BRIDGE OVER THE TRUST DEFICIT
NEPAL WILL BE A TEST CASE FOR INDIA IN COPING WITH THE CHALLENGE OF THE RISING ASSERTIVENESS OF CHINA IN SOUTH ASIA
The change of regime in Nepal opens up an opportunity for New Delhi and Kathmandu to revive the warmth and understanding in their bilateral relations. Both are in a chastened mood, after the shocks and anxieties experienced during the nine-month saga of K.P. Sharma Oli’s prime ministership in Nepal. India began applying a course correction in its Nepal policy some five months earlier, even during Oli’s regime. There was a realisation in New Delhi that the long-term costs of its ad hoc and coercive diplomacy in terms of alienating ordinary Nepali people was unaffordable. The designated Prime Minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’, has disapproved of Oli’s India policy, though his group was part of the outgoing coalition. He has also publicly confessed to the flaws in his earlier approach towards India from his first prime ministership in 2009. He claims that he now better comprehends the critical political, geostrategic and economic place that India occupies in Nepal’s development and stability. His new coalition partner, the Nepali Congress, has always had an amicable relationship with India since the end of the Rana rule in 1951, barring the occasional bouts of disagreements and sour feelings.
Notwithstanding the good intentions and the conducive political context, both Nepal and India will have to tread carefully and cautiously. The roots of the trust deficit between the two go deeper and much beyond the Oli regime. The Nepalese have been grumbling for a long time about the 1950 treaty that defines the foundations of a very intimate and all-encompassing relationship. They blame India for the trade and transit difficulties, border encroachments, the slow progress on developmental projects, the conflicts in resource sharing (especially water), and above all, the persistent interference in, and the micro-management of, Nepal’s internal affairs. The Eminent Persons Group to look into these grievances, conceived four years earlier and established for the past three months was a clear indication that the two governments do not share each other’s views on these issues and are not yet prepared to take them on board upfront.
The two major issues that vitiated bilateral relations during the Oli period were: India’s concerns for the constitutional rights and aspirations of the Madhesi, Janjati (tribal) and other marginalised groups, and Oli’s aggressive use of the China card and anti-Indian nationalism on the lines evolved during the royal regimes in Nepal. Prachanda’s government is expected to be considerate and accommodative towards the Madhesi and marginalised groups, but their constitutional accommodation would need the support of Oli’s party, the Communist Party of Nepal (UML). The UML has promised support to Prachanda’s government