To many Indians, it was new information when the autobiography of former president Pranab Mukherjee revealed that the Nepal king had offered to join the Indian Union in the 1950s, but the offer was turned down by the then Prime Minister Pandit Nehru. Barely someone from the left-ecosystem responded to that and everything went normal. But before two decades, when the same was first disclosed to the public by the former editor of Organiser weekly KP Malkani, it had raised fury both in India and Nepal.
KP Malkani’s son Vikram K Malkani’s tweets regarding this have brought the issue to the public domain. Vikram tweeted, “20 years ago my father #KRMalkani had said in an interview that Nepal wanted to accede to India, which was turned down by Nehru. This raised a storm – Nepal was offended and GoI distanced itself from the remark. My father had to withdraw his remark.” Comparing it with the public reaction to the Pranab Mukherjee’s revelation, he tweeted, “Late #PranabMukherjee’s just-released book admits to exactly the same offer by Nepal! Interestingly, there’s no protest by Nepal now. And no one in India is denying it or distancing themselves from the late President’s statement.”
In an exclusive interview to India Today.Com in 2000, Mr Malkani, member of the BJP’s national executive committee, asserted that Jawaharlal Nehru ought to have accepted the accession of Nepal to India in the 1950s when it was offered to us by King Tribhuvan. Looking back at India’s rejection of the aforesaid offer, Mr Malkani said that it was a very serious and foolish mistake.
Mr Malkani had also warned that the Pakistani presence was very strong in Nepal. “And probably Nepal thinks that they will be in a better position to deal with India if they have Pakistan’s support. Nepal should be careful as its pro-Pakistan tilt is very short-sighted. His observations is proven to be right by the diplomatic tensions that emerged between India and Nepal.
Vikram has also pointed at the silence kept by the media houses which was critical before two decades when his father had made revelations regarding Nepal’s offer to India. He tweeted, “Well-known media actors had questioned my father – in unflattering terms! At least one of them is still around, but not uttering a word about this “controversial” statement. Stmt is the same, the people who stated them are different, as are the political parties they belonged to.”
