There is a cat that mistakenly feels a little mouse, which has so far resisted all attempts to be devoured, has hurt its pride. So it inflicts untold sufferings on him. It nearly starves him before it gives something to eat and some moment to rest, so that when he gets back on his feet, it can subject him to another round of suffering. The mouse cannot live, cannot die. It cries but cannot ask for help from outsiders who know the cat must be punished but who do not speak up fearing the cat. It looks like the cruel cat has conquered the world.
Despite all cruelty, Nepal has been making entreaties to India, through envoys and foreign minister, to let it be and to ease supplies. India promises to resume supplies but cheats on the next moment. Indian Oil supplier requests Nepal Oil Corporation to come and collect oil but does not give. The whole country is suffering.
Cruel India is adept at practicing guiles as well. It has become able to impress the world that the current mess is the result of political troubles in Nepal. It has found an excuse in Nepal’s constitution, which even Indian scholars say is far more progressive than India’s, but which it accuses of being far from inclusive. India says to Nepal, blockade is because of protests at border region, address their concerns and everything will be fine. Perhaps fooled (or bound by limitation) by this claim, even international community has refrained from calling blockade a blockade.
India accuses Nepali leaders of failing to keep their own house in order. But it is the one that has kept house in disorder. Agitating Madheshi leaders have made it easy for India. “It’s not India, we have imposed blockade,” one Madheshi leader proudly announces. “Yes, India has imposed economic blockade on our behalf,” another rejoins.
They are there in non-man’s land to ensure no goods enter Nepal and to attack Nepali security personnel by stoning them from across the border. For international actors, it is hard to know whom to blame: India, Madheshi leaders or Kathmandu. India has been taking advantage of this situation.
Now it will be easier for India to play in Nepal because Nepali Congress—under whose leadership Nepal promulgated the constitution on September 20—is out of erstwhile Congress—CPN-UML-UCPN(Maoist) coalition and has started to blame Maoist-UML for failing to resolve Madhesh crisis.
Pressures are building up on India—thanks to Indian scholars like Shashi Tharoor and C Raja Mohan—to let Nepal be. Sadly, Nepal’s own leaders tend not to use the word blockade, despite India itself acknowledging it as such through various statements.
Populist intelligentsia sticks to ‘genuine demand’ refrain. Heed the genuine grievances of Madheshis, goes the rallying cry. International news agencies seem to run after populist commentaries. It is, therefore, imperative to distinguish between genuine demands and evil designs. One demand of agitating Madheshi parties is to ensure inclusion and proportional representation in new constitution. This is a genuine concern. It has been largely addressed by constitution and amendment process is also underway to accommodate other related concerns.
What remains is only evil design. That even naturalized citizen should be allowed to hold top executive posts like President, Prime Minister and Chief Minister is not genuine. That Madhesh provinces must not include any part of hill districts, that they must accommodate lands from Chure in the north down up to south with all industrial hubs, fertile lands and river systems into them is not genuine. This will leave hill provinces without resources. That hill districts should be underrepresented is not genuine. Stop fooling. No country can surrender to designs that can potentially cause population imbalance, threaten its territorial integrity and push its own citizens into minority status.
If their concerns were genuine, they would have come to talks by now. The government has called them for talks about a dozen times but they have been accusing it of not being “serious.”
Myths have been created about Madhesh agitation. International media has been misreporting that constitution has left “50 percent of ethnic Madheshis” unhappy, as if half of the country is protesting. Madheshis in plains account for about 20 percent of population, Tharus over six percent, the rest are people of hill origin and other ethnic groups, who are opposed to evil designs. Agitating Madheshi leaders have been using another refrain of ‘Madheshi, Tharu and Janajatis’ rights. Don’t bring Tharus and Janajatis into it. Unlike Madheshi leaders, Tharus and Janajatis are opposed to any provision that could compromise country’s sovereignty.
This only exposes cruel intentions of agitating Madheshi leaders and India. The Madheshi leaders want what India wants. And India wants its “yes man” as country’s president. It wants to choke Nepal to death so Kathmandu eventually surrenders. The current standoff between India and Nepal is about whether to let this happen, whether to remain an independent country or become India’s puppet state. When intentions are cruel, no solution works.
Both India and Madheshi leaders want to prolong blockade up to the point, when, starved, tired and hopeless and bereft of other options, people cannot afford to be resilient and start saying, “let them do whatever they want but let us live in peace, let our children go to school, let us do business.” Anger is boiling in the Tarai plains even among people of hill origins. With standoff stretching far, the public will start venting ire toward the government. KP Oli’s government does not have promising faces. In a week since he assumed office, he has failed to take a single decision to bring fuel from third countries. If Oli takes firmer stand, he might meet the fate of Jhalanath Khanal whom India had dethroned in six months in 2011. Oli has failed to take a decision to approach China for emergency supply—despite latter offering all types of assistance, umpteenth times.
Tragedy of this country is it cannot reach out to China even when India chokes it to death. Leadership in Kathmandu chooses to suffer rather than accept Chinese assistance. Nowhere in the world may foreign policy of a country be guided by fear than people’s interests than in Nepal.
A fortnight ago, I had an interview with former Prime Minister Kirti Nidhi Bista on Indian blockade. Bista was one who had removed Indian military missions from Nepal in 1969 and asserted country’s sovereign status. What he said about Indian bully and Nepali fear sent me reeling. Look, India wants to colonize Nepal, he told me. India wants to establish absolute dominance over security establishment and water resources of Nepal. This blockade is a strategy to achieve these two goals. It wants Nepal as an independent and sovereign country only in name. I will be dead but you will experience it, he warned.
Bista is sad that successive governments, since his time, have failed to capitalize on Chinese gestures fearing India. He says that a mid-hill highway deal was almost done with China in 1972. But Nepal’s king backed out at the eleventh hour out of Indian pressure. This incompetence on our part to reach out will cost us dear in the future as well. Because India knows that Nepal cannot dare to reach out, it has been responding with blockade every now and then over minor issues.
It whipped Nepal with blockade over removing Indian military mission in 1969, importing weapons from China in 1989 and making constitution in 2015. This is the tactic that befits cruel hegemony, not the largest democracy that India has been (wrongly) called.
Nepal lies between cruel India and calm China. It has chosen to suffer from Indian hands.
Perhaps, we will find Nepal surrender to evil designs during Dashain break. This will be because of Nepal’s own failure to reach out to international community, because of its failure to take firm stand on sovereignty and independence.
Be that as it may, due to blockade millions of Nepalis won’t be able to go back to their villages to celebrate Dashain. Seventy five percent of public vehicles have been grounded due to lack of fuel. Dashain is the time when Nepalis wish good to each other and offer blessings, even to strangers. This is the time when people exchange greetings, even for formality sake, with each other and wish prosperity and happiness for all. This Dashain Nepalis will do more: They will curse India, curse Nepali leaders who act as India’s proxies and curse their own fate. No happy Dashain this year.
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