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Deepening and widening regional cooperation has always been Nepal’s foreign policy priority. That is why it has actively promoted regional and sub-regional bodies. Nepal is a member of multiple regional bodies such South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), and the Asia Cooperation Dialogue (ACD) established in 2002. Nepal also joined the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) as a dialogue partner in 2016.

The country aspires to make those regional platforms effective and result-oriented. SAARC, the oldest among them, was formed in 1985. From its inception Nepal has been playing an active role in the SAARC process. Even back in the 1970s King Birendra was busy sketching out a framework for the regional body.

Addressing a gathering of foreign delegates at the 26th Colombo Plan Consultative Meeting in Kathmandu in 1977, King Birendra had pitched the idea of tapping nature for mutual benefit of Nepal, India, China, Bhutan Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. At the time, King Birendra’s focus was on collaboration on water resources. 

“Acknowledging Nepal’s vital role in the formation of the regional body, member countries had agreed to keep SAARC Secretariat in Kathmandu,” says former diplomat Bhek Bahadur Thapa. According to him, SAARC came into being mainly at the behest of Nepal and Bangladesh, at a time other countries were mostly unenthusiastic. Bangladesh had proposed to have the secretariat in Dhaka, but King Birendra insisted on keeping it in Kathmandu.

Along with the Secretariat, two vital centers—the SAARC Tuberculosis Centre and SAARC Information Center—were also established in Nepal. Nepal had held the third summit of SAARC in 1987, the same year its secretariat was established in Kathmandu, in what was a milestone in strengthening the institutional framework of SAARC. 

A major aspect of Nepal’s engagement in the SAARC process is its desire to bring China on board. Since 2005 China has been serving as an observer in the regional body. But Nepal is in favor of having China as a full SAARC member. From 2005-to 2006, King Gyanendra has lobbied for the same, much to India’s chagrin.

Says political analyst Lokraj Baral, it is an open secret that King Gyanendra, isolated by the international community, tried to bring China into the SAARC in order to balance India. According to Baral, it was the first time Nepal formally pushed for China’s membership but the idea fell through due to lack of consensus.

But Nepal’s push to bring China as a member of the regional body continued even after Nepal became a republic. For instance, in 2014, just before the 18th summit in Kathmandu, Nepal’s Finance Minister Ram Sharan Mahat and Foreign Minister Mahendra Bahadur Pandey had spoken in favor of elevating China’s role. Pandey had said that if all members agreed, Nepal would have no problem in making China a SAARC member. Even in official negotiations, Nepal had raised this issue.

As a SAARC member state, Nepal has taken a lead in several areas. Former Ambassador Madhuban Prasad Poudel, who served as a director in SAARC Secretariat from 1999 to 2002, says Nepal initially pushed agriculture, health and population, postal services and metrology as priority areas.

Nepal has been a strong advocate of sub-regional cooperation under the broader SAARC framework. Since 1990, Nepal had been continuously raising the issue. Its wish was fulfilled at the 10th SAARC Summit in Colombo in 1998. “With the objective of enhancing regional solidarity and promoting overall development within SAARC,” the summit communique read, “the Heads of State or Government encouraged the development of specific projects relevant to the individual needs of three or more [states].”

Subsequently, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal requested the assistance of the Asian Development Bank to facilitate economic cooperation, writes Sangita Thapaliyal, a New Delhi-based South Asian expert, in her journal article published by India International Center. This request, according to her, led to the implementation of South Asian sub-region programs in 2001. This request, however, did not bear any fruit. 

Nepal also actively promoted sub-regional cooperation known as BBIN (Bhutan, Bangladesh, India, and Nepal) which aims to connect the major cities of four countries by a bus service. Nepal was one of the first countries to complete the domestic procedures to implement the agreement. Then, in the 2002 SAARC Summit in Kathmandu, Nepal proposed a SAARC award to honor the outstanding work of individuals and organizations within the region in the fields of peace, development, poverty alleviation, and regional cooperation.

At the 15th SAARC Summit in 2008 in Colombo, Nepal offered to host the ministerial meeting on poverty alleviation in South Asia. Earlier, the 11th Summit in Kathmandu had decided to reconstitute the Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation, with Nepal as its convener and Bangladesh as co-convener. Member countries requested Nepal to come up with a concept note. According to Poudel, Nepal has always taken a lead on poverty alleviation in the region.  

The 2010 sixteenth SAARC summit in Thimpu was held under the theme of a Green and Happy South Asia. At this summit, Nepal took the initiative to organize a ministerial meeting of mountainous countries in Kathmandu in the same year. Then, at the 18th SAARC Summit held in Kathmandu, Nepal played an active role in initiating cooperation in the field of migration, cooperatives, and social protection.

Nepal has also been playing a proactive role in tourism-promotion in the region. Nepal hosted the tourism minister’s meeting in January 2011 which reviewed the progress made in the SAARC action plan on tourism-promotion. 

Nepal has been continuously pushing for strengthening the SAARC process. Since 2014, Nepal has been serving as a chair of SAARC. 

India has of late prioritized BIMSTEC over SAARC but Nepali leaders maintain that one cannot substitute another. At both bilateral and multilateral platforms, Nepal has been raising the issue of revival of the SAARC process. Nepal is of the view that India and Pakistan should put their differences aside for the benefit of the whole region. 

Both Kathmandu and New Delhi seem keen on normalizing the relationship that was strained after India in 2019  issued a new political map incorporating territories that belong to Nepal.

In recent months, there have been frequent high-level engagements and visits between Nepal and India. These bilateral dealings have largely revolved on economic partnership, connectivity, and hydropower projects. But issues of contention, including the map row and the report of the Eminent Persons Group, didn’t figure in these talks.

New Delhi’s renewed engagement with Kathmandu comes on the heels of growing interest shown by Washington and Beijing in Kathmandu. India, uncharacteristically, has refrained from taking positions on internal affairs of Nepal, and instead focused on completing development projects. A soft-power diplomacy to counter China perhaps.

Ranjit Rae, former Indian ambassador to Nepal, says recent high-level visits demonstrate the significance of partnership between the two countries. 

“There were a lot of ups and downs in bilateral relations, and some problems of the past have not been resolved,” he says. “It seems there is a strong commitment to economic partnership and there is a new momentum in energy cooperation too.”

During his India visit on April 1-3, Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba did try to raise the boundary row, but his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi seemed uninterested.

When Modi visited Lumbini on May 16, thorny issues between Nepal and India were left undiscussed. 

Geja Sharma Wagle, a foreign policy expert, says recent Nepal-India bilateral engagements have left a lot to be desired. 

“Modi’s Lumbini visit seems to have been driven by his desire to improve the relationship, and for that he has used religious and cultural planks,” he says.

But it is also hard to expect genuine cordiality in Nepal-India relations without resolving outstanding issues.

Wagle says along with taking maximum benefit from the economic partnership, Nepal should adopt proactive diplomacy to resolve long-standing issues. 

Rae also says talks to resolve outstanding problems are important. The map issue, he says, has become complex after Nepal amended its constitution to incorporate the new map.

“Some talks have to begin but there is also no guarantee that Nepal’s political parties and parliament will accept the outcome of these negotiations,” he says.  

The existing mechanism for boundary talks is represented by foreign secretary. Experts are of the view that bureaucrats can't handle such sensitive issues and that there should be negotiation at the top political level.  

On the EPG, Rae says first there should be negotiations on the 1950 Peace and Friendship Treaty. “Once these talks start, EPG will no longer be a big issue,” he says.

In Nepal, it is not uncommon for political parties to make unsubstantiated claims of vote rigging when elections do not go their way. While most of them have been sore losers, they don’t seem to have given much thought to making elections more free and fair. No wonder public trust in elections is going down, as hinted by the relatively low voter turnout in the May 13 local elections.  

This time, it is the turn of the main opposition, CPN-UML, to cry foul over the outcome even as vote counting is still underway. The party, led by former prime minister KP Oli, has accused the ruling five-party alliance of using the police administration to influence election results not just before and during the vote, but also during vote-counting. The Election Commission has yet to respond to the opposition’s claim.

The main ruling party, Nepali Congress (NC), on the other hand, has criticized the UML’s remarks as “irresponsible”. Prakash Sharan Mahat, the party’s spokesperson, says the UML’s claim is tantamount to “defamation of the Election Commission.”

The EC and poll observers say that the May 13 polls were largely fair and peaceful, with about 64 percent voter turnout. While voting was postponed in some booths due to disputes among political parties, there were no reports of vote-rigging. Unlike in previous elections, there were also no political forces boycotting or threatening to undermine the polls this time. Even the Netra Bikram Chand-led Communist Party of Nepal and the CK Raut’s Janamat Party—two major threats to the previous elections—participated in the polls this time.

So there is little if any evidence to lend credence to the UML’s vote-rigging claims.  If something goes wrong during voting, party representatives can immediately flag the issue, and if there is clear evidence of fraud, the EC can cancel the elections. The UML raised the issue three days after the elections. The party went so far as to claim that the ruling coalition worked in cahoots with the Ministry of Home Affairs to “capture the boots in several places”.

Pradip Pokharel, chairperson of Election Observation Committee Nepal, says the elections were largely peaceful, free, and fair, and that their “monitoring does not match the UML’s claims.”

“We haven’t found a single case of UML representatives raising this issue in any polling station or vote-counting center,” he says. The committee had dispatched 409 observers to monitor the elections.

Adherence to the election code of conduct, too, was found to be largely satisfactory. Poll observers say, compared to the past, the election process and management were more organized, peaceful, and acceptable.

“The elections were far fairer and more peaceful than we had anticipated,” says Pokharel. “We feared that rivalry among major parties could lead to widespread violence, but that did not happen.”

In the past, vote-rigging claims have also been made by the Congress, CPN (Maoist Center), and other parties.

In 1997, a coalition government of the UML and the Rastriya Prajatantra Party had conducted local elections. After the UML emerged as the largest party in the elections, the main opposition at the time, Congress, accused the then home minister, Bam Dev Gautam, of mobilizing the police force in UML’s favor.

Congress lawmakers obstructed the House of Representatives for several days, demanding a probe. The issue subsided after some time. Birendra P. Mishra was one of the election commissioners at that time. “But no committee was formed to address the demand of the Congress party,” he says.

Similarly, on 3 May 1999 Nepal held the elections of Parliament in which the Congress emerged as the largest party. Invariably, this caused the losing parties to protest. The UML, Sadbhawana Party, and Rastriya Prajatantra Party obstructed the House, demanding a panel to investigate alleged electoral fraud.

This time, the Parliament did form a high-level panel led by Prime Minister Krishna Prasad Bhattarai of Congress. But the panel did not make much headway.

In 2013, it was the Maoist Center and Madhes-based parties who tried to use the vote-rigging card after it became clear that they were going to lose the Constituent Assembly elections. After the parties refused to join the assembly, a parliamentary probe committee was formed under lawmaker Laxman Lal Karna. Again, the investigation was a dud. The report submitted by the committee is gathering dust at the parliamentary secretariat.

The 2017 local elections were not controversy-free either. The polls were held in multiple phases and after the first phase, the UML was accused of vote-rigging and a probe panel was formed, and, predictably enough, nothing came of it.

None of the panels formed so far to investigate electoral frauds have come up with concrete evidence.

“All these panels have suggested taking measures to make the election more free and fair, but they have failed to provide substantial evidence of vote-rigging,” says Mishra.

This is not to say that Nepal’s elections are completely free of controversy. There have been cases of fraud and duplicate voters in the past, but the election governing body has taken a slew of measures to address them. Cases of booth capture have also gone down with the passage of time.

Accusations of vote-buying surface at each election, and this time was no different. But without solid evidence, such cases are hard to confirm.

When parties make unsubstantiated claims of vote-rigging, there is a risk of people losing faith in the electoral system and ultimately in democracy.

Mishra says parties should refrain from making such claims without solid proof. “Questioning the fairness and integrity of elections has become common for the parties when they lose. This undermines the sanctity of the Election Commission and by extension of the Nepali democracy, he says.

Meena Poudel, a political analyst, says it is unfortunate that the claims of electoral fraud are coming from the parties that have led governments and staged elections in the past. 

“There is already enough public frustration with the current political and electoral systems,” she says. “Such baseless claims only add fuel to the flames of public skepticism.” 

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit Lumbini on the occasion of Buddha Jayanti on May 16.

He is also set to meet Prime Minister Nepali Sher Bahadur Deuba and other high-level government officials there.

Modi and Deuba are set to hold a meeting on a wide range of bilateral issues, particularly connectivity and hydropower projects between the two countries.

According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the two prime ministers will hold bilateral talks and exchange views on Nepal-India cooperation and matters of mutual interests. Deuba will also host a luncheon in honor of Modi and the visiting Indian delegation.

“The upcoming visit of the Prime Minister of India will contribute to further strengthening the bilateral relations and the age-old socio-cultural bonds between the two countries,” says the ministry.
India’s Ministry of External Affairs says Modi’s visit continues the tradition of regular high-level exchanges between India and Nepal “in furtherance of our neighborhood first policy”.

“It underscores the shared civilizational heritage of the people of both countries,” the Indian foreign ministry says.

Modi and Deuba, however, are unlikely to discuss contentious bilateral issues, such as the report of the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) and boundary disputes.  

Indian Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra told the media recently that there are established bilateral mechanisms to address the boundary issues.  
"In so far as the border discussions between the two countries are concerned, as you all know, there are established bilateral mechanisms which exist between them," Kwatra said.

"We have always maintained that they are the best way forward in discussing those issues, discussing responsibly without real politicization of those issues. That is subject which will essentially be in the score of those established bilateral mechanisms."

In 2014, Nepal and India had agreed to settle the border disputes through a mechanism led by foreign secretaries of the two countries but there have not been any meetings. 

Modi’s Nepal visit comes on the heels of Deuba’s India visit from April 1 to 3. Kwatra said the fact that a return visit is taking place in such close succession is “a reflection of the closeness of our high-level exchanges as well as of the upward trajectory in our mutually beneficial partnership.”  

On the EPG report, the Indian Foreign Secretary said the report will be reviewed once it is submitted. Though the panel prepared its report in 2018, the Indian side is yet to receive it.

Kwatra also said conversations between the two leaders will pick up from where they left off last month when Deuba visited New Delhi and would “no doubt cover all elements of our bilateral engagement.”

During Modi’s visit to Lumbini, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs says, the two prime ministers will also participate in a prayer ceremony at the Mayadevi Temple, and lay the foundation stone for the construction of a center for Buddhist culture and heritage at the Monastic Zone in Lumbini.

They will also address the special ceremony to celebrate the birth of Buddha at the Lumbini International Buddhist Meditation Center and Assembly Hall.

This will be Modi’s fifth visit to Nepal since he became prime minister in 2014. Modi paid a State Visit to Nepal from 11 to 12 May 2018, he visited Nepal the same year in August to participate in 4th BIMSTEC Summit.  In 2014 August, he paid an official visit to Nepal  and visited Nepal the same year to participate in the 18^thSAARC Summit. 

Clean environment is enshrined in the 2015 constitution as a fundamental right. Article 30 of the constitution says: “Every citizen shall have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment.” The victims, it further states, “shall have the right to obtain compensation for any injury caused from environmental pollution or degradation.” 

In other words, the constitution essentially allows citizens to file a case against the government if he/she feels pollution has harmed their health. Yet environmental degradation is still rampant in Nepal—and hardly anyone seems bothered.

Pollution in Kathmandu valley in particular is getting from bad to worse. In the last week of March this year, Kathmandu was ranked the world’s most polluted city, ahead of New Delhi and Beijing. Though the valley’s pollution is a public health emergency, it does not figure prominently in the agendas of political parties.

As the country heads to local level elections, ApEx studied the election manifestos of major political parties as well as those of some popular independent contenders from Kathmandu. While the mayoral candidates have mentioned the issue of pollution in their manifestos, no one seems to have a good plan.  

When the incumbent mayor of Kathmandu Bidya Sundar Shakya was elected to office in 2017 he had pledged to curb the city's pollution. But he has mostly disappointed. He did purchase some ‘broomer machines’ to sweep the city streets, but they were seldom put to use. Those machines were seen in action only when some foreign dignitaries were scheduled to visit the capital city.   

Mayor Shakya has also drawn flak for failing to manage solid waste. During his term, uncollected household waste piling up on roadsides and neighborhoods was a common sight.   

Kathmandu is now set to elect a new mayor. Will Shakya ’s replacement fare any better in pollution-control? 

Unlikely, says Ram Bahadur Budathoki, a former government official and resident of Baneshwor, Kathmandu.

“We have been talking about cleaning up the environment for years now. But what has happened?,” he asks. “We are still avoiding morning walks and outdoor exercises because of pollution.”

The 65-year-old Budathoki suffers from diabetes and hypertension. He says people like him who need to regularly exercise have suffered the most from pollution.  

Balen Shah, a popular independent mayoral candidate, has vowed to take measures to minimize air pollution in Kathmandu by ‘isolating’ construction sites emitting pollutants, establishing vehicle washing centers at all entry points of Kathmandu Valley, and installing incinerators to safely dispose bio-medical waste. 

He has also pledged to manage waste with ‘the use of technology’, while remaining vague about the exact kind of technology. Shah has promised to segregate waste, which is something that policy-makers have long suggested.

Nepali Congress mayoral candidate Srijana Singh, meanwhile, has pledged to transform Kathmandu into a zero-waste city. 

Institutional, legal, and structural arrangements will be in place to ensure clean air in Kathmandu, she says. But, again, with no particular plan of action, her pledge sounds hollow.  

Samikshya Baskota, a candidate from Sajha Bibeksheel Party, seems to have taken a similar tack. Her election manifesto mentions ‘an air quality management work plan’, but that’s about it. There is no further explanation. Other than this, she too has prioritized waste segregation and a permanent landfill site to manage Kathmandu’s waste, again offering little information on how she will make this happen.  

CPN-UML candidate Keshav Staphit does not offer anything concrete to tackle pollution. Measures will be taken to curb air pollution and waste management, is all he says. 

Bhupendra Das, air quality and clean energy expert, says the failure of prominent mayoral candidates to make pollution a big electoral agenda is most unfortunate.

“In other big cities like New Delhi, it gets the highest political priority. But in our case, the politicians seem unaware of the issue’s gravity,” he says. 

He adds though some young candidates have tried to tackle environmental pollution, it is the mainstream parties and their candidates who should be at the forefront of the effort. 

Much of the pollution in Kathmandu is caused by household waste, vehicles, and industry/bricks kilns. There are no indications of improvement in these areas. Waste management remains a chronic problem in Kathmandu valley due to the absence of a permanent landfill site. 

Though mayoral candidates have pledged to solve this problem, their pledges, again, sound unrealistic. In fact, there is no quick solution to Kathmandu’s waste problem. 

“Over the past 10 years, there have been many commitments to manage Kathmandu’s waste,” Das says. “But, if anything, the situation is getting worse.”  

The Ministry of Environment aims to create an enabling environment for both public and private sectors to treat industrial and municipal waste, including fecal sludge, by 2030. The process includes waste segregation, recycling, and waste-to-energy programs in at least 100 municipalities. To this end, the ministry has promoted ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ approach to waste management, along with source segregation and management of degradable and non-degradable waste. But experts say implementation is nowhere near effective enough to meet the 2030 goal.

Vehicles are another big contributor to poor air quality. Transitioning to a sustainable transport system and phasing out fossil-fuel vehicles has long been the plan. But the government as well as the private sector are doing little to make this switch.  

Environmental experts say investment on a sustainable transport system with a focus on public transport should be a priority of local governments. They suggest adding incentives on import of electric vehicles. They have also emphasized promoting cycling culture and investing in cycle lanes. 

The Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) submitted by the Nepal government at the United Nations says sales of electric vehicles in 2025 will be 25 percent of all private passenger vehicle sales (including two-wheelers) and 20 percent of all four-wheeler passenger vehicle sales in 2025.  

Environment-friendly technology is also vital. Nepal lags in this too. Traditional brick factories are chief contributors to poor air quality in Kathmandu and other parts of the country, but there is no plan to replace them with cleaner and more sustainable technology.

Das says environmental regulations for factories have long been in the works but are yet to come on steam.

Other factories and industries in Nepal also appear reluctant to adopt new technology and equipment to reduce their emissions. 

Then there is the household contributing to air pollution. The NDC pledges to ensure electric stoves as the primary mode of cooking in 25 percent of households by 2030. It has also set a target of installing 500,000 improved cooking stoves, particularly in rural areas, by 2025.

These are achievable goals, say environmental experts, for which the government needs to promote the use of electricity by adjusting power tariffs. 

A 2019 World Health Organization study found that Nepal’s annual average air pollution concentration was five times above its air quality guidelines, posing grave health risks for hundreds of thousands of people—the most common air pollution-related diseases being ischemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer, and acute lower respiratory infections. 

According to the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology (NAST), as many as 35,000 Nepalis die from air pollution every year. The State of Global Air Report 2020 ranks Nepal as a country with the highest outdoor PM2.5 level in the world. Ambient PM2.5 comes from vehicle emissions, coal-burning power plants, industrial emissions, and other human and natural sources.

For the record, the 10 countries with the highest PM2.5 levels are India, Nepal, Niger, Qatar, Nigeria, Egypt, Mauritania, Cameroon, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, according to the report. 

Many studies place Nepal among the most vulnerable countries to environmental pollution. But this has never registered with the country’s political parties and their leaderships. Environmental experts say pollution warrants more than a passing reference from the country’s leaders. It demands an urgent action, which doesn’t seem to be happening—not even from our aspiring future leaders. 

“Even if the parties talk about controlling pollution during their election campaigns, they abandon this agenda as soon as they get elected,” says Das.

Ever since Russia on Feb 24 started its invasion of Ukraine, Western countries, led by the US, have been on a mission to rally global support against the war. They are in fact out to shape a global alliance against Putin’s ‘aggression’ on Ukraine. 

On February 24, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, Nepal issued a statement saying it ‘opposes any use of force against a sovereign country in any circumstances and believes in the peaceful resolution of disputes through diplomacy and dialogue.’ On March 1, US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken spoke with Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba. The two leaders discussed ‘Russia’s unprovoked, unjustified, and premeditated attack’ on Ukraine and the importance of respecting the UN Charter’s principles of state sovereignty and territorial integrity. 

A day later, on March 2, Nepal voted in favor of a UN resolution on the Ukraine crisis ‘that deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by the Russian Federation of Ukraine in violation of the Charter.’ Meanwhile, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan abstained from the UN vote condemning Russia’s invasion. 

Nepal’s criticism of the invasion raised the eyebrows of some foreign policy experts who interpreted it as a deviation from Nepal’s non-aligned foreign policy. But Nepal’s political parties had shown a unified front at the time.

The country’s position on the Russia-Ukraine conflict was also in sharp contrast to that of India and China, its two closest neighbors, both of which had abstained from the UN vote and refused to condemn Russia.  

But in a clear departure from its earlier position, Nepal on April 7 abstained from voting when the UN General Assembly endorsed a resolution suspending Russia from the Human Rights Council. The assembly adopted the draft resolution by a vote of 93 in favor to 24 against, with 58 abstentions. 

Besides Nepal, Bhutan and Maldives had also made a U-turn on their earlier position on Russia’s invasion. Pakistan and India, and Sri Lanka, meanwhile, continued with their position of neutrality. 

Hiranya Lal Shrestha, former Nepali ambassador to Russia, says Nepal initially toed the line of the US and the Western countries, but had a change of heart after Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi arrived in Kathmandu in late March and Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba visited India in the first week of April. 

Shrestha argues that while Nepal can take a position against one country that is attacking another, it is not a good idea “to blindly support the agendas of America and its allies.” 

“We should figure out the root cause of the war. Neighboring countries should be sensitive to each other’s security,” he says. “In this case, Ukraine clearly overlooked Russia’s security concerns.” 

A senior Nepali foreign ministry official, however, tells ApEx that there hasn’t been any shift in Nepal’s stated policy. When a country launches an unprovoked war against another sovereign country, he says, Nepal will oppose the war. But that doesn’t mean we endorse all proposals of some countries while we reject those of others. 

“We condemned the attack but we maintained neutrality on the issue of removing Russia’s membership from the Human Rights Council,” he says, insisting that such balancing cannot be termed a policy deviation. 

Nepal supports mutual respect for territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, respect for mutual equality, and non-aggression and peaceful settlements of disputes. The foreign ministry official says Nepal abstained from kicking Russia out of the Human Rights Council based on the same policy. 

Sanjay Upadhya, a US-based foreign policy expert, says that when Nepal on March 2 voted in favor of the resolution demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine, it did seem like the country was tilting towards the US. 

“This perception has been bolstered by the visits of several American political and diplomatic delegations to Nepal in the aftermath of the parliamentary ratification of the contentious MCC compact,” he says. 

By joining the ranks of nations that have deplored Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, says Upadhya, Nepal was perhaps only articulating its anxieties as a small nation precariously sandwiched between two powerful neighbors. 

It’s not just Nepal. Other smaller countries are also being forced to pick sides on Ukraine. 

India and China, which have maintained a neutral position on the issue, have not openly urged small countries to take their side, but they nonetheless want their friends and allies to maintain neutrality. 

Shannon Tiezzi, the editor-in-chief of The Diplomat, wrote in her April 7 article titled ‘Asian Countries Voted to Suspend Russia’s UNHRC Membership?’ that many countries in Asia—and the developing world at large—are increasingly frustrated at being forced to take sides between the US and Russia.  “It’s also an important reminder that when countries are truly forced to pick sides—with a neutral position not an option—many countries will, in fact, choose Russia,” she wrote. 

Foreign policy analyst Dev Raj Dahal says Nepal’s position on Ukraine is influenced by western and particularly American perspectives. 

“The education, knowledge, and exposure of Kathmandu elites are western, so they see all international issues through the same lens,” he says. “The geopolitical implications of Nepal’s stand on Ukraine will depend on how the war progresses and who comes out on top.” 

Foreign policy expert Upadhya says if Nepal is uncomfortable with the increasing Indian and Chinese sway in the country, there are less brazen ways of expressing its doubts than abandoning its traditional non-alignment. 

“Nepal has vitiated its domestic and foreign policy by allowing the narrative that the ruling coalition is pro-American in its basic orientation to hold,” he says. “The countries that abstained from the UN vote did not, by any stretch of the imagination, imply that they were in favor of Moscow’s position.” The Deuba government has done little, he adds, to present its case “as one of conviction rather than of convenience.” 

Four months into the invasion, there is no end in sight to the fighting. As war drags on, its geopolitical implications are being felt everywhere including in South Asia. Past few months have shown that Nepal is not immune.

The 11th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) held in Kathmandu in 2002 agreed to the development of a South Asian Economic Union by 2020 in a phase-wise process. This commitment was never implemented. 

Again, during the 18th summit in 2014, regional leaders renewed their commitment to the same through a free trade area, customs union, common market, and common economic and monetary unions. This pledge too never saw the light of the day, as the SAARC process remains stalled after 2016 over India-Pakistan tension.  

The regional body was formed to promote economic growth in member states. And trade integration, it was thought, was the key to unlocking such growth.   

With the same thinking, the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) under the aegis of the regional body came into force in 2006. But it has not contributed much in intra-regional trade. 

With intra-regional trade at less than five percent of the eight countries’ total foreign trade, South Asia is the least integrated region in the world, heavily dwarfed by East Asia’s 35 percent and Europe’s 60 percent, according to a 2019 World Bank report.

Don McLain Gill, a resident fellow at Manila-based International Development and Security Cooperation, says SAARC’s creation in 1985 was the result of a new trend towards regional cooperation. 

“With SAFTA coming into force, there were hopes of maximizing economic cooperation in the region. However, today, South Asia remains arguably the least integrated region in the world despite its shared history, culture, and geography,” he says.

He says there are salient differences in intra-regional trade in the SAARC and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). From 1992 to 2017, for example, ASEAN’s intra-regional trade grew exponentially, while SAARC’s pretty much stagnated. 

Unlike in SAARC, the asymmetry in size and capacity of member states was never an impediment to regional trade under ASEAN.

There are a host of reasons behind SAFTA’s sorry state. Tariff and non-tariff barriers, extensive sensitive list, poor connectivity, visa restrictions, lack of proper border infrastructure and booming informal trade are some of the major ones. 

Purushottam Ojha, a former commerce secretary, says one of the major hindrances to intra-regional trade are the extensive sensitive lists, which are lists of goods exempted from tariff concessions. 

The inventory of goods on the sensitive lists is very high. Despite the commitment to bringing them down, the member states haven’t been able to do so. 

“Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka have put 900 to 1,000 products under sensitive lists to collect revenue,” Ojha says. The basic principle of free trade is to liberalize trade by increasing investment and collecting taxes, he adds, but the least-developed countries of the region are loath to tweaking with their custom revenues.

He argues SAFTA cannot be implemented until and unless these countries review their sensitive list. 

Although there is a provision of reviewing the lists at least every four years, there hasn’t been much progress.

Similarly, unchecked informal trade has also hamstrung SAFTA. Although informal trade is not included in official government figures, the World Bank estimates nearly 50 percent of trade in South Asia is informal. For example, there is a large volume of informal trade between Nepal and India, and Nepal and Bangladesh. 

Para-tariffs also limit intra-regional trade. Para-tariffs are taxes levied on imports, but not on domestic products. SAARC member countries levy hefty border processing charges, much more than standard import-export tariffs. Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan are among the countries with high para-tariffs.

These para-tariffs, along with the sensitive lists, have rendered the region’s free trade agreement ineffective. 

According to the World Bank, average tariffs in South Asia were 13.6 percent compared to 7.3 percent in South East Asia. 

“Lack of comparative advantage, infrastructure issues, power asymmetry, and India-Pakistan security dilemma are other hindrances to intra-regional trade,” adds Gill. 

Poor connectivity is another big obstacle. There are no prominent connectivity projects in the region. Although India has been taking numerous bilateral initiatives to enhance connectivity, the capitals and major cities of South Asian countries are still poorly linked. 

Transport logistics and border infrastructure in the region are also poor, resulting in high import and export costs. It takes several weeks to clear goods at some border points. There hasn’t been any progress on product harmonization and quality control either.

The long-standing dispute between India and Pakistan, two largest SAARC member states in terms of population , is another big hindrance to intra-regional trade.  

For a long time there have been talks about making the SAARC region a visa-free regime, to no avail. Some member countries still have rigid visa systems, directly affecting traders in the region. In fact, these traders find it easier to do business with the rest of the world. 

The economic and geopolitical situation of South Asia has undergone a sea change since the SAARC member countries implemented SAFTA. With China’s rise, all South Asian states including India are more engaged with China on the economic front. 

“Today’s South Asia, through its individual sovereigns wants to harness open-ended regionalism or unbounded regionalism to keep it invested in groupings on its Eastern and Western flanks,” says Dattesh D. Prabhu-Parulekar, assistant professor at the School of International and Area Studies in Goa University, India.

In this regard, China's burgeoning trade and investment links with almost all South Asian nations can no longer be ignored, he adds. “These links undercut SAFTA.”

Moreover, over the past few years, countries in the region have been making good progress in terms of economic growth but their debts have increased as well.  

Parulekar says smaller South Asian economies are today bedeviled by debts brought on by profligate borrowing and serious liquidity crises. 

“Until these issues are urgently addressed, seamless trade-based regional cooperation and synergies appear unrealistic,” he adds. 

He instead suggests focusing on sub-regional mechanisms to enhance trade. 

With the SAARC showing diminishing returns for some of its members, he says South Asian nations have now bought into the propositions of ‘mini-lateralism’ and sub-regionalism.  “That undercuts SAARC and yet boosts regional integration. BBIN and BIMSTEC are cases in point,” he says.

Gill says the way forward is not to waste more resources on restructuring SAARC, but to strengthen sub-regional mechanisms. 

“Enhancing existing sub-regional arrangements such as BIMSTEC, BBIN, and the India-Sri Lanka-Maldives trilateral will help create stable conditions to maximize intra-regional cooperation, not just in trade, but also in areas like defense and socio-cultural exchanges,” he says. 

With the entire SAARC process in limbo, chances of SAFTA’s meaningful revival are slim. Better to accept the bitter reality, suggest experts, and move on.

Where are the candidates running for local level offices getting all the money they are lavishing on expensive campaigning paraphernalia and in looking after jumbo door-to-door teams?

It is an open secret that even the candidates for local elections spend millions of rupees on their campaigns. But there is no proper tracking of this money. In principle, it is the duty of the Election Commission to monitor election campaigns and keep tabs on candidates’ spendings. But keeping a close watch on the campaigns of thousands of candidates is beyond its capacity.

Prospective candidates start investing big months before the elections. To get an election ticket from their party, they have to appease key leaders at the center as well as at the local level. Usually, this entails some kind of cash handover. 

On April 27, senior Nepali Congress (NC) leader Shekhar Koirala had courted controversy by saying that a lot of money had changed hands during candidate-selection for local elections. Koirala said this after scores of Congress sympathizers from across the country complained to him that honest and committed cadres were being sidelined and that the party was nominating those who were rich.  

Political analyst and election-expenditure researcher Binod Sijapati says money’s role in the distribution of election tickets is pervasive. 

“We have heard of aspiring election candidates competing to buy election tickets from top party leaders,” he says. “After securing the candidacy, there are many other areas where they have to spend large sums. A big chunk of their election war-chest goes in cadre-mobilization.” 

Cadre mobilization has become a costly affair because the candidate selection process has been highly centralized. This means local-level cadres are reluctant to work for the candidate picked from the center. 

“So the candidates rely on the power of money to woo cadres and mobilize local cadres,” Sijapati says. “They also hand out money and meals to lure voters in rural areas”

Other key spending areas are transport and promotional material such as pamphlets, posters, flags, and T-shirts. 

So where indeed do candidates get hold of large sums of money to pour into their campaigns? 

They rely on local businessmen, contractors, and profit-oriented institutions.  

 According to Sijapati, funding the election campaign of a candidate is akin to an investment with the promise of high returns.  

“Candidates are ready to gamble away their own assets because if they win, they can gain so much more through back channels,” he adds. 

Candidates can accept donations from their well-wishers but such donations can only be routed through transparent banking channels. Instead, they choose to get their election expenditures from other sources, the ones that cannot be easily traced.

Businessmen and other interest groups are more than happy to invest in elections. If their chosen candidate wins, they will find ways to influence policies and decisions of local governments to not just recoup their investment but also to make hefty profits. For them, this is a simple quid pro quo investment, but that in turn promotes local-level corruption.

“In some cases, even the candidates don’t know how much money is being spent as people with different interests are financing their campaigns,” says Sijapati.

Then there are also some candidates who are taking out loans from their friends and relatives, even though their numbers are believed to be negligible.   

Yet there is an upside to election and campaign spending, no matter where it originates. 

Some economists see it as an opportunity to launder black money. They even hope that the current liquidity crisis will be eased after the elections. 

Political parties have reportedly amassed big amounts of cash to fund their election campaigns. As parties splurge on this cash, much of it could be routed into banking channels.

The downside of heavy campaign financing is that democracy suffers as a result. Elections are no more free and fair and governance is corrupted.

Expensive elections are not just a worry for the Election Commission. Even some political parties have been expressing concern. But fixing this problem is not easy. 

The legal and institutional mechanisms in place are hardly ever implemented. The poll governing body fixes expenditure ceilings for candidates, but without effective monitoring, there are no effective curbs in place.  

Surya Prasad Aryal, assistant spokesperson at the commission, says the body is trying to monitor election campaigns through its district and local level representatives.

The commission has set a ceiling of Rs 750,000 for mayor and deputy mayor candidates of metropolitan cities and Rs 550,000 for those contesting these top posts in sub-metropolitan cities. For the chairperson and vice-chairperson candidates of municipalities and rural municipalities, the ceilings have been set at Rs 450,000 and Rs 350,000 respectively.

Candidates are also required to open a separate bank account for the purpose of election campaigning and to appoint accountants. All transactions, big or small, should be made through bank checks. The rule also states that all candidates should submit their poll expenditure details within 30 days of the completion of elections. 

But so long as candidates continue to rely on undisclosed sources to fund their elections, the actual figures they spend on their campaigns will remain a secret. 

In 2017, a study by the Election Observation Committee, an NGO, estimated that Rs 13bn was spent on the three levels of elections; the candidates alone spent Rs 9.6bn. But these are at best rough estimates.

Ila Sharma, former election commissioner, concedes that hamstrung by lack of resources the Election Commission alone cannot track the money spent by candidates across the country. 

“What the commission can do is rigorously vet the documents of expenditure submitted by candidates after the elections. But it rarely does so,” she says.

When the elections are over, she suggests, the commission should invite officers from the Office of the Auditor General to go through the requisite documents. 

“It is obvious that political parties and their candidates are spending millions on election campaigns. We just don’t know how much,” Sharma says. 

Voters also have a role in bringing down election costs. 

Both Sharma and Sijapati ask voters to discourage the candidates who try to influence voting patterns with their money. 

But most of all, it is the responsibility of political parties to reduce the influence of money in the election process and to field clean and competent candidates.  

To control election spendings and promote better election candidates, some experts have long suggested a fully-proportional election system. But again, it is the political parties that will once again have to take the onus for this.