Bijukchhe misquotes Indian ex-spy’s book while talking about India’s alleged Tarai plans

Dilip Dhakal / December 25, 2020

Chairman of the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party Narayan Man Bijukchhe during an interview aired on Everest Online, a Youtube channel, on December 21 discussed the recent dissolution of the federal parliament by Prime Minister KP Oli. In the course of the interview, he claimed that Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi had planned to annex Nepal by 2012-14 but the plan did not succeed then due to various reasons, but India still intends to make a Sikkim of Nepal.

Bijukchhe said: “One Yadav of RAW [Research and Analysis Wing, Indian external intelligence agency] himself has written that [Indian Prime Minister] Indira Gandhi had plans to turn Nepal into a Sikkim within 2012-14. That plan could not take off then due to various reasons. But what that means is India still hasn’t given up its intention of making a Sikkim of Nepal.” [Go to 12 mins 40 seconds into the video]

Fact-check

Bijukchhe was referring to former Indian intelligence officer RK Yadav’s book “Mission R&AW” published in 2014 in which Yadav has revealed inside information about the workings of the Indian intelligence agency. 

On page 263 of the book Yadav writes: “[Rameshwar Nath] Kao [founding chief of RAW] told me that after the merger of Sikkim, he had a plan to disintegrate the Tarai area of Nepal because of increasing presence of China there much to the discomfiture of the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi. He foresaw the Maoist menace to India in 1973 which is now posing serious security threat to India. However, merger of Tarai of Nepal was deferred in view of political turmoil in India when Indira Gandhi declared emergency in India in 1975 just after the merger of Sikkim with the Indian Union….Unfortunately when elections were held in 1977, Indira Gandhi was defeated and her party did not come to power and Kao’s operation of merging Tarai and other assignments did not materialize.”

Although the book mentions about an alleged Indian plan to disintegrate the Tarai from Nepal, it does not say by when India planned to do so. Therefore it is clear that Bijukchhe misquoted the book and his mention of a target date for an annexation is just a projection.

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