Introduction
Nepal has a unique strong identity
among the nations of Asia as a sovereign state, but it holds shaky balance
between India and china (Shrestha, 2001, p6), where Bhatt has characterized
triangle Nepal-India-China relationships as “root between two stones”. Indian
and Nepalese have shared the similar “geographical”, “historical”, “cultural”, “social”
and “economic” spheres since times immemorial (Mukherji,
2010, p1), but the diplomatic relationship
between Nepal and India is like a ‘legend’ after 1950s because the dynamics of
Indo-Nepal relationship changes after the political changes in Nepal (Thapa,
2010a, p37). The bilateral relationship between these two countries is troublesome
because of the treaties and agreement that have been signed by them.
In this essay, I will attempt to explain
how Nepal's sovereignty has been limited in the case of international disputes
especially with India? In doing so, I will be focusing on India’s policies
towards Nepal. Main focus has been given to various treaties and its
consequences for Nepal.
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| Map Credit: TopNews.in |
Status
of Relationship between Nepal and India since 1950s
Although Nepal is an independent sovereign
state, it has been an “India-locked” country throughout the history, where
India influences the major aspects of social, economic and political
institutions. The Indo-Nepal friendship was started by the Rana government in
1950 by ratifying two treaties; Treaty of Peace and Friendship (TPF) and Trade
Treaty (TT) by both governments. Ranas started the diplomacy relationship to
avoid political isolation from India, but simultaneously, Nepalese
who were exiled by Ranas were also creating political parties in Indian territory
to fight against the Rana dictators in Nepal (Krämer, 1999). After three months from the
signing of the Treaty, the oligarchic Rana regime was replaced to another
hereditary shah monarchy with the help of India, which later brought a mere
touch of democracy (Kraemer, 1999;
Kansakar, 2001). However, the then president of the Indian National Congress
went as far as declaring Nepal as a part of India where he noticeably said
“Nepal was always a part of India (Kraemer,
1999),” which clearly shows two things regarding Indo-Nepal relationship. First,
India wanted to keep Nepal under its influence for long. Second, India’s “big
brother attitudes” towards Nepal to influence political
and economical institutions in state formation. Even the leader of
Nepali National Congress, B.P. Koirala took the same stand saying “Actually
Nepal and India are not two countries” (Kraemer,
1999).
However,
the foreign policy between these countries evidently
shows that they are independent and sovereign. Foreign policies are the central
objective to preserving the liberty of states and to maintaining the “balance
of power” (Dune, 1999, p116). Under the TPF both acknowledge and respect state
sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence for diplomatic relations and
industrial and economic developments. It also recognizes the historical and
cultural ties between the people of these countries, thus Nepalese have
identical rights and privilege as Indian citizen in the matter of “residence,” “occupation,”
and “movement”
(PUDR, 2002). Similarly, TT provides permission to use Indian Territory as
transit route to reach Calcutta seaport and imports goods including military
equipment for its overseas trade. Since the treaty, India is one of
the oldest military suppliers to Nepal (Kansakar, 2001; Thapa 2010a, p55).
Yet again, several important bilateral
negotiations took place to develop both
countries on water management resources (Hamner and Aaron, 1998). In 1954, Koshi river agreement provides full authority
and power to India to design maintenance and repair the barrage. The agreement
has mainly focused on creating high dam to control floods and produce 1800 MW
hydropower to irrigate 3.84 million acres land in India and Nepal (Pun, 2009).
Soon after Koshi agreement, Trisuli agreement (1958), and Gandak irrigation and
power project (1959) (Paul, 2010) was held for the purpose of “flood control and management,” development of “hydro-electric
power”,
“irrigation”, “prevention of erosion” and “navigation” for both countries (Ministry of water and power, 1974;
Thapa, 2010).
Since 1950s every political change
in Nepal seeks changes in Indo-Nepal agreements because Nepal’s governments
have had “difficulty accommodating India’s
genuine interests and concerns” (Pandey, 2010). The
anti-Indian sentiments are growing in Nepal because of frequent interference of
India on Nepal’s affairs and the unequal treaties signed in the past. This
began to intensify mainly since King Mahendra introduced one party Panchayet
System in 1962. King Mahendra weakened Indo-Nepal relationship by reducing
Nepal’s dependence on India and developing closer relationship with China. The
relation even frozen in 1969 when Nepal pressed India for substantial
amendments in its favor to revise the existing “unjust” treaties such as
“removing Indian security check-posts stationed in Nepal” and “revoking the
1950 treaty” and “separating treaties for trade and transit in mid 1970s” which
forced India to withdraw check-post from Nepal and agreed to have separate
trade and transit agreement in 1978. In contrast, India insisted negotiating
“renewal treaty” into a “single trade and transit treaty,” that was not
accepted by Nepal because she had an agreement to purchase weapons from Beijing
(Thapa, 2010a; p42-45; Mongabay, n.p.). Consequently, India blockaded Nepal for 15 months in 1988 because Nepal
hesitated to fulfill Indian’s interest. As a result, the country’s economy was
devastating through high inflation and slow economic growth (Khan, Faisal,
Moeed and Aska, 2007; p13; Dahal, 1996; Kumar, 1994, p76). Still, Nepal was
attempting to prove that she is a sovereign independent state and have right to
act in her own interest.
In the aftermath of political
crises by despotic kings’ activities, the
pro-democratic movement
led by Nepali congress and UFL restored multiparty democracy in the country which was surprisingly
supported by India (Hachhethu, 1994, p91; Parajulee, 2000; Beretsmann Stiftung,
2009). India has used its diplomatic power in one of the three goals, “to keep
power, to increase power, or to demonstrate power,” as mentioned in Realpolitik
and Raison d’Etat by Barash and Webel (2002, p196). Again after 1990 political
change in Nepal, the new Indo-Nepal relationship created various new bilateral
agreements such as Mahakali integrated development treaty (1990, 1996) Tankapur
Agreement (1991) (Malhotra, 2010), inspite of its differences in the past.
Although the cooperation between
the states exists through various treaties and agreements, it is very difficult
to sustain because those treaties are perceived as “unequal” and “controversial”
by Nepalese counterpart. On the other hand, India always attempts to maximize its
benefits by breaking the treaties and diminishing Nepal’s sovereignty in several
ways:
First, the territory integrity clause of TPF says to keep 1,700 km
between the border of Nepal and India (Khanduri, 2001); however, there are more
than 60 cases of noticeable border disputes with India. One of them was Indian fighter
Jet randomly flying over Darchula in Nepalese territory, while “patrolling”
Indian border territories (Nepali, 2009). Furthermore, 22 out of 26 districts
of Nepal bordering India have territorial disputes (Thapa, 2010a).
Second, Nepalese have special
status as citizens in India under a bilateral agreement, but she received
Nepalese immigrants as threat. During the 10 years long political upheaval, many
young Nepalese preferred to be a cheap labor immigrant in India (Samantaray, 2008).
It is assumed that each hour 200 Nepalese
cross the border (Bhattrai, 2007). Later they have
settled in Uttarakhand, Bihar, Chhattisgarh,
Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa in India. Some of these Nepalese from Uttarakhand formed a
national level organization, called the Akhil Bharatiya Nepal Ekta Samaj
(ABNES) to focus on social, cultural and economic amelioration of the
Nepalese in India and
unite among migrant Nepalese residing and working in India to provide a life
with dignity and security. However, Indian government banned the organization
under the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) in 2002 by accusing them that they
have linked with Nepalese Maoist (Samantaray, 2008; PUDR 2002); whistle India
was the key player of the peace process for the 12 point comprehensive peace
accord (CPA) between Maoists and Seven party alliances (Murthy, 2010b). It
indicates that India uses Nepal’s political and economic developments as it
wish.
There are many questions that arise
and cold the relationship: Why should ABNES is banned under POTA, given the
fact that its members do not involve in any “crimes” and “terrorists”
activities on Indian Territory? Why should Nepalese suddenly become “unwanted”
to India? Why the Nepalese residing in India are forced to give up their life? On
the other hand, Sharma highlighted issues related with Maoist and argues that “although
currently Maoist are under Nepali law and politics, still Maoists are labeled as
“terrorist” in the US and Indian official record” (Sharma, 2011). Moreover, the
Maoists have already come into mainstream politics and have even been the
significant part of the governments since 2007. It may be the reason that they
want to use it as bargaining tool in the future and make them work as they
want.
Third, TT permits Nepal to use
Indian territory as a transit to import
military weapons and equipments for the security of Nepal (Khanduri, 2001), but when Nepal bought some military
weapons from china, India interpreted as Nepal’s violation of agreement to
consult India before buying weapons. These agreements have only been
able to best address Indian interests which
indicate that Indian governments are motivated to increase their wealth and or
power through various agreements. Why should sovereign Nepal ‘suffer’ in the
name of ‘treaty’? Why should Nepal be the victims of India’s “big brother
attitudes”? Is it because Nepal is small, poor and land-locked country? It
might be that India sees modern military technology shifting the balance of
power between states, as Baylis says, about ‘the problem of difficulties in
international co-operations’.
Fourth, according to the KRP agreement,
Bihar state government is responsible to maintain and repair the Koshi
embankment (Mukunda, 2008), but their negligence has collapsed the embankment displacing
more than 50,000 people in Nepal and between 2 to 2.5 million people in India (The
Times of India, 2008; Pun, 2009). The catastrophe fuelled by flood has brought
various disputes between the Bihar and the central government for their negligence
on the embankment and between Nepal and India about the issues of compensation
(Malhotra, 2010; Pun, 2009). However, there should be clear
focus on what as Amrtya Sen notes, individual human lives at the core of the
human security concept (Sen cited in Lee, 2011a). Prachanda, the then prime
minister of Nepal also named as “historical mistakes” after visiting the
affected areas. It was urged that both governments should work together to
compensate the victims rather than blaming each other in the time of such
crisis. The former ambassador to Nepal, KV Rajan
also highlighted the needs to cooperate between Nepal and India after the Koshi
tragedy, although the treaties “heavily favor” India and few so-called elites
in Nepal (Housden, 2008) as Rajan emphasized in his speech.
Fifth, the Mahakali agreement was
to produce 600MW hydropower by 2002 for irrigating agricultural land in both
countries, but again the flaws lies in the agreement which is now
basically defunct. It specifies that Nepal would
get 4% of the water supply but still lack the amount of water India received from
the project (eKantipur, 2009; Thapa, 2010a, p180). How would Nepal respond if
India received 96% of the total water? Should the friendship continue even
after the exploitation of the water resources of the Mahakali River? Is India “hydro-hegemon” regarding water resources
treaties? Since Nepal’s water resources are one of the core areas of interests
of India, they have always kept keen eyes on it. Even the Indian government
often lobbies, pressurizes and even sometimes threatens Nepal to entertain
Indian companies to invest in many hydro-projects of Nepal. India argues that,
based on the treaty, it should be given the first priority. It is very clear
that India will be always willing to maintain its upper hand on foreign
investment in hydro-power generating in Nepal.
Sixth,
the growing imbalance trade between Nepal and India, where there was a decline
of $1.1billion exports through various special regulation and restrictive
requirements such as tariff in four sensitive items (Das, 2010, p18; Mukherji,
2010, p6), non-tariff restrictions and quarantine tests, although
Indian trade makeup Nepal’s 63.9% of total trade (Bertelsmann Stiftung, 2009).
Moreover, India is one of the largest foreign investors in Nepal, but the labor
unrest, lack of power supply and raw material has hindered the business and
overlooked the agreement, which have become the main issues for Indian
government. The Maoist trade union attacked on Dabur Nepalhas resulted in a loss of about Rs.
130 million per day to Dabur Nepal. Mukherji argues that strike has become
India’s main concern in every bilateral trade talk that breached the agreement signed between workers and officials (Mukherji,
2010, p30-32). The Maoists in Nepal have been pursuing some policies that are
not in favor of India. It might be the reason why India is heavily involved in keeping
the Maoists out of the government in Nepal and building anti-Maoists camp
stronger.
Finally,
Tanakpur project was conducted in 1983-84 using the international border river
that flows between these countries in Indian Territory but she thought that the
project “was entirely built by Indian money for the Indians, by the Indians and
on the Indian land” (Kumar, 1994, p79). When Nepal asked about the project before
it get materialized, she ignored Nepal’s request but later when the project was
visible, India suggested that it is of “no concern to Nepal”, since it was
built in India’s land, which Kumar claims India “cheated” Nepal in water
resources management cooperation. India finally consulted with Nepal, when she
realized that she needed to construct an
afflux bund on Nepalese soil to deliver desired amount of water or electricity in
making the project successful in India. The controversy
again arouse when India denied giving 25 out of 125 megawatts to Nepal.
Undoubtedly, Indian imperialism of new form might bring another
“state of war” against Indian government and local people in Nepal, as Dunne
claims that the causes of war can occur from imperialism, or the balance of
power, or undemocratic regimes (Dunne 1997, p148). This colonial mindset of
India and its ill-treatment to its neighbors in South Asia has been producing
widespread disenchantment and resentment among the citizens of those countries,
which is a very disturbing development for India’s future International
relations. It shows that India always want to expand her “hegemony power” in
Nepal and will relate to Nepal when needed. I strongly agree with
constructivists thinking that “anarchy is what states make of it” in
international relations (Baylis, 1999; p204). Baylis also highlighted the difficulties
of co-operation between states when other states deceive on any agreements to
gain more benefits. The violation of each and every agreement has become the
security issues between India and Nepal which have brought insecurity in the
name of finding “security” and “identity,” as Lee discussed in “critical
security studies” (Lee, 2011a).
India-Nepal
Relationship after Post conflict Era
Normally,
Nepal maintained her usual diplomatic, economic
and military relations with India within and after the insurgency. But the role of
India with regard to Maoist insurgency has remained very complicated. Although
Maoists were ideologically and practically anti-Indian, they received support from India (Murthy, 2010b; Thapa, 2010a) during their
Insurgency as well during signing of Comprehensive Peace Agreements in 2005,
which pitched the path towards peace
process and constitution writing process through Constituent Assembly. Neither
the direct rule imposed by the then king was accepted by India, nor the people’s
uprisings to overthrown the despotic king were supported by India because she thought
that the king did not consult with her before imposing the rule but she also
did not want to overthrow the then king (Thapa, 2010a, p 48).
After the decade long political chaos, the winning of Maoists in the
CA election have also affected Indo-Nepal relationship (Murthy, 2009). Although
India was one of the first countries to congratulate Maoists, she was very much
surprised with the election result (Murthy, 2010). Indian BJP leader Jaswanta
Singh was
not ready to accept Maoists as a ‘legitimate’ political actor to govern
sovereign Nepal, even though Maoists secured
one third of the majority (Adhiakry, 2008). He shared his extreme disappointment at the party national executive,
arguing “The coming to power of Communists in Nepal was in no way a good sign
for India and this should be accepted (CNN-IBN, 2008)”. Why should the Maoist be the problem to
Indian political party, if it is accepted by Nepalese people?
The relationship between Maoist and
India even froze, when The Maoist-led coalition government broke a tradition flying
to Beijing for the closing ceremony of Olympics. Maoist thinks that India cannot be
helpful in building a “New Nepal” (CNN-IBN, 2008), thus, Prachanda, the
then prime minister wanted to encourage and reassure Chinese investments and
private run-business (BBC, 2008) to be less dependent with India. Furthermore,
when Prachanda sacked chief of the army, Rookmangud
Katawal for refusing to integrate PLA (Hindustan Times, 2009); India gave a pressure
to reinstate him (Telegraph Nepal, 2010; Murthy, 2009). During the television address to nation, the then prime
minister Prachanda said that his government was “encircled” from various actors
and was not allowed to work independently (Yogi, 2009). Although he did not
mention about the forces that restricted Maoist-led government to work
independently, it was clear that he were referring to India.
Immediately after their resignation, the
Maoist leaders started movement targeting India and arguing that the then prime
minister, MK Nepal, is acting at the behest of New Delhi and India has become
more vital than “civilian supremacy” (Murthy 2010). For instance, when the
Indian army chief announced that Indian army is against the integration of
Maoist combatants, immediately Nepal Army stood extremely against the
integration. Maoists also boycott Indian activities, organized
mass mobilization and protests in various point of Indo-Nepal borders and
burned the treaties. To warm the relationship, the Indian embassy had to release
the statement saying that they were not the view of the government (Murthy,
2010) but later Wikileaks published the secrete talk between Nepal and Indian
foreign minister FM Mukherjee, where Mukherjee shared Indian increasing
security concerned and demanded that the PLA should not integrate “under any
circumstances” (Wikileaks,
2011). Till today, the rehabilitation and
integration of 19,602 verified Maoist combatants (Yogi, 2009; Siwakoti, 2010, P72) have not been
addressed, despites the peace accord in 2006. India seems to have been lobbing
to discourage any group wise integration of the Maoists combatants.
Sometimes the statements and visits
by diplomats make things worse in international repercussions. When the third
time to elect the prime minister from the cabinet was failed, the visited of
the former ambassador to Nepal, Shyam Saran on the ‘eve of forth election’ was
understood as very important political visit. Some argued that it was to isolate
Maoist, stopping them from forming a government and encourage the
Madhesi to vote against Maoists. While other
argued that the visit was to bring “peace and stability” and to help to form a
national unity government in Nepal (Murthy, 2010a). Whatever reason was about
the visit, state sovereignty has been violated to some extend to pursue Indian
purpose as Barash and Webel mentioned about state sovereignty in the book peace
& conflict studies (2002, p191). A month ago, Indian Ambassador to Nepal held
a meeting with NC and expressed his concerned about the combatant integrations
and CA election extension (eKantipur, 2011). Very recent development is another
example of how India has been playing on Nepal’s politics. When the current
government led by Jhalanath Khanal of NCP-UML (which has the strong supports of
the Maoits) was planning to extend the deadline of constitution writing with
two-third majority if other parties (mainly the Nepali Congress and few Madhesh-based
parties) don’t agree on consensual extension, the Tarai-based party, Nepal
Madheshi Forum was split. And many news reports quoting the high ranking
politicians of the party have stated that there was the ‘hand of foreign
forces’ and ‘politics of money’ behind the split. As a result of the split, the
Maoists backed party was not in a situation to extend the deadlines as it
wanted. This is how even the government formation, peace process and the
constitution writing process has been complicated. It is understandable that India wants to establish
the government that will fulfill her interest in Nepal, which Dunne defines state as anarchic system.
Conclusion
State sovereignty means “equality of
states,” “exclusive representation,” “non-interference,” “monopoly of force,”
“identity,” and “no higher authority within a state” (Lee, 2011) but it has
been challenged and denied in many aspects through poverty, illiteracy,
inequality, international relation and globalization. The Nepal’s case that I
presented above clearly supports it. The new definition of sovereignty from responsibility
to protect (R to P) defines “sovereignty is a protection of its population,
and if for some reason state cannot or will not work, the international
community has the residual responsibility to intervene” (Gomez, 2011; Lee 2011b),
that means sovereign state should fulfill “state responsibility” as a provider,
if not it will lose its legitimacy to claim as a “sovereign state” in the eyes
of the international community. However, it is
equally important to focus on how sovereignty is granted in realism, for, every
state’s dignity because people have
particular way of understanding state and sovereignty. Considering both
definition of state sovereignty, Nepal is a sovereign state, and always has been seeking to maintain its independence
from India. However, Nepal has been indirectly colonized by India
historically.
Since
2008, both countries have given priorities to their bilateral ties during their
diplomatic exchanges. There have been several talks and discussions with Indian
leaders to revise the bi-lateral agreements (Rajamohan, 2004), but none of
these talks have come to the concrete conclusion.
Thus, there is a need to think whether both countries should live on the
bilateral relationship of the past, despites of Indian imperialism and “big
brother attitudes”. India should prepare to change her attitude, recognize Nepalese expectations to bring peace and
foster democracy, stops splitting the political parties and accept Nepal
as a sovereign state, rather than viewing Nepal through a colonialist lens.
It
will be a great mistake for India if she thinks that “the strong do what they
have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept (Dunne, 1999;
p111).” The lesson to be learnt from Indo-Nepal relationship is that liberal democratic
states are not always peaceful as we have imagined and thought. They do not
immediately go to the war, but there is a high probability that they can
involve in the war in the coming future when their relationship gets colder. Because,
democratic values, as Bruce Russett argues, will not eliminate war, but power
and strategic consideration affect states’ decisions to fight each other
(Baylis, 1999, p202). Therefore, there is a great need of collaboration and
cooperation to remove all types of discrimination between Nepal and India, but
simultaneously, Nepal has to regulate the border
to develop and fulfill the national interest as India has been increasingly
concerned about its security in recent years when it faces growing challenges
both form terrorist attacks and the Indian Maoists security threat.
As
Nepal has historically remained an Independent nation and, in Thapa’s words, ‘no
foreign flag has ever flown over our land like any other independent nation,
people of Nepal hold a perpetual desire to have a dignified sovereign existence
and a slavish puppet state would be intolerable’ (IPCS, 2010). Nepalese people,
who are more aware about the history and are more mobilized, will always defy
any interference and ill-treatment to them from any countries. In the
globalized world, the existence, security, peace and development are all
interdependent. Hence, India as an immediate neighbor of Nepal should do away
with its traditional diplomacy towards Nepal and behave it as a separate
independent nation – which is good for India’s long term security interests as
well.
Dabur Nepal Pvt. Ltd. is a joint venture of Dabur India Ltd that owned
80% of the total investment started on November 1992. The company produces
herbal hair oil, toothpowder, glucose-D, Confectionary, fruit juice, perfumes,
honey processing and medicinal plants.
According to Barash and Webel, Imperialism refers to the policy of extending one’s rule
over other, foreign people. For more information, please refer the book Peace and Conflict Studies, p.248.
