We should take steps to become independent in industries and business
Words fail to describe sufferings caused to Nepal and Nepali people by "unofficial" Indian economic blockade. Households have run out of cooking gas and are resorting to scarcely available firewood for cooking. It is three months since more than 50 percent of public transportation has been grounded due to lack of fuel; people are traveling on bus roofs in the chilling mornings of December. It is sure to cause them cold and pneumonia. When they fall ill and go to hospital for treatment there will be no life-saving medicines available.
Life in Kathmandu has been grounded to a halt. It is like a nightmare especially in earthquake affected districts. Ideally this is the time for earthquake victims to rebuild their houses but there are no raw materials available because of the blockade. There are reports of victims spending nights under the tents or tin roofs in this shivering cold. Economically, businesses are collapsing. Tourism has been hit hard. Occupancy rate at hotels has dropped down significantly. Most hotels in Thamel—Nepal's tourist town—are empty.
The nation is suffering. Truly, Nepal is reeling under the worst imaginable humanitarian crisis.
Yet let us not respond to Indian cruelty with resentment, hate and anger. Let us take it this way: India has imposed blockade to teach Nepal what it should do to become a self-reliant nation.
India knows very well how Nepal is dependent on it for almost everything—from food to salt to edible oil to medicine to fuel. India knows that 80 percent of Nepal's foreign trade is with India and Nepalis are happy with this dependence. Even our currency is pegged with Indian currency. India is telling us: Look, because you are dependent on us for everything, this is what we have done to you. Now learn to live by yourself.
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India also knows that Nepal does not learn from the past. This is the third time India has imposed blockade on Nepal. First, when it did so in 1969, Nepal was still an agrarian economy. Most people lived in villages and life was not so modernized. Even people in the cities depended on fire fuel and kerosene stoves. So 1969's blockade did not much affect Nepalis, even though it had crippled our economy.
Then came 1989. And we suffered yet another blockade for one and a half years. This time it was more painful. Kathmandu's population had increased several folds by then and urbanization was also taking place in a fast pace. People were switching to kerosene stoves from traditional fire fuel they were used to. The blockade crippled lives in Kathmandu. But there was some consolation.
The government ministers talked about need to become self-reliant and diversify our trade with China. They even brought fuel from third countries and distributed to the people. They told us how the country was going to break its overdependence on India. Then the anti-Panchayat revolution broke out. The system changed. The blockade ended. But we forgot 1989. Post-1990, we became even more dependent on India. India knows this.
Today, there is a not a single household in Nepal's cities and towns that does not rely on LPG for cooking. There is not a single household that does not have a motorbike or a car. So the blockade has completely paralyzed our lives.
The blockade is cruel and unexpected. Who among us had thought that India would block supplies to Nepal, the country that was ravaged by earthquake and to whose help India had sprung into action? It was unimaginable for Nepali people—who praised Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than their leaders when he came to Nepal last year, who were thankful to India for its humanitarian assistance during the earthquakes and who watch Hindi serials and movies and are great fans of Indian actors and actresses. How could they imagine India will starve them with blockade one day?
However, we must also accept that we did virtually nothing to lessen our dependence on India in the past 27 years. We could have done a lot. We could have developed enough hydropower and exported it. We started to suffer from load-shedding ten years before the 1989's blockade (load shedding started in 1978). Even today we import electricity from India. We could have diversified our trade with China and other countries. Because we did not, India gave us another blockade.
India is testing our resilience. Perhaps it wants to see how long we can survive. So we need to endure for sometimes and explore alternatives for both short as well as long terms to pass this test.
We need to begin by taking steps to become independent in industries and business. We need to excavate all of our natural resources. We need to speed up hydro projects, so that we can export it and will be able to import fuel even from third countries. Once we are able to produce enough electricity for ourselves, half of problems will be solved. Electric appliances like rice cookers will replace LPG cylinders in kitchen. Electric cars will replace combustible and polluting vehicles on the streets.
In the long run, we need to promote tourism. Tourism development can be an effective way to control Indian highhandedness. Indian tourists account for highest number of tourists coming into Nepal. They have great reverence for Pashupainath. Even Indian PM Modi had come to Nepal in 2014 for a visit to Lord Pashupatinath. If we can properly develop tourism in this country, Indians themselves will pressure their leadership not to be domineering on Nepal.
At the same time, we need to start installing solar plants in every household in Kathmandu. Nepal is ideal place for solar energy.
Yes, India has treated us like a cruel step brother. It has thrown us into a deep river, perhaps with the intention to kill.
But we are not a baby. We know how to swim. This is the time for us to swim and rescue ourselves and surprise India. It will apologize with us for its mistake.
