• "Why Don’t They Like Us?" Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s question to his country’s Ambassador to Nepal, Kathmandu Dilemma Resetting India-Nepal Ties, Ranjit Ray, Vintage, Penguin Random House India, p.3, 2021.
• Finally, the new plan has also clarified an aim to provide military training on defensive and offensive tactics to the broad masses of the people to fight a Tunnel War against foreign interventions. Down with Imperialism and Indian expansionism - Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) Central Committee Press Statement signed by then Maoist Leader and now Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal 2004-08-31 - press release - CPN-M (ohchr.org).
• India is victimized by terrorism directed against it from within its neighborhood. India supported the rise to power of forces traditionally hostile to it in the interest of a stable Nepalese polity. But India finds it difficult to handle Nepal’s internal affairs (highlight mine) even though the developments there seriously impinge on India’s security. Kanwal Sibal, Former Indian FS in the Telegraph, Kolkata - 2009.
• India wants a “satellite” State in Nepal, Rastra Pararastra from monarchy to republic, former Nepali Finance and Foreign Minister, and Ambassador to US and India, Bhekh Bahadur Thapa, Fine Print Books, Kathmandu, 2023, p.68.
• "The litany of reasons for the ups and downs in relations between Nepal and India is many and long. It must, however, be honestly recognized that with no country has there been as monstrous, monumental and avoidable a failure of diplomacy as between India and Nepal. The fault, dear Brutus, is 'not in our stars but in myopic misjudgments on both sides.' 'India and Nepal Relations: A Victim of Politics,' Jagat S. Mehta, in India-Nepal Relations: The Challenge Ahead, Rupa and Co, and ORF New Delhi, 2004, p.26.
• Genuinely interested to take the historically deep-rooted and widespread, close but complex India-Nepal relation to a new height, an Indian ambassador who had just arrived in Kathmandu to assume his new responsibility, in conversation with his Nepali diplomat friend whom he knew well, asks, “Why are Nepalis anti-Indian?” A bit taken aback at first, the Nepali, however, understands the question and appreciates the candor. So, he responds with an anecdote. "A Nepali diplomat personally starts his day with Baba Ram Dev’s yoga and enjoys Pankaj Udas's ghazals before going to bed. Professionally, he thinks good relations with India are in Nepal's own national interest and has acted accordingly during his diplomatic career. This Nepali is a great friend of India, but when it comes to inter-state relations, his loyalties are with Nepal first. What does that make him? Anti-Indian?" private conversation around 2008.
‘Air connectivity is a key to further strengthen bilateral rela...
Nepal-India relations are so old, deep-rooted, and widespread that they cut across the entire spectrum of time and space, politics, economics, security, culture, religion covering people-to-people as well as state-to-state interactions. Historically, a lack of understanding of the Paradox of Proximity has made the vital Nepal-India relations vulnerable to neighbor bashing motivated by personal or partisan interests, driven internal politics, surreptitious bureaucratic manipulations, and external powers’ maneuverings. Nepal’s location between India and China always brings the “other factor” into the matrix. Consequently, misperception and misjudgment often obfuscate the true nature of this relationship.
It is generally in the nature of political expediency to blow things out of proportion, whereas official inertia to downplay, deny, and hide under the carpet of diplomatic niceties, the conundrums long affecting Nepal-India relations. When officials misjudge and mishandle inter-state relations, who suffers? It is the people.
Lately, the trust deficit has deepened significantly, as so clearly illustrated by the above quotes as only a few examples. The 2015 Indian blockade, deeply touching Nepali life and psyche, and the Nepali Parliament unanimously approving Nepal’s new map in 2020, including some areas also claimed by India, reflect on how such a vital relationship can be misjudged and mismanaged to such levels, as prime examples again, have made the search for a new paradigm essential and urgent.
• Perceptions: In foreign policy, perceptions are important, especially perceptions of the people who shape policies. As Robert Jervis so famously wrote, “perceptions, when they deteriorate into misperceptions, create havoc.” So, the analysis of relations, if the aim is to improve them, must identify the sources of misperceptions and change them.
• Paradox of Proximity: Proximity gives inter-state relations vitality but also adds complexity, demanding priority and sensitivity in handling them. Identifying strengths and weaknesses is the first step in transforming relationships. Close geographic proximity, socio-cultural affinity, and historically open borders, if understood and managed well, are huge strengths. Others, Europe, for example, have started breaking down walls and easing borders. India and Nepal institutionalized it long ago. But just as Europe is experiencing, relations between close neighbors also need realization that you can choose your friends not neighbors. If not, you end up with what we now see between Russia, Ukraine, and Europe.
• Matrix of Nepal India Relations: Decoding the Matrix of Nepal-India relations demands understanding and resolution of three key conundrums Sovereignty, use of Resources (water), and Security.
• Transformative Thinking: Power is the central issue in the study and practice of politics, economics, diplomacy, and security driving inter-state relations. Politics is about power, diplomacy, and defense, instruments applying national power for the protection and promotion of national interests. But no country today, irrespective of how powerful it is, can secure many of its interests alone, demanding a major rethink in the understanding of power and interest. Afghanistan is the closest case challenging conventional understanding of power and interest, demanding rethinking the National Power-Interest Paradigm. It also makes securing national interests through National Interests Harmonization within bilateral and collective regional (global) environmental and human good not just interesting but essential.
• Mega Models of Mutual Cooperation and Benefit: The above make transformative thinking on how the dynamics of time and technology have affected the notions of sovereignty, elements of national power, and ways to gain and use it for securing national interests essential and urgent. Only with transformative thinking, will the mega models of cooperation and benefit be visible, enabling the two sides to move toward a new paradigm. This can also ultimately become the new paradigm of inter-state relations suitable for the 21st Century world, currently on the brink of “Breakdown.”
Conclusions
As India celebrates its 75th Republic Day and proclaims the coming of “Ram Rajya,” the fusion of Idealism and Realism is not just the essential meeting point of East and West, North and South but also a demonstration of the centrality of good India-Nepal relations in shaping the new global order, redefining human and interstate relations suitable for the new digital age. One Earth, One Family, and One Future, Theme of India’s G-20 leadership, and its claim of Vishwaguru, is a brilliant articulation of our common traditional wisdom. With their common cultural heritage, Indian and Nepali leaders and scholars preach Basudhaiba Kutumbhakam to the world. Practicing these ideals within our own countries or in relations with the closest neighbors will give credibility to these claims.
For a win-win template of India-Nepal relations, not just for the welfare of the people of the two countries but also to contribute to peace, security, prosperity, and dignity of the people of South Asia and beyond, both sides must look within and outside, starting from ‘man ka Ujala’, illuminating our minds first and then communities and the global community. So, the new paradigm of Indo-Nepal relations will only be visible with a new vision of enlightened bilateral interests based on our age-old wisdom, calibrated with current realities created by the dynamics of time, and demands of technology.
That makes this “old-new” Indo-Nepali journey difficult, but it must start. Otherwise, ‘man ka andhera’ will keep our elites happy living on the strength of our own illusions, what an India scholar-diplomat calls the Tragedy of Mimicry, while the people keep suffering. Mimicry distorts understanding of right and wrong, recognition of friend and foe. So, complementary initiatives are misjudged as contradictory, used to create controversies, and misused as tools to undermine each other. Controversies even around sources of common inspiration, Mata Sita, Bhagwan Ram, and Buddha demonstrate the conundrums.
Some years ago, some Nepali politicians were hurling indignity at an Indian diplomat traveling in a sensitive part of Nepal. In response, Nepalis in other parts were exchanging flowers with their Indian brothers and sisters, saying what politicians and diplomats are doing does not represent them and should not dampen the inseparable bond between the peoples. It was equally revealing to listen to Indian traders along the border angry with SSB personnel enforcing the blockade “with salary from Delhi you can feed your family, but how will we feed ours?” If these are not examples of the “myopic misjudgment and avoidable failure” of the political and diplomatic elite, what is?
With this realization, if leaders and diplomats want a change in relations, they must be guided by the goodwill among the people of both sides, for only they understand the true nature of Nepal-India relations, where if one side gets hurt, the other feels the pain. That makes a solemn pledge by officials on both sides not to undertake any action to hurt the other as the starting point of the essential and urgent search for a New Paradigm of India-Nepal Relations.
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