While the South Block’s damage control mode might reap some dividend, the fault lines of Indian diplomacy in Nepal go deeper. Without doubt, India is the elephant in the room in South Asia and the asymmetries in geography, economy, and political clout between India and its neighbors often frames India’s very own ‘Melian dialogue’ in the region -- “ the strong do what they can and the weak suffer as they must.” Even in ‘realist’ terms, what India often forgets is that it needs Nepal for its geostrategic engagement, domestic security and its emerging market just as Nepal needs India for its investments, imports/exports and access to sea.
Historically, despite – or rather because of – the geographical and cultural affinity, both sides have often had serious issues with each other. Ingrained in the Nepali public memory is a history of unequal treaties (1950 Treaty of Peace and Friendship), resource exploitation, an economic blockade, international vetoes and incessant political meddling. Similarly, India has complained about Nepal’s insensitivity to concerns about Indian security coming from China as well as the Maoists. India is locked up with China in a battle for stakes in new Asia and world order, and it feels China is using sources in Nepal to threaten Indian security. With Maoists, the confrontation is both ideological and political given the closeness of the Maoists in Nepal with the radical left in India. Naxalism, with its reach in one-third of Indian districts, at the moment is India’s biggest internal security worry. India also grudges Nepal’s insistence on being an equal partner rather than pushing for a “special relation” (unlike Bhutan) with India. A rising anti-India sentiment in Nepal also worries policymakers in India.
FAULT LINES
The Indo-Nepal diplomatic mechanism is yet to mature to be called a “special relation”. Several factors account for the stunted scope of the relation, while some are domestically generated concerns that are still being bargained, the others are exogenous
Regionalism is often the answer to overarching bilateral problems as proved by the Franco-German mortar in the European Union experiment. In South Asia, regionalism has been reduced to bilateral engagement of individual countries with India. A successful regional mechanism could ensure better prospects for bilateral and multilateral relations.
India’s behavior historically concerning Nepal has been one of seeking dominance without responsibility. Indian engagement with Nepal has been fraught with unplanned designs, covert and contradictory operations, injecting – often, muscling in – India favored policies and players, and rejection of newer political realities in Nepal. The moral and material support to the Maoists (as revealed by the Siliguri meeting in August 2001) and then contradictory a month later in September 2001 labeling the Maoists as terrorists and simultaneously stepping up military assistance to the Nepali Army demonstrates the ad hoc nature of Indian foreign policy toward Nepal. On the one hand, India has repeatedly insisted that it supports a logical conclusion of the Nepali peace process; on the other hand, however, it has subverted the process by actively lobbying for UNMIN’s exit. Neither has it shown any inclination to help tangibly – both in terms of ideas and resources – to lead toward the conclusion of the peace process. At best, it shows a thorough confusion in India’s Nepal policy, and at worst a conscious design to sabotage the process. Reservations against the Maoists based on the paradigm that India is “uncooperative” to Nepal shows Indian reluctance to accept that there are now new important players in Nepal who have the legitimacy from the people at large.
In cultivating cultural and ancestral ties with Nepali people, India has strangely confined itself to the Madhes region. Madhesis comprise 40 percent of Nepali population and share a deeply entrenched relation with India often cited as roti-beti relation. The Madhesis, given the open border and shared culture, are already informal ambassadors of Indian culture in Nepal. However, by only worrying about the concerns of the Madhesis, India ignores the other 60 percent of population in the mountains and upper hills, which is openly critical of Indian policies in Nepal. Connecting with these masses is critical to assuring a positive public opinion toward India. Engaging the challenger has been a primary norm of diplomacy, which India seems to have overridden.
Indian engagement in Nepal is guided by two sole questions: How can Nepal be useful for us? And, are we matching up with/against Nepal-China bilateral? Wariness of Chinese interaction and reach into Nepal has been a persistent Indian worry. In light of these two dominant questions, Nepal’s gains and developmental goals have usually been relegated to a backdrop.
China-Nepal relationship is relatively new, the two are geographically separated by the Himalayas and thus ethnically-culturally much dissimilar, and their mutual interactions are not as intense as Nepal’s with India. The public opinion in Nepal is largely in favor of China, but partly, among other things, that is a positive spin-off of this geo-historical seclusion and relative novelty of the relationship. Not surprisingly, Indian government has been crying foul on every Chinese investment in Nepal from the $19.9 million dollars to the Nepal Army to the construction of the Lhasa to Khasa railway.
What the Indian diplomats fail to realize is that you burn your fingers only when you touch fire. As long as Indian covert veto refrains Nepal from engaging politically with China, the public opinion toward China would remain positive and work counter-productively for India. A perceptive student of regional history would point out that it was the annexation of Tibet that propelled Bhutan to turn to India and become a protectorate of India. History, of course, repeats itself only as tragedy; however, this example has a certain import. Excessive Chinese diplomacy is naturally going to raise alarms in Nepal. Only with deep sustained interactions, differences between Nepal and China could be brought to fore. Recently, the 12-minute tape where an alleged Chinese diplomat offered $6.9 million to bribe 50 Nepali legislators for help in forming a Maoist-led government that would favor China did hamper public opinion toward China.
The last argument may not have been convincing for Indian foreign policy pundits, but from Nepal’s perspective and for long-term Indian interests, it is only worth highlighting that monopolizing foreign influence while often challenging Nepal’s sovereignty would always be counter-productive for India. With its geo strategic importance, Nepal will and should try to attain maximum leverage from China, India and the rest of the international community. India has been reluctant and has rejected any third country influence in Nepal, which is Nepal’s foreign policy right and an issue of Nepal’s sovereignty. A diversified foreign policy is a right as well as necessity for Nepal. India’s concerns about China may still be genuinely cast in terms of threat to its own security, but it has also vocally raised concerns about the growing influence of US-UK in Nepal. This is no more the language of a concerned neighbor worried for its own security but a coercive hegemon vigorously demanding submission to its dictates.
Regionalism is often the answer to overarching bilateral problems as proved by the Franco-German mortar in the European Union experiment. In South Asia, regionalism has been reduced to bilateral engagement of individual countries with India. A successful regional mechanism could ensure better prospects for bilateral and multilateral relations. With enhanced regional instruments, mutual worries of both the sides would have been taken care of. SAARC is often termed as “a slow boat to nowhere”. A fresh reinvigorated alternative mechanism for furtherance of SAARC would be apt not only for Indo-Nepal bilateral ties but would answer Indian security and economic concerns in light of India’s rocky neighborhood.
Economically, India is the largest investor in Nepal amounting to 45 percent of the total foreign investment in Nepal. Despite the FDI flow, political uncertainty has restricted the exploration of upper threshold in terms of Indian investment. However, since large Indian investments have always been viewed skeptically; helping Nepal strengthen its supply side capacity in goods with comparative advantage could be an ideal long-term economic investment that could leverage political gain.
The ambitions of foreign relations are often limited by lack of alternatives especially with regards to one’s neighbors. As the Indians themselves often like to say (with regards to Pakistan) – one can choose your friends but not your neighbors. Thus India and Nepal both need to revise their terms of engagement. The anti-India rhetoric that usually guarantees political dividend cannot thrive for long. Rationality of geopolitical realities, economic dependence, and cultural affinities need to be prioritized to craft a mutually benefitting bilateral relationship based on rational policy of neutrality in foreign affairs.
India needs to rethink on its used and abused strategy of political meddling, trampling of sovereignty in some instances, and concerns only on India’s gain because offensive diplomacy might distance Nepal to other developmental partners instead. The comparison of Nepal to a Hindu wife, tied to a single man for life, might not hold true given the growing interest and investment possibilities and aid in Nepal. In another vein (rather a suggestive indulgence), Ambassador Prasad would be greatly equipped if he has read his own father’s magnum-opus Origins of Indian Foreign Policy rather well. There is no other book in Indian foreign policy literature that narrates the realism of idealism in Indian Foreign policy better.
The writer is a graduate in International Relations from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
adhikarimonalisa@gmail.com
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