Fuel Pragmatism Or False Promise?

From all the pre-departure buzz, it sounded like everything from the future of the current political dispensation to the fate of Nepal’s existence as an independent and sovereign state depended on the success or failure of Prime Minister Khadka Prasad Oli’s official visit to China.
So it was rather grating to note that Nepal would not be signing that much-touted petroleum agreement with China during the visit. To press home the point, the cabinet minister in charge of that file did not find a place in Oli’s extended entourage.
Amid the strains in relations with India accompanying Oli’s rise to the premiership, Nepal flashed the “China card” with a brazenness that shocked many Nepalis. The Indian ‘blockade’ was mostly about petroleum products being held up on the Birgunj-Raxaul crossing. Whatever trickled in from other border points was pushed from the open to the subterranean market. The people heaved and moaned, but believed in the promise of ultimate liberation from India’s stranglehold.
Not that the ‘China card’ lacked substance. The Oli government publicly proclaimed its intention to import at least one-third of its total petroleum needs from China. When Beijing gave some 100,000 kiloliters of fuel as grant, Nepali tankers wore a festive look to and from the border. India didn’t seem too bothered by our in-your-face mirth.
Beijing seemed hesitant to conclude a full-fledged long-term agreement to export fuel, and began citing such bottlenecks as the harsh geographical terrain, tax matters, and transportation hurdles. We knew all that going in.
Still, the general feeling was that two countries would sign an agreement during the visit of Oli, now that he had backed down from his threat to make Beijing his first port of call as head of government. Following our prime minister’s visit to India in February, fuel supplies from the south eased as the ‘blockade’ mysteriously collapsed.
At the last minute, Nepali news reports, quoting anonymous sources, began suggesting that, although Oli would seek Chinese support to construct fuel storage facilities, the fuel import agreement would take more time. One report had it that India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who met Oli on the sidelines of a South Asian ministerial meeting in Pokhara, expressed her country’s unhappiness with Nepal’s eagerness to hobnob with China on a subject that was traditionally India’s preserve.
There are promises galore. Nepal would no doubt attempt to secure greater development support from China in such areas as energy, trade, transport, infrastructure and post-earthquake reconstruction. Apart from joining the Silk Road project, Nepal may also agree to review the extradition treaty and help curb more effectively the Free Tibet Movement. If all goes well, President Xi Jinping may even reward us with a visit on his way home after the 8th BRICS summit in New Delhi later in the year.
But returning to the fuel fiasco, regardless of what really happened, isn’t it interesting how easily Beijing gets a pass? The mandarins up north are often heard claiming that New Delhi’s failure to address the ‘strategic autonomy’ of other South Asian nations created a level of friction that could ultimately threaten Chinese interests. But, when conditions are propitious, China’s unsentimental pragmatism also gives it enough space to defer to India’s primacy in region. Some things just don’t change.

Nepali Congress: Message, Messenger and Method

Sher Bahadur Deuba’s election as president of the Nepali Congress marks the first time in almost two decades that the country’s oldest democratic party is devoid of the leadership of a Koirala family member. Less certain is whether the party election has ended the succession battle in the illustrious clan.
Shashank, a son of the legendary party founder and builder B.P. Koirala, has been elected general secretary as the sole family contender for any senior position. A member of of the panel of Deuba opponent Ram Chandra Poudel, Shashank also brings factional balance into the leadership. Of the other two second-generation Koirala claimants, Sujata withdrew her candidacy for the presidency at the last minute. Shekhar will no doubt wield influence as a leading central committee member.
As to ideology, the party still remains in a flux. Commitment to democracy alone won’t take the Nepali Congress very far, especially at a time when even the most extremist organizations on either end of the spectrum officially profess fealty to the concept in order to retain legitimacy and relevance.
Moreover, history and institutional hubris won’t allow the Nepali Congress to rest content in the ranks of the Big Three/Four. Having abandoned its commitment to constitutional monarchy, the party has been trying to hone its personality in a variety of ways, with little success. Despite propitious electoral numbers, the party carries a fraction of its once-formidable influence in the Nepali psyche. In terms of welding the message with the messenger, Shashank’s triumph may be a critical harbinger.
Supporters tout Shashank’s ability to affirm ideological sturdiness on critical causes. Critics attribute his remarkable ascendance purely to lineage. Yet the man seems undaunted. During an interview just ahead of the party convention, he suggested that the Nepali Congress revise its stance on key issues such as monarchy, federalism and secularism. While Shashank has maintained that position since at least 2013, the fact that he won the party general secretaryship so handily after reiterating them cannot be dismissed out of hand.
We can argue endlessly whether B.P. himself would have maintained his much-touted pro-monarchy stance in a political climate that is so radically different today. After all, the Nepali Congress tried to assassinate two kings before B.P. went on to establish his position as the most pro-monarchist critic of the palace toward the twilight of his life.
How far Shashank’s resurrection of B.P.’s latter-day legacy worked to his advantage in the party election is debatable. Certain quarters, however, do seem to take it seriously. United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal warned his cadres against lowering their guard, implicitly citing Shashank’s pre-election comments on BBC Radio’s Nepali Service.
Krishna Prasad Sitaula and Gagan Thapa, whom Deuba and Shashank respectively defeated, admonished the new leadership not to go against the spirit of change that has swept the country. Casting a long shadow on such comments is no doubt Khum Bahadur Khadka, the last surviving member of the BP-led quartet that alighted from that flight from India four decades ago with the policy of national reconciliation. Khadka, while silent on the monarchy, has become a leading advocate for the restoration of Hindu statehood. His emergence as a powerful Deuba ally in the party will remain a significant factor.
For now, the focus of attention is on whether there may be a change in the government. A rejuvenated Nepali Congress, as the largest party in the elected assembly, would have a justifiable claim to the premiership. By exuding political magnanimity and allowing the Oli government to continue for a while, the party might get the time it needs to fully grasp the generational and factional transitions within.
Either way, the emergence of the new Nepali Congress line-up offers a new opportunity for a sobering analysis of the tumultuous post-April 2006 trajectory.

Sustaining The Hope For Unity

Unity is back in season. As political exhortation, at least, it is.
Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal the other day urged all local adherents of the Great Helmsman to fulfil their “historical responsibility” to get back together in order to save nationalism.
What, you might ask, could have led the leader of an organization already called the United Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) to contemplate any further unity among the like-minded. The question is moot. Dahal’s principal audience, Mohan Baidya of the breakaway Maoist group, agreed with the basic concept of unity. But, Baidya added, there was more smoke than fire in the belly of Dahal. So he should stop “blabbering” before, one might add, adding some blubber to it all.
Not long after Baidya’s retort, Dahal slammed Dr. Baburam Bhattarai, another breakaway from the once-impressive community, for having betrayed the voters of his Gorkha constituency. How could someone who won a seat in the constituent assembly as a Maoist leave the party and – compounding the original sin – think about forming a new force, Dahal wondered. A little too late for that kind of thinking, one might have thought.
But unity is in fashion on the other end of the spectrum, too. The Koirala family must unite to save the Nepali Congress, according to a leading member of that fraternity, Shekhar. After the sudden demise of party president Sushil, the party had become “chaotic”, Shekhar affirmed. The members of the Koirala clan must rally around one member to save the party so that it could save the nation.
In fact, the three main claimants to the family mantle recently sat together to discuss issues confronting the party, Shekhar said, adding that they had decided to put up a common candidate for influential positions in the upcoming party convention. What nobility, indeed, in such trying times! The logical next question: What safeguards might they contemplate to ensure compliance with that undertaking? Or is it too early to be asking?
Prakash Chandra Lohani of the Rastriya Prajatantra Party seems to have been emboldened by his organization’s latest success in tiding over its perennial fractiousness. Lohani now believes unity is likely among his party, Dr. Bhattarai’s new force and Upendra Yadav’s Federal Socialist Party. After all, Lohani says, the threads of nationalism and democracy run through all three organizations. (C’mon, does he really think it’s that simple?)
As the senior ruling partner, the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist is undergoing the bitterest factionalism. Still, unity gets lip service from all the major camps therein. In the given circumstances, that should count for more than it seems.
At the public level, it’s hard not to be cynical when the very leaders calling for unity continue to behave in the most divisive ways. The Great Earthquake could not bring us together. So it was unrealistic to expect the Indian ‘blockade’ to have done so. But, then, what else can we do but hope? Maybe that’s a thought we can try to unite behind.

Carefully Planned Joint Operation?

Associated Press Photo

India’s border ‘blockade’ ended just the way it had started: without glitz. So the next logical question becomes: What difference did it make?
We’re no closer to a Madhes-friendlier Constitution. Heck, even many of the sponsors of the protests in the southern plains – a direct consequence of which was the ‘blockade’ – were surprised by the swiftness with which the barriers came down on the Raxaul-Birganj border.
One anonymous source was quick to lament how India ditched the Madhesis, who, he admitted, had taken responsibility for the closure to give cover to New Delhi. Perhaps it was no coincidence that news of former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav’s joint audience to our southern protest leaders got more ink, paper and air time in India than on this side of the border.
Those braving on insist that the protests would continue until an inclusive Constitution is achieved. Fine and dandy. But with the protest leaders’ credibility in tatters, that’s a tall order. In C.K. Raut, New Delhi has found someone more attractive to hobnob with and taken the game to a new level.
That’s why Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli avoids exuding any kind of triumphalism, despite his defiance during the early days of the crisis. Sushil Koirala’s death may have provided the public platform for the Indians to show that everything was fine all along in its relations with Nepal. Still, Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj brief condolence visit – at the head of an all-party delegation – will have to be read in ways other than the most direct, if any significant meaning is to be derived vis-à-vis events that might be unfolding. After all, our prime minister still insists that he will do everything to ensure that Nepal would not have to hang its head in shame during his upcoming official visit to India.
With the bar set so low, a point made from the outset in this space becomes relevant. Was the Indian ‘blockade’ a carefully planned and meticulously executed joint operation intended primarily to call China’s bluff in Nepal?
Until 2006, Nepal was accused of flaunting the ‘China card’ so vulgarly that the supposed wielder – the monarchy – had to be dispensed with. Republicanism, however, ended up giving the Chinese greater foothold here. Worse, Beijing seemed to be laughing out the loudest. That in-your-face brashness from the normally reticent mandarins was uncharacteristic against the backdrop of a republican regime in Nepal driven by New Delhi on the backs of mostly pro-Indian political forces. In muted whispers, Nepali politicians, in an out of office, could be heard sharing their exasperation with the exigencies of engaging with assertive interlocutors up north averse to making any real concessions. What were the Chinese really up to, the Indians must have wondered?
It was time for both New Delhi and Kathmandu to find out. Well, Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist-Leninist leader Rabindra Adhikari summed it up best: “A quake-ravaged country faced blockades from the south, north at the same time.”
China, Adhikari pointed out, did not bother to reopen Tatopani when it was clear that delivering aid through Kerung was impossible given the lack of infrastructure there. Beijing, Adhikari went on, probably buckled under Indian pressure and stopped short of providing all possible help to Nepal.
Evidently, Adhikari is being charitable. Bahadur Shah, Bhimsen Thapa, Chandra Shamsher Rana and Birendra Shah all went through the frustration Gyanendra Shah and Pushpa Kamal Dahal continue to feel.
If the Chinese have anything up their sleeve in response to the latest turn of events, it has to be something better than reunification of the Dahal and Mohan Baidya Maoists.

Hissy Fit Or Bold Diplomacy?

It had to come to this, didn’t it?
Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli threatens to make China his first official port of call if India failed to lift its ‘blockade’ against Nepal.
Okay, not quite threatens. In effect, however, normalization of situation along the southern border has been advanced as a pre-condition for our premier’s maiden trip to New Delhi, if we are to go by ruling CPN-UML official Surya Thapa.
Now, we don’t know how or when exactly it became a matter of convention for a new Nepali prime ministers to travel to India on his first trip abroad. But the practice has held – or at least is expected to be so. Upon assuming office in 2008 amid fanfare, Maoist Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ broke that practice as part of his overall Doctrine of Discontinuation. We know how that turned out for him.
Dahal tried twisting himself into a pretzel explaining how his first official visit had indeed been to India, Beijing merely having happened to be the host of that quadrennial’s Olympic Games. In New Delhi, the big hug his counterpart, Manmohan Singh, gave turned out to be fatal for Dahal. The Maoist head honcho was soon out the door – and seemingly for good.
UML official Thapa, however, has covered his bases well, stressing that Prime Minister Oli has high regards for Indo-Nepal relations. He reminded us of the chronology of things. Shortly after taking charge about four months ago, Oli had a telephonic conversation with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who invited him to visit India.
However, if the Indians failed to show a gesture of good neighborliness, Oli’s trip to China as his first foreign destination was inevitable – also for logistical reasons. Because the day Oli spoke with Modi, Chinese Ambassador to Nepal Wu Chuntai also called on the premier and handed him an invitation.
Protocol – if not precedence – might dictate that Oli visit India first. However, there was pressure on Oli from his party not to visit India first as long as the “unexpected and unimaginable” situation at the border persisted. As a good democrat, Oli could not in good conscience go against the party.
In fact, Oli himself had told a group of reporters that it would not be appropriate for him to visit India before the border ‘blockade’ was lifted. The Indians, for their part, officially shrugged off suggestions that Kathmandu had officially made such a linkage.
The latest Nepali contention – affirmed by another UML leader, Shankar Pokharel – contradicted what Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Kamal Thapa had said upon his return from China late last year. Not only would Oli visit India first, Kamal Thapa said, but the premier would sign some agreements to implement past understandings.
So here’s what we can safely conclude. Nepal is flashing the ‘China card’ to end the Indian ‘blockade’. Is this a hissy fit or bold diplomacy? Time will tell.
It would be great to see Oli visit both India and China, irrespective of the order. Even one trip – regardless of where – would be good enough. Let’s just hope that Oli doesn’t have to leave office before having visited either neighbor.