Nepal govt ignored India’s efforts for dialogue on map

On the diplomatic dialogue to discuss the outstanding boundary issue, Nepal seems to have adopted a twin approach. A public call for dialogue combined with an active private effort to scuttle it.

In public pronouncements, including in response to questions of lawmakers in Parliament on the status of dialogue with India, foreign minister Pradeep Kumar Gyawali had expressed surprise that India was sitting down for talks with China but was ignoring Nepal’s offer for talks.

Why indeed has India not offered to sit down for talks? Has it actually snubbed Nepal’s request, as Pradeep Kumar Gyawali seems to claim. A top foreign ministry source in Kathmandu, however, told Hindustan Times that this wasn’t accurate.

The source said India had made a clear-cut offer of a foreign secretary-level phone call; to be followed by a video conference between the two foreign secretaries and then, a visit of Nepal’s foreign secretary to India to discuss the boundary issue.

External affairs ministry sources in New Delhi confirmed to Hindustan Times that this offer was available with foreign minister Gyawali and Prime Minister Oli even before the constitution amendment bill was tabled.

And, this offer was made a full one week before Gyawali stated that India has been snubbing Nepal’s requests for talks on the border issue.

Only Gyawali can answer if an offer of a phone call, a video conference and exchange of visits was a snub.

Nepal’s foreign ministry sources confirmed that the offer was conveyed but Prime Minister Oli seemed disinterested in India’s offer.

For reasons best known to him, he was neither ready to halt nor take a step back on the constitutional amendment despite knowing that it is viewed by India as an irrevocable step which predetermines the outcome of any future negotiations.

Indeed, according to some interlocutors, in his private meetings, Prime Minister Oli has reportedly conveyed that he would proceed ahead with the amendment irrespective of the impact it might have on peopleto-people relations between India and Nepal.

What we seem to have here is a carefully crafted pattern of deceit and deception where the Indian offer is not shared with parliamentarians; and public and lawmakers are misled -- all so that PM Oli can damage the special relationship that the people of the two countries continue to nurture.

Given that PM Oli has ignored that offer of diplomatic dialogue and gone ahead with amending the constitution, it is now up to him to create, if he so wishes, a conducive atmosphere in case he is interested in a bilateral dialogue on the boundary issue.

A leader of PM Oli’s experience and wisdom would know well that the time for verbal fudging is over; he now needs to walk the talk.

NEW DELHI: A Muslim body has moved the Supreme Court seeking to oppose a plea filed by a Hindu organisation challenging a provision of a 1991 law that provides for maintaining the “religious character” of holy structures as it existed on August 15, 1947, in a bid to open the litigation route to reclaim disputed religious sites other than the Ram Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya. The petition filed by ‘Jamiat Ulema-iHind’, seeking impleadment in the plea filed by ‘Vishwa Bhadra Pujari Purohit Mahasangh’, has prayed that the court should not entertain the petition challenging the provision of the 1991 law. “At the outset this application is being filed to oppose the present Writ Petition, so that this Court is pleased to not issue notice in the present petition. It is submitted that even issuance of notice in the present matter will create fear in the minds of the Muslim Community with regard to their places of worship, especially in the aftermath of the Ayodhya Dispute and will destroy the secular fabric of the nation,” the Jamiat’s plea said.

It said the petition of the Mahasangh proceeds on the basis that Section 4 of the Places of Worship Act prevents members of the Hindu community from reclaiming those places of worship which according to them were Hindu religious structures but were allegedly converted by Muslim invaders. It is apparent that the present petition seeks to indirectly target places of worship which are presently of Muslim character, the Jamiat’s petition said. PTI