Nepal’s political churn a test for its ties with India
WITH a new Prime Minister at the helm, Nepal has had its 30th change in the head of government since the 1990 Jana Andolan — which instituted constitutional monarchy — and the 15th since the 2006 Loktantra Andolan, which abolished the monarchy and established a parliamentary republic. In the last nine years, the government has changed eight times, with KP Sharma Oli of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), Pushpa Kamal Dahal of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) and Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress successively becoming the PM. Ideology has nothing to do with political changes in Nepal.
Oli has become the PM for the fourth time, with a comfortable majority. He won the floor test in the 275-member Pratinidhi Sabha (House of Representatives) on Sunday with more than two-thirds majority, with 188 votes in favour of the Vote of Confidence motion tabled by him.
Former Ambassador to India and retired Kathmandu University professor Lok Raj Baral recently described Nepali politics as being “full of absurdities” and termed the frequent changes in its government ‘pantomime’ or ‘nautanki’. In his first tenure, Oli was annoyed with India. He made several anti-Indian moves. For example, he claimed that Thori (near Birgunj) was the real Ayodhya — the birthplace of Lord Ram, an avatar of Lord Vishnu. Some news outlets reported that Nepal’s archaeological department was considering excavation in the region. He further claimed that ‘Singhadeva Jayate’, and not ‘Satyameva Jayate’, appeared to be India’s national motto. He got Nepal’s map and Constitution changed to extend its boundary with India north-westward and not northward, enlarging the disputed area manifold and making a resolution difficult.
The general perception that Oli is pro-China is incorrect. A nationalist politician, he would want Nepal’s stability and development. Having close ties with India would be a prerequisite for that. While India has no issue with Nepal maintaining good relations with China, what makes the India-Nepal relationship unique are the ties of geography, history and culture and the open border between the two countries.
This could be further transformed through initiatives on electricity trade, climate change cooperation and connectivity that have already been agreed upon. For the last two years, the Nepal Electricity Authority has been selling surplus electricity produced at its hydropower plants in Kaligandaki, Trishuli and Devighat to India through the Indian Energy Exchange at a remunerative price of over Rs 6 per unit. The India-Nepal Joint Vision Statement on Power Sector Cooperation adopted in April 2022 envisages three activities: the joint development of power sector projects in Nepal, building cross-border transmission infrastructure and bi-directional power trade. But some hostile elements in Nepal are opposed to it.
It is interesting to recall that when Chandra Shekhar, arguably the most Nepal-friendly Indian PM, visited Kathmandu in February 1991, he spoke expansively about the potential of India-Nepal cooperation in the hydropower sector at a press conference, after which he asked a young Nepali journalist, Vijay Kumar, to stay and have tea with him. The first thing PM Shekhar said was, “Don’t believe a word of what I just said for public consumption.” Seeing that Vijay was perplexed, the then Indian premier recounted his upbringing in a hut in a Ballia village in eastern Uttar Pradesh that had no electricity. His father had told him then that India would soon be free: “Tab hamara mitra desh Nepal unnati ke path par hoga aur hamen bijli dega. Ab hamare baal safed ho gaye par Nepal se hamare ghar bijli nahin ayi. Nepali apne ko andhere mein rakhenge aur hamein bhi andhere mein rahne denge!”
This anecdote illustrates how things have changed. While India has supplied electricity to Nepal over the past few decades, the power trade between the two nations is beginning to reverse its course. Nepal has started producing electricity, and India buys only the surplus, whose export will redress Nepal’s trade balance and improve its public finance. Another way for Nepal to balance its trade would be to stop importing petroleum products from India and import them from elsewhere.
India is the sole supplier of oil to Nepal. PM Narendra Modi and Oli had jointly inaugurated South Asia’s first cross-border petroleum products pipeline from Motihari in India to Amlekhgunj in Nepal in September 2019. This was built by the Indian Oil Corporation ahead of schedule to ensure regular and affordable petroleum supplies to Nepal.
Not only is India now importing Nepalese electricity, but it is also on the verge of agreeing to the wheeling of Nepalese electricity to Bangladesh, the first such trilateral arrangement among any three countries in South Asia.
India could do more than any other country for transit and connectivity with Nepal. Under the Belt and Road Initiative, China had promised the construction of a Trans-Himalayan Multi-dimensional Connectivity Network, but there is no evidence of it on the ground. India has offered to effectively end Nepal’s landlocked situation by building a rail link to Kathmandu and providing Nepal access to the Bay of Bengal through waterways. The Final Location Survey report of the Raxaul-Kathmandu rail link has been with the Government of Nepal since June last year.
China’s 2016 Transit and Transport Agreement with Nepal gives the latter access to several Chinese ports. But in the past eight years, the routes have remained unutilised because of long and uneconomic distances. Nepal’s third-country trade continues through the Indian ports of Kolkata and Visakhapatnam. Should Nepal require ports on India’s western coastline, such as Kandla, for its exports to the Gulf, West Asia, Africa or Europe, India would facilitate it. Under an India-Bangladesh arrangement, the two countries have agreed to give Nepal transit facilities through Kakarvitta-Fulbari (Phulbari)-Banglabandha to the ports of Chittagong and Mongla.
The frequent change of leadership in Nepal leads to endemic political instability. India is slowly learning to shield its bilateral relationship from the vicissitudes of Nepal’s domestic politics. With their cultural closeness, Indians and Nepalese are guilty of a degree of complacency towards one another. They should, instead, invest more in each other.
