Nepal’s new PM Prachanda has to be in the good books of both India and China

The return to power of Maoist Prime Minister of Nepal, Pushpa Kamal, popularly called Dahal Prachanda, with the support of the Sher Bahadur Deupa-led Nepali Congress, is the first Left (Maoist)-Right coalition in Nepal. It has resurrected the political fortunes of two former Prime Ministers Prachanda and Deupa, and brought India back into reckoning after its marginalisation by the previous KP Oli-led Unified Marxist-Leninist (UML)-Maoist Left alliance government which Prachanda brought down. Mr Oli came down hard on New Delhi after it inelegantly asked the government to amend the new constitution to address the political grievances of the Madhesis which it refused to do. The cascading effect of the political snub is well known — the painful economic blockade, Mr Oli’s tilt to China, his allegation that India was trying to unseat him, the postponement of President Bidya Bhandari’s visit to India et al found India-Nepal relations at a historic low.

Prachanda, the first Prime Minister of the first Constituent Assembly whom New Delhi was instrumental in unseating, has been reinstated with Mr Deupa’s tactical political realignment in a power-sharing agreement in which Deupa will succeed Prachanda after nine months . This is the one of the three power-sharing agreements between political leaders in the last two and a half years that is likely to work because the gentleman’s agreement in this instance has been put in print. By any account, the remaining 18 months of the second Constituent Assembly will be more productive for Nepal and India-Nepal relations than the previous 30 months, barring a short spell following Prime Minister Modi’s visit in mid-2014 to Kathmandu. This was a grand success in which Mr Modi’s speech in Parliament captured the hearts and minds of the Nepalese people and they rose in one voice to declare Indo-Nepal relations at its pinnacle.

Of all the bilateral ties in the neighbourhood, New Delhi-Kathmandu relations are geostrategically the most important because any challenge emerging from the north will threaten the strategic Indo-Gangetic Plains. Further, in 1919, a British Foreign Office document noted: “Nepal is in a position to exercise powerful influence on India’s internal stability and if it were to become disaffected, the anarchy would spill over…” We saw the spillover clearly during the 1970s in the anti-Monarchy movement, ten-year Maoist civil war and shades of it during the recent unrest in the Terai. The threat from China was encapsulated by the Army’s Higher Command Mhow paper Exercise Tribhuvan which predicted the Maoist uprising in Nepal.

Indian policymakers, especially the political class, has been out of sync with the new ground realities in Nepal where new and younger political actors like Maoists of different shades, Madhesis and marginalised communities have emerged and who covet the country’s sovereignty and strategic autonomy. Indian political leaders have engaged mainly with the Nepali Congress and to a lesser extent with UML. New Delhi still nurses a nostalgia for Hindu Rashtra and monarchy issues that were settled in 2006 after the civil war when lawmakers declared Nepal a federal, democratic, secular republic. Mr Oli signed agreements on trade, transit, energy and infrastructure with China. The economic blockade drove Nepal to look north.

China has made steady gains in Nepal. After chanting that Beijing will not interfere in Nepal’s domestic politics, it has made inroads into every political party, lavishing its members with gifts and travel to China. More Chinese tourists arrive in Kathmandu than Indians by air. For the first time this year China has overtaken India in FDI and is starting new industries. Thamel is packed with Chinese restaurants, and tourists who monopolise casinos are also Chinese. Hotels have special counters serving Chinese food. Kathmandu’s palace-turned-museum has bracketed Chinese under Saarc countries for concessional entrance fee. Like the proverbial Sikh whom Armstrong discovered on the moon, the Chinaman is everywhere in Nepal trading, travelling and teaching Mandarin even in remote villages. Nepal has favoured China with government-to-government projects — the international airport in Pokhara among others, as well as hydropower projects. While Nepalese find nothing abnormal in profiting from China’s economic wealth, frequently this overlooks India’s interests and breaches the traditional red lines.

In the 1970s under pressure from the Communist lobby in the Palace and China, the joint border checkposts on the northern border manned by Indian and Nepalese soldiers were withdrawn. In 1989 King Birendra clandestinely brought in truckloads of heavy machine guns and anti-aircraft cannons from China. Both these incidents led to an economic blockade and rupture in bilateral relations. Prachanda has apparently told the Chinese about Nepal’s ancient and historic ties with India and assured the latter he will keep its interests in mind. This does not mean he will not review and implement some of the projects in the 10-point agreement his predecessors signed with China. Prachanda has already been assured of China’s full support by its ambassador Wu Chuntai. When Indians remind their Nepali friends that India had to fight a war in 1962 with China, they shoot back “So did we — in 1902”. Nepal used to pay a tribute to China in the later part of the 19th and 20th centuries.

Prachanda’s first visit abroad as Prime Minister will be to India to restore his personal relations with New Delhi damaged through misunderstanding; and as he says, not knowing the ropes as he was new to politics. Prime Minister Modi has already extended an invitation to him followed closely by China. Prachanda’s big challenge will be to manage the new-found relationship with India while trading a fine balance with China whom he also needs for reviving the economy.

The seven-point agreement, which is the Common Minimum Programme of Communist Party of Nepal Maoist Centre and Nepali Congress, includes implementation of the new constitution, accelerating post-earthquake reconstruction, bolstering the economy and establishing a transitional justice mechanism of war-era excesses, besides holding local body and Parliamentary elections. Prachanda has said there will be no blanket amnesty as 17,000 deaths during the insurgency are over my head. For the next 18 months Prime Minister Prachanda and Prime Minister-in-waiting Deupa will have their hands full. The smooth transition of Nepal from a unitary to a federal system and correcting the constitution to accommodate the political grievances of the Madhesis and marginalised are in their hands. It is in New Delhi’s interest to nourish the Left-Right alliance. 

The author is founder-member of the Defence Planning Staff, currently the Integrated Defence Staff