Earlier in the week, a video of motorists in Kathmandu protesting and violating the ‘no vehicle’ restriction imposed to allow President Bidya Devi Bhandari’s motorcade to pass went viral. Being made to wait out in a cold night for 40 minutes, with no sign of Her Excellency, would have tested the patience of the most jaded commuter. A day later, newspapers carried the story of President Bhandari’s upcoming trip to New York where she will take part in the 63rd session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women and be a part of the ‘High-Level Roundtable: How Women Leaders Change the World’.
A ceremonial head of state, Bhandari has a knack of getting into controversy in her country. She apparently wants the most lavish of motorcades, a more opulent President’s Office—even if the adjacent police academy has to be razed for the purpose—a spanking new chopper to crisscross the country, and she likes the high and mighty bowing and scraping before her. In comparison, her foreign trips have drawn a more balanced response. Widely criticized for ‘inviting herself’ to Qatar, Bhandari was also lauded for her measured speech highlighting Nepal’s precarious climatic position at the UN climate meet in Poland.
So long as the bird is killed, what does it matter who throws the stone?
On April 24, she will fly to Beijing to attend the second BRI conference. Foreign Ministry sources say the visit will be meaningful as Bhandari will discuss important BRI projects with her Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping; and the long-stuck BRI projects in Nepal could finally get some momentum. Moreover, she will formally invite President Xi to Nepal. The communist government, in this light, seems intent on using the good offices of the president to secure its diplomatic goals. This is more astute than may appear on the surface.
As Nepal is pulled even deeper into the US Indo-Pacific Strategy, and with Prime Minister KP Oli seen in New Delhi as an old China sympathizer, the communist government is looking to get closer to China via the president: So long as the bird is killed, what does it matter who throws the stone? Bhandari, who seems in total comfort in the patriarchal world she inhabits back home, may struggle to assert herself as a ‘woman leader who can change the world’. But while she is in the Big Apple, the communist government will be happy if she can carry out a less demanding responsibility: Can she do some legwork to expand Nepal’s diplomatic relations beyond the existing 163 countries and add a feather to the Oli government’s diplomatic cap, for instance?
