An Interview That Never Happened (But Should Have)

Time: Undisclosed

Place: Undisclosed

Maila Baje: We’re in deep trouble and here you are, vice-minister How’s your parachute diplomacy going?

 

Guo Yezhou: It’s easy to make fun of it, isn’t it? But aren’t you undercutting the seriousness of it all?

 

MB: This is out of seriousness. Nepalis used to blame Indians for this kind of interventionism. At least we know the Indians better.

 

GY: As if Indians were intervening out of familiarity?

 

MB: Point taken. But why this assertiveness now? Has Nepal catapulted to the top of Chinese foreign policy priorities without us knowing?

 

GY: You are half-right there. Nepal has become a top priority for China, and I emphasize the word ‘for’ here. When you’re not able to discharge a normal state’s normal functions, it worries us – for our own sake.

 

MB: That sounds like a wholesale abandonment of your vaunted policy of non-interference.

 

GY: Your inability to maintain your international commitments affects us. Do you expect us not to interfere?

 

MB: Why this interest in the internal affairs of the ruling Nepal Communist Party?

 

GY: Nepali and Indian media have made much of how we facilitated the unity between the Maoists and Marxist Leninists. We have never confirmed our role. But we haven’t denied it either.

 

MB: Okay, did you play a role?

 

GY: Yes, and it wasn’t easy, as you might have guessed. We persuaded both sides of unification’s wisdom and its broader salutary effects on Nepal and the region. And we thought we had convinced them?

 

MB: You hadn’t?

 

GY: You tell me. All of our commitments to securing Nepal’s long-term viability and value as an independent, sovereign and territorially indivisible state were predicated on Nepal’s firm commitment to upholding China’s interests. In other words, it was a mutual undertaking.

 

MB: You’re saying Nepal hasn’t been sincere?

 

GY: I am. You signed all these important agreements with us to use them to seek a better deal from India and the United States. Those papers are gathering dust, but you’re busy making excuses.

 

MB: What excuses?

 

GY: That rival external powers are pressuring you against building closer relations with China.

 

MB: But China isn’t the only foreign power we have to worry about. And while we’re nitpicking, Beijing hasn’t exactly been faithful to its commitments to Kathmandu. Bahadur Shah, Bhimsen Thapa, Birendra, Gyanendra and Dahal are just a few examples.

 

GY: You’re not expecting to keep getting away with this? We didn’t help you against the British in 1814-1816 under the 1792 Betravati Treaty provisions because you manufactured that crisis expressly to draw us in for purely Nepali factional politics.

 

MB: I can’t believe you just said that. We lost a third of our territory.

 

GY: Not because of us. Don’t expect us to take the fall for Gajaraj Mishra, Chandrasekhar Upadhyaya, and your internal machinations and mishandling.

 

MB: What about more modern times?

 

GY: You couldn’t explain to India why you purchased arms from us in 1988-89. Instead, you tried to drag us into the aftermath with least sensitivity to events in Eastern Europe and Tiananmen Square, etc. In 2005-2006, you assured us things would be in control. For all his ‘people’s war’ bluster, Dahal overplayed his hand far worse at a time when our rivals were trying to use the Beijing Olympics and its aftermath to undermine China. Let’s take something more recent, like President Xi’s visit. He flew in directly from that informal summit with Modi, and you reneged on the extradition treaty.

 

MB: But you do appreciate all the pressure we were under. And President Xi did put us in a tight spot with his original ‘wolf warrior’ crushed-skulls-and-bones bit.

 

GY: At least we were sensitive enough to give that story a Beijing dateline and obfuscate the real target.

 

MB: It sure seems like somebody’s fuming.

 

GY: Wouldn’t you be? Yet your show goes on. You couldn’t even stick to your new map after fully and formally incorporating it in the Constitution. Your decision not to distribute the new schoolbooks containing the new map may not have been enough to appease India. It was more than enough to infuriate us. Just imagine how bad it would have been for us if we had openly backed you on the territorial dispute with India? And what did we get for not even defending that bilateral agreement with India on Lipulekh? Your Nepali Congress accuses us of territorial encroachment in Humla.

 

MB: So all this justifies your meddling now?

 

GY: It sure does. You shouldn’t have given us those false promises. Sure, there is not much you can do amid the external pressures. But you’re not even doing the bare minimum you should be, such as keeping your NCP intact.

 

MB: Thank you for your time. A lot to think about.

 

GY: Remember, not just think about – but do.

Sharpness For Crown And Country’s Sake

If Nirmal Niwas seems a bit apathetic over the nationwide spontaneous protests in favor of reinstating the monarchy, you can’t really blame its chief occupant.
Consider the content and color of the discourse. Gyanendra Shah can’t be characterized as ex-king in the absence of an incumbent, we hear. Once a king, always one, just to be sure. Others – and more and more of them – insist that Nepal needs some form of monarchy because of its singular domestic and geopolitical circumstances.
How is the institution to be reinstated? By bringing back the Constitution of the Kingdom of Nepal 1990, which most of the parties once hailed as the world’s best. And how’s that to be done? A Supreme Court order on what would be considered until fairly recently a frivolous lawsuit. A military coup in which the generals beseech their supreme commander to begin wearing the uniform again?
Or a United Nations Security Council Resolution steered by permanent member China and incoming temporary member India to revive a new multilateralism as the old drivers are preoccupied within?
Then, there’s the next biggie. What kind of monarchy? If the crown is to be brought back to address our special national circumstances, can we really qualify it in traditional terms? Ceremonial, constructive, constitutional, call it what you may – but we surely aren’t looking at the milk-and-rice-fed variant. The nation’s guardian must be allowed to guard it, one would think.
As for the ‘who’, the debate is misdirected. The people can bring back the monarchy, but can they expect to choose the person? He hasn’t spoken about it, but King Gyanendra pretty much knows the difference between an elected republic and a hereditary monarchy. If there’s anyone who can decide who sits on the throne, it’s King Gyanendra.
Yet advocates are splitting hairs over raja (monarch), rajtantra (monarchism) and rajsantha (monarchy). Sure the king’s person, the institution and the crown/throne can be considered separate entities. To what end?
When you have one individual embodying the institution in its full regalia, how would you expect things to work by debating the finer points on republican premises? Granted, no one wants to be perceived as supporting the monarchy we’ve had. But, then, that means you’re accepting the premise of the monarchy’s critics all the way.
You can argue over the good and bad parts of our royal history. Specifically, King Gyanendra could have done things better, such as retaining head of government’s position. (Do we really know the full story even to say that?) But why should the parties that produced the putridity and pushed the palace to invoke Article 127 get a pass from the monarch’s failure?
King Gyanendra appears more prone to such pondering. The crown was thrust upon the toddler the first time amid great uncertainty for Nepal. The Ranas enthroned him to save their oligarchy. They may have failed, but the king did save the country. Yet in our official royal history, his brief reign is not even a footnote. (No wonder everyone got the math around Baba Gorakhnath’s legendary boon so wrong.)
King Gyanendra’s second ascension came amid great institutional and personal calamity, not to speak of the danger the nation faced. Yet he had to confront sustained calumny along with those serious challenges. He didn’t plan a coronation, but was still blamed for all that went wrong during the Ranas’ century-long and Bhimsen Thapa’s three-decade autocracy.
A third reign would have to clean the second mess the political parties have created in a generation. How can he be sure his campaign doesn’t confront the same political chicanery?
Having dissociated himself from the ongoing protests, King Gyanendra is probably enjoying the spectacle. And not altogether as a belated vindication. This was a debate Nepal needed circa 2005-2006. It’s not too late to sharpen the deliberations for the sake of the crown and the country.

Not So Foreign Policy

Photo courtesy: onlinekhabar.com

Amid its deepening general disarray, the government injected a dose of sanity over the weekend by unveiling a unified foreign policy document.
The supreme source of succor here is that Foreign Minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali put to rest swirling speculation that a government confronting extreme competing external pressures was about to release a new foreign policy document.
Having to choose between the Millennium Challenge Corporation and the Belt and Road Imitative has been exacting enough. The extrapolation of that into a litmus test of our very existence would have been unbearable. New times do warrant new thinking. Yet old ways, too, have enduring value.
Drawing from Lord Buddha’s teachings and Prithvi Narayan Shah’s Divine Counsels to Nepal’s own policy assertions and experiences over different systems and governments, ‘Nepal’s Foreign Policy, 2077 BS’ is replete with principles that have stood the test of time.
Presenting the document, Gyawali affirmed that Nepal would continue its long-standing non-aligned policy. Phew! The country wished to promote and promote the overall national interest by strengthening external relations based on universal equality, mutual benefit and respect through a network of independent and balanced foreign policy.
Nepal would expand and strengthen bilateral relations with all countries, including neighbors, based on universal equality, mutual benefit and respect. Our foreign policy also included promoting the national interest by enhancing Nepal’s identity and representation in international and regional fora.
Now, it would be easy to dismiss the document as a regurgitation of platitudes. Why assert the obvious with such fanfare, especially when voices on the streets are screaming for sweeping change?
The paramount point here, though, is that we now have a single affirmation of what Nepal values, thinks about, requires and expects in its engagement with the rest of the world. Foreign relations are a two-way street. We now have signposts.
In articulating those views, the government has illuminated vital continuities in our foreign policy. More importantly, it has done so rising above the practice of negation prevailing in the nation, much of it officially sanctioned. Denigrating the successes of the past simply because of their authors has been allowed to paralyze the country for far too long. The state’s severity has only toughened the streets.
Adjusting to a world in constant flux is a challenge in itself. Having to navigate periods of unusual turbulence is tougher. The document’s emphasis on international border security, climate change, economic diplomacy, and the protection of the interests of the Nepali community abroad clearly responds to emerging needs. The commitment to deploying soft power, too, holds promise, especially in view of the richness of Nepal’s heritage, natural splendor and fierce quest for survival amid the regional giants.
This is why the affirmation of underlying constants in Nepal’s pursuit for independence and prosperity becomes even more commendable amid our diminishing political discourse. Expressing them with clarity and candor can only help in pursuing them equal vigor and verve.
Elusive as it may seem at the moment, such broad consensus backed by commensurate conviction is the answer to our dismal internal affairs. But, then, our collective capacity to act remains an imponderable. Should it be so?