How effective, innovative and imaginative is our diplomacy, in this day and age of a rapidly changing world?
Let us do a fact check on the basis of a key test case.
On 07 Oct 2023, Hamas launched an attack on Gaza Strip, killing more than 1100 people, including 10 Nepali students, and capturing 250, including a young Nepali student from Kanchanpur, Bipin Joshi, who was studying agriculture in Israel along with his friends.
It will be wrong to say that the government has been doing nothing to secure the release of the youth, bring him home and bring cheers to his family and the country. It has been making frantic efforts that have failed to yield a result.
Let’s revisit some of those efforts.
On 24 Sept 2024, for instance, Minister for Foreign Affairs Arzu Rana Deuba, addressing the Ministerial Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement during the 79th United Nations General Assembly, urged the global community to take initiatives for the safe release of Joshi.
On 08 Jan 2025, Minister Deuba requested the Israeli government, through Ambassador Shmulik Arie Bass, to secure the release of Joshi.
On Jan 15, in the wake of reports that Hamas was releasing some hostages, Minister Deuba called up Qatar’s Minister of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mohammed bin Abdulaziz bin Saleh al-Khulaifi, who serves as Qatar’s chief negotiator and mediator in peace talks with Hamas, and appealed for special intervention to secure Joshi’s release.
During a meeting with Qatar’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sultan bin Saad bin Sultan Al Muraikhi in Doha on Feb 16. Minister Deuba sought the latter’s good offices in securing Joshi’s release.
Adding to these efforts, Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli recently called upon Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, the president of Egypt, which played a key role in mediating the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, renewing Nepal’s request for Egypt’s assistance in securing the release of Joshi.
Nepal has been playing a key role in the UN peacekeeping missions around the world for about 70 years and its involvement in securing peace in the Mideast is as long. It has served twice in the UN Security Council as an elected non-permanent member, in 1969-70 and in 1988-1989. In 2018-20, Nepal served as a member of the United Nations Human Rights Council. Nepal was the first country in South Asia to recognize Israel after its birth as a state on 14 May 1948. The country has excellent relations with Qatar, which is a popular employment destination for Nepali workers. And the enduring ties between Nepal and Egypt, a key NAM member, go a long time back.
Despite these positives and efforts from our side, the release of Joshi has not materialized even as freedom comes calling for many of the hostages.
This debacle reminds one of Henry Kissinger’s famous quote: Behind the slogans lay an intellectual vacuum.
And a razor-sharp Chanakya goes: In diplomacy, the tongue is mightier than the sword.
In the words of Chanakya, diplomacy is the art of winning the war without bloodshed.
Delays in securing the release of Joshi perhaps call for learning lessons from past failures and adopting a subtler, quieter approach, keeping in mind that this is an acid test for our “art of the impossible”.
