War in the Mountains

As rebellions go these days, the one against King Mahendra does not amount to much--in three months' fighting there have been scarcely a dozen casualties. But its consequences could be grave for all Asia, and it has already brought the power of Communist China nearer the heart of the Indian subcontinent. TIME Correspondent Charles Mohr last week reported that King Mahendra is dangerously close to invoking the aid of Red China in his conflict with the Indian-backed rebels against his regime.

Show of Hands. Mahendra, 41, revered as a reincarnation of Vishnu and also known as King of Kings, Five Times Godly, Valorous Warrior, Divine Emperor, ascended his throne in 1955. It had been secured for him by his father, who four years earlier toppled the prolific and powerful Rana family, which had ruled Nepal for a century. The young King was filled with democratic good intentions. A poet as well as a pragmatic politician, he personally edited a constitution for his 9,000,000 people (91 % illiterate) and gave his consent to Nepal's first national election.

Control of Parliament was won by the Nepali Congress Party led by India-trained B. P. Koirala, who advocated the same vaguely socialistic ideas that animate India's Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Late in 1960, when Koirala pushed through legislation subjecting landlords to a property tax and expropriating large estates for the benefit of Nepal's millions of landless peasants, King Mahendra abruptly dissolved Parliament, jailed Koirala and as many of his Cabinet ministers as the inept Nepali police could lay hands on. After suppressing the nation's 15 political parties, the King has ruled through an appointed six-man Cabinet headed by brash young Foreign and Home Minister Tulsi Giri, 34. The King also developed his own system of "guided democracy'' based on village councils that are elected by a public show of hands.

Hasty Raids. Meanwhile, the Nepali Congress exiles gathered in Calcutta, where their grievances against the King won quick sympathy from Indian press and politicians. Though conceding that Nepal is a sovereign state, India has continued the practice of the British raj in trying to exercise control over the mountain kingdom. Nehru's government poured $56 million in economic aid into Nepal and supplied it with arms; in return, Nepal exports to India rice, timber, and the tough little Gurkha soldiers who make up India's crack regiments.

Prime Minister Nehru righteously castigated Mahendra's behavior as a "setback to democracy." But the leader of the Nepali exiles in Calcutta is not quite as democratic as Nehru might have wished. He is General Subarna Shumsher Jung Bahadur Rana, a member of Nepal's deposed, autocratic old ruling family. Since last December, under his command, the rebels have mounted dozens of armed attacks on Nepali villages and police posts. Typically, a few score guerrillas will pop out of the jungle, bloodlessly seize a town, run up the Nepali flag with a picture of Subarna, loot the local treasury, and then retreat the next day on the arrival of a detachment of Mahendra's palace guard. Despite Indian denials, Mahendra's government insists that the raiders have Indian backing. Says Foreign Minister Giri: "The rebel leadership is in India. The money comes from India. The propaganda comes from India."

Movable Peak. Red China was quick to take advantage of the strained relations between Nepal and India. Last fall Mahendra and Giri traveled to Peking, where they got the full treatment--little flower girls at the airport, a cymbal-and-gong concert, repeated toasts to eternal Chinese-Nepalese friendship. Peking proved amiable in demarcating the border between Red-run Tibet and Nepal, and even accepted a splendidly Oriental compromise on the question of who owns Mount Everest, the world's highest mountain. Foreign Minister Giri explains that both sides agreed that Chomolongma (the Tibetan name for Everest) is "in China," while Sagar Matha (Nepali for Everest) is "in Nepal." Observed Giri: "Our feeling is that the Chinese have a much higher diplomacy than the Indians."

Nehru's government was stunned to discover that the King and Giri had also granted Red China permission to build a highway through the soaring Himalayas to link Nepal's capital, Katmandu, with Tibet's capital, Lhasa. The road not only opens Nepal to direct Communist influence but poses an immediate military threat to India by bringing the Red Chinese through the icy barrier of the Himalayas down to a connecting highway leading to the broad and populous plains of the Ganges River. "The security of India," said a worried Delhi official, "is directly tied up with the security of Nepal."

Indian Whisper. Giri replies that India has only itself to blame for the Red threat, that Nepal would not need Chinese aid if Nehru took action against the Nepali rebels who use Indian territory as a refuge and a training area. Referring to Rebel Chief Subarna, who is half deaf, Giri adds: "If India just whispered in Subarna's good ear, 99% of the raids would stop."

So far, India has failed to whisper. Katmandu reported that "antinational elements who have their base in India" struck in the biggest attack yet, a four-hour assault on the Nepali border town of Koilabas, and were actually led and directed by an Indian intelligence officer named Sitaram Singh. Even when driven off. Katmandu insisted, the "bandits continued to fire from Indian territory." A government-controlled newspaper in Katmandu charged that India was trying "to do a Cuba" in Nepal. Noting that India had failed to deliver a promised arms shipment. Nepal's Foreign Minister Giri said: "We are not happy in our arms agreement with India. The day might come when we will approach another government." Red China, obviously, will be happy to be "approached."

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