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The West Seti Hydropower Project is again in the news for wrong reasons. Twen­ty-one years after first license was issued for its development and seven years after it was handed over to the Chinese side, perhaps not unexpectedly it is on the verge of being cancelled again.Separate the fluff and the financial viability of West Seti was always a suspect. As a stor­age-type, it makes sense for Nepal to develop it for energy securi­ty. But it’s relative remoteness from urban centers in Nepal and the fact that it needs a very long transmission line for power evac­uation, if it is not exported to India, didn’t seem to make much economic sense. It was originally conceived as an export-type proj­ect for obvious reasons.

But with India’s new regula­tions on cross-border power import that proscribes import­ing power from Beijing-invest­ed projects in Nepal, the door for exporting it to the southern neighbor remains shut. While there may be talk about consum­ing the generated power in the far-west and developing a local economy, that is unlikely before the transfer within the Build Own Operate and Transfer (BOOT) period is over.

The China Three Gorges Corpo­ration was worried about the prof­itability of the project and return on investment. Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) was expected to make a 25 percent investment in this $1.6 billion project—arranged through concessional loans from China EXIM bank. (Now there is talk of the project being built with the help of Nepali investors.) Even NEA management would much rather invest the borrowed amount in other projects, if it were not for political pressure.

When the government of Nepal cancelled the license given to Snowy Mountain Engineering Corporation (SMEC) in 2011, it had become clear that the SMEC would not be able to arrange financing for the project. By then ADB and China National Machin­ery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation (CMEC) had decided not to offer financing as well. But curiously enough the project was handed over to anoth­er Chinese state-owned firm in August 2011.

The story of repeated fail­ure of the West Seti hydropow­er project is emblematic of our lack of pragmatism. This is also a strong indictment of our devel­opment model that perpetu­ates a slack and nonchalant attitude in everything we do. A degree of discipline is required in any undertaking, more so in huge national infrastructural development. Our inclination to take at face value commitments made by our neighbors is also a problem. We tend to assume that China will fund anything and everything, if we only ask. Reality is much different. Chinese polit­ical leaders may give assurances to fund our request, but they are only being polite.

More important, the failure of West Seti is symptomatic of our unrealistic expectations from Bei­jing; our inability to see through cultural differences during nego­tiations continues to create a bub­ble of unrealistic expectations.

As Nepal begins a phase of negotiations with China on a raft of projects both in and out­side the ambit of Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI), the failure of West Seti offers a stark remind­er of what could happen to oth­er much-hyped undertakings, including the railways, if we do not do due diligence.

 There was a time when I’d wake up with Radio Nepal's signature tune at 6 am. These days, an alarm on my phone tries to rouse me, which I ‘snooze’ or ‘dismiss’. Before getting up, there are people like me who go to their social media accounts to see what happened in the world while they slept. And there are those who go to bathrooms carrying their cell phones and spend a little extra time while they do their chores. We show off what we ate on a Friday night, what lipstick or watch we wore, how much we ran, what gave us chills, where we went on vacations, the expen­sive gifts we gave or received. We tirelessly comment about politi­cians. We have a desire to become the extraordinary. If we support a person whose house has been swept away by floods, we pose with them handing a blanket and looking like the most generous and sensitive person on earth. But we also constantly fear being judged. If everyone is posting a picture of celebrating Teej and we don’t, ‘maybe we're not cultural enough.’ If we don't post on our wedding anniversary, people might think we have ‘troubled relation.’ Our thought process has been deeply affected by the world that we see through a small handheld screen.

There are around 80 million users (including myself ) of Face­book in Nepal who spend most of their times either chatting, brows­ing, liking, or commenting. Take a look at your family—do they spend more of their home-time or fam­ily-time using the little machines than on the little ones who are probably learning new words, or old ones with sickness who yearn for care, or the spouse seeking bonding time? If they do, your relationships have become less important than the online world!

But no, I don't mean that there are only addicted people. There are in fact conscious people who make an effort to stay away from social media, who prefer to make their minds agile by thinking, con­templating, and analyzing—without using the phone. But the popula­tion of the opposite is higher, who when they need to think, prefer assisted thinking, using Google’s Help for questions like ‘am I rude?' or ‘why men/women behave like that?’ I had a habit of maintaining a diary/journal. I wrote on and off for more than 10 years but ever since the mobile phones entered my life, my frequency went down and now, it’s a thing of the past.

Technological advancement is no doubt beneficial. News trav­eling across the globe in a fraction of second or getting close to your loved ones through free video calls are everyday highlights. But there are relationships that have died because of social media. We have been enslaved by these devices to the extent that we forget that there is a real world where people need to talk, feel, understand, and respond in person. And the more we are hooked consciously, the more dangerous it is.

 We have to give a big thank to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli for bringing the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooper­ation (BIMSTEC) to national atten­tion. Had PM Oli not taken the ini­tiative to host the fourth summit, this regional organization would probably have gone unnoticed in Nepal for years to come. All said and done, this was one of the biggest international events Nepal has ever hosted, costing the state Rs 2 billion (nearly $17.6 million). The chaos in Kathmandu during the meeting forced Kathmanduties to get to ‘know’ BIMSTEC, whether they wanted to or not. There is no doubt the memory of this meeting will last long in the minds of the millions who saw the way the meet­ing was organized. Now the meeting is over and resources have been spent, I do not want to dwell on whether it was necessary. But the meeting got me to thinking—and reading—on how/if Nepal can benefit from BIMSTEC.

Many opinion makers in Kath­mandu had no idea what BIMS­TEC was—a 20- year-old regional organization. That was because till date no one knows of a single ben­efit Nepal has derived from being its member. However, having spent so much to convene the meeting last week, Nepal now seems heavily invested in it. In other words, every one of us now knows what BIMSTEC is and that it costs us quite a lot to keep the membership.

PM Oli has claimed the BIMSTEC meeting was a huge success. He touted the agreement on energy as its biggest achievement. He further said Nepal has expedited talks with India and Bangladesh to facilitate power trade. Now, the question is, and excuse me if it is layman, but, why does Nepal need BIMSTEC to discuss such issues with Bangladesh and India? They are our immedi­ate neighbors as well as founding members of SAARC, the oldest regional organization. And if PM Oli thinks this meeting helped boost his image internationally, and has benefitted us all, that too would be naïve considering BIMSETIC is a questionable endeavor even on the international front.

Factoring in how much criticism SAARC gets for being ‘redundant,’ going by the fact that the BIMSETC Secretariat didn’t even bother to tweet or update social media on the summit in Kathmandu, it is clear that BIMSTEC, too, is no hub of learning, exchange and diplomacy. Let’s face it: the productive function­ing of the initiative is questionable at best. But again Nepal has already invested Rs 2 billion on this unpro­ductive exercise.

Five out of the seven BIMSTEC members are SAARC countries. It should thus be no secret that the purpose of BIMSETC is to under­mine and keep SAARC divided. BIM­STEC is actually aggressively push­ing the agenda of the Brother India Managed Small Territorial Economic Countries (or BIMSTEC, if you will). And that is not an agenda Nepal should support.

For as long as our resources are spent on a parallel regional ini­tiative, SAARC will continue to be undermined, in tune with the for­eign policy strategies of our south­ern neighbor. It is no secret that SAARC has been made redundant by the political tussles between India and Pakistan, and that BIMSTEC, as such, has no future so long as those tussles are not resolved, for it will not be able to move beyond being an exercise in Indian foreign policy and its hegemonic intent. If the political tussles between India and Pakistan were to subside, BIMSTEC will cease to be relevant, even from the foreign policy perspective. So the question is why the government is wasting resources on our southern neigh­bor’s foreign policy issues.

There were some positive ini­tiatives that we saw in this latest BIMSETC meeting, like the agree­ment to underscore Buddhism as a transnational connectivity indi­cator. However, our incapacity to turn agreements into action, com­pounded by the already-question­able intent of BIMSTEC, renders such agreements moot.

Right now the government looks like a fool for having spent valuable resources —which it could have oth­erwise used to boost its image and credibility—to instead wreak havoc on Kathmandu streets in the name of regional cooperation, and God knows what else!

 On August 28, our prime min­ister proudly declared in parliament that he could not and cannot be as strict as Lee Kuan Yew. He was implying that unlike Lee, he cannot give up his democratic ideals for national development, and that makes him a better leader than Lee. Had our democracy or, more precise­ly, had PM Oli been able to at least made us feel that things are changing for the better, then, yes, that comparison and that pride on being democratic would have made sense. But since the system and the leaders, including the cur­rent PM, have repeatedly failed us, such comments only make him appear weak, visionless and with no knowledge of what Lee was actually like as a leader. The only meaningful difference between Lee’s Singapore and Oli’s Nepal is that we can criticize the government here. But what good are constructive criticisms when the leaders don’t listen? Our democratic rights are nothing to be proud of because those have come in exchange of perpetu­al poverty, bad governance and rigged elections.

To compensate for the lack of freedom of expression and cer­tain rights, Lee gave Singaporeans the right to good life. Its per capita income, which was one of the lowest in the world when Lee took charge, is now one of the high­est. Its universities consistently rank as among the best in the world. You don’t need to buy bottled water in Singapore; you can drink the tap water and eat street food without fear. You don’t need to bribe bureaucrats and political leaders to get your work done. It’s a safe, clean and cosmopolitan city-state. Many countries have either waived or made their visa requirements lax for Singaporean citizens.

We have exactly the opposite sit­uation. Singapore is praised and envied, while we are mocked and loathed by the world. Just see the reaction on the face of the immi­gration officer when you present your green passport anywhere abroad. That suspicion-laced reaction with a mocking smile is the accurate representation of our international standing and how the world perceives us.

PM Oli, you are not Lee, and you can’t be Lee. Unlike you, who takes a chartered flight with a jumbo team abroad, Lee flew in scheduled flights, and with only those who he needed. Unlike you, who tries to shield his party cad­res and near ones against charges of corruption and what not, Lee went after his party members and even his good friends, including Singapore’s first president, for poor conduct and corruption.

Unlike you, who shows help­lessness against all that’s ailing us, Lee was strong to weed out most of what bedeviled the Sin­gaporean society and institution­alize rule of law. Unlike you, who had the street potholes filled on the eve of the BIMSTEC summit, Lee began a campaign for clean and green Singapore immediately after he took office.

He was a hands-on prime minis­ter, and you are a hands-off every­thing, mouthful on everything prime minister. Yes, Lee was strict authoritarian and you are a liber­al democrat and that’s why you shoot down people asking for justice.

Unlike you, Lee understood what was in his country’s inter­ests during the Cold War. Despite being an ethnic Chinese, he dis­tanced himself from China politi­cally but continued to trade with it. He joined the Western camp, just so he could attract their investment. And he managed the economy and foreign affairs of his country so well that he was invit­ed to China, and the great Chi­nese leader Deng Xiaoping visited Singapore, even before the two countries had established diplo­matic relations. Deng remarked that China had a lot to learn from Singapore, and China really did relearn ancient Chinese values of meritocracy, rule of law, good gov­ernance, and effective utilization of foreign capital, from Singapore. So much for the “Singapore was small, Nepal is big and we can’t emulate that here” argument of textbook democrats.

Sadly, Mr Oli, you try to cover your weaknesses by comparing yourself with great world leaders who eschewed populist policies for fair ones to lift their countries. You are no Lee, Ataturk, Chiang, Mahathir or Mahendra. You are no better than these “dictators” just because you once fought for democracy. You actually have a lot to learn from them.

Since I am a Nepali of no signif­icance and no communist I know this will fall on deaf ears and blind eyes. Maybe the following lines by a renowned author on cur­rent affairs, Robert Kaplan, will help you see the world and assess yourself and others you consider “dictators” differently.

“Dividing the world in black and white terms between dicta­tors and democrats completely misses the political and moral complexity of the situation on the ground... The twin categories of democrats and dictators are simply too broad for an adequate understanding of many places and their rulers”