he desert in the mountains

May 1, 2005
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By Jagat S. Mehta

Jagat S. Mehta

Jagat S. Mehta
Development and democracy must be urgently set in motion in Nepal. India must act as beacon, not hegemon.

No two countries have been as intertwined by geography, history, religion and culture as India and Nepal and yet, for 55 years, our relations have oscillated between enlightened mutuality and self-destructive diplomacy.

India’s respect for Nepal’s sovereign identity was demonstrated when, ignoring protests of Nepalese participants in our freedom struggle, India concluded in 1950 the treaties of Friendship and Trade with the Prime Minister of the Rana oligarchy. Only months later, King Tribhuvan, took refuge in the Indian Embassy and embarked on democratic modernisation. In 1960, his successor, Mahendra dismissed the elected government and imposed the non-party Panchayati system.

In 1990, responding to aroused dissatisfaction, King Birendra, revived multi-party democracy and pledged to remain a constitutional monarch. The coalition governments changed frequently, but were all shocked by the regicide of 2001, which brought Gyanendra to the throne. The anxiety now is how long will monarchical Emergency last?

Nepal has received generous aid for development from diverse sources, notably from India and China, but the rural hinterland was neglected. Grinding poverty got accentuated and by 1996, the Rapti valley became Nepal’s Yennan. Manjushree Thapa in Forget Kathmandu: An elegy for democracy prophesises the Maoist area will expand and massacres lie ahead. Nepal has been an avoidable tragedy. In 1950s, there was blind trust in India’s example and guidance. Under Nehru’s initiative, Nepal was shepherded into UN and Afro-Asian conference at Bandung, but India overlooked that de-colonisation would empower even small nations with heady nationalism. Nepal’s permanent assets were the Himalayas, cascading rivers, dense forests. In the first developmental projects on the Khoshi and Gandaki, Indian engineers designed to reduce floods in Bihar causing needless submergence within Nepal’s tarai. This ‘‘India-centredness’’ undermined faith and united the monarchy, the political parties and the people in anti-Indian nationalism. Correctives were not sensitively sustained. Nepal saw ghosts of being ‘‘quasi-protectorate’’ under Viceregal Delhi and became suspicious of Indian involvement even when the World Bank, USA, UK, Australia and Japan offered financing towards developing 85000 MV potential of renewable hydel power. If 12500 MV from Karnali and 2000 MV from Pancheshwar — long deemed feasible — had come on stream, Nepal’s per capita income would be, I speculate, one of the highest in Asia.

In contrast, after a hazardous three-week long trek, Nehru, urged the Bhutan King to broaden education, build a road link with India and concentrate on development. The road enabled construction of 390 MV Chuka project. Bhutan acknowledges that 70 per cent of its national budget comes from sale of surplus power to India. Bhutan’s per capita income has rocketed to $2200 — three times that of India, Nepal or Bangladesh, is progressing towards democratisation and there are no pockets of Maoism. After the Sino-Indian crisis in 1959, Nepal pursued its own variant of Non-alignment by leveraging between its two large neighbours. India accepted the improved Nepal-China relations including Kathmandu-Kodari road, but was alarmed when, ignoring the 1950 Treaty, Nepal sought international recognition as a ‘‘Zone of Peace’’ and surreptitiously imported anti-aircraft guns across Tibet. But India also exhibited diplomatic insensitivity at Nepal’s understandable anxiety at the integration of Sikkim or insisting on continuing with an umbrella treaty covering Trade and Transit. Nepal rejoiced when eventually separate treaties were concluded, but was mortified at the punitive logic when in 1989 both treaties were contrived to expire simultaneously and most entry points were closed. We forgot that when in 1955, in retaliation for the demand for Pakhtunistan, Pakistan blocked Afghan trade through Karachi, we had argued that all landlocked countries were entitled to unrestricted transit. Similarly in reacting to the hijacking of 814 in 2002 (probably ISI engineered), we suspended air-flights to Kathmandu for three months, confirming suspicions of India’s callous hegemonism.

When surplus renewable power was not available, rampant deforestation in Nepal followed. Nepal is becoming a ‘mountain desert’ and consequently a billion tons of silt flows downstream annually. Nepal, in effect, holds to ransom optimal progress in Bihar, UP and Bengal. In national self-interest, a corrective vision is required both in Nepal and India. The Nepalese people should themselves determine their constitutional system by a democratic process. Maoists are more likely to renounce violence if monarchy lifts the Emergency. The Royal Nepalese Army can enforce governance and protect national integrity but it must remain neutral in democratic politics. India should seek to recapture respect as a beacon of democracy, which does not fund or fuel suppression of civil liberties and human rights. Anti-Indianism in Nepal is irrational.The security and economic destinies both are permanently enmeshed by the southward flowing rivers.

India must never forget that to be a great power, all Saarc neighbours must see India as an enlightened partner not as a South Asian hegemon. Fortunately, India-Pakistan functional co-operation is now under way; this development could galvanise relations with Nepal and Bangladesh and follow Bhutan, Sri Lanka in prioritizing economic rationality. The litmus of the revived India-China friendship would be the response of China to king Gyanendra’s forthcoming Peking visit. After 43 years, China-Pakistan relations, cemented by anti-Indianism may look like tactical impetuosity, which was inconsistent with the long-term geographical and cultural reality. The Himalayan logic is unchanging.