Backfire in Nepal How India Lost The Plot to China

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Backfire in Nepal explores how China has become the ultimate beneficiary of India's democracy-promotion agenda in Nepal New Delhi had made a bold bet in 2005, but one that contained two mutually fortifying flaws the abolition of the monarchy and the empowerment of the former Maoist rebels. The world's only Hindu monarch and kingdom were bound to India in a special relationship that neither country needed to define or assert. True, Indians had been put off by successive Nepalese monarchs playing New Delhi off against Beijing. In retrospect, a little more compassion for Nepal's compulsions might have put things into sharper relief.

Nepalese Maoists, being communists first, were trained to denounce Indian expansionism' before American 'imperialism' Experience may have impelled the senior leadership to make practical compromises. It was a leap of faith for New Delhi to trust the leadership to rein in their cadres radicalism.

More broadly, since India had also enlisted Western democracies, it needed to address their often-contradictory concerns throughout Nepal's turbulent transition. The Chinese could act purely on their national interests. India continues to misread how Beijing sees Nepal both in terms of China's visions of the past and the future. This complicates the core trilateral challenge: ensuring that Nepal is not sucked deeper into the Sino-Indian vortex, only to be scorned for aggravating the Asian giants' rivalry.

Sanjay Upadhya is a Nepalese author and analyst specialising in his country's politics and foreign relations. His previous books include Nepal and the Geo-Strategic Rivalry between China and India (New York and London: Routledge, 2012) and The Raj Lives: India in Nepal (New Delhiz Vitasta, 2008). A Fulbright Scholar who has worked for the United Nations, Upadhya has contributed to BBC Radio, The Times of London, World Politics Review, Inter Press Service and Khaleej Times.

Working on this book has been a satisfying learning experience, one of revisiting accepted wisdom, retracing steps and looking for missed signs. After India drove an ambitious agenda for change in Nepal in 2006, my attention instantly shifted to China, whose role in the country has been unconventional, to say the least. China must have felt doubly aggrieved. Its traditional ally, the monarchy, was pushed towards eventual oblivion; until the very end, China had armed the palace to fight the now-ascendant Maoist rebels. But, then, unsentimental pragmatism had driven China to shed all ideological shibboleths while dealing with Nepal. Since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949, Beijing had established itself as the quintessential practitioner of the attribute in domestic and international affairs. Unlike in the aftermath of the political changes of 1990 in Nepal, China was poised for proactivity. Could it contend with the emphatic gains India and West had just made?

There were abundant cautionary clues. India's effort was at best tentative, as it had to manage competing domestic and international interests. Still, my first book on the subject (The Raj Lives, 2008) was unequivocal in its assertion. Four years later, my second book (Nepal and the Geo-strategic Rivalry between China and India, 2012) chronicled a competition for benign from what it has become. By 2020, India would lose the plot to China through a combination of events and approaches the COVID-19 pandemic only had exacerbated.

THE IRONY COULD not have been unkinder. In 2005. India facilitates an ambitious alliance between mainstream Nepalese opposition parties agitating against the monarchy and Maoist rebels waging a bloody decade-long insurgency against both parliament and the palace. Driven by a desire to restore democracy from an increasingly audacious king. India has an unspoken objective: to pull Nepal away from the dangerous tilt it sees the palace taking towards China. Beijing, which helped the monarchy fight the Maoists until the very end, becomes the ultimate beneficiary of New Delhi's success.

A decade and a half later, Nepal-India relations-incessantly touted as unparalleled in the world for their depth and diversity - hit their nadir. Graduating from their trademark rhetoric against India, the unified Maoist and Marxist-Leninist factions running the government prepare a new political map incorporating territory Nepal insists India has been illegally occupying for decades. Before India can react coherently, the Nepalese government amends the Constitution to include the new map as part of the national emblem with overwhelming cross-party support. Traditional friends of India such as the Nepali Congress and Madhes-based parties back Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Sharma Oli's government for its courageous stand on nationalism. The sole legislator who counsels reason is expelled from the body for being a naturalised citizen and, worse, having spoken in Hindi. She forgot that former Indians must have left their language at the border.