Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal’s much awaited first visit to India since he became the PM for the third time last December is finally taking place on 31 May, and the reason for the delay lies as much in the shaky domestic politics of Nepal as in the evolving nature of the bilateral India-Nepal relationship.
Who cares, you might well ask. Why should anyone in India really care whether Dahal, or ‘Prachanda’ as he is widely known by his nom de guerre, is coming to India first or going to Beijing second – although last time when he was the PM and he chose to go to China first, the Ministry of External Affairs in Delhi is believed to have thrown a small tantrum.
This need, from time to time demonstrated by the Indian government, to assert its primary place in the affections of neighbouring states, is interesting. You could accuse Delhi of some insecurity. You could also accuse it of not being on top of the fast-moving politics of these states. It is equally true that Delhi has tried to shape the politics of these countries by sometimes intervening on one side or another.
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Nepal is a classic example of a country, which India thinks it knows like the back of its hand because of commonalities in language, religion, ethnicity. India and Nepal share an open border, unlike any other country in South Asia. India has been supportive of Nepal’s democratic aspirations over the decades and didn’t shed a tear when the monarchy ground itself underfoot in 2008.
The wonderful thing is that in these past 15-16 years, the republic has taken strong democratic roots in Nepal. It is fascinating to see former Maoists like Prachanda – who gave the order to kill ordinary civilians as they battled against the former Royal Nepalese Army during the ten-year-long insurgency that finally ended when India helped broker an agreement with Nepal’s political parties in 2005 – bargain for power and pelf with other political parties and not hesitate to jump ship when they see better opportunities on the other side of the Lakshman Rekha.
Prachanda’s current term as PM is one such example. He first allied with fellow Communist leader K P Oli and helped him become PM after the elections last November delivered a hung House. But when better opportunities beckoned, Prachanda unceremoniously dumped Oli and shook hands with the Nepali Congress leader Sher Bahadur Deuba in a division of power agreement. This means that if all goes well, Prachanda will be PM for the first two-and-a-half years and Deuba for the second half of the current five-year term.
This visit to India should be seen by Prachanda as a move to consolidate his position. India has backed Prachanda, like it usually does traditional political parties such as the Nepali Congress, because it doesn’t fully trust Oli. Delhi will not forget that in the wake of the 2015 Madhesi agitation for better political representation and equal rights under the Constitution, that ensued in a blockade and more than 40 dead, then-PM Oli turned to China both for trade as well as political support. It was a slap in the face of India.
In recent years, Oli has invoked the card of Nepali nationalism by claiming the territories of Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura in the far west of Nepal, which are part of India. He was smart enough to have Parliament pass a resolution, which incorporated these territories in a new map of Nepal; none of the other political parties could oppose Oli even if they didn’t agree, for fear they would be seen selling out to India.
Prachanda certainly knows that now is not the time to bait India over these territories, because it is already in the middle of tortuous negotiations with China over control over lands in Ladakh.
“On the boundary front, the solution is a bit complex and time-consuming. There is no reason to overhype the boundary issue. We need to gradually build trust and resolve differences, and only then embark on resolving boundary matters,” Prachanda’s chief political advisor Haribol Gajurel told the Kathmandu Post.
India realises that the Chinese dragon is expanding influence across the subcontinent – from Nepal and Bhutan in the Himalayas to Maldives and Sri Lanka in the Indian Ocean. The wooing of the Prachandra-Deuba duo is as much a function of Delhi’s comfort that its friends are in power in Nepal, rather than its antagonists.
A second issue that has dominated the Nepali press is the character of the open border between India and Nepal and whether that should change in favour of a more securitised and managed border. Oli certainly is pushing for the implementation of the report of a 2018 bilateral Eminent Person’s Group that has recommended a more formal border – but it seems as if both Delhi and Kathmandu under Prachanda would rather that the present remains continuous.
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That’s the message of Prachanda’s trip to India – to tell PM Modi that he values India’s friendship and vice-versa. Prachanda knows that his country needs economic aid, especially as the region emerges from Covid, so Delhi’s gift of wheat is very welcome. Prachanda also realises that it is foolish to sit in opposition to an India that is growing strong and part of the world’s most powerful organisations like the G-20.
In return, Delhi seems to be coming around to the view that it is not politic to exaggerate the role of the Hindu monarch in Nepal and promote the cause of a Hindu Rashtra – the RSS has, for long, been sentimental about the world’s only former Hindu kingdom. The US Committee for Religious Freedom’s mild censure of the RSS promoting Hindutva ideas in Nepal is clearly a warning shot.
With a variety of state elections expected in the next few months in the run up to the General Elections next summer, Delhi would also like a steady and stable Nepal that also protects its interests. Prachanda and Deuba seem like a good combination to do exactly that.
Jyoti Malhotra is a senior consulting editor at ThePrint. She tweets @jomalhotra. Views are personal.