New Nepali geopolitics taking shape
We already have a glimpse of the post-corona world order. When the pandemic subsides, the Americans could double down on China. Trump is sure to sharpen his anti-Sinic slurs in the lead up to the presidential elections, whenever they take place. Republicans are also trying to paint Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for the president, as soft on China. As the bipartisan anti-China bias solidifies in the US capital, Biden will be forced into a more confrontational approach to Beijing. Then there are the Russians, who are again expected to meddle in the US elections. Whoever wins, the US-Russia relations will continue to be rocky.
At the same time, the India-US partnership under the Indo-Pacific Strategy will get progressively better, with a clear geopolitical ramification for Nepal. India and the US will increasingly work in concert to buttress the ‘democratic camp’ in Nepal, and China will try to help the communist government in Kathmandu to resist this pressure. And China could do so with Russia’s help. Were it not for the corona pandemic, Russian President Vladimir Putin could have come to Nepal this year. The Cold War-era bunkers in the Russian Embassy in Kathmandu await a new round of China-Russia tête-à-tête.
There is a remarkable coherence between the foreign policy outlooks of Moscow and Beijing, considering their troubled borders and centuries-old enmity. At the moment, the two regional behemoths reckon they have no option but to together push back against the new American designs in Eurasia. They are thus ready to bury the old hatchet. RT, the state-controlled Russian television, is these days dominated by discussions where participants heap praises on China for standing up to ‘American imperialism’ and for coming to the medical help of the likes of Italy and Spain, while the US, the supposed friend of these European countries, had nothing to offer.
The Chinese press has likewise been busy chastising Washington for its supposed failure to save the lives of its own people even while it pushes ‘criminal’, corona-enabling sanctions against Iran and Venezuela. And there are only good words for Russia in the Chinese press. China’s recent military maneuvers in the South China Sea, meanwhile, shows that it is intent on preserving its primacy in the neighborhood, corona or no corona.
When I asked an old China hand in Nepal how the corona crisis would change Nepali geopolitics, pat came his reply: “There is now a clear case for closing the open Nepal-India border. The corona pandemic has clarified that the open border is a danger to our sovereignty.” Such voices will get stronger in the days ahead, and they will find plenty of ears in the Oli government.
Many think the prospect of Russia and China working together to secure their geopolitical interests in South Asia is fanciful. But as the Americans get more and more assertive here, it is only natural for the two to pool their resources to fight against this ‘American hegemony’. In the long run, the curse of geography forces Russia and China apart. But for the time being the calculations of individual strongmen like Xi and Putin will prevail.
Being ‘yourself’ isn't helpful
At some point in life, we have all been told to be ourselves. But that’s a misleading advice. Mostly, we confuse it with being selfish. There is a fine line differentiating them, and it is easy to mistake one for the other. It’s like two similar-looking buttons placed together on the mental switchboard. By choosing one over the other, we set ourselves in two totally different states of mind.
In fact, we often take the advice of being ourselves as a freedom to let our ego play. We try to ‘be ourselves’ by speaking up whatever our egotistic mind tells us to say, and do whatever it tells us to do. We speak things even if it hurts others, and do things even if it harms others. Only our thoughts, feelings and emotions matter. Everyone should comply with what we think is right.
We put ourselves at the center of the universe and magnify our selfish selves out of proportion. Not others, but ‘I’ need to feel good, be happy, grow rich, have fun. In most of our engagements with the world, this thought become central. And that creates problems—a whole lot of them. There are over seven and half billion people in the world. As everybody is prone to think that way, there are about seven and half billion centers of universe in this planet alone. No surprise that we have so much conflict.
In true sense, to be ourselves is not to be at all. When we try ‘to be’, our habitual tendencies compel us to do selfish things. Being fearless becomes being arrogant, speaking up your mind becomes being rude, being goal-oriented becomes being self-obsessed, and being ambitious becomes being inconsiderate. Even being humble becomes a means of gratifying our sense of greatness and bragging about our own humility. ‘I’ am better than ‘others’.
When we are ourselves, the self shouldn’t be there, or it will be selfish. It entails letting one’s ‘self’ dissolve into just ‘being’. It means being in harmony with others, the nature, entire humanity, entire existence. Let’s not forget that others are pretty much part of the existence as we are. So any separation of ‘I’ from ‘others’ will be a separation from the existence. When we think in terms of I—my life, my likes, my choice, my freedom—we are in disharmony. We are colliding with billions of centers of the universe. That is not very helpful.
So how do we identify the right button and be in the right frame of mind? Maybe we can give it a thought during the coronavirus lockdown.
Flowing water
From 1995 to 2000 I lived in Bardia in western Nepal. During my first couple of years there bottled water had to be ‘imported’ from Chitwan and things like bread were just not available. At that time I did my shopping in Bluebird (where Big Mart is now located) on Lazimpat maybe three or four times a year. What we did have in Bardia was time… plenty of time.
Having moved to Bardia from Singapore (go figure!) the pace of life was very different. Long hours of sitting around, especially in the hot months when to move was just too sweaty anyway. The time passed at the same rate as the seasons and was reflected in the crops being grown. There was high excitement when a salesman came along, pushing his bicycle full of wears such as lungis, ladies hair ornaments, children’s clothes, and jackets in the winter. That always passed an hour or so as everyone pulled out their wares to inspect them carefully.
In the summer a guy came along selling basically frozen water on a stick with a slice of coconut inside. Despite the immense heat I always turned down his offer. After the initial couple of years we could get blocks of ice from Nepalganj, which were delicious to the touch and cooled off fizzy drinks as well as our hands! In short, life was laidback and slow-paced, for me at least.
Yesterday, sitting on my balcony during the lockdown, I was sipping my morning tea, watching a neighbor irrigate his newly created vegetable field, and reflecting how the world has been forced to slow down. Here in Kathmandu, instead of the clothes seller (although they do come to my neighborhood also), the vegetable seller with his basket of goods perched on his cycle is what causes a flutter of activity.
The arrival of the guy spraying disinfectant on the street brought everyone out of their houses to watch—masks tightly worn against the pungent smell. A truck with jar water caused my heart to race as my usual supplier is not delivering. With the help of my neighbor, I got four jars (two-week supply) and only had to pay for the water, not the bottles. Guess he is trusting we are not going anywhere with his empty bottles. I felt I gained entertainment, goodwill and financial bonus all rolled in one! Women are gossiping from balconies and rooftops and the men are playing cards. I can see children and grandparents interacting on the same balconies and rooftops, the children perhaps fed up with TV cartoons. Yes the pace of life has slowed right down.
The supermarkets I missed in the 1990’s are again ‘missing’. But now there are online deliveries—something the village never had. Although it’s true there was always a helper in Bardia willing to cycle off to shop to pick up whatever was available that day. Or spend the day in the next town when, eventually, a little bakery opened. Small loafs, far too sweet, were produced, but bread never the less.
Isn’t it just as exciting waiting to see if and when your supermarket delivery will turn up as it was waiting to see what was on sale in that week’s haat bazaar? Isn’t it true today that we would all love to fight our way over the boxes that block the aisles of a certain well know supermarket chain or visit the organic market that is way over-priced? We used to stress over the amount of time activities took, trying to fit shopping in between work, looking after children and meeting with friends. Today, we have all the time in the world. But our regular entertainments are not available to us. So for now I watch the neighbor irrigate the land, and spend more time (virtually) with loved ones.
Western medicine a boondoggle?
The WHO, among other authorities, has gone on record saying all “fake news” about coronavirus cures must be suppressed. The only true cure, it appears, is the Western medical establishment, with its resource-intensive hospitals, doctors and nurses, ICU beds and oxygen tanks, ventilators and intubation, N-95 masks and plastic face shields. Nothing else will do.
The modern hospital as an institution probably started in Europe during the plague of the 13th century, when monks in Christian monasteries put aside buildings in their premises to cure the sick. They also tended herbal gardens and grew their own medicinal plants, so they were ideally placed to cure those with life-threatening diseases. Due to their austere schedules and lifestyles, limited social contact with the outside world, as well as lack of sexual and physical contact due to vows of renunciation, it is possible they did not contract infectious diseases as easily as laypeople.
According to Wikipedia, “Towards the end of the 4th century, the ‘second medical revolution’ took place with the founding of the first Christian hospital in the eastern Byzantine Empire by Basil of Caesarea.” While ancient India, the Islamic world, Persia and others had their own hospitals—with the Islamic world specifically credited with systematizing the institution with departments, diseases, officer-in-charge, and specialists—it was the Christian notion of healing the sick which may have brought the institution to a wider population.
Hospitals were associated with various branches and sects of Christianity, all vying for power and prestige. The prestige of one’s sect depended on how well the narrative of medicinal power was projected and controlled. In keeping with the tradition of Christian dogma and persecution, those who professed disbelief were severely punished. Hospitals, cures, and associated medications all took on special mystique.
It is this history of medicine that is being played out now, in much the same manner, with people believing in the virtues of ventilators without a single critique (ventilators apparently have a low efficiency rate and can kill one-third of the elders after they are intubated, according to The New York Times). Plastic facemasks may or may not work, since the coronavirus can live for 72 hours on plastic. Even the whole idea of putting a large number of sick people together may be a failed experiment, since it is easy for those less sick to get more sick with more exposure to viral loads in a contaminated hospital environment, with people packed into a small space, breathing in huge amounts of viral spores through air-conditioners.
Ayurveda, India’s age-old traditional healing system, is promptly labeled as “fake” by this Eurocentric hegemonic model. BBC hastily put out an article to this effect, warning people that turmeric could not cure coronavirus. Prince Charles got caught up in the crosshairs, with an Ayurvedic Vaidya in Bangalore claiming, “Mr Charles is my patient.” The place put out a hasty rejoinder that Prince Charles had done nothing but take NHS advice. Turmeric, which may kill the virus faster than any known pharmaceutical in existence, has not been tested by a single scientist, despite there being evidence in plain sight with large parts of the “turmeric belt” of Asia and Africa relatively unscathed by the virus. Low contagion countries like India and many parts of Africa all cook their food in turmeric.
In addition, these countries also make low or no use of plastic food containers. Food is cooked daily, and nothing is stored for later. Despite hysteria about plastic being the one and only material that can shield people from the virus, it is pretty clear plastic is also much beloved by the virus as an elegant habitat. It survives for four hours on copper, but 72 hours on plastic.
All of this brings makes us question: Is Western medicine a giant boondoggle? The insistence that everyone must follow this model is not just ridiculous, but may also kill people since they will rush to the poorly resourced hospitals rather than stay home and minister to this with multiple herbs, concoctions and healing blends known by tradition. The beauty of Ayurveda is its decentralized model—everyone can be a healer in their own homes, with just basic kitchen cabinet ingredients as medicine.
Even Native Americans and African Americans in poor areas of the US will have to tap their own culinary and medicinal heritages, if they are to survive this pandemic without depending on what is essentially an unaffordable healthcare model.
Many Nepali workers have died in New York. They may have lived had they followed their gurus and amchis, rather than going to the hospitals which turned them away without treatment.
Governments of India, Nepal, and Bhutan must support a massive effort to produce Ayurvedic herbs which cure pulmonary and respiratory infections; and not only listen to WHO, UN or any other Eurocentric hegemonic authorities that will insist that traditional healing is “fake news” in order to sustain the illusion of European supremacy to the last breath.
It is clear as this pandemic unfolds that the savage in the heart of human culture may be modern civilization, not the painted tribes of the Amazons who always knew how to cure themselves with berries and roots. The irrational people are the ones who will not listen to evidence, who will continue to do their shamanistic dances in their plastic PPE, murmuring superstitious voodoo chants about non-existent vaccines.
