What do our decision making politicians think? They apparently are democratic in rhetoric if not by sensibility. They seem to dislike the past monarchial institutions but they do not seem to circumvent it. There is a complex relation between their forms of democracy and the monarchial patterns of neighborly attitude. I am not an expert on foreign policies, but I have some critical ideas about the past functioning and present actions in regards to our relationship between India and China.
We have always taken our stand as a kind of neighbor who behaves like a sneaky informant so that the neighbors constantly engage in loggerheads. We have similar people in our neighborhood, friend-circle, families, classrooms, and offices. They live by passing information, backbiting, and slandering.
We think that we can grow by such crafty and cunning approaches. Our attitude toward our neighbors, India and China, is our folk-tale attitude of the fox. In most of the narratives, the fox is defeated, shamed: By the end of the day, he/she goes hungry or gets a bite or two.
The problem is that we lived like the fox when we were under the king’s rule and we have not left the attitude of the fox. The motto always has been to put the neighbors (the economic lions) in constant differences and take advantage. There are two problems in this kind of relationship: The fox never wanted to grow by himself and the opposing lions learnt from their mistakes only for the day.
I am in an analytical situation where I think that the fox cannot learn. The nature of a rabbit is to be tender and fox to be crafty, lion to be courageous, the dog to be observant.
My context of argument is Nepali politicians’ role in Lumbini and Chinese assistance. The intention may be good but the Nepali attitude is weird: Displease the one to take advantage from the other. Nepali political psyche—the politicians’, not the official foreign policy to be particular—is that of a fox who failed most of the time for the last 60 years, from the time of monarchy to the present.
We still do not understand that a country like Nepal can live by establishing good relations with both China and India. We do not have to snatch food from the claws of the lions. Better yet, we do not have to grab advantage from either of the two lions.
We still do not understand that a country like Nepal can live by establishing good relations with both China and India. We do not have to snatch food from the claws of the lions. Better yet, we do not have to grab advantage from either of the two lions. The fox had no other option because it is his limitation, the limitation of being merely crafty rather than intelligent. There is a further graver problem. The problem of the lions! The fox returns the next day with another trick and both fall into the trap, fight and learn very late. The fox in his part has left with a small bite.
There are multiple un-foxy ways to grow. The two neighbors are strong in myriad ways. One participates in global order of development. This is what the East Asian countries did a few decades ago. This is what the BRIC is doing. Diurnal food by daily wages will save us from starving. Such attitudes cannot help us for massive developmental goals the world is moving to accomplish.
We have to choose between living with daily wages and thinking about developmental modes of existence. The fox was good for a singular moment and thus is not intelligent at all. He survives by crafty ways which do not help him think even about some weeks and days in future.
A political analyst, a friend from the discipline of sociology, told me that we are regressive in political matters when we come to establish relation with our neighbors. The similar attitude of being fox-like is the legacy of the past. This is what our politicians have learnt from their monarchial masters. They may hate the monarchy of the past by emotional politics, but the attitude is the same. How to please one of the two and tease the other! We cannot change because we do not know how to change and participate in the global developmental order.
In the story, the lions (or the two elephants for that matter) were strong but less intelligent. They sat together by the end of the day when the fox was gone with some leftovers. They shook their heads by promising that they will not roar at one another just for nothing. They shook hands and went to their dens. The next day the fox appeared and the lions started cursing and fighting.
orungupto@gmail.com
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