India’s relations with Nepal have always been complicated and the Hindu links between the two states has made it even pricklier. The RSS labelling Nepal as a Hindu state was totally unwarranted and this has weakened the Modi government’s Nepal policy.
The trigger for the current Madhesi crisis is the new constitution that has fallen well below expectations. The Madhesi, of Nepal’s southern plains, the Terai, home to half of the country’s people and a vital link to India, had opposed many of the constitution’s provisions. The Madhesi, historically marginalised by the upper caste people from the Himalayan foothills, had been hoping the new constitution would redress their grievances; unfortunately this has not happened.
To defuse this crisis, which has been long in the making, India stepped up its diplomatic efforts as well as responded with rapid response and relief mission during the devastating earthquake of 2015. Sadly, these good-will gestures have been squandered.
Nepal is phenomenally diverse and the ethnic mix consists of the dominant Khas (over 30 per cent and essentially Hindu) the Madhesi (35 per cent also of Hindu origin), the Newars (5 per cent, practice Buddhism and Hinduism) and the Magars (over 7 per cent and of Hindu and Buddhist orientation) and over other 100 ethnic groups constitute the rest. In this variegated lot, the Khas hold the levers of power and the Madhesi deeply resent this.
The politics of Nepal and its relations with India draws out of this complexity; the end of monarchy and the advent of democracy midwifed by India and the agitations of the 1990s have created fault lines and this spills over into India. The Terai region is contiguous to the states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh and these stresses find an echo chamber here. The Madhesi have much in common with these states and the blockade politics is an off shot of this proximity. India has a record of using blockades to pressurise Nepal and has used since the India-China war of 1962.
The 1951 treaty of friendship is a watershed in Indo-Nepal relations, monarchy was restored and King Tribhuvan was put on the throne with Indian intervention. But this honeymoon phase did not last long for the 1962 war unravelled that special relationship and the mistrust has remained ever since. China has loomed large and cast a shadow on the relations; a land locked like country Nepal is in an unenviable situation with most of its accesses controlled by India and a giant neighbour, China, on its northern border vying for control. India’s Nepal policy has always been a prisoner of domestic compulsions and the fear of the China.
China’s annexation of Tibet and India’s annexation of Sikkim further aggravated the situation and the maps of the late 19th century show us the contested history of this large swathe of land stretching from Tibet to Nepal to Bhutan and to the very borders of Bangladesh.
1989 is also a watershed in relations between the two: Nepal began buying arms from China which India deemed hostile under the 1950 treaty. India resorted to a blockade which had a disastrous impact on Nepal’s economy, this crisis was defused but the damage had been done and unwittingly or wittingly the first people’s movement – Jana Andolan – started in 1990 which set off a series of protests and agitations and revolutions that culminated in a civil war and its aftershocks are still being felt.
The Maoists revolution – the guerrilla war – had been simmering since 1996 but it got vicious by early 2000 and came to a temporary truce in and around 2006 when Jan Andolan 2.0 got underway. The Jan Andolan movement and Maoists arrived at a compromise despite the serious differences between them. The Maoists are of rural stock while the Jan Andolan is an urban uprising, their ends and means also differ; revolution and violence is the creed for the Maoists while Jan Andolan believes in a constitutional approach. The other divergence is even more toxic, China backs the Maoists while India lends support to Jan Andolan; and to complicate matters further for India the Maoists cadres are from Madhesi.
In 2014 when Modi came to power the controversial constitutional amendments had already gone through a series of tweaks. Modi very rightly stepped up his soft diplomacy and the Nepalese Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli came to India in March 2016. It looks as if normality had been restored but the fact is it is unclear if the constitutional demands of the Madhesi have been met.
The most alarming aspect in all this is that of the RSS meddling in Modi’s Nepal policy and the embedding of the Hindutva philosophy in this policy; almost as if it is a Hindu outreach programme. Nepal is particularly keen to be seen as a secular nation with diversity and inclusiveness as its creed. But the Khas stronghold is under threat and some sections of this community to retain its eroding power have resorted to double speak. Whipping up anti-Indian sentiment while at the same time using the Hindu religious card, for they do not fully share in this tilt towards inclusiveness. The RSS and sections of the Modi government have naively waded into this swamp.
The question is, will Modi rein in the Hindu brigade?
