Nepal-India ties enter the Prachanda era
By Dhruba Adhiakry
KATHMANDU - Arriving in the Indian capital just a day after it was rocked by
deadly serial blasts that claimed dozens of lives might be unnerving for a
visiting head of government from a neighboring country. But this is exactly
what Prachanda, Nepal's prime minister since August 18, faced on Sunday.
He probably could have called off the mission, but his flinty image as the
revolutionary leader of a decades-long insurgency apparently does not allow for
shaky nerves over safety issues.
Manmohan Singh, Prachanda's opposite number in India, also might have cited the
bombings as reason enough to postpone the visit. But such a move might have
sent the wrong message
across India - and the world - that his country was unstable.
In fact, Prachanda needed to meet Singh on a priority basis because the Indian
leader had made the rare gesture of congratulating him within an hour of his
election as prime minister. With the congratulatory message came Singh's wish
"to meet you in the near future and would be happy to receive you in India as
our guest at your earliest convenience".
The invitation could not, however, pre-empt Prachanda's plan first to fly to
Beijing for the closing ceremony of the Olympics. In China, he developed a
quick rapport with the Chinese leaders, and President Hu Jintao praised his
Nepali guest for attaching great importance to relations with China.
While officially India did not comment on the trip to Beijing, hawkish elements
in New Delhi chose to express their displeasure through certain media outlets,
ignoring the fact that the Olympics were not something the leaders of China's
neighbors would want to miss. Even Sonia Gandhi, India's Congress president,
was at the opening along with her son, Rahul.
But, on returning from China, Prachanda quickly announced his plans to fly to
New Delhi for a substantive political visit. Some of the remarks he made
publicly were perceived by some as unnecessarily apologetic towards India.
Prachanda rejected these criticisms.
"If I were a man who pondered too much about such pressures, I would not have
gone to Beijing in the first place," he told Asia Times Online last week. He
said he thinks it is important to break traditions, especially if they are not
helpful in building a new Nepal.
As Nepal's Ministry of Foreign Affairs was busy making preparations for what
was later billed as a goodwill visit, Prachanda addressed the Constituent
Assembly about the Maoist-led coalition government's policies and programs for
the next financial year. He spared a few hours on Saturday to inspect
Narayanhity Palace Museum - the residence of former monarch Gyanendra while he
was king until last May.
Prachanda's 40-strong entourage included four ministers, indicating the issues
he planned to raise with the Indian leadership. Earlier, he held discussions
with leaders of other parties including those from the centrist Nepali Congress
which now sits in the opposition. He even found it necessary to meet Girija
Prasad Koirala, the leader who reluctantly vacated the premiership last month.
Through public forums Prachanda has assured the Nepalis that, unlike some of
his predecessors, he would not sign any kind of new or secret pacts with India
while in New Delhi. On the contrary, he said he would take up all the
controversial issues that are surrounded by suspicions that Nepal was
shortchanged in a range of treaties since 1950. The focus has been on the Peace
and Friendship Treaty (PFT) signed in 1950 and the agreement concluded in 1954
on the Koshi River project.
The first has security implications and the latter has to do with water
resources - the two main areas where New Delhi maintains interest in Nepal.
These treaties are perceived as examples of all the "unequal" pacts and
agreements signed in the intervening years. The 1950 PFT treaty has often been
compared to one the former Soviet Union imposed on Finland in 1948. It was
signed by a hereditary Rana prime minister, Mohan Shamsher, whose 104-year
regime was overthrown seven months later.
Now even the monarchy, headed by Shaha kings, has disappeared from Nepal's
political picture. Many people feel an archaic treaty should not be allowed to
govern bilateral relations at the turn of 21st century.
"Its relevance for India's security in today's context is limited and
questionable," wrote K V Rajan, India's envoy in Kathmandu from 1995 to 2000,
in a newspaper article earlier this year.
The PFT treaty contains, for instance, provisions that Indian nationals in
Nepal be extended "national treatment" on a reciprocal basis. Analysts say it
is ridiculous to expect reciprocity from Nepal on this matter. India is a
country of more than one billion people while Nepal has about 25 million.
It is equally questionable, some say, to keep the 1,800-kilometer-long border
porous and unregulated. There have been at least 60 cases of Indian
encroachment on Nepali territory.
Another treaty clause requires Nepal to obtain New Delhi's permission before it
imports military equipment through Indian territory. Initially, it was an
innocuous clause, primarily aimed at offering landlocked Nepal a transit route
for its overseas trade. But New Delhi subsequently interpreted it as Nepal's
obligation to consult India before buying weapons.
This interpretation came out when Nepal imported some military hardware from
China, using the Chinese road through its northern border. "This is clearly a
case of misinterpretation, some of which is done by 'friends of India' in
Kathmandu," said Badri Bahadur Karki, a former attorney general of Nepal, in
reference to this controversial clause as well as an identical agreement
concluded in 1965. In no way, he contends, did these agreements amount to a
security pact.
The Koshi River agreement of 1954 came into focus when its main embankment
collapsed on August 18, rendering over 50,000 people homeless. It also caused
considerable losses on the Indian side of the border.
Prachanda dubbed the agreement an "historical mistake" after inspecting the
affected area in Nepal. Many Nepalis believe the Indian side (the Bihar state
government) neglected its responsibility of maintenance and repair as
stipulated in the agreement.
There is a strong feeling in Nepal that New Delhi should be made to pay
compensation for the losses Nepal was forced to incur. Most of the Nepal's
water experts are also of the view that Prachanda must not accept India's
proposition that only a high-rise dam can tame the Koshi River before a
detailed study is conducted by the Nepali side.
The growing trade imbalance has been another matter of concern. In a total
trade of $ 2.3 billion, Nepal recorded a deficit of $1.1 billion in the
financial year ending mid-July. Since the bulk of trade is with India, Nepal
cannot sustain excess of imports over exports.
Nepal's exports are also subjected to a range of tariff and non-tariff
restrictions including quarantine tests. Such measures, trade experts concede,
run counter to India's own commitments to facilitate trade among the
member-countries of the South Asian regional organization SAARC.
In a strikingly assertive tone, Prachanda spelt out some of his opinions on
Nepal-India relations in a detailed interview published in the official
newspaper, Gorakhapatra, on September 13. He said he commanded the authority to
take up those matters with his Indian counterpart and would seek the ways and
means to resolve them.
"We cannot choose our neighbors," an agitated India's National Security Advisor
M K Narayanan told a television network on September 6, referring to China and
Pakistan. Whenever Nepalis are reminded of this traditional wisdom they
unmistakably think of India. Surprisingly, Nepalis are not jittery about China,
which is a far more powerful neighbor. Also, Nepal shares an 1,100-km border
with the restive Chinese province of Tibet.
If the public mood reflected in the Kathmandu media on the eve of Prachanda's
departure for New Delhi is anything to go by, the Nepali people view the
controversial agreements relevant to today's political reality. Elements of
skepticism that Prachanda might not take a bold stand at the crucial moment
seemed rife. For example, what happens if he becomes sentimental that some of
his hideouts during the insurgency years between 1996 and 2006 were in Indian
territory?
"Relations are what they are and adjectives do not add or subtract from them,"
is how Indian diplomat Deb Mukharji characterized the Nepal-India relations in
an article published in Nepali Times on Friday.
Words like "special" and "unique" are clearly superfluous, and dated.
Dhruba Adhikary, a former head of Nepal Press Institute, is a
Kathmandu-based journalist.
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