‘China’s activities in Nepal up, but no match for India’
Nepal’s former Prime Minister and chairperson of the recently merged Communist Party of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, spent four days in Delhi, meeting the entire Indian political leadership. He spoke to on his visit and the Nepal-india-china triangular relationship. Edited excerpts:
Prashant Jha
Right before the elections, we committed to party unity. This unity platform got the mandate of the people. This is a home-grown process.
But at the same time, China has always wanted that all communists should come together. It is not just about unity between UML and me, but also Kiranji (Mohan Vaidya) and Biplab (Netra Bikram Chand). Their desire that all communists come together existed earlier, and persists even now. I don’t think they feel just the two of us coming together is enough. But to say that it happened because of them is not correct. (Kiran and Biplab are radical left leaders in Nepal).
Politics in Nepal, in the past, often revolved around pro-india or pro-china cards. The primary driver of this was the monarchy. Their culture and ideology was showing oneself as pro-india sometimes, pro-china at other times, and gaining from it. Now we have a federal democratic republic, we have an inclusive democracy, we had a unique peace process. And in all of this, India has had a unique role. At the peak of the insurgency, I had said that we are a political party, we don’t want violence to continue, and if Nepali people are given real democratic rights, we want to come into the peace process. I wrote a letter to the then Indian PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee that if India facilitates this process, then an environment of peace can be created. If you go to the roots of the peace process, it goes back to Vajpayee. It was not possible for him to reply directly. But there was a positive response in a concrete way, in a manner I understood. Then Congress, under Manmohan Singh, also supported it. And it has continued. No one can overlook this or negate this fact of Indian role.
But in the current context, connectivity is a key issue – air, road, rail, communication connectivity. So it is a part of a natural process to enhance land and rail links with China. There is also a sense in Nepal that we are land-locked, and it would be good to get land-linked. So China’s activities have increased. But you cannot compare it with India. India is still the key actor in all economic activities.
We also have to understand that China will not, at the cost of provoking India, either support Nepal or provoke Nepal. I have gone repeatedly as PM, as Maoist chairman, to China, and I am going again soon. No leader has ever told me that you should not have good ties with India or said anything negative. They have always said you have to work with India. You also have to see India and China ties have deepened. Modiji has gone to China. Xi Jinping has come here. From what I understand, Modiji and Xi Jinping have had a very in-depth, strategic dialogue. They want to improve ties. I don’t think China and India will play small games, when both of them are so focused on creating a partnership for an Asian century, when they are such big markets, when they are rising in global stature. What Nepal and Nepali leaders may think is one factor. But what Indian and Chinese leaders think is a different factor. There is often confusion about this. Someone in Nepal may want this – reduce Indian role, increase Chinese role. But is that how India and China think? I don’t think so. I don’t think there is any organised effort of this sort in Nepal either. I looked at two factors. One was the electoral situation. When I spoke to the (Nepali) Congress during local elections (in mid-2017), I saw that Congress felt it was much bigger. We thought we could do a 50-50 partnership; they did not want to give us more than 15-20%. This is the core issue. The voter, on the other hand, was left-oriented. The UML then offered us 40%. The second thing was the nation’s political history of the last 70 years. I was worried -- would we again have a coalition, instability, anarchy? So both to ensure my own electoral relevance, and for national stability, I did the left alliance with the aim of unity… We have some understandings and agreements. The spirit of the understanding is one of those two positions.
We will see then. Right now, we will move with full sincerity.