Books | Neighbourhood First Needs to be Perceived by Our Neighbours as a Living Day-To-Day Indian Foreign Policy Priority and Not Just a Slogan

Ambassador K.V. Rajan and Atul K Thakur, authors of Kathmandu Chronicle: Reclaiming India-Nepal Relations

Why has it been so difficult for India to manage relations with Nepal?

Both countries need to introspect on why despite their unique civilisational and cultural ties, the relationship has been unable to achieve its real potential. The big country-small country syndrome has much to do with the trust deficit, but it is also true that there have been too many avoidable misunderstandings, and we have not learnt from mistakes of the past. ‘Different strokes’, the differing needs and expectations of either side from the other, would aptly describe one complicating factor.

Nepal expects equality and total respect for its sovereignty. India has nothing but good intentions towards Nepal. In fact, no other country has done so much for Nepal’s democracy and development as India, but its security concerns vis-à-vis China and Pakistan are real and Nepal needs to pay much greater heed to them. There have been too many avoidable misunderstandings, too many problems have been allowed to fester and become irritants, too many unaddressed misperceptions, and too many mixed signals responsible for recurring inconsistencies in policies.

Irritants, potential or real (including long standing ones like the 1950 India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship) and differences (for example on the border, which appears to be devoid of chances of a political or diplomatic solution given the resolution passed by Nepal’s Parliament), can and should be sorted out in the way hiccups within a family are tackled, keeping the basis as well as continuing need for unshakeable bonds always in mind.

One area of special sensitivity has been Nepalese resentment of alleged Indian involvement in its internal affairs. Indian writers tend to lay a major portion of the blame on sections of the Nepalese elite who indulge in ultra-nationalism for short term gains. We have tried to examine the facts as objectively as possible.

Nepalese say that India has frequently behaved like a big bully, manipulating its politics. What is the basis of these allegations?

This again is a misperception and not fair to India. Nepalese leaders have a tendency to turn to India for advice whenever there is a political crisis, and India has little option but to share its assessments and offer advice in keeping with what it sees as Nepal’s own interests. But it is true that occasionally Delhi has in the past seemed to have been guided by its own biases and preferences in regard to Nepal’s personalities and options. It is much more careful to respect Nepalese sensitivities now and it has been noted and appreciated in Nepal.

It was hoped that Nepal would be a buffer between India and China, but from India’s perspective, it has been susceptible to enticement and pressure from China. Was this hope misplaced? Wouldn’t a small country play two big antagonistic neighbours off each other in furtherance of its own interests?

Nepal has been tempted to play the ‘China card’ ever since India’s independence, exploiting to the full India’s sense of insecurity regarding China. Today, it is China which is proactive in expanding its own footprint, explicitly interfering in Nepal’s internal affairs and also seeking to undermine India’s traditional influence. The strengthening of leftist forces in Nepal’s shaky democracy gives China a window to pursue its strategic ambitions.

One reason for attention is the recent dramatic change in the coalition partners of the incumbent Prime Minister, Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal—Prachanda, which saw the largest party in Parliament, the centrist Nepali Congress (NC), being replaced by the second largest party led by K.P. Sharma Oli, who when Prime Minister in the past, had gained the reputation of being pro-China and anti-India. The Chinese were the first to officially welcome the renewed alliance between the two major left parties, which they have been urging for long, sometimes publicly, and clumsily.

The Chinese would have relished the readiness of the new left government to ignore Indian sensitivities. Nepal’s foreign minister departed from convention by making his first official foreign visit to Beijing rather than New Delhi, and, despite domestic warnings of falling into a Sri Lanka-like debt trap, agreed to revive cooperation on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). There have also been high-level military visits where new understandings have reportedly been reached. China’s intentions are very clear: to expand its influence in Nepal at the cost of India’s.

Continuing political instability and misgovernance could invite a proliferation of India-directed mischief from Nepal by third countries and their non-official partners—the ‘nexus’ of smuggling and terrorism in Pakistan that India’s external affairs minister S. Jaishankar recently described as an ‘industry’. During the last phase of the King Birendra years, political instability accompanied by frequent changes of government (a result of political opportunism), facilitated the spread of a Maoist insurgency within Nepal which later established its headquarters in a jungle hideout in India. In parallel, there was an escalation in the smuggling of drugs, arms and terrorist-related cross-border activities masterminded from Pakistan against India, from Nepalese soil. The latter culminated in the hijacking of flight IC814 in December 1999.

The redeeming feature then was a stable relationship between India and Nepal under Nepal’s ‘twin pillar’ policy of supporting the king and multi-party democracy, which resulted in India’s discreet cooperation and goo