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That day you used a piece of red cloth

To blindfold me and the sky

And asked me what do you see

I said I saw happiness

This really made me feel good

It made me forget I have no place to live

You asked me where I want to go

I said I want to follow you

I didn’t see you or the road

You also held my hands

You asked me what I want

I said I want you to decide

(Cui Jian, A piece of red cloth (‘yi kuai er hong bu’). Translation from Mandarin, mine) Some reckon it is too early to judge the Oli-led govern­ment. But, then, what exactly has he accomplished in more than four months in office, except making promises?

The promised and proposed trains, airports and major infra­structure projects take time and nobody is saying we want all those right now. But our pundits, politi­cians and journalists have meshed the infrastructure projects with nationalism and we are being told to silently bear the unbearable, tolerate the intolerable and not question the government if we want the train and other good­ies. But big projects with neither definite timelines nor funding or planning nor anything, do not constitute nationalism or devel­opment. Nationalism is not only about infrastructures; there’s much more to it.

If the prime minister were a nationalist, as his supporters make him out to be, he would have made sure that all schools in Nepal had computers and internet access before doling out expensive MacBook Air to his ministers to make the government digital and efficient. If he really wanted our well-being, he would have tried to upgrade the ser­vices, equipment and quality of government hospitals so that we, the poor majority, would get the same treatment in Nepal which the politicians, himself included, get abroad.

If he was concerned about us, he would have made sure that the Dairy Development Corpora­tion, a government entity, would send at least cleaner dairy prod­ucts to the market so that we can consume them without fearing coliform and E.coli infestation. If he really thought about our safety, he would make sure at least our roads have traffic sig­nals. If he wanted to make our lives easy, he would have made government offices efficient and corruption-free. If he cared about us, then the corrupt, past and present, would be behind the bars. Now ask yourself: what has the government done so far?

Taxes are raised but we have no idea where and how our tax money is spent because we still depend on foreign aid for almost everything. Our cash-strapped government loses almost Rs 350 million a day in customs revenue to leakages but it is doing nothing to control it, if not stop it altogether.

A doctor is waging a war against the medical mafia that wants to make money by providing medi­ocre education to students for tui­tion fees that’s beyond the capac­ity of the majority. A television program is allegedly shut down because the host dared to ask a minister uncomfortable ques­tions. But there’s not a word from the government on what exactly happened. Moreover, the places where Mr Oli himself protested and vandalized for the people’s rights are now restricted areas. Why doesn’t he do good things that will make people not want to protest at all? Instead he has asked his party cadres to strongly counter the voices that are ques­tioning him and his way of (not) doing things.

Why hasn’t the government been able to guarantee that the law of the land applies equally to all, rich and poor, weak and strong, politicians and common­ers? Nepotism and favoritism are still rife and you need to be either connected to someone powerful or be rich enough to bribe big time to get government and dip­lomatic positions.

The Oli government has made us forget that more than foreign evils, it is our domestic demons that need to be exorcised first. Stalin-worshipping fake commu­nists have made us forget all our present necessities and priorities by blindfolding us with national­ism and utopian dreams.

As Cui Jian, the ‘Father of Chinese Rock’ alludes to in his famous song, the government decides, we follow.

Welcome to democratic Nepal ruled by a nationalist government!

Nepal is important for China because of Tibet. Nepal is gateway to South Asian mar­kets. President Xi will visit Nepal soon. China accorded warm wel­come to Nepali PM KP Oli because it has started to take us seriously. Or so the Nepali media would have us believe.

But is it really so?

China’s Tibet concern

For some strange reason we are in a time warp. The powers that played an active role in creating and supporting the Tibetan rebels in the 1950s and the 1960s did not back then believe China would give up its control of Tibet. Nor do they believe it now. The ragtag band of Khampa rebels did carry out sporadic attacks on the Chi­nese forces using our territory as their base, but planning and other things were done from Dhaka (or the Dacca back then), Washington DC and other places. China knows that Nepal was and is just a pawn in the grand chessboard of world politics and it now knows how to deal with the potentates on its terms. It does not need us to address its security concerns.

To believe that Nepal is import­ant for Tibet’s security is to under­mine the remarkable advances in Chinese defense and intelligence capabilities as well as its global economic reach, and overesti­mate ourselves. And strangely, we keep forgetting that we are not the only country that borders Tibet province. India does too. The Tibetan Government-in-Exile is actually based in India. But Chi­na apologists use Tibet to justify every Chinese action (or inaction) in Nepal.

‘Gateway’ to South Asia

Yes Nepal is a gateway to South Asia. But it is not the only gate­way for China to the Indian and South Asian markets and beyond. Myanmar is in a better position. Myanmar provides China with yet another access to the Indian Ocean and help solve its Malac­ca dilemma. It is where China’s oceanic, strategic and economic interests converge. Unlike Nepal, India doesn’t think of it as fall­ing exclusively under its sphere nor can it match years of Chinese investment and influence there.

The idea of the BCIM (Bangla­desh, China, India and Myan­mar) economic corridor between India and China is nearly two decades old. India sees the BRI (the Belt and Road Initiative) as going against its strategic inter­ests, “however, in the BCIM proj­ect, India is on board” (Can an India-China ‘Reset’ Help BCIM?, The Diplomat, June 9).

Both India and China realize the importance of doing away with the lengthy sea route in their bilateral trade. Therefore, both may settle on the BCIM economic corridor linking Kolkata with Kun­ming via Myanmar. The BCIM pre­dates the BRI and India can claim it too has a say in It. China could develop it independently of the BRI, despite claiming it falls under the BRI these days, and/or delay/give up on its plans to link it with the China-Pakistan Economic Cor­ridor. The BCIM could very well be a turning point in deepening economic cooperation between India and China.

The Keyrung-Kathmandu train, even if it materializes, is not going to be a game changer for years. India will not want to trade with China via Nepal using the infra­structure built under the BRI because it will be interpreted as India supporting the initiative.

China and India do not remotely view Nepal as a trading link; they would otherwise have included Nepal as a branch road in the BCIM and much would have been done in the proposed railway.

President Xi’s visit

China understands Nepal is des­perate to host Xi to establish the government of the day’s national­ist credentials. It also gets that the Oli-led government was elected on anti-India plank and the Chi­nese president’s visit will be seen as endorsing it. China, as a mature power, won’t do it.

There’s also a pattern to presi­dent Xi’s visit to South Asia, minus India and Pakistan. The visits are to the countries that China fears are moving into Japan’s orbit. It knows we are not moving any­where. So let’s be hopeful but not count on a visit to Nepal by President Xi anytime soon. It’s too early for that.

Let’s thank China for the “warm” welcome accorded to PM Oli but let’s not read too much into it. China accords the same level of welcome to all visiting dignitaries.

According to news reports, Prime Minister KP Oli will seek Chinese assistance to develop physical connectivity during his upcoming China visit. While one may or may not like the idea of railways and highways connecting the two countries, depending on one’s (geo)politi­cal leanings, one thing is certain: unless there is an emotional bond between the peoples of China and Nepal neither side will be able to take full advantage of the expensive infrastructures. So far, at the people’s level, we feel emo­tionally detached when dealing with the Chinese and vice-versa because we have only focused on the obvious differences between the two countries. For some strange reason, we have completely overlooked the role of culture in our rela­tions. Culture shapes our think­ing and worldview, and hence cultural understanding can be an important tool to promote people-to-people ties and to fur­ther strengthen political relations between the two countries.

Contrary to the widely-held belief, Nepal and China are not distant culturally. There are many similarities between us. For exam­ple, the traditional Chinese cul­ture, like our own, emphasizes filial piety, and it even has the Stove God, akin to our family dei­ty. The guardian deity of Beijing is yamantak, or vajrabhairava—a manifestation of the lord Shiva. Avalokiteswara is worshipped in China as the Guanshiyin—the one who sees and hears.

Just as in Nepal, red is the color of happiness and white is the color of mourning. Like us, the Chinese view srivatsa (endless knot) and fish as auspicious symbols. Even the Chinese creation myth (‘pangu kai tiandi’) is similar to the Hindu creation myth of purusha sukta in the Rig Veda.

And just like us, for the major­ity of Chinese, family still mat­ters and an individual’s identi­ty is closely tied that to his/her family, unlike in the “individu­alistic” west. Hence, like Nepali and unlike the English lan­guage, the Chinese language has different kinship terminologies for all relations.

It’s a pity that Nepal has failed to explore ways to use the cultur­al similarities to its advantage in dealing with China. Our north­er neighbor has for long been doing its bit by offering academic degrees in Nepali language and basic classes on Nepali society in one of the universities in Beijing. Starting this fall, Nepali will be offered as an academic course in two more universities in Yunnan and Tibet.

We talk about good relation with China, but are yet to offer academic degrees on Chinese studies. The Chinese language curriculum offered, even at the Chinese-government funded Con­fucius Institute at the Kathmandu University (CIKU), is pathetic. All it does is disseminate “China is great” propaganda and produce tour guides with rudimentary Chinese. Although many Nepali students and professionals are keen to learn about China, sadly, there is no place to satisfy their academic urge.

PM Oli, maybe you can talk to your hosts about jointly estab­lishing an autonomous “real” China-Nepal Studies Center in Nepal. It will academically train Nepalis on China, and offer class­es to the interested Chinese schol­ars on Nepal. It can be modeled after the Johns Hopkins Nanjing Center, China.

To make the Nepal center cred­ible and serve real academic purpose, it should be allowed to design the curriculum on its own, without pressure from either government. It should be free to teach classes on the current political, economic, ethnic and social problems in both China and Nepal, so that the students gain a real insight into the coun­tries they are studying. It should produce Nepali sinologists who can fluently recite the lines from gu wen (classical literature) to the poems of Gu Cheng, and the Chi­nese Nepal experts who can quote from the works of Bhanubhakta to Bhupi Sherrchan.

Today’s students are tomor­row’s leaders. National inter­ests and differing priorities will eventually lead to various problems/misunderstandings between the two countries in the future. Then, who knows, the graduates of the Nepal Center could be the ones representing their respective governments to solve the issues. Unlike the present leaders, they will know exactly how each other’s minds operate and they will thus be able to find mutually acceptable solu­tions, no matter how serious the underlying problems.

A good idea, isn’t it PM Oli?

For many years to come, the June 12 summit between the American President Donald Trump and the North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jung-un will be studied by the students of international relations. Scholars will keep presenting us with new facts that led to the historic summit in Singapore. But if what transpired in China between Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao in1972 is any guide (since many analysts are comparing Trump and Kim, to Nixon and Mao) we can draw three conclusions from the nice surprise. 

First, the North Korean regime is in dire need of cash, as many analysts have argued, after years of sanctions and heavy expenses on the part of the state to develop hydrogen bomb and ICBMs. Maybe the economic problems led the North Korean government to the talks so that the sanctions would be eased, which, in turn, would not only help get the economy on track but also avoid any popular protests that could signal an end to the Kim regime.

One of the reasons Mao was open to talks with the Americans was that the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) had devastated the Chinese economy. Unable to control the mayhem he unleashed, by 1971 Mao knew that China needed various reforms, including economic, for the CCP’s survival. 

Second, the North Korean regime feared it could be overturned by rebel factions supported by either the American, Russian, Japanese, South Korean or the Chinese (at this point there's no way to know which faction is powerful in North Korea). Perhaps to counter such threats and avoid a Syria-like situation, Kim took a proactive measure and decided that direct talks with America would ensure his survival and would result in little or no bad foreign press when he removes the factions he deems dangerous to his regime.

Another reason Mao was open to talks with the Americans was that he feared he could be overthrown by the pro-Soviet faction in the CCP. Lin Biao, who allegedly plotted a coup against Mao in 1971, was of the opinion that China needed to maintain good relations with the Soviet Union and emulate its development model. Just as Kim got rid of his uncle and other officials he thought could threaten his rule, Mao had Peng Dehuai and Liu Shaoqi brutually tortured, among other prominent communist party members who opposed him. Mao suspected them of being sympathetic or close to the Soviets.

And the third factor, Kim feared a possible joint attack by South Korea and America and maybe even by Japan if he were to continue with the nuclear program and bellicose rhetoric. Shinzo Abe, unlike his predecessors, has made it clear that Japan too would not shy away from proactive measures if its’ or its allies’ interests are threatened.  

Mao was afraid that border skirmishes with the Soviet Union could lead to a full-blown war. Hence he was open to dealing with the Americans, or better yet, to forging a “strategic partnership” to counter the Soviet expansionism. 

Besides these, other factors that could have led to the Kim-Trump historic summit could be:

North Korea feared that Japan would also develop nuclear weapons, which would render its arsenal useless.

Maybe, as many have speculated, Kim felt he already has the weapons needed for his regime’s survival, and it was about time he joined the world community. Because of the hydrogen bomb and ICBM, he could talk with the US president from a position of strength. 

Perhaps Kim realized that if he has to keep relying on China and Russia by antagonizing the rest, soon, the two countries would be calling the shots in North Korea. He probably felt he could be used by them in their dealings with the US, thereby giving North Korea no say in its own affairs. Or he could be the victim in the event of a proxy war between the two countries.

And Trump could have calculated that if he can get this issue resolved, he will have no need to cajole the Chinese and will thus be able to take a tougher stand against China on trade and South China Sea and other issues. He also didn't want any interlocutors so that he himself could take all the credit for resolving the crisis.

Or maybe the Chinese themselves encouraged the North Koreans to hold talks with the US to avoid taking a side in any untoward situation. China realized that it would be in a very difficult position if a war broke out between the US and North Korea. 

Or the summit is a gift from Russia to the Trump, who has shown eagerness to mend ties with it and make it an active member of the international community/organizations including the G7, or to give some positive media to Trump in light of ongoing Mueller investigation into Russia’s role in the US presidential election. 

Perhaps a combination of all these factors were responsible for the June 12 historic summit. For now all we can do is speculate.

Whatever the reasons, both Trump and Kim deserve credit for beginning the talks to achieve lasting peace in the Korean Peninsula. The people who worked behind the scenes, both in North Korea in the US, some visibly and some covertly, deserve some credit too.

If all goes well, PM KP Oli will visit China in the third week of June. As is the tradition, he will seek China’s help in building infrastructure projects and repeat the pledge that Nepal will not allow its territory to be used against China. The Chinese side will thank him for Nepal’s unwav­ering support to the ‘one-Chi­na’ policy and promise us a new building or highway. Upon his return to Kathmandu, PM Oli will proudly announce that Nepal will host President Xi Jinping this year and most of us will go gaga over the visit (which, in all likelihood, won’t take place). Newspapers will be filled with articles by pro-China Nepali nationalist intellectuals telling us how lucky we are to have President Xi visit us and they will advise us on proper etiquettes to welcome him. For a few days, our foreign policy/China experts will be busy analyzing various “ground breaking” bilateral agree­ments that neither side will be keen on implementing any time soon. And PM Oli’s visit will soon be forgotten.

But how about making the visit a memorable one? And it can be done if PM Oli visits China with a new mindset and without the customary begging bowl.

Way to make it memorable

Truth be told, PM Oli’s visit doesn’t mean much for the Chi­nese government. Although we cannot make the Chinese take us seriously all of a sudden, we can make at least a segment of the Chinese population talk about us—not as another third-world beggar but as a friendly neighbor with historical ties that despite being poor today was at one point thought of highly, even by the mighty Chinese emperors.

As I have written elsewhere, there’s no better venue to high­light this than the Yonghegong temple in Beijing. The main attraction of the 18th-century temple is a giant statue of Mai­treya Buddha carved in Nepal. Similarly, six Nepali artists were involved in its renovation from 1744 to 1747. Since it is an import­ant monastery, a visit or a press conference there with his Chi­nese counterpart would highlight Nepal’s importance in Chinese culture to the Chinese public.

Rather than touring facto­ries or lecturing at universities/think-tanks or meeting with the self-declared know-nothing Nepal specialists of no importance what­soever, PM Oli needs to meet the family members of the Chinese workers who lost their lives while working on various construction projects in Nepal. It’s about time we appreciated and honored their sacrifice. It’s long overdue.

Prove me wrong, please

Most importantly though, we need to accept and learn to deal with the inherent contradiction in China’s Nepal policy. It expects us to view it independent of our relations—and problems—with India. But then it views us through the Indian lens. Its Nepal policy is intricately intertwined with its India policy, as was evident from its passivity during the var­ious political changes, and the ‘help’ rendered during the Indian economic blockade of 2015: 2.3 million liters of gasoline, 5,000 pieces of overpriced induction cookers deducted from the aid for that year and “moral support”. As of today, it wants to make its presence felt in Nepal, but not to the extent to make India uncom­fortable. It is not talking about tri­lateral cooperation for no reason. It wants to assure India that it is ready to work with it on/in Nepal. Given our weak economy and defense, it knows it can easily use our territory against India, if and when it has to, and so it has no reason to take us seriously.

Therefore, PM Oli, it’s quite unwise to expect China to build infrastructure projects that will miraculously “end” our depen­dence on India. To avoid losing face (diu lian), an important concept in China, don’t make a request for projects that have far-reaching geopolitical and eco­nomic consequences, or those we can build on our own, just to establish your nationalist cre­dentials. Because no help will be forthcoming, and it will make us appear stupid before the Chinese. Certainly, we can sign agreements linking us with the Pacific Ocean, Central Asia, East Asia and Russia and even with the moon and the space via China, but it’s not going to change anything in the present or in the future.

Just show your hosts the proud, wise and humane side of Nepalis to make this visit a success. But, given our bureaucratic submis­siveness, diplomatic appeasement and intellectual poverty, I remain a pessimist. PM Oli, please prove me wrong.

Besides the senseless “tra­dition” of our prime minis­ters making India their first foreign port of call following the 1990 political change, there is another irritating ritual that is not much discussed. Nepal needs to assure, promise and pledge that it will not allow its land to be used against India at the end of every bilateral talk between the leaders of the two countries. While our leaders may feel it’s just a simple ritualistic statement to make their hosts or guests happy, it nonetheless implies that we either were or are insensitive to India’s security concerns. Now, if one looks at history, it’s always India that is insensitive to our security interests and allows its territory to be used against the government of the day. As the late social scientist Saubhagya Shah once wrote, no “revolution” in Nepal has succeeded without India’s active support, a state­ment which was later corroborat­ed by the writers close to Indian establishment in their books on the Maoist insurgency and polit­ical transition in Nepal. Likewise the Nepali Congress used Indian territory against the Nepali state throughout the 1960s and the most of the 1970s. But we are yet to be assured by the Indian side; nor do we seek assurances that it will not allow its territory to be used against us.

Plane hijacking an excuse

The “ritual” has been repeated so often that almost every Nepali “scholar” writing on Nepal-In­dia relations has to suggest that our government appears sensitive to India’s security concerns. We cannot even buy modern weapons for our forc­es because it is interpreted as being insensitive to Indian securi­ty interests. Forget weapons, we can’t even implement our nation­al security policy lest we offend Indian sensitivities.

True, a plane belonging to an Indian airliner was hijacked from the Kathmandu airport in 1999 and the Indian government had to release some notorious ter­rorists in exchange for the hos­tages. And there’s been reports of anti-India criminal and terror­ist outfits operating from Nepal. But terrorists have hijacked planes from secure airports around the world, including in India, and there’s been similar release of terrorists in exchange for hostages. And no country can claim that it’s free of terrorist net­works. Using the hijacking as an excuse, India installed its own security check before boarding Indian aircraft from Kathmandu, to prove that Nepal’s commit­ment to India’s security cannot be trusted. Sadly, while the hijacking is remembered, Nepal’s help in suppressing the 1948 Hyderabad revolt is forgotten.

Nepal is doing all it can to address India’s concerns with whatever limited capacity it has. It is no secret that Nepal Police, either working on tip-offs from Indian police/intelligence or acting on its own, routinely arrests and hands over wanted criminals and terrorists to India, and the Indian police does the same with Nepali criminals hiding in India.

What India wants

Then what is it that the Indian government really wants? In the short run, it wants us to limit our engagement with China and who­ever it deems a threat. It wants us to follow its lead on foreign policy. And we are already witnessing it. It has succeeded in making the most of the world view Nepal through the Indian lens. Rarely do heads of state/government from other countries visit us, nor are our heads of state/government invited to other countries, except India and China, for official or state visits.

In the long run, just like any aspiring regional power, India wants to bring us under its security umbrella by making us and others believe that we have the capacity neither to address India’s security concerns nor to handle our defense by our­selves. All aspiring powers need to exercise power in their neighbor­hood to prove they are not to be taken lightly.

PM Oli, how about putting it this way when you need to follow the ritual next? So far we have done everything in our capacity to address India’s security concerns and we will continue to do so, and we expect our good neighbor India to reciprocate.

These days Prime Minister KP Oli is being compared with King Mahendra by two different groups. The first views him as a nationalist just because he stood up to India during the Indian embargo and signed vari­ous agreements with China to end our sole reliance on India. The other group feels he is displaying dictatorial tendencies, and hence the comparison with Mahendra. PM Oli doesn’t like being com­pared with the late king. The iro­ny, though: the prime minister, who finds it insulting being com­pared with “dictator” Mahendra, has no problem marking the birth anniversary of Lenin, whose bru­tality knew no bounds. Lenin had even the children of the House of Romanov killed in a gruesome manner and is reputed as the father of the totalitarian system.

Anyway, both groups compar­ing PM Oli with Mahendra are wrong. He is no Mahendra. At least not yet.

Mahendra, the nationalist

Mahendra’s crowning achieve­ment is not limited to standing up to India’s undue interference, unlike what the first group mis­takenly believes. While he stood up to Indian interference, he was also receptive to its valid con­cerns. He handled India diplomat­ically, not with bellicose rhetoric; and he made China happy, not by flattering it or submitting to its will, but by being a reliable friend. Nonetheless, most of his foreign policy achievements are attributed to BP Koirala, as if the monarch was in deep slumber until his 1960 coup.

Mahendra could get Chinese help to build a highway con­necting the two countries at the height of political turmoil in China, whereas our new leaders including PM Oli have not been able to persuade the Chinese to reopen the highway which the Chinese side closed after the dev­astating 2015 earthquake. And Nepal’s conspicuous absence from this year’s Boao forum in China, despite it being one of the founding members, and China’s indifference to it, is telling.

PM Oli may have all the good intentions but he is yet to dis­play finesse and learn the delicate tight rope walk in dealing with the neighbors. Therefore the first group is wrong to compare PM Oli with Mahendra. It is way too early to bestow him with the honor.

Mahendra, the dictator

If Mahendra is to be judged sole­ly on the basis of the party-less Panchayat system he introduced, then all of today’s political forces need to be judged on their past.

PM Oli and his comrades should be judged on the senseless vio­lent acts against the alleged class enemies. The Nepali Congress should be judged based on the crimes it committed in the name of democracy, which included hurling a bomb at the monarch and hijacking a plane. Let’s not even talk about the Maoists and their brutality.

While we are made to remem­ber Mahendra’s “sins” against democracy, the fact that he was working on a democratic consti­tution just before his death is rare­ly mentioned. Nor do we credit him for his revolutionary land reform. Mahendra made careful and calculated moves and did what he had to in order to uphold Nepal’s interests. And he is hated for this reason by the leaders and scholars who would rather Nepal compromised its sovereignty and surrendered itself to foreigners. He is hated to weaken Nepali nationalism.

Moreover, Mahendra is made a villain to make BP Koirala a hero. Mahendra needs to be portrayed as a dictator to strengthen and perpetuate the maha manab (‘Great Man’) BP cult, to glorify the violence and crimes against the country and people by the Congress and the Communists in the past and justify their present misdeeds in the name of democ­racy. And he needs to be demon­ized so that current leaders can continue with their politics sans principles.

Mahendra is feared, hence rid­iculed, to hide their own infe­riority, because today’s rulers have been unable to achieve what he did in his brief direct reign of 11 years. Also, it is profitable to loathe him because we are a country full of sellouts and turn­coat intellectuals who have long sacrificed their ability to reason for lucrative positions, junkets, money and whiskey.

Needless to say, the second group is wrong too. PM Oli, despite good decisions here and there, and so far seemingly bet­ter than his predecessors, is no Mahendra. Mahendra was far more democratic, patriotic, pro­gressive and visionary than what KP Oli was or is at the moment.

For the first time in many years, we are indeed getting a sense that there is a gov­ernment that is serious about its responsibilities. The orderly transfer of leadership in Nepal Police to a deserving candidate, the measures against breaking the transport syndicate and a strong statement against the EU’s non­sensical recommendations are hints of it. In this context, it is only natural for many of us to believe that Prime Minister KP Oli meant what he said in the 18-page speech delivered by the Rara Lake last week. One particular point in that speech touched on ending our dependency on foreign­ers. But the prime minister did not elaborate.

The reality is that despite their lofty diplomatic rhetoric, a weak, unstable and dependent Nepal is in all major global players’ interest. Though it sounds unpalatable, an economic war is being waged upon us, in a classic case of war by other means that keeps us poor, breaks our morale by stripping us off our nation­al pride, and compromises our sovereignty by giving foreigners the power to call the shots here. Sadly, more than foreigners, it’s our leaders who are to be blamed for this pathetic situation.

Let’s consider what the foreign powers are doing here: India always delays the development projects that are of economic importance to us, such as high­ways and hydropower. China is yet to open its door to Nepal’s agriculture products. And others are content bullying us and order­ing us into submission. But there are ways to change things.

According to a report in Nagarik daily (March 3), due to corruption at the tax offices and customs, the government is losing Rs 300-350 million a day in revenues; as such almost Rs 120 billion is lost each year. If we could control this and if we could spend only half of it on infrastructure projects we would not have to depend on foreigners for development aid and assistance.

The government can also slap an additional tax of Rs 20 per pack of cigarettes and Rs 50-100 per bottle of alcohol. And that money too can be pumped into infrastructure projects.

Similarly, it can add a tax of Rs 100-150 for 1,000 liters of drink­ing water as infrastructure devel­opment tax, once the water from Melamchi reaches Kathmandu. That’s still cheaper than what one has to pay the water delivery ser­vices in Kathmandu these days.

Not many people will be offended by these taxes if the gov­ernment promises to use them strictly for development. That’s a small amount to pay for the country’s development and pride, and is nothing compared to the sacrifices made by the citizens of other countries.

If we could do these things immediately, by the end of this year, we will have money to begin the tax-and-build work, i.e. if the government agency respon­sible for collecting taxes takes its job seriously.

It will give the government the freedom to choose the best com­panies, whether domestic or for­eign, to do the job. We will not be stuck with the shady foreign companies whose only purpose seems to be delaying the projects they are working on.

When we break the dependen­cy, we can deal with our neigh­bors and the rest as equals. They will have to think of other ways to make themselves important to us. Most likely China will be more receptive to opening its door to our agriculture and other prod­ucts. Similarly, India too will have to allow hassle-free export of our products. And when we are mod­erately prosperous and strong, our leaders will not have to kow­tow before the foreigners for a few more dollars.

The leadership must under­stand that it needs to assert its authority for the greater good of the country. This means being able to make—and implement—important, albeit harsh, decisions for the greater good of the coun­try and rising above the party’s, personal and various lobbies’ interests. We’ve failed because of weak leadership and we certainly don’t want PM Oli to make the mistakes of his predecessors.

PM Oli has talked the talk. Now he needs to walk the walk.