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The sanctity of the Nepal’s constitution has been breached.

The cracks in our young democracy became visible as the country prepares to stand up to India. It is in such times of national stress that the safeguards of democracy are truly tested.

Nepal’s democracy failed the test. Great danger lies ahead.  

Lack of accountability

In mid-May, Nepalis woke to discover that India had unilaterally built a road in Lipulekh, an area that Nepal claims as its own. Nepal has publicly disputed India’s claim to this area and is on record seeking a resolution through dialogue. This border dispute has been a sensitive issue for many years, high on the radar of our government.

There are many things that the government could have done as India was building the road. It could have drawn public and media attention to the transgression as it was underway. It could have protested more visibly and forcefully. It could have demanded urgent talks. It could have created border army posts in the area, as it has now done. If all these failed, the constitution should have been changed as the road was being built.

Instead, the government did nothing as India built the road.

After India inaugurated it, Prime Minister Oli said he didn’t know India was building the road as no one had told him.

Stretching over several months in broad daylight, a foreign power built 80-km road through difficult terrain (involving lots of blasting) crossing into Nepal’s (or at least disputed) territory and the prime minister didn’t know? The foreign minister didn’t know? The home minister didn’t know? The army chief didn’t know?

As office holders pledged to protect Nepal’s constitution, the prime minister and his ministers have a moral responsibility to defend, or at least try to defend, Nepal’s territorial sovereignty as it is threatened. Shouldn’t they be held responsible and accountable for this failure?

The failure of responsibility was instead turned into a narrative about India’s belligerence. In response, we rushed to change our constitution but failed to hold the government to account. The parliament failed to hold the government accountable.

India has not responded to Nepal’s call for a dialogue. The world has not responded. Nobody will. The constitutional amendment alone is not an indicator of how passionately Nepalis feel about this. The real measure of our strength and determination will come if we, the people, can demonstrate that we have the power to hold our government accountable for failing us.

To bolster the value of our constitutional amendment, we must get the prime minister and his entire council of ministers to accept moral responsibility for failing to protect Nepal’s sovereignty. We must demand an independent enquiry about who knew what and when, and establish if there was any treason.  

Without the prime minister and his council of ministers accepting moral responsibility for their failures, the constitutional amendment means nothing except a new emblem.

Constitution’s sanctity breached

The constitutional amendment passed easily and with amazing speed within days.

This was a constitutional amendment of symbolism. Why it didn’t happen earlier, or why India’s intrusion was needed to justify, isn’t clear. Constitutional amendments must be about us and who we are—it cannot be a symbol of retaliation.    

There was no public debate. No stakeholder discussion. No assessment of the social, political, or economic implications. Parliamentarians spoke and voted (almost) unanimously in favor. A lone voice of dissent was barred from speaking, ridiculed for being anti-national and threatened with expulsion from her party.

Other institutions should have stepped in to provide counsel. The president could have spoken. The army could have spoken. Provinces could have spoken. Civil society could have spoken. The courts could have spoken. Instead of first demanding accountability, everyone applauded.

A government that had failed to protect national sovereignty legitimized its failure by a constitutional amendment. No other institution objected.

The safeguards of democracy in our constitution all failed. These weaknesses will be exploited again.  

Tomorrow, another government will justify its failure to reduce poverty through a constitutional amendment that will nationalize all wealth that has been in a family’s ownership for more than a generation. Another government will justify its failure to bring prosperity through a constitutional amendment that will nationalize all private enterprises.

“Silly argument,” you say with a dismissive smirk. “Of course, we would never allow it.”

Look at what just happened. We showed how it will be done.   

Love is in the air. Love is all around me. It is written in the wind. It’s in the whisper of the tree, it’s in the thunder of the sea.

You can instantly recognize those lines if you are familiar with western music and literature. As somebody more familiar with the eastern way of living, I find it easier to accept those lines without subscribing to their literal meaning.

No, love is not in the air. It’s not written on the tree, nor in the sea. Ask someone who is planning to hang himself on a tree in the open air. Or someone who is trying to calm his heart in the middle of a thundering sea. The same thing becomes an expression of love for some, and cause of death and despair for others.

Let’s take a more common and comparable example. Two persons reach a very scenic place in a perfect weather together. One may become ecstatic, while the other might say, “Well, it looks good. So what?” They don’t enjoy it equally. Why is that?

Ask the scientists, they will say there’s no difference when different people see the same tree or sea or feel the same air. What they see is light reflecting and entering their retinas. What they hear is soundwaves touching their eardrums. What they feel is an external substance touching their skin. These generate impulses in the neurons, which are carried to the brain where an image is formed. So the process is the same, the mechanics the same. Therefore everybody should feel the air, see the tree, and hear the thunder of the sea in the exact same way.

But it doesn’t happen like that. There is something beyond the neurons and the brain. Along with the neuronal impulses and formation of an image in the brain, our mind comes to work. It starts labeling those images: I like it, I don’t like it, I want more of it, I want it to go away, and so on. A related emotion emerges. We feel attracted to it, start despising it, loving it, or hating it. Sometimes we have a mixed feeling and we neither love nor hate.

Simply put, we know about external objects when light or sound waves (or something like that) form an image in the brain. The actual perception happens not in the brain but in our mind, which immediately starts judging this perception. And instantly our liking or disliking starts. When our mind is in the state of liking, we judge things to be likable. And when the mind is in the state of disliking, we dislike everything. Our mind labels things based on its own present state.

So when we say love is out there, it means our mind is in the state of liking things. When it is at peace and ease, everything around seems lovely. It’s our mind that projects love in the air, tree, or sea. Love is in us, not out there.

The Nepali rulers confined to Kathmandu neglected Limpiyadhura, Lipukeh, and Kalapani area from the very beginning. In time, the Indian Army occupied this area following the 1962 India-China War. Due to vested interests, Nepali rulers never opposed the illegal occupation. Despite having legal proofs, it never raised the issue publicly. But after over 60 years, Nepal is now trying to get back its territory. As India also claims the same territory, the dispute is likely to escalate. Unless Nepal convinces India logically, it will not agree to return the land; Nepal needs to channel its resources wisely to convince India. 

Separately, the open border issue has become more confrontational than accommodative. The 1,880-km open border become more troublesome for Nepal compared to India, which is much larger than Nepal in terms of population and economy. Both countries have a migrant workforce from the other, but the Indian establishment presents it as if Nepal’s economy is solely dependent on the money its workers send from India. Quite the contrary: a recent report reveals that Indian laborers take home Rs 300 billion every year in remittances from Nepal. Besides, India imports large quantities of natural resources, herbs, and minerals from Nepal, and sends back finished goods. The trade deficit between the two countries is vast, in India’s favor. 

Being landlocked, Nepal has suffered many trade embargoes for political reasons. The Indian hegemony has made Nepal turn to China for trade diversity, which has been wrongly interpreted by the Indian establishment as Nepal playing China card. Ridiculously, Indian defense minister and army chief have tagged Nepal’s claim over the Kalapani region as coming from China.

India claims to be giving shelter to over five million Nepali citizens. But Nepal gives shelter to even more Indian citizens, thanks to the open border. After the Maoist rebellion in around 2006-07, four million Indians acquired Nepali citizenship. Under the National Register of Citizens mandated by the 2003 amendment of the Citizenship Act, 1955, India is planning to deport non-Indians residing in the country after 2014. Many Nepalis could also be deported under this provision. If so, Nepal will have to manage them. It may need to copy the Indian provision of citizenship only after seven years of marriage, as has been proposed.  

Although Nepal is rich in natural resources, it cannot utilize them as a result of its inability to create a competitive market. Due to the open border and Nepal’s inability to control cross-border smuggling, Indian products monopolize Nepali markets. The Roti Beti (‘bread and daughter’) and Khun ka Rista (‘blood relations’) rhetoric dominate the border areas that are mostly populated by Indian migrants. The whole politics in the Tarai region is based on open border. That is why even the Eminent Persons Group report is pending execution. 

There are two ways Indians look at Nepal: through the British East India Company lens that Nehru inherited, and through the Hindu lens. The Nehru doctrine is popular among Indian bureaucrats who see the Himalayas as a natural barrier to China. Tibet is considered a buffer against invading forces from Central Asia and even China. This doctrine seeks US support in countering China if it invades South Asia. Indian bureaucrats try to influence the ruling BJP on it. The Hindu lens is a bit different, as it tries to impose religious dogma and make Nepal a satellite state like Bhutan. Both schools of thought have a common goal, only their modus operandi is different.

Nepal is the oldest country in South Asia with full independence, sovereignty, and territorial integrity. Due to vested interest of its autocratic rulers to prolong their regime with the support of neighbors, it has fallen into trap many times. This also resulted in Indian occupation of Limpiyadhura, Lipulekh, and Kalapani. Otherwise, why didn’t anyone try to reclaim the lost territories in all these years even though Nepal had plenty of evidence in its favor? 

To get back captured territories, India needs to be persuaded on talks. The Modi government is likely to adopt a policy of ‘silent diplomacy’ against Nepal so as to exhaust it. In that case, Nepal needs to use its soft powers by integrating the country's intellectual, political, economic, and military powers. Tactful diplomacy is the way to go about it. 

The author is a scholar of security and strategic studies 

How has Nepal preserved its independence for over 250 years despite its precarious geopolitical positioning? Multiple factors may be at play, their importance ranked in line with your political persuasion and understanding of international relations. Traditionally, one such factor was the ability of Nepali rulers to maintain a delicate balance between India and China. Whenever Nepal felt threatened by India (or by British India), it sought Chinese support to protect its sovereignty, and vice versa. When, at the end of the 1940s, Kathmandu felt this balance was proving untenable, it looked to Western powers for help.

In this process, after the British (1816), in 1947 the US became only the second country to establish diplomatic relations with Nepal, followed by France (1949) and the Russian federation (1956). The US was also the second country to recognize Nepal as a sovereign entity, again after the British. The latter-day Rana rulers realized their rule in Nepal could be prolonged only with a third-country support. It was also the only way to ensure Nepal’s continued independence between India and China, both of which sought to consolidate their territories around the time of Indian independence in 1947.

Rulers of a country precariously sandwiched, not just between two growing powers but between two civilizations, have to, perforce, be flexible in their foreign dealings. Fixed notions and ideologies are of little use for Nepali rulers who need to be perpetually on their toes. Yet we now have a communist government that exhibits a clear bias in favor of its ideological cousin to the north. 

Perhaps no other government in Nepal’s democratic history has as keenly felt the need to diversify away from India. And rightly so. Overreliance on one power is fraught with danger. This applies as much to our relations with India as with China. The 2015-16 blockade created an enormous mass in favor of closer ties with China to balance India. KP Oli-led communist coalition rode to power by cashing on this optics. 

Yet the hard logic of geography—and the cultural and socio-economic similarities it entails—inextricably twines the future of Nepal and India, for better or worse. The goal should thus be to reduce our overreliance on India rather than trying to search for its alternative as our ‘special’ partner. 

Our government issues a statement in favor of China’s crackdown on Hong Kong; our foreign minister is busy rebutting ‘hoaxes’ around the BRI in hit tweets. But when was the last time Nepal issued a statement that was even remotely pro-India? Better, why can’t we be neutral? 

That is not the only problem. Most of the NCP leaders seem to believe that Nepal can do without all other powers bar China. Take the current ruckus over the MCC compact. I have myself been highly skeptical of the MCC process and its murky relations to the ‘military’ Indo-Pacific Strategy. As much as I hesitate to unconditionally support the compact, I am in its favor as good relations with the US are in Nepal’s interest. This is also because the compact is vague enough to be interpreted in our favor.

Ideology cannot come in the way of national interest. India and China are on the brink of an all-out war. What if we are asked to take sides by India (because of the Gurkha regiments) or by China (Oli government’s unconditional backer)? Who will we then ask to get us out of this impossible predicament? Who are our friends besides our two neighbors whose voice counts on the international stage? 

Our future lies not in our confinement within Indian or Chinese spheres but in embodying the spirit of diversification that the Oli government claims—unjustifiably till date—as its central foreign policy plank.