Shakespeare once said, "Smile, and smile, and be a villain." The undeclared blockade by Modi government because Nepal's Constituent Assembly promulgated the constitution on its own after seven years of 'induced instability' is close to this Shakespearean saying. And, adding insult to the injury of recent devastating earthquake, Nepali people are facing immense hardships.Still to say there is no blockade is lying through one's teeth. Such blockade of varied intensity and scale has been India's punitive arsenal to browbeat Nepal. Nepali people have to bear the brunt of Indian ruler's personal ego being hurt. Twenty seven years ago, it was Rajiv Gandhi's. This time it is Modi's.
However, Narendra Modi is dreamer, not a sleep-walker. Thus he is the prime minister of India. As a dream merchant from the merchant class, he can sell and do brisk business. But again, history has witnessed many who have gone out of business when people lost faith and stopped buying. Here comes the question of credibility. Modi government's present act of aggression, in terms of undeclared blockade in Nepal in the façade of Madhesh Andolan, blatantly violates the international law and protocols India has signed.
And it has violated our faith immensely. As a result, this has eroded Modi's credibility. Not just in Nepal or in his own country; this trigger has gone beyond the Indian sub-continent. Thus his partners have begun to ask themselves: "Can we go all the way with this man?" We, on our part, ask Modi loudly, "Why are you doing all this when we had so much of faith in your 'saint mind' for changing the paradigm of Nepal-India relations?" The answer is hidden in history. A cursory look back is in order.
The Sugauli Treaty forced on Nepal by the imperial Britain started master-slave hierarchy, without Nepal ever becoming a colony the way India was for around 200 years. When India became independent, more as a spillover effect of the Second World War, the first Indian Prime Minister Pundit Nehru's foreign policy towards Nepal became directed by two strands.
The first was the continuity of the colonial foreign policy that was effectively implemented by British trained Babus. One such babu was Sir Girija Shankar Bajpai, profusely honored including with 'Star of India' by Britain for his efficiency in implementing colonial policies. Nehru appointed him the first secretary general of independent India with his assignment in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This, in turn, provided continuity of colonial foreign policy in the changed setting in the neighborhood.
The second strand, of course, was directed by Nehru's liberal attitudes. This led him to start non-aligned movement based on Panchsheel. This meant genuine respect for the sovereignty of all nations and non-interference in their internal affairs. The lack of convergence of these two strands has caused 'policy squint' in the neighborhood. Thus India lost its 'binocular vision' in policy formulation and implementation.
This is how small nations in the region feel threatened—be it Sri Lanka or Nepal or India's own Bhutan. The annexation of Sikkim is always fear-inspiring. More recent manifestations have become pronounced especially when the US granted India the leadership of the region after the world became uni-polar.
Again, the root cause of ailment in Nepal–India relation is lack of conversion of India's competing goals. Psychologically, India has not been able to accept never-colonized Nepal as an independent country as much it accepts Pakistan or even Bangladesh as truncated from its own land. In more recent years, the Indian intelligence agency has been micromanaging our affairs. In this process, our politicians became emaciated and were made more and more India dependent for their political survival.
This is how Maoists were incited to throw out monarchy and create internal instability. The twin objective was: first, to secure Nepal's water resources for India's sole benefit and turn this country into dumping ground of Indian manufactured goods, similar to 19th century colonial exploitation; second, to keep China at bay.
To this end, India has been constantly maneuvering and experimenting in Nepal for its choice of government and policies. This is why Nepali politics could never evolve naturally. This is how instability conditions are always ripe. Thus, Nepal is increasingly made India dependant both politically and economically. The whole thing boils down to excessive Indian imports that the nation can sustain no more—be it manpower import for political marshalling or commodity import for feeding the consumerist class and to run the government with import-related revenues.
This explains the behavior of India's foreign secretary Subramanian Jaishankar who was recently in Kathmandu. As per media reports, our leaders, including Prachanda, had to restrain themselves not to physically retaliate to the Indian special envoy's threats. He warned gravely not to promulgate the constitution immediately, or else, to face the consequences. The complete absence of even rudimentary diplomatic decorum would have made even Girija Shankar Bajpai, Nehru's fallback diplomat, ashamed. When our leaders decided to push ahead with the constitution despite Jaishankar's warning, India leaked its seven-point demand.
MK Bhadra Kumar writes in Indian Punchline: "They sold Modi a seductive dream—that if Nepal became a Hindu Rashtra, he would go down in India's history as a latter-day Chandragupta Maurya. But the dream withered away... making him look foolish—an emperor without clothes—in the South Asian bazaar. Can't you hear the suppressed laughter in Colombo, Male, Dhaka, Islamabad? Maybe, even Thimpu."
Indian leader Sitaram Yetchuri has echoed similar sentiments. It is indeed startling that Modi's dream to secure a place in history after Chandragupta has been crushed with the promulgation of Nepal's secular constitution.
The entire 'global village' is watching this drama. Rajendra Mahato, who is on record saying that he is doing politics for India, has to cross the border for his meals in the common mess and get back to no man's land for Dharna. Such Mahatos, who walked into Nepal a few years ago and became ministers, have performed well, as per the script, in the name of Madheshi people. They have amassed fortunes in return.
Minister for General Administration Lal Babu Pundit, who hails from the backward class of the same area, has proof of how money is being poured into Madhesh Andolan and how it has poured out for the benefits of these Mahatos. Our only concern is that these blessed Mahatos are inflicting pain on poor Nepalis, more so in Tarai. These Mahatos can't stop on their own, no matter how many rounds of talks are held between the government and Madheshi front. So we request Modi to break his silence. It's in his interest to avoid a diplomatic waterloo.
The author is freelance journalist, writer and a poet
bklohani@hotmail.com
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