capital on their meritocracy, and both were supporting their family members with the stipend they received. Both married fellow students studying the same subjects while living in hostels. And both have faced accusations by politicians in their respective countries.
The only difference is that BRB as an ideologue and a politician was trying to create a revolution and did so in Nepal despite all odds. And SDM was a restless professor in JNU dabbling not only in diplomacy but also with the minds of politicians of the region, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Laos. And because he was intruding into the minds of politicians, he was always at odds with the rigid bureaucracy of his own country.
The second and third chapters on Nepal, spanning from the 1960s to the 2010s, makes for an interesting read on the dynamics of political upheavals in this country. Within 50 years, Nepal went from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional multiparty system to again an absolute monarchy and now a Federal Democratic Republic. No wonder Muni loves to keep track of what is happening in Nepal.
I once asked him about the many ups and downs in India-Nepal relations, to which he said: ‘Too close to be comfortable’. His engagement with the embassies, media people, politicians, security personnel and bureaucrats to get his views heard makes interesting reading. No wonder, in the conclusion, he points out: at the end of the day, what one learns through textbooks and classroom teaching is different from practice. Elaborating on it he says, foreign policy decisions have three layers: i) the things thought, ii) the things said and iii) the things done. Intelligence lies in observing each part and in sequences and ultimately in a package.
Regarding the Maoist movement, he was a keen observer of political events in Nepal and an advocator of the monarchy’s abolition (without violence) and a stable Nepal (by mainstreaming the Maoists).
After reading the two chapters on Nepal, I could not help remembering him on three occasions. Before the People’s War started, we landed in his house when BRB, myself and a Nepali Sanskrit student had run into trouble within the JNU compound past mid-night after three local goons tried to kidnap me with sexual intentions. Somehow we miraculously escaped the attack, and the nearest building was Muni’s residential flat. As the students’ dean, we took shelter there for a few hours before the police arrived.
During the people’s war, I fondly remember him giving me some practical advice: ‘Hisila, power is a means to practise your ideology’, which I kept repeating to my ideology-oriented husband, BRB. After the war and after we had left the Maoist Party, he again nudged me: ‘Tell BRB not to leave the Maoist Party, stay and fight from within.’
The fourth chapter on Sri Lanka made me all the more curious. Just when the people’s war in Nepal was at its peak (2001-5), he was narrating to us the LTTE activities in Sri Lanka and how the Indian establishment was getting entangled in it. I realised how different our war was operating in comparison to the LTTE movement in Sri Lanka. The LTTE was annihilating politicians who differed from them to the extent that they even tried to kill Chandrika Kumaratunga, who later on became the president of the country. The LTTE killed Rajib Gandhi in his own country.
In Nepal’s context, we were interacting with the political parties against the king. We were also in touch with international forces, including India. While the LTTE was sending women cadres as suicide bombers under the political banner ‘liberation and death’, in Nepal the Maoists were organising women cadres under the banner ‘liberation or death’ by politically motivating them to fight the security personnel.
Having read on conflicts in Nepal and Sri Lanka, the next chapter on Laos and SDM’s ambassadorial tenure in that country reads like a touristic journey to the East Asian country. One wonders why Muni chose to go to Laos instead of Sri Lanka where his rich research, political acumen and critical judgement would have been more helpful to himself and the country he would represent.
Similarly there is a contradiction in his aspiration to see Nepal as a New Nepal and desire to mainstream the Maoists in the old ways at a time when the Maoists were advocating transformative politics
then. On the same note, he is silent on the Maoist movement in India.
Lastly, let me end by again coming back to BRB and SDM: while both had almost the same upbringing, both stood to their guns. While SDM remained faithful to India’s foreign policy, regardless of how he defends himself as an independent and critical researcher, BRB remained faithful to his transformative politics and core interest of Nepal, no matter how he has played with power politics. And the dilemma BRB suffers from is that he is slandered by the monarchists as a pro-India element in Nepal while SDM is accused of being pro-Maoist by his detractors in India!