KathmanduYou could almost discern a tinge of hope for the regional grouping in Narendra Modi’s December 8 SAARC Day message. “SAARC has made progress, but more needs to be done,” he wrote. In a clear allusion to Pakistan, he added, “Our efforts for greater collaboration have repeatedly been challenged with threats and acts of terrorism.”

Such an environment, he continues, impedes “our shared objective of realizing the full potential of SAARC”. Realizing the full potential of SAARC? The pick of words is odd coming from someone who supposedly wants the regional body dead. He offers more morsels of hope: “SAARC, set up as an organization to build a connected and integrated South Asia, aims at promoting the development and progress of all countries in the region.” Again, why talk up SAARC’s goals if he is determined to ditch it?

When I put this question to Keshav Prasad Bhattarai of the Nepal Institute for Strategic Studies (NISS), he had a curious reply: “What India is trying to do is turn SAARC into another BIMSTEC.” How so?

“How else do we understand a SAARC minus Pakistan that India seems to be pushing for?” he asks. “But it is laughable to imagine a SAARC that has Afghanistan but not Pakistan.” Bhattarai seems to be on to something. In the past few years the Modi government has invested a lot in trying to isolate Pakistan, both regionally and globally. Now, with the new Indian policy of welcoming only non-Muslim immigrants from India’s neighboring countries, Modi is putting down a marker.

The way anti-Muslim hysteria is being whipped up in India, it’s hard to imagine Modi adopting an accommodating line on Pakistan. The goal of the recent statement on SAARC Day could thus have been to hammer in the point that the regional grouping could have done wonders if not for Pakistan.

Nepal is invested in SAARC, having played an important role in its establishment and as the host of its secretariat. Nepal is also the current SAARC chair. But are we flogging a dead horse? Even when India and Pakistan were on talking terms, how effective was the regional grouping?

Without SAARC, India and Pakistan will have one fewer platform to talk with each other. The only other regional grouping both are members of is the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. After all, during the last SAARC Summit in Kathmandu, Modi had felt the need to meet Nawaz Sharif secretly. The less the two nuclear powers talk, the deeper will be the suspicions, and the greater the chances of unrest in the region.

As things are, with India as the fulcrum of South Asia, SAARC does not seem to have a viable future. Perhaps the best we can hope is for it to continue as a platform for Tier 2 diplomacy. An Indian government not drunk on partisan Hindu support would realize that India’s economic rise will remain stymied so long as tensions with Pakistan persist. South Asia minus Pakistan is a geographical impossibility. You cannot wish away a country of 200 million, however much you hate it.

When Nepal hosted the inaugural South Asian Games (SAG) in 1984, it finished fourth in the medal table, winning 24 medals, four of them gold. The next time it hosted the event, in 1999, it finished second, with a tally of 65 medals, including 31 golds. Come 2019, Nepal again came second, bagging a whopping 206 medals, including 51 golds. The 2019 achievements are astonishing, even considering that host countries generally do well in international sporting events. Nothing gets an athlete going more than raucous home support.

Even so, 51 golds are no joke. Our athletes were trained well for the biennial event. The National Sports Council, the national sports governing body that is more often in the news for the wrong reasons, deserves credit this time, both for training the Nepali contingent well and for successfully pulling off the gargantuan task of hosting and managing over 2,700 international athletes. No doubt there were some management glitches, including with crowd management; but the 13th SAG will by and large be counted among the more successful regional games.

But now that the dust from the games is settling, it is time for some realism. Nepal has never won a single gold at the Asian Games, and just two silvers. At the Olympics, the biggest stage of them all, the country has won nothing in the six decades of its participation. This is an indictment of the sporting culture of not just Nepal but of South Asia as a whole. India, the regional sporting behemoth and the country that will soon have the largest population in the world, has won only 28 medals (nine golds) at the Olympics in nearly a century of its participation. Traditionally, South Asian folks have not been very sporty, for all sorts of reasons—except in cricket, which inspires zealous passion here, particularly among arch-rivals India and Pakistan.

Yet that is changing. Just look at the swagger and fitness of Nepali cricketers these days. Sandeep Lamichhane and Paras Khadka are world-class sportsmen. The quadruple gold medalist Gaurika Singh seems peerless in the pool. Nepali footballers, who won the SAG final against Bhutan, played (and acted) like real champions, truly deserving of their success rather than merely getting lucky. Now it is up to our sports administrators to carefully nurture these young talents and nudge them to even greater heights in international sports. Good athletes should also be financially supported. If that happens, parents will want their children to grow up to be professional athletes—the only genuine way Nepali sports will progress.

Diplomatic license 
A confident Nepal confronts India

The Indian political establishment and bureaucracy hate to admit it. But India’s Nepal policy has undergone a forced and dramatic change thanks to China. Former Indian ambassador to Nepal, Ranjit Rae, may be wrong on some things but he is bang on in his assertion that after the 2015-16 blockade, the Indian establishment has been occupied with keeping Kathmandu in good humor, lest Nepal slides farther into the Chinese orbit. The over-promising and under-delivering India has been shaken awake. A cross-border oil pipeline quickly came up, and there is fresh impetus on all kinds of Indo-Nepal connectivity projects. 

According to the Indians, Narendra Modi would have come to Nepal if not for President Xi’s Kathmandu trip. Perhaps Modi did not want to be overshadowed by Xi. But this cannot be the whole story. If the Indians were irked by the zealous welcome Xi was accorded in Nepal, they have not let it show. What we see instead is India’s greater readiness to make all kinds of concessions to Nepal: from offering it new transit facilities to keeping mum when Nepal erupted over Kalapani. 

The Madhesis have been conveniently forgotten post-blockade. India now insists it is not competing against China in Nepal. When India tried to punish Nepal for daring to promulgate a national charter without its say-so, Nepal got closer to China. This rang alarm bells in New Delhi, even though the likes of Rae continued to maintain that China can never replace India in Nepal. Hence the rather acerbic Rae, who was also a firm supporter of the Madhesi cause, was replaced by Manjeev Singh Puri, an affable businessman with no ardent ideological moorings. If China wanted to be business-like in Nepal, so would India. 

The Indian policy on Nepal is now geared toward accommodating Kathmandu after futile attempts to punish it for straying. We see something similar happening in Sri Lanka, as India tries to accommodate the newly-elected Rajapakshas, long known for their sympathies to China. In the Indian eyes, they were the ones who handed Hambantota to the Chinese on a silver platter. Yet the Lankans have elected them back to power and India has now accepted it as a fait accompli.   

India is finding its options shrinking in this multipolar world, as it struggles to get even Bhutan, whose security it oversees, to toe its line vis-à-vis China. The recent by-elections in Nepal have showed the ruling NCP’s hold on Nepali politics is as strong as ever, and it will be sometime before the Nepali Congress or any other party can break the communist grip. India has no option but to deal with the communist leadership. 

It would not be an exaggeration to say that under PM Oli, Nepal gets more respect from India than it ever did after the 1990 change. Try convincing Oli or the NCP that the outreach to China is counterproductive. Or that their efforts to revive SAARC is futile. An increasingly confident Nepal is opening up to the outside world. The days when Nepal was under India’s exclusive sphere of influence are gone. To their credit, the Indian political leadership and intellectuals seem to realize this.   

Diplomatic license
After the Americans, Russians 

Nepal-India relations have supposedly hit rock bottom after the publication of a new Indian map incorporating Kalapani. The PMO in India is livid a country as close as Nepal does not understand its security sensitivities over Kalapani, and that the ‘China-controlled’ Oli government allowed ‘sponsored’ anti-India protests on Nepali soil. The Indians aren’t convinced that the PMO in Nepal was pushed into a corner by a wave of genuine anti-India protests. True to his nationalist mien, PM Oli has said he is ready to lose his premiership to reclaim Kalapani. Nepali Congress, bereft of any other agenda, has also enthusiastically latched on to an overtly anti-India line over Kalapani. 

Yet there is also business as usual between New Delhi and Kathmandu. The two sides recently hammered out agreements giving Nepal the use of more Indian ports for bulk cargo transport. Meanwhile, Kalapani, both Nepal and India insist, will be settled through dialogue. Separately, could it be that the timing of the map’s publication was no fluke, right after the Nepal visit of Chinese president Xi Jinping? You know, just showing who is boss in this neck of the woods, and in a perfect illustration of ‘two steps forward one back’ diplomacy? 

As former Indian ambassador to Nepal Ranjit Rae put it recently, the Modi regime is unduly worried about China’s push into Nepal, when it’s crystal clear that ‘China can never be an alternative to India’. But Modi does not get that, does he? Whatever his personal feelings, he has to be nice to Kathmandu and to continue to offer it inducements. Otherwise the Chinese won’t just come; they could completely gobble up Nepal. Therefore, even though the Indians hint that Xi’s visit might have forestalled Modi’s own Nepal trip, New Delhi is still making concessions to Nepali negotiators. 

The prospect of the Chinese railway being extended to Lumbini, right beside their regional military aviation hub, is alarming for Indian strategic thinkers. Nor are they too pleased with the signing of what they see as a de facto extradition treaty with China. The Americans are even more worried, and searching for every possible traction. They have long asked Nepal to install the PIECES border control database at the TIA, which would give the Americans data on all incoming visitors. Nepal’s failure to do so was perhaps one reason the TIA was flagged in a recent American terrorism report. 

It’s remarkable how quickly the traditional Indo-China rivalry in Nepal has morphed into a trilateral one. It might still broaden. The entry of Russia—whose Nepali embassy used to host underground meetings during the Cold War—will be another interesting twist. In the American eyes, Vladimir Putin has no business in Nepal except to act as China’s enabler and spoiler of American Indo-Pacific dreams. Those in the know say Nepal is dead serious about hosting Putin and he might really come, sooner than later, with a bit of Chinese goading. Suddenly, from being ignored by much of the world, Kathmandu is quickly turning into a hub of international diplomacy. No wonder Oli feels emboldened on Kalapani. 

It was a bitter pill to swallow for Upendra Yadav, the health minister and chairman of the Samajbadi Party Nepal. In his absence, his health portfolio was changed to law (he retains the title of deputy prime minister). Being removed from the lucrative health ministry, a traditional cash cow for ruling parties, was a severe blow no doubt. Yadav put an interesting twist to his portfolio change, arguing that, as the head of the law ministry, he was now in the perfect place to change the constitution. He is not. But nor is he in a position to leave the government.

He only has to look at Baburam Bhattarai, his party colleague. In Yadav’s reckoning, Bhattarai made a big mistake by abandoning his mother Maoist party and trying to forge his own political career out of nothing. In the 2017 elections, Bhattarai’s Naya Shakti party, running short of money and muscle, the two tried and tested means to electoral victory in Nepal, sputtered to a humiliating defeat. As there is little prospect of a new movement in Madhes, Yadav reckons there is not much to be gained by quitting the government now. He also fears that if his party quits, the RJPN, the other important Madhesi actor, could quickly replace it in the Oli cabinet.

This shows the extent of the depletion of the Madhesi cause that Yadav so vociferously championed in 2007, when he emerged as the single biggest leader of Tarai-Madhes. The massive electoral victory of the left alliance in 2017 forestalled any immediate possibility of constitution amendment. Now the Madhes is relatively calm. Even if it revolts tomorrow, the Samajbadi Party is by no means sure to benefit. Better stay in the government and wait for another year or two, and then quit—right on the eve of the next round of elections.

The RJPN, meanwhile, is hobbled by its own dilemmas. The six-member presidium is divided about the way forward: whether to ally with Yadav, join the Oli government, or to prepare for another movement in Madhes. In comparison, the Samajbadi Party appears like a model of unity. Upendra Yadav is far too astute a politician to give up the clear advantage over his arch-rivals for Madhesi votes. This kind of vote-bank politics will not appeal to many Madhesis. But that is beside the point in Yadav’s current existential battle for survival.

Mombasa, Kenya: One of the first things that strike a resident of Kathmandu about the Kenyan capital are its colorful matatus, the equivalent of the jam-packed microbuses in the Nepali capital. Notwithstanding these zippy vehicles, the seafaring East African country of Kenya, with nearly five times the land area of Nepal and two times its population, seems to have little in common with the landlocked South Asian state. But dig a little deeper and a plethora of similarities become apparent. 

For a student of geopolitics, there could be no better place than Kenya to study China’s ‘debt trap diplomacy’ and the Middle Kingdom’s constant tug-of-war with the US, traditionally the biggest outside power in Africa. (Sounds familiar?) The Chinese consider the Nairobi-Mombasa Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as among the crown jewels of President Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Completed in 2017 at the cost of $3.6 billion, making it independent Kenya’s most expensive project, the SGR is variously described as ‘the emblem of a fast-modernizing Kenya’ or a ‘white elephant’, depending on whom you ask. Cost-wise, the Exim Bank of China footed 90 percent of the bill (with a mix of commercial and concessional loans) while the Kenyan government contributed the remaining 10 percent. 

According to the government of Uhuru Kenyatta, over three million passengers and 4.5 million tons of cargo have already travelled on the SGR, bringing in a revenue of some $55 million. The government expects both the passenger and cargo numbers to go up as the SGR line is expanded further, with the eventual goal of connecting the six East African Community (EAC) countries. But that is the long-term plan. Right now there is a raucous debate in Kenya about whether the next phase of the SGR project, connecting Nairobi with Malaba at the border with Uganda, and totaling another $1.5 billion, is worth it.

If the Chinese railway ever enters Nepal, we could face the same questions that the Kenyans confront today. The SGR contractor, China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC), was accused of hiring Chinese nationals in all top posts while the middling jobs went to the Kenyans (the imbalance has been reduced of late). More recently, it was rumored that the CRBC would take over the Mombasa port as Kenya failed to repay its SGR debt (China insists “Kenya is in fact ahead of the payment schedule”). The opposition parties and a section of the press also accuse the Kenyatta government of not providing right information about the SGR, making it impossible to determine its financial health. As it is, Kenya’s trade imbalance with China is stark (with imports 33 times larger than exports), though not as bad as Nepal’s (100 times). As in Nepal, the Americans have been trying to convince Kenyans not to fall into China’s ‘debt trap’, and just as in Nepal, Kenyan officials say they know what is best for them. 

Meanwhile, the railway seems to be doing just fine (daily tickets are often sold out). As the luxury train bearing the flags of Kenya and China pulls out of Nairobi and chugs through two national parks on the way to Mombasa, you think: surely, such big projects entail agonizing tradeoffs.

For a party that reaped maximum political benefit from the 2015-16 border blockade, the re-emergence of Kalapani as a national issue could be a godsend for the ruling NCP, and its leader KP Oli. Despite some success in foreign policy, the two-third Oli government has underperformed, and fallen short of honoring its ‘Happy Nepalis, Prosperous Nepal’ commitment. The reign of mafias has tightened in virtually all sectors, impunity is sky high, and threat to civil liberties increasing. And the prime minister’s health is unstable, to put the finest possible gloss on it. To make amends, the PM has ‘fired’ all his advisors and is reshuffling the cabinet.

But there will be nothing like being seen as standing strong against an ‘expansionist’ India to reestablish his nationalist credentials. When the updated map of India showing Kalapani as Indian territory first emerged, the government seemed unsure of how to react. The foreign ministry mandarins were so terrified of speaking against India that the statement condemning the Kalapani encroachment was not even issued in English, an unprecedented event. But the government soon realized that it had much to lose by staying silent, and a world to gain by loosening its tongue.

To be fair, it is not just the ruling NCP leaders who have been crying foul about the Indian encroachment. The main opposition has come out as strongly against it and vowed full support to the government. If the problem is amicably settled in Nepal’s favor, or if the government is seen as raising it strongly even as India is unmoved, most of the credit will go to Oli and company, which they can again cash in on during the next general elections.

But there is also a danger. India is determined to keep Kalapani, given its high strategic value in monitoring the Chinese in Tibet. Nor can Modi afford to be seen as ‘losing’ such a vital territory to what many Indian strategic thinkers consider China’s ‘puppet government’ in Kathmandu. Even if he were willing, state politics in Uttarakhand, where Kalapani is now placed, rules that possibility out. In this situation, New Delhi will ignore Nepal’s demands up to a point. But when it has had enough, there is no guessing how it will react.

The best-case scenario for India is to maintain the status quo on Kalapani and wait for the noise in Kathmandu to die down. But until the next election cycle in 2022, there will also be no bigger political issue in Nepal for those in the government as well as the opposition. As Foreign Minister Pradeep Gyawali recently put it, the two-third government cannot fail in its most basic duty: maintaining the country’s territorial integrity. In this, the Oli government, boosted by the recent high-level engagement with China, has been emboldened to stand up to India. Otherwise, it would have been inconceivable for a Nepali foreign minister to label a decades-old issue of encroachment as Indian ‘bullying’.

With Nepal now its ‘strategic partner’, will China stand as firmly with Nepal on Kalapani as it does with, say, Pakistan on Kashmir? (Not inconceivable.) Or will India and China agree to settle Kalapani without Nepal’s consent, as they have seemingly done on Lipulekh? (More likely.) Small powers seldom win important geopolitical battles. Whatever the case, the sparks from Kalapani will fly for some time yet.

As Sam Cowan, an ex-British Army officer and a scholar with an intimate knowledge of Nepal, has pointed out, this is not the first time a political map issued in India has shown Kalapani as Indian territory. British India had first published such a map in 1879, he says, a map which independent India inherited. Successive governments of Nepal, whether the autocratic ones under Ranas or the democratic ones later, over many generations, ignored the inclusion of Kalapani in Indian maps. They had various favors to curry with the Indians, whether for themselves or for their country, and the de facto loss of Kalapani was apparently a price worth paying. 

So Cowan does not understand the fuss around the new map of India issued by its Home Ministry. He is right to an extent. But any real or perceived loss of a country’s territory, even a teeny bit, can be an explosive development in this social media-controlled, alternate-fact reality world. The Chinese take the cases of publication of China’s map without Hong Kong or Taiwan mighty seriously (and I speak from experience). The same has traditionally been the case with the Indians and publication of the de facto map of Jammu and Kashmir in international outlets. In fact, no government today can countenance any real or perceived loss of national territory. 

And just like the mainstream media elsewhere, Nepali media know how to whip up a good nationalist story, however old, to get maximum eyeballs. The old public suspicion of India does not help. After three blockades, Nepalis have come to instinctively mistrust New Delhi. Interestingly, the map now brought out by the Indian Home Ministry was strictly for domestic use and not an international map, as even Nepal’s survey department officials have clarified. Yet the uproar over it refuses to die down. 

India is unlikely to give up Kalapani, which gives it a vital strategic advantage from which to closely monitor the movement of Chinese troops in the region. As Kalapani also falls on the route to the Kailash Mansarovar, an important Hindu pilgrimage, the Hindu nationalist government in New Delhi will be keen to retain it. Perhaps the most it will do is agree to keep the maps ambiguous while continuing to occupy Kalapani. If the push comes to shove, it might even agree to a land swap for Kalapani with Nepal. As an immediate sop, the spokesperson for Indian foreign ministry has said that there has been no change in status quo on the border with Nepal and all disputes will be settled through later negotiations. But will that suffice? 

It is a hard fact of geopolitics that the interest of smaller countries like Nepal are often compromised in the larger strategic battles between bigger powers like India and China. In the worst case, the big powers completely overlook the interests of small powers (cue: Lipulekh). The ongoing protests over the occupation of Kalapani is a diplomatic tinderbox for the communist government. It was the mother party of KP Oli that first officially informed India of its ‘illegal occupation’ of Kalapani back in 1996. The prime minister who came to power on the back of the 2015-16 blockade can ill afford to be seen as weak before the old hegemon on the eve of important by-elections.