New Delhi, Aug. 8: Defence minister Pranab Mukherjee may have been articulating New Delhi’s concerns when he said in Kolkata over the weekend that he hopes the Royal Nepalese Army "successfully tackles" the Maoists but, as a recent report suggests, the Nepalese Army lacked the capacity to contain the Maoist insurgency despite gaining in strength in terms of equipment, weapons and training.

"If the war with Maoists continues, Nepal’s survival will be doubtful," cautions the report titled The Second Freedom: South Asian Challenge 2005-2025 published by Strategic Foresight Group. It goes on to observe that the Maoists and the RNA were fighting two distinct wars.

The Maoists were following a warfare plan in which territorial control is of minimal significance. The state, on the other hand, is concentrating on defence of towns and key infrastructure.

The report says the Maoists were running out of sources of funding and therefore, "supporting the jihadis in order to raise funds, by helping in the transit of jihadis from madrasas in western Uttar Pradesh, through the Terai region in Nepal, to Bangladesh." A chapter devoted to "red terror’s flirtation with green terror" talks about how Left terror groups were turning to Islamic sponsorship for arms, funds and training.

The linkages between the two "is bound to turn the entire eastern part of South Asia into a colourful inferno between 2005 and 2025, most likely, during the 2010-2015 period."

On the democracy deficit in South Asia in general and Nepal in particular, the report states that there have been 15 governments in the last 15 years in the Himalayan Kingdom.

"Obviously," it observes, "the Nepalese democrats have treated politics as a game of subtraction, in which they themselves have been subtracted to the advantage of the Monarch and the Maoists.

"As damage to institutions, infrastructure and human capital continues, Nepal’s growth prospects will diminish [and] the country would be unable to continue as a state without international support," the report adds.