When, in July, the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Nepal (UNMIN) was extended for a third time, the Indian ambassador to the United Nations, Nirupam Sen, while supporting a six-month extension, criticised the Mission for a "consistent effort to expand the definition of what Nepal sought in terms of support", and implied that UNMIN was trying to force on the Kathmandu government a political mission, one led by a special representative of the secretary-general, with the ability to use 'good offices' functions to mediate between parties. Underlying Sen's statement was a history of suspicion towards UNMIN, which India had harboured from the Mission's very beginning, in January 2007.
Over the past year and a half, UNMIN has played a crucial role in some aspects of Nepal's peace process. But it was also constrained in many other aspects by the fear and suspicion – on the part of Nepal's political parties, as well as New Delhi and Beijing – that the Mission would encroach on areas that should remain the sole responsibility and prerogative of the Nepali people. This fear persisted despite the fact that Nepal's political parties and India had already ensured that UNMIN was a focused mission of limited duration, one that did not include peacekeeping troops to enforce compliance of ceasefire arrangements but only arms monitors mandated with monitoring and reporting on compliance.
Even more than July 2008, it was events in November 2007, when UNMIN's mandate was first coming up for renewal, that clearly revealed the attitudes and sensitivities of Nepal's political parties and media – and those of New Delhi. At the time, the UNMIN leadership made a serious effort to push for an increase in responsibility in the peace process. This was a period when the future of that process was fraught with uncertainty. The Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) had pulled out of the interim government, and elections to the Constituent Assembly had been twice postponed. A breakdown in trust had taken place between the Maoists and the other parties, and negotiations over the former's return to government and the setting of a new date for the polls were leading nowhere. There was discontent in the southern Tarai plains, which, in the absence of effective state authority, had become a cauldron of lawlessness.
In this period of uncertainty, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General to Nepal, Ian Martin, along with his former deputy, Tamrat Samuel, decided to assert UNMIN to a degree that it had not done before or since. In numerous interviews, Martin and Samuel mentioned three areas in which they thought they could be of help: support for the implementation of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (the CPA, the November 2006 agreement between the Maoists and the main political parties) and other agreements signed between the government and marginalised groups; assistance in discussions regarding the future of the Maoist People's Liberation Army (PLA), and the restructuring of the security sector in general; and advice to the police regarding security for the elections to the Constituent Assembly. Due to the sensitivities of all political parties and New Delhi, the government eventually declined to take UNMIN up on any of these offers.