Is it East Pakistan versus West Pakistan moment for Nepal?

Nepal has emerged as the Narendra Modi government’s biggest foreign policy challenge, but worse may still come.

The hill-terai divide has already snowballed to dangerous proportions. The worst case scenario is that if this goes on unchecked the hill-terai divide may sow the seeds of an East Pakistan versus West Pakistan kind of situation in Nepal in foreseeable future.

The Indian strategic community will shudder to think of this kind of scenario becoming a reality but the key to whether Nepal goes down this road or not lies solely with Nepal, not India.

As far as the Indian roadmap for the current Nepal crisis is concerned it is a two-pronged strategy: encourage dialogue among all stakeholders in Nepal and ensure an inclusive approach that takes care of all sections. This is the policy and approach that India has adopted for years and this government too is following the same policy.

The ongoing agitation in Nepal over the controversial new constitution that the country implemented last month, the resultant blockade by the Madhesis of supply of essential commodities like petroleum products from India to Nepal and the ever-deepening chasm between the people from terai (largely Madhesis and Tharus) and hills is a recipe for disaster.

Unfortunately, Nepal has shown unseemly hurry by rushing through its highly questionable and divisive constitution.

Much of the reporting in Indian media has been flawed and lop-sided which echoed just one narrative that India has put a blockade and Nepal has no official or unofficial blockade.

The problem is Nepal’s internal one and it is trying to externalise it by deliberately involving India and projecting a bogey that India is close to the Madhesis because of geographical contiguity. Nothing can be more untrue because the ‘paharis’ (people from the hills) are actually closer to India than the Madhesis.

It is Nepal’s problem, not India’s, if the Madhesis continue to be treated like second class citizens. Till 1989 they needed a passport and a permit to travel to the hills.

Today also the situation is no better. Despite their numerical strength they account for only two per cent representation each in Nepal Police and Nepal Army.

Whatever is happening in Nepal is its own creation. It can’t blame India for whatever is troubling it.

India has huge stakes in Nepal. It is well aware of the fact that the Chinese shadow in Nepal is lengthening because of the current imbroglio.

But eventually it is Nepal which has to ask itself the question honestly: Can China do all that which India has been doing for Nepal for decades? Nepal must not forget that its annual assistance budget from India, currently pegged at Rs 400 crore, is going up, year after year.