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“What is India's No. 2 foreign policy challenge?” asked Happymon Jacob of Jawaharlal Nehru University in his Feb 3 tweet. “No. 1 is Rihanna.” He was ridiculing the panicky response of the Indian government to the Barbadian singer’s retweet of a CNN story. “Why aren’t we talking about this?! #FarmersProtest” was all that she had written in reaction to the ongoing farmer protests in India. Later, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted her support for Indian farmers. The Indian government reacted as if it was under attack from a malicious foreign force. Its External Affairs Ministry said it was “unfortunate to see vested interest groups trying to enforce their agenda on these protests, and derail them.”

The Indian government didn’t stop there. It urged Bollywood superstars and famous cricketers to publicly denounce all such efforts to “divide India”. You could see this as exemplifying the Indian establishment’s lack of confidence. But that perhaps is not the whole story. Narendra Modi and the BJP came to power on the back of a polarizing religious agenda. Faced with a tanking economy and widespread protests, there was no easy way for Modi to wiggle out except, and once again, by inventing external enemies.

The message: Look, we are under the assault of foreign enemies and if we don’t unite behind our government, at stake will be no less than our sovereignty and national unity. If someone can pull up a conspiracy theory behind how Thunberg and other members of an international left cabal want to destabilize India, it’s a Bharat Ratna-worthy achievement in Modi’s India. Sadly, this whipping up of nationalism against external enemies, largely imagined, works everywhere, from the US, India to Nepal. 

In Nepal, bereft of any other agenda, and feeling marginalized by the intelligentsia and other political actors, KP Oli has now cottoned to Hinduism to resurrect his political career. His repeated attempts to get into India’s good books rebuffed, he is now busy needling the Ayodhya-addicted BJP establishment by claiming his country’s ownership of Lord Ram. New Delhi either supports him or it will use the BJP’s own weapon, Hinduism, to further fan anti-India flames in Nepal. For the purpose Oli has amassed a sea of online trolls, again just like Modi. Notably, back in 2017, he had come to power after successfully demonizing India over the blockade.  

Especially in today’s techno-space, it has become easy to subvert democracy. While government-sponsored trolls operate unhindered, its critics can be easily blocked and silenced. Indian leadership can’t digest a casual tweet of a foreign celebrity; Chinese leadership has to block any online mention of Tibet; and Nepali leaders expertly tweak the remarks of even remotely famous Indians as a direct attack on the country.

When important national issues are turned into personal wars, often by design, nothing short of complete demolition of the opponents will do. There is no middle ground online. Rihanna is completely innocent or a sworn enemy of India. Nepal will brook no compromise over Kalapani, all of which is indubitably ours. And, by the way, online space is certainly not for civic-minded folks. For their useless intellectualizing, they deserve to be blocked and hosed down.

Nirmala Sitharaman, India’s first full-time female finance minister, now also has the distinction of becoming the country’s first finance minister to unveil a union budget during the turbulent Covid-19 times. Sitharaman’s budget is thus sui generis in every sense. While listing out the country’s annual incomes and expenditures, she took refuge in the words of Rabindranath Tagore: “Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark” (Fireflies, A Collection of Aphorisms).

In 2020, the Indian economy faltered more than other big economies, pushing poor farmers back into the poverty net. During the lockdown, the union government’s Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKY) provided free food to 800 million people, cooking gas to 80 million families and direct cash to over 400 million people. But that was not enough to protect many from taking their own lives due to the unbearable pain of extreme, pandemic-induced poverty.

Sitharaman’s budget is also the first of the new, challenged-filled decade. Although there are more pressing issues of ensuring food, shelter and healthcare to pandemic-hit Indians, Sitharaman tried to sidestep these priorities by trying to play up the year 2021 as India’s 75^th year of Independence, Goa’s 60^th years of accession to India—to celebrate which Goa got InRs 300 crores—50^th year of the India-Pakistan war. She also said 2021 was the year of Chanrayaan-3 Mission and the Haridwar Maha Kumbha. These landmarks mean little to poor Indians who are looking to survive the covid crisis.

The budget that touches upon the lives of 1.3 billion Indians directly and millions more in the region indirectly is based on six major pillars: i) health and wellbeing, ii) physical and financial capital, and infrastructure, iii) inclusive development for aspirational India, iv) reinvigorating human capital, v) innovation and research and development, and vi) minimum government and maximum governance. All six pillars have been projected as foundations for AtmaNirbhar (Self-reliant) India. As Sitharaman rightly said in her budget speech, this is a continuity of the past. What she didn’t mention is that the same approach has been holding India back for decades.

By citing Thirukkural—Aphoristic teachings on virtue, wealth, and love in Tamil 17^th century text—on taxation, Sitharaman has positioned herself as a central BJP figure from the Tamil constituency. She mentioned: “A king/Ruler is the one who creates and acquires wealth, protects and distributes it for common good (Thirukkural 385).” But without the imagined wealth creation, it only indicates Indian people will have to struggle more to meet their basic needs while ruling party leaders keep delivering sanctimonious speeches filled with abstract couplets that do not rhyme with people’s daily challenges.

Some in Nepal have applauded India’s new budget as it marginally increases India’s allocation for Nepal and other neighboring countries. But that is a stunt in regional politics even as the budget disorients the Indian economy. Yes, Nepal may get more from the government of India this year. But a more prosperous India would have more to share with us than what we are getting from union government’s annual allocation.

There are many positive features of Sitharaman’s budget. She has put people’s health and wellbeing as her government’s number one priority, allocated money for affordable housing and elderly population, vowed to further digitize governance and public service delivery, emphasized connectivity, and most importantly, allocated enough for Covid-19 vaccination in the country. These positive aspects will add to Sitharaman’s credentials as a finance minister in these historically difficult times. But she too has been unable to depart from the conventional BJP style of playing up India’s self-imagined reliance, which is in fact impossible in the age of digital connectivity.

A former defense minister of India with a socialist bent, Sitharaman offered tremendous hope for her country. But her hopes and priorities for India already appear misplaced.

A week ago, news broke that Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA), our monopoly state-owned electric utility, had lost its bid to sell electricity in India under a competitive tender.

For decades Nepali planners and development partners have been pushing the idea that Nepal’s fortunes lay in exploiting its abundant hydro power and exporting electricity to India. It was the stuff that dreams are made of, and on which our government had staked its plans to build some 10,000 MW of hydro power plants within the next decade.

The promise of hydro-power exports was so tantalizing that it even made the US Ambassador to Nepal, His Excellency Randy William Berry, famously remark in an op-ed in October 2019, “that is why the MCC [Millennium Challenge Corporation] project focuses on constructing lines that will bring Nepal’s power to the consumers who will pay Nepal good money for it. It is a simple fact of geography and economics that means India.”

The facts of geography and economics do not entirely support a case for hydro-electricity exports from Nepal to India. Nepal’s power is simply too expensive for India’s power market. NEA’s failed bid could be the first indicator of that harsh reality.

The authority’s price offer was approximately 30 percent higher than the winning bid, and that too, while already offering its power at a discount. India’s power prices are expected to decline in the future with increased renewable energy, efficiency introduced by power trading, continued excess capacity in its system and next generation reforms (such as retail deregulation). Nepal’s cost of power, on the other hand, will only increase.

Unless Nepal’s electricity carries with it a whiff of fresh Himalayan air, it is unclear why Bangladesh will travel all the way to Nepal for electricity purchases when cheaper, just as clean electricity is available across the border in India.

The case for Nepali hydro-power exports has always been built on imaginary assumptions. News that NEA had failed in its bid should have at least forced a reconsideration of that view. Instead, nothing of the sort happened.

Nepali energy planners offered no course correction. Stock prices of hydro power in Nepal remained steady. Developers of new hydro power plants continued to remain positive. In fact, the story barely made the news.

Those who believed in the promise of Nepali hydro power exports simply ignored the news. Those who did not believe, simply carried on saying “I told you so.”

Maybe it is important not to overreact to the loss. After all, it was the authority’s first ever bid for electricity export to India. The bid was for a small volume. With time, experience, and larger volumes, perhaps the NEA will be able to break into the Indian electricity market.

But we must assess this loss, no matter how insignificant it may be.

First, Nepal’s electricity strategy needs a stronger scientific and analytical basis. It would be wrong to bet the energy future of an entire nation on perceptions of geography and economics. But it would be tragic to get that bet wrong. Our strategic course must be more calculated, weighing the objectives, risks, and outcomes more carefully.

Second, Nepal’s energy sector needs greater diversity of thought. Though small, its energy sector is complex, operating under resource constraints and geo-political challenges. We need all minds, and the full diversity of resources, to work in tandem. Nepali planners must actively solicit and integrate a diversity of thought in their planning process, while also seeking to harness the full range of new energy technologies.

Third, the fundamentals for Nepal’s power sector have now changed for good. We must begin to plan for an alternative future, where Indian imports are our primary supply source. If Nepalis can receive cheaper electricity from India, why produce it here? After all, we import just about everything now—why not electricity too?

Fourth, if Nepal intends to be meaningfully competitive in Indian power market, it can’t do so by hiding in a cave up in the mountains. It needs a bolder strategy for success, a deeper understanding of Indian power markets, and a willingness to engage. Nepal must establish a trading company in India and demonstrate that it has the courage to compete.

Fifth, competition begins at home. The authority can’t be afraid of competing at home, while believing it can compete abroad. That’s a bit like showing up for the football world cup never having played a match before.      

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Within a week of PM KP Oli’s parliament dissolution, Nepali Congress began organizing mass protests in all districts. Leaders forcefully criticized Oli for “assaulting democracy and the constitution” and made critical appraisals of the Nepali Communist Party’s tenure in government. The case against the dissolution then moved to the Supreme Court, whereupon a divide grew inside Congress. Unsurprisingly, it appeared along the same fault-lines Congress is known for. Instead of uniting as the opposition, Congress leaders predictably jumped at the chance to revive intra-party rivalries.

In this episode, the dividing issue has been Party President Sher Bahadur Deuba’s declaration that Congress will not put pressure on the court and will accept the court verdict unconditionally, even if it leads to the mid-term elections Oli has announced. On the other side of the dividing line, Dr. Shekhar Koirala, Shashank Koirala, Prakash Man Singh, Gagan Thapa and others, in one way or another, have demanded House reinstatement and suggested Congress not go to elections. While they urge the Supreme Court to decide the case a particular way and protest against election, they allege cadres are “confused due to mixed signaling” from top leadership.” Deuba, however, while backing the protests, was also among the first to criticize the dissolution as unconstitutional and undemocratic.

While Deuba maintains that political pressure should never be used to undercut judiciary’s independence, others lament his reluctance. Do Congress leaders have varying levels of respect for separation of powers and judicial independence, or is it just another game of political football inside the party?

A few things are certain: the Supreme Court currently has the dissolution case as sub judice, which is defined as: “under judicial consideration and therefore prohibited from public discussion elsewhere.” It is also a fact that the court is an independent government body, and suspicion of influence from outside weakens the full force of the verdict, whatever it may be. For example, if all parties demand the reinstatement of the House and the House is reinstated, it opens the door for Oli allege the SC of bowing down to pressure. This is an outcome no one wants.

Therefore, not wishing to discuss a case that is sub judice and not to profess your preferred outcome seems prudent, whichever outcome you desire. Yet, senior leaders such as Ram Chandra Paudel have not stopped discussing it publicly. He has, incredibly, professed the SC should be “directly told to reinstate the House.”

Meanwhile, Dr. Shekhar Koirala has said the election Oli declared is “not possible,” adding, “Deuba’s not asking for House reinstatement while calling its dissolution unconstitutional is meaningless.” But as a prominent political figure it is impossible not to put pressure on the court when declaring preferred outcomes. Therefore, it is not “meaningless” to abstain from pressuring the Supreme Court; in a democracy, it is paramount.

Dr. Minendra Rijal took another stupefying line of attack when he said, “Party President Deuba overstepped his bounds by saying Congress will accept election if that is the court verdict.” Here we see an MP actually saying it is wrong of his party president to show readiness to accept the Supreme Court verdict.

Gagan Thapa says holding protests against the dissolution of the House is essentially the same as demanding reinstatement from the SC. But the protests not only revolve around dissolution but on the Oli government’s record as a whole. Labeling the dissolution unconstitutional and organizing protests moreover were immediate reactions to Oli’s actions, which the party surely must have done as the main opposition. But it is wrong of leaders to then use this protest platform to demand the House’s reinstatement, because that is something we leave to the Supreme Court. Protesting against PM Oli’s actions, in contrast, is a citizen right and not something we leave to the judiciary.

Moreover, Deuba maintains silence on reinstatement at a cost. It certainly does not cost him anything to come out in favor of it; to the contrary, political currents favor him, as both NCP factions have reportedly offered him Prime Minister’s chair, conditional on reinstatement. Deuba seems to value judicial independence over political expediency. This is especially important as other Congress leaders are undermining the judicial process while ironically claiming to be bastions of democratic sanctity.

Therefore, while some act like they are in a functioning democracy, others weaponize the issue for intra-party politics. Recently, the NC issued a press statement to clarify that its central committee meeting had agreed to let NC’s respective province parliamentary members assess which NCP faction is better suited to Congress. Yet, ‘anonymous’ Congress leaders came out of the same meeting to brief the press that “Deuba was inclined to side with Oli.”

Now is great time to unite against the failings of current government but it is obvious where priorities of some in the party lie. They repeatedly choose to undercut their own leadership, undermine judicial independence and the force of its verdict, and even party unity. Either they are unaware of this or pretend to be so. It is hard to say which is worse.