STRENGTHENING INDO-NEPAL RELATIONS: 'NEPAL’S NATIONAL ASPIRATIONS RECOGNITION THE BOTTOM-LINE'

[At the heart of the on-going Nepal India problem lies the fact that Nepal has her own “national aspirations”, to take her destiny in her own hand in her bid to provide for her people by taking full advantage of her particularistic geo-political situation and of her unique geography and resource attributes. Helping Nepal grow on her own aspirations also has political dimensions. Nepal does not always give birth to statesmen like B. P. Koirala and King Mahendra. Most of what we have for politicians today are largely unprincipled bunch of corrupt feudal elites masquerading as “people’s representatives”. Therefore, helping Nepal also includes refraining from misusing its politicians and instead, instilling in them a sense of duty towards their own nation.]

By Bihari Krishna Shrestha*

"NEPAL ACQUIRED STATEHOOD BEFORE IT BECAME A NATION. THE TASK OF NATION-BUILDING REMAINS TO BE ACCOMPLISHED."

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On September 14, 1975 B. P. Koirala wrote the above lines in his 'foreword' for Bhola Chatterji's book 'Nepal's 

Experiment With Democracy - 1977. Frankly the task of nation building hasn't yet begun and the
 'unsought dictates' from the southern neighbour are the reasons why the country is almost

 falling apart today. Only, a united Nepali people and best Indian people can

 pull Nepal from the brink of total collapse. 

@ The Himalayan Voice Facebook

When Rana regime yielded its place to the onset of democratic dispensation in Nepal in 1951, the “tripartite” agreement supposedly between the Ranas, NC and the King was in fact executed, as B. P. Koirala would complain in his Atma Britanta many years later, without the very party leading the democratic push ever getting to participate in its formulation. It became a tripartite agreement because India called it so. Thus, India’s relationship with Nepal from its very beginning since the end of British rule in India was hegemonic in character. Following B. P. Koirala’s ascent to power after his landslide win in the first ever democratic election in Nepal in 1958, his steady stand against India’s undue interference in Nepal, as revealed by the distinguished lawyer, Ganesh Raj Sharma, in a newsmagazine a few years ago, led to the then Indian Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru to instigate the then King Mahendra  leading to latter’s coup in 1960 that paved the way for 30 years of active monarchy in Nepal.  But it also laid bare the nature of Indian hegemony over Nepal: B. P. Koirala, the most popular leader then was purposively done and undone by India in his own domestic political arena, and there was no high principle involved despite Nehru’s stature around the world.

Nepal, however, presently agonizes for three more recent indiscretions on the part of India. The first one was the protracted embargo clamped against its landlocked neighbor-- then figuratively called “India-locked”- in 1989 on the flimsy ground of having imported some weaponry from China. This probably has been the only peace-time embargo in human history. India had to suffer some little-publicized international humiliation for it; she was censured by the WHO general assembly in 1989 for jeopardizing the health of women and children in Nepal. While the embargo severely affected the people’s lives in Nepal for more than a year, it was lifted only after having successfully orchestrated regime change in 1990 that catapulted NC[1] and UML[2] to power. 

Then came the Bhutanese refugee saga in 1991 under which more than one hundred thousand Bhutanese of Nepalese origin were forcibly evicted by the Indian protectorate, Bhutan. While India as next door neighbor should have been hosting the refugees herself, the added irony was that she ferried them from Bhutan border and dumped them in Nepal. This told many things about India. She had no qualm being an accessory to brutal act of ethnic cleansing going on in Bhutan then. Similarly, the headache caused to the very NC and UML politicians whom India had just helped into power showed that her support to them was not inspired by any “democratic values”; they too were disposable pawns in the larger game of hegemony in this part of the subcontinent.

Then Nepali PM Tank Prasad Acharya,  talks with visiting Chinese Premier Zhou En-lai while King Mahendra listens to them.
 @ The Himalayan Voice Facebook

The third such agonizing atrocity that further exposed India’s blatant lack of principle in its international dealing came soon afterwards after 1996 when the murderous Maoists launched their so-called “people’s war” from their safe haven in India which, as recent revelations showed, was worked out rather “officially” with India’s important official agencies. The total lack of ethical consideration on India’s part was further underscored by the fact that even as the Maoists operated from the Indian soil against Nepal, the Indian government also went through the motions supporting the Nepalese army by providing them weapons and training in anti-insurgency operations.

Given such sustained and unprincipled hegemonic stance against its small landlocked neighbor irrespective of whether it was Congress (I) or BJP in power in New Delhi, there exists a severe trust deficit between the two countries with India viewed as a predator constantly on the lookout for opportunities to pounce on the Himalayan country. For instance, on the eve of India’s new foreign minister, Sushma Swaraj’s visit to Nepal this week, Nepal has reportedly received an Indian proposal for “development of water resources in Nepal”, and most people believe that it must be intended to gobble up Nepal’s water resources.

Thanks to late King Mahendra who got a road built to China on priority basis at the height of the cold war during early Sixties, the socio-economic exchange between Nepal and China has dramatically expanded over the last few decades, with China making deep inroads into Nepal economically and politically. While the world refrain half a century ago was: “the Russians are coming”, today, it is like “the Chinese are coming”. For the Nepalese themselves, it is, “Thank God, the Chinese are coming after all”.  It is inspired by the belief that first, the Chinese are not hegemonic in her relation with Nepal, and secondly, since Nepal is a useful buffer, there would be limits to the hegemony that they would allow India to inflict on Nepal.

This, however, is not a healthy, good-neighbourly attitude on the part of the Nepali people, to put it figuratively, trying on to cling on to China for fear of India. This is where India has to make a difference by stopping to domineer and terrorize her landlocked neighour and instead, help build a trust that India is interested only in a win-win situation for both the countries.

At the heart of the on-going Nepal India problem lies the fact that Nepal has her own “national aspirations”, to take her destiny in her own hand in her bid to provide for her people by taking full advantage of her particularistic geo-political situation and of her unique geography and resource attributes. Helping Nepal grow on her own aspirations also has political dimensions. Nepal does not always give birth to statesmen like B. P. Koirala and King Mahendra. Most of what we have for politicians today are largely unprincipled bunch of corrupt feudal elites masquerading as “people’s representatives”. Therefore, helping Nepal also includes refraining from misusing its politicians and instead, instilling in them a sense of duty towards their own nation.

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[1] Nepali Congress Party

[2] Nepal Communist Party(United Marxist-Leninits)

* The author is a retired senior government officer and forefront advocate of decentralization for Nepal.