Nepal debate on safeguarding national interest

On 23 September, President Mrs Bidya Devi Bhandari unveils the Nepali version of the Second Volume of “Xi Jinping: The Governance of China”. In the policy statements included in this volume, President Xi emphasizes China’s rightful role as a major power in “Peaceful Development and Cooperation with Other Countries” with a targeted focus on “Asia-Pacific Partnership of mutual trust, inclusiveness, cooperation, and winwin progress” and “shouldering the responsibilities of our time and promoting global growth together.”

Nepal’s Interest Sensitive Status

These days, Nepal has been hectically debating its national interest. The Constitution of Nepal 2015 (Article 5.1) defines “Safeguarding of the freedom, sovereignty, territorial integrity, nationality, independence and dignity of Nepal as the national interest of Nepal.” “The rights of the Nepalese people, border security, economic wellbeing and prosperity,” according to the fundamental law of the land, “shall be the basic elements of the national interest.” While “safeguarding the country’” is the paramount objective of the national interest, the safeguards are built and reinforced by upholding the rights of the native people, maintaining border security, and realizing national economic wellbeing and prosperity.

The national interest is threatened when the right to life of the citizen is put in danger; even an inch of the country’s territory is encroached upon and occupied or a foreign-funded project under whatever name is embedded with extraterritorial jurisdiction.

King Prithvi Narayan Shah (1723-1775) said long

and before, Nepal is a yam between two boulders. His Divyopadesh (Divine Counsel), therefore, asked to “Maintain great friendly relations with the Emperor of China. While friendship should also be maintained with the Emperor of the Southern Sea (i.e. the British), who is very clever. The British have kept Hindustan (British India) suppressed, and is entrenching themselves in the plains. He was correct in his prediction of the British army coming to Nepal. His advice was not to go for offensive engagements; so fighting should be conducted on a defensive mode. As a matter of fact, the King was explaining the basic characteristic of Nepal’s safeguards in terms of operational strategy and the strategy was inherently defensive and of non-alignment to either neighbour.

For the King, the “defense” was peoplecentric. For the defense to be formidable, the people had to be hail and hardy, able to make a judgment on their own. The healthy and discerning people make the governance stable and the country independent and strong. It was this approach of people-centric defensive safeguard; Nepal could indigenously earn a power status in the TransHimalayan region till the first decade of the 19th century. Nepal was able to prevent the invading forces of the British empire from marching towards the southwestern interior parts of China at a great cost of its own. History is a witness to the fact that whenever China and Nepal fragmentally defined their shared national interest, each suffered from the machinations of external forces. For the British empire, Nepal’s people-centric defensive safeguard system was a serious concern. So it put its full force to dilute Nepal’s defense. The tactic was designed in applauding Nepal’s gallantry and at the same time by pushing Nepal to the limit whereby the country would yield to place its heroic resource reservoir, whose most esteemed employment niche was the Nepal Army, to the services of the colonialist British forces. The primary objective of the British 1814-16 war against Nepal, in which Nepal lost onethird of its territory, was to dilute Nepal’s defense system. Since this colonizing development, Nepal has not fought for itself and its people. It has been fighting for others. As a consequence, Nepali people have remained involved in several zones of armed conflict in foreign interest. For more than two centuries, the Nepali Gurkhas have fought for the British in almost every war since 1816. More than 200,000 Gurkhas are said to have fought in the two World Wars. Since then, they have served in Malaysia, Borneo, Hong Kong, Cyprus, the Falklands, Kosovo and Iraq. The Gurkhas, in self-pain, fought the Second and Third Anglo-Afghan wars in Afghanistan. Their fight there has continued till 2021.

Reinventing colonial Expansionist Game

It seems in the “Afghanistan engagement” of the USA, the only super-power in the world, has come to realize the built-in limit of its power especially in the countries that the colonialist powers in the past tried to win only to devastate it. The mainstay of these countries which sit on rich natural and mineral resources is infinite community-level resilience, the wealth of adapted local skill and knowledge, deep native patriotism and harmonious ties with nature and its bounty. Indeed, these months and days the USA might have been rigorously searching for interventionist models in the “countries and territories rich with resources” distinctively different from the one in the established nation with a stable governance system. Probably, this is a “lesson” from its wars in Vietnam and Iraq as well. But the lesson seems to be much internalized after Afghanistan. However, what is suspected is the USA's “lesson” may only be a sophisticated rediscovery of the simple “grand British colonialist method” promoting ethnic division and religious conflicts for splitting the native strength in these countries. The net result prepares the ground for dividing and weakening an endowed country into several local vested and foreign spheres of interest on ethnic and religious lines.

For the US, the “Millennium Challenge Corporation project” might be such a model when the US officials linked it with their Pentagon authored Indo-Pacific Strategy. Last July, Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin, specifically mentioning China as an assertive actor in the region, has said in Singapore, “The U.S. should use “every military and nonmilitary tool in our toolbox, in lockstep with our allies and partners. Integrated deterrence is about using existing capabilities and building new ones, and deploying them all in new and networked ways,” For him, all were “tailored to a region’s security landscape and in a growing partnership with our friends.” Whereas the use of basically “non-military” intervention tool in areas like Afghanistan seems to be qualified human resources-based, “new and networked” military tool will be selectively applied to intervene in the established nation with stable governance.

Israeli strategists revealingly point out that the character of nature and extent of geography has a direct impact on defense and security strategic objectives and operations. Giving the example of the number of Israelis and Arab population, they say, Israel must always be extremely sensitive to the proportion of fatalities on theirs’ and the enemy camps. Given the nature and extent of the war theatre, the US, in Afghanistan, might have felt a need for a Nepali “Gurkha”-type of gallantry. Employment Opportunity Attraction Though MCC is declared as a five-year project, Section 4 of the 2019 MCC agreement stipulates, “MCC and the Government recognize that the effects of the Compact will be longranging and its impact on reducing poverty may not be measurable for several years after the Compact ceases to be in force.” So to take care of the “period” after MCC project, the Section further states, “the Parties will develop a post-Compact monitoring and evaluation plan that describes the future monitoring and evaluation activities, the individuals and organizations that will undertake these activities, and a budget framework for future monitoring and evaluation.”

Section 2.5 of the agreement provides for a “Social and Gender Integration Plan”. Under this plan, MCA-Nepal “identifies approaches for regular, meaningful and inclusive consultations with women and other vulnerable and/ or underrepresented groups.” These soft projects will be implemented with a long term focus on Nepal’s human resources. Given the immeasurability of the project impact on poverty for several years, and the trendy attraction of the Nepali youth both male and female to migrate for employment abroad against the endemic corruption and lawlessness in the country, the US may get a favourable condition to have them into its security market network. Nepali youth have proven abilities to adapt and succeed in all types of ecological conditions --desert, sea, mountain and plains. Through MCC, for the US, it is the human resources side which counts more. The hardcore projects of roads and electricity transmission lines better satisfy local politico-bureaucratic constituency. From the human resources development angle, US$ 630 million programme design, this way, can claim for expanded “employment opportunities” for the Nepali youth.

Weakened Policy Non-alignment

How does Nepal’s policy of non-alignment fit in an economy-military mix project? The first elected Prime Minister BP Koirala once opined that Nepal’s policy of nonalignment has become a policy of ‘weakness”. “It is used for appeasing this or that country.” He felt, “it has not become a positive policy. The nonaligned policy does need to be nonaligned.”

Indeed it is a prerogative of a government that represents a sovereign

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