If You Can’t Beat ’Em …

After much grousing and groaning over China’s eternally expanding footprint in Nepal since 2006, Indian officialdom grudgingly acknowledged its inability to match Beijing’s deep pockets. The Indian refrain became that New Delhi should focus on such advantages as political, social, cultural, religious links with Nepal.
While more and more Indians privately acknowledge their government’s role in smoothing China’s path in Nepal, they understandably abhor making a public show of compunction. After all, you would have to acknowledge the profound irony behind the campaign to oust the monarchy for being excessively pro-Chinese. Yet democracy being such an enormous fig leaf, open-ended experimentation in self-defeating desolation continues to provide smug satisfaction to its architects.
What is also palpable of late is the new phase the Indian establishment has entered in its reconciliation with the reality of China’s growing presence in Nepal. According to the new thinking, Chinese-built infrastructure in Nepal would actually be in India’s interest. The latest spokesman for this school of thought is Maharaj Krishna Rasgotra, a former Indian ambassador to Nepal who went on to serve as his country’s foreign secretary.
Instead of getting worked up about Nepal turning to China for travel and transit solutions, Rasgotra counseled at a public function the other day, India should welcome it. “If at all China does build a railway line from Lhasa to Kathmandu, it could someday be connected to the line that India is taking from Raxaul to Kathmandu. And if we have, in the meantime, come up with a practical definition of the Line of Actual Control, the railway line could be extended right through Sarnath and Gaya, to Bangalore and Hyderabad and even connect the ports on the west coast,” Rasgotra suggested, emphasizing the possible emergence of economic hubs along the transit route.
Rasgotra was speaking after receiving the Professor M.L. Sondhi Prize for International Politics 2018 in New Delhi. Sondhi was among the rare Indian academics who continually emphasized in 1989-1990 the need for understanding Nepal’s compulsions in seeking to bolster security relations with China, instead of embarking full speed on a punitive course that would ultimately end up alienating the Nepali people.
A close confidant of Indira Gandhi and her Congress Party, Rasgotra in his latest speech was full of praise for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s diplomatic skills. Thus, it shouldn’t be too surprising that the thrust of his comments should comport with the foreign policy vision being articulated by External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar.
In a recent speech in Singapore, Jaishankar argued: “India’s diplomatic agenda has broadened considerably, as indeed have its partners in those endeavors. We share with the international community the objective that a multi-polar world should have a multi-polar Asia at its core. And to ensure that, India needs to follow an approach of working with multiple partners on different agendas. Obviously, they would each have their importance and priority.”
While the theme of Jaishankar’s speech was represented as ‘beyond non-alignment’, some audiences might be inclined to see the emerging doctrine as an attempt at being everything to everybody. Indeed, leaving quarters as distinct as Washington, Moscow, Beijing, Tokyo and Brussels in perpetual suspense would require enough dexterity and skill to qualify the endeavor as a foreign policy school in itself.
Deep pockets India may not have, but no one can accuse it of having a shallow imagination. Might China balk at India’s desire to free-ride on Beijing-built infrastructure in Nepal or band together?

Grappling With Realities On The Ground And Under

As sob stories go, this one came to a joyful end quite swiftly.
Barely had Nepal Communist Party (NCP) co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal lamented how his lifelong contributions were likely to go unrecognized in death that Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli leapt to comfort him. In exchange for letting him retain the premiership for the remainder of his full five-year term, Oli agreed to allow Dahal to wield executive authority in the party. A dry-eyed and bouncy Dahal now says the road ahead is all clear.
The rest of the country can keep scratching their heads over how the least-tainted ministers ended up getting the boot from the Oli cabinet while the most controversial – and publicly unpleasant – ones got to keep their jobs. Or whether this latest attempt to manage the factional equations within the NCP would amount to much in a party that is united only in name. The operative fact is that Dahal gets to decide what goes on in the party, provided he can stand straight long enough on the infinitely fluid ground under him.
Clearly, Oli had little to lose in this trade-off. He can no longer hide the fact that he is too incapacitated to hold the premiership with much steadiness. Still, the choice between the head of the party and head of government was a no-brainer. It’s not as if Nepal is the People’s Republic of China or the former Soviet Union in terms of its communist institutional evolution.
Yet Oli might have a more sinister motive. A Dahal preoccupied with the internal fractiousness of the NCP animated by the presence of two other former prime ministers in the tent is one Oli would certainly like. The challenge of managing Madhav Kumar Nepal and Jhal Nath Khanal amid all those minor – but no less maddening – satraps is in a different league altogether from contending with often pesky albeit pusillanimous ministers much more reliant on the prime minister’s pleasure and prerogative.
Amid the approaching party convention, Dahal can be expected to be more detached from the premiership. That development might even speed up Oli’s medical recovery sufficiently in time for the next election. If not, well it won’t be Oli’s problem anymore.
To be sure, Dahal is not oblivious to the spot Oli has put him in. Given the alternative of a further diminution of his role, the former supreme commander of the ‘people’s war’ can easily feign contentment with the latest arrangement. Like most agreements Dahal has entered into, this one is an interim step until the ground realities shift next.
The imponderables abound before the people. Would Dahal feel compelled to abide by the current power-sharing deal should Oli’s health falter. If Dahal sees himself as the natural successor should that happen, might Oli or enough people who matter necessarily share Dahal’s claim? And, most importantly, should he get the premiership, would Dahal be ready to relinquish the party presidency?
A gentlemen’s agreement is as good as the gentleness of the motives of the men who enter into it. But, then, perhaps we have become too used to the ground defining reality to be unduly disheartened.

Trapped Between Time And Space

If events in Nepal tend to move in clock-like precision, they also simultaneously defy other laws like those of proportionality. In other words, we are caught between time and space.
The Kalapani controversy – shortened to its generic catchiness also to avoid the cartographic complexities involving the other two terrains of Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh – was not on our minds when soothsayers and politicians warned of a post-Dasain/Tihar conflagration against the existing political order.
Still, Newton’s Third Law prepared us for an uneasy aftermath of Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit. Caught between the Belt and Road Initiative and the Indo-Pacific Strategy, Nepalis also had to contend with the fact that Xi arrived after informal sessions with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in southern India where Nepal was said to have figured in some way. This detail starts making greater sense after you recall how studiously Chinese leaders once delinked those itineraries.
India’s new political map – which triggered our latest outburst of patriotic fervor – did not change that country’s disputed status quo with Nepal. That reality may have prepared some Indians to digest the ensuing Nepali opprobrium. If their real prize was the concurrent anti-China protests – the most serious in Nepal since 1967 – forbearance has paid off.
The extent of the land the Chinese are being accused of encroaching on pales in comparison to India’s infringements. The equivalence of Nepal’s two giant neighbors as equal-opportunity plunders may have energized those Indians who roundly reject the Wuhan Spirit/Chennai Connection roadmap in favor of the Indo-Pacific Strategy and the Quad. Still, those grinning the widest are constituencies farther afield who fear being edged out of the grand succession struggle in Tibet creeping upon us.
If Nepalis seemed to have a better chance of extracting payments for India’s leasing Kalapani et al than securing an outright return of those territories, the former prospect can only recede in direct proportion to the theatrics and tantrums surrounding the latter. (Just imagine how rich our coffers might have been had we set a price on the cusecs flowing south instead of just grandstanding on Tanakpur/Mahakali.)
Our territorial dispute with India has defied a bureaucratic/political solution to the point where it may have now become moot. When Nepal Communist Party co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ advised us against the hastiness of internationalizing the issue, he was not shooting from the hip. The street, that other arena of practical action, is bound to lose its clout as the financial taps turn dry. Even the most profligate donors know where and when to put their money.
Locked or linked by it, fate has inextricably entwined Nepal with land. The only ‘political’ solution that can be conceived is the return of the territories as part of a grand bargain masquerading as a gesture of goodwill. Given our accumulated experience, who’s to say the solution might not end up being worse than the problem? This may be a good time to delve deeper into why Xi might have chosen to coarsen the overall cordiality of his visit with that ‘crush bodies, shattered bones’ comment.

Dark Waters, Darker Clouds

Map courtesy: bordernepal.wordpress.com

An upsurge of patriotism has united Nepalis after India unveiled an updated version of its political map. By incorporating the Nepali regions of Limpiyadhura, Kalapani and Lipulekh firmly within the Indian Union, New Delhi has reignited a territorial dispute that has been smoldering for nearly six decades.
While this is not the first time New Delhi has done so, there are some novel twists. The dissemination of a full-fledged official map has placed the dispute squarely in the Nepali public sphere. With China and Pakistan already involved as disputants in this latest instance of Indian cartographic legerdemain, Nepal’s grievances have acquired clear regional ramifications.
What next? Much will depend on how Nepalis address the issue. The familiar calumny that King Mahendra bartered the territory in exchange for Indian support for his active rule following the abolition of multiparty democracy has returned to the debate. There is little value in beating that drum apart from, say, foiling attempts to revive the monarchy as the defender of Nepali nationhood. Even there, the ploy may have run its course. The fact that successive elected governments have failed to lift a finger seeking a return of the territories has forced Nepalis to probe deeper into the context and circumstances surrounding the dispute. Given the character of the regime circa 1962 – when India is said to have begun occupying Kalapani in the context of its war with China – only one Nepali personage could best address the issue. He departed the world in 1972. The credibility of anyone claiming to speak on behalf of King Mahendra or his regime is bound to be compromised by the profound partisanship surrounding the monarch.
New Delhi cannot be expected to come clean without addressing the ‘quid pro quo’. Even if King Mahendra had bartered away the territories, the fact remains that India was the beneficiary. Given New Delhi’s consistent claims of having championed Nepali democracy, Kalapani is not a can of worms it would want to open. The wholesale rejection of the Kali River as identified as the western border of Nepal under the 1816 Sugauli Treaty would put India on a slippery slope. That treaty, which Nepal signed with British India following its war-induced dismemberment, is in a league of its own. India cannot contemplate picking and choosing its provisions without tipping the balance in favor of (Greater?) Nepal.
Despite the controversy surrounding the text of the Nepali government’s response to the publication of the Indian map, Kathmandu has made a solid assertion that it considers Kalapani as part of Nepal.  Our Foreign Ministry statement added that “any unilateral actions along the Nepal-India border will be unacceptable” since the two foreign secretaries have already been assigned by the Nepal-India Joint Commission to find a solution on the unresolved border disputes in consultation with border experts.
New Delhi, too, has accepted that latter stance. While insisting that its new map has in no manner revised India’s boundary with Nepal, a Ministry of External Affairs spokesman also conceded that the delineation exercise with Nepal is ongoing under the existing mechanism.
So far, so good. Beyond the official channels, however, there is enough potential for mischief on both sides. Within Nepal, the temptation to play politics has proved to be irresistible, especially at a time when unity of purpose is required the most. As alluring as one-upmanship can be in these politically charged times, it can hardly matter which Nepali leader raised the issue with which Indian counterpart unless government-to-government channels were activated to follow up on a solution. Nor can we afford to subvert our cause by obsessing with the fact that every political faction across party lines has been complicit in this national injury.
On the Indian side, the potential for malice has taken a new turn with the assertion that Kathmandu this time is somehow animated by third-party vested interests. Then there is the attempt by sections of the Indian media to play up the angle that China has encroached upon Nepali territory.
Granted, New Delhi has opened multiple breaches with its new map, and it must have contemplated ways of navigating them. Nepal’s stand is rooted in its understanding of the Sugauli Treaty and its delineation of its western border. If questions of ‘ridgelines’ or the ‘origin’ of the Kali River have emerged, they have done so subsequently in a way that do not impact Nepal’s understanding of and adherence to the Sugauli Treaty.
How Nepali territory ended up in Sino-Indian bilateral agreement on trade in 2015 needs to be taken up separately and together with India and China. There is already too much going on to muddy the waters externally to obfuscate the issue and present Nepal with a fait accompli. Excessive public jingoism at home at the cost of patient bilateral – and, if need be, international – diplomacy could prove extremely counterproductive.

Buyer’s Remorse, Seller’s Restiveness

We’re almost midway through the five-year term of what should ordinarily have been Nepal’s most powerful elected government. Yet, our best-case scenario is avoiding either a mid-term election or a split in the ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP).
Certitude amid uncertainties is a treacherous trait in the best of times. We may not know how poor Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli’s health really is. We do know that he is fiercely determined to prove the non-existence of that much-ballyhooed premier-sharing deal with NCP co-chair Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’. Or, if it does exist, establish its irrelevance.
Dahal, for his part, is so remorseful of his decision to merge his Maoist Center with the erstwhile Unified Marxist-Leninists that he has started blaming everyone else for going along with the unification sham just because the two chairmen happened to jump off the cliff holding hands.
In his intensifying stupor, Dahal may continue to ponder the extent of his ideological bona fides and invite the sympathetic banter of his one-time lieutenant Baburam Bhattarai to our collective merriment. Deep inside, the political class knows how deep the rot runs. Although they might not be quivering publicly, they do recognize the perils of taking their placid posture for granted.
The promise of change was always nebulous. The outcome has been dear and dreadful. New taxes have been levied to fund and facilitate additional layers of the federalism-driven political/administrative machinery, with little to show for the people. Secularism is being promoted as affirmative action for a religion that has been the farthest from our roots. Republicanism has spawned neo-royalism with a pomp and splendor beating the ancien regime.
If ‘new Nepal’ is all about demolishing the old only to resurrect its worst attributes, then it’s scarcely surprising how tedious and taxing the show has become. As the Krishna Bahadur Mahara case now seems to suggest, external investors in our enterprise are doing their math. The former speaker may be their first defaulter, but chances are he is not their last.
The greatest – and perhaps only – thing going for the ruling class is the TINA factor. To be sure, there is no alternative – yet. With the three pillars of the status quo tottering so critically, however, total collapse cannot be predicated on what may or may not rise from the debris.
Today, more and more Nepalis are asking themselves whether it was worth it all. All those new compromises to protect the awful old ones. The headlong quest for inclusivity that has risked erasing our identity. Then there’s the temerity of people like Dahal and Bhattarai, who want to lead another ‘revolution’ but refuse to recognize how badly they have lost credibility the first time around.
There is much more than buyer’s remorse involved here. People are regretting their decision to take what was thrown at them in the name of hope and change. But Nepalis, like people everywhere, aren’t about to kick themselves in the teeth for having been fooled so brazenly. And certainly not when they have such ready targets. That’s what scares the political class most about ex-king Gyanendra Shah’s Tihar salvo – because he spoke from experience.