On the first day of Nepal lockdown, I rushed to get some books for the long furlough that lay ahead. All stores I visited were closed. The only other option was to reread some books I liked. I picked up Robert D. Kaplan’s The Revenge of Geography. I had already read it twice, the second time around two years ago. Yet I found it as intriguing and entertaining the third time.
The premise of the book is simple enough. Rebutting the assertion of The New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman that the world is getting ‘flatter’ thanks to the dispersal of technology and ease of travel, Kaplan argues that the salience of geography remains strong as ever. Yes, the world is more interconnected today than it ever was; yet it is far from a ‘global village’. Instead, the virtual shrinkage of geography has resulted in a more claustrophobic world, making conflicts more likely. It would thus be foolish to write off the salience of geography and culture.
The importance of the map is easily manifest for Nepal, jammed as it is between India and China. Its flat border with India makes the import of Indian culture easy while the barrier of the highest mountains in the world places a severe limit on how close it can get to China. No amount of advancement in technology or ease of travel can erase this hard fact.
Nepal has relations with countries around the world. Yet, when in 2015 it drafted its constitution, the national life was brought to a standstill because a single country had opposed the new national charter. Nepal subsequently tried to diversify its trade options. But India will continue to dictate its foreign trade considering the costlier option of trading via China. Again, Nepal cannot easily overcome its geography.
Yet Kaplan is not deterministic. He convincingly argues in the book that even though geography cannot be overlooked, individual actors can help mitigate the limitations it imposes. India today would have been a different place without Mahatma Gandhi, just like the world map would have been different without Adolph Hitler. During the blockade, KP Oli stood firm against the blackmailing of the regional hegemon and eventually forced New Delhi to relax the blockade.
Early in the 20th century, Rana Prime Minister Chandra Shumsher secured Nepal’s independent status. Had he not appeased the British and agreed to send Nepalis to fight on their behalf in the First World War, the 1923 treaty recognizing Nepal’s sovereignty would not have been sighed. In that case, Nepal would today have been a part of India, a fate that befell former princely states in British India.
Long before that, Nepal’s founding father Prithvi Narayan Shah advised a careful balance between India and China. He understood that Nepal’s precarious geography did not allow the country to make a decisive tilt towards any of its two giant neighbors. Yet Shah also didn’t stop his expansion drive in the fear of its neighbors.
The importance of geography is undeniable. But so is the role of individual actors. Often, more than the constraints imposed by geography it is the fatalism of its rulers that dooms a country.
