Nepali Times

Twice during an India-Nepal think tank conclave in New Delhi’s Habitat Centre this week, the power went off. It was proof of just how inured Nepalis and Indians have become to power cuts that the panelist kept on speaking in the darkness, and there were no oohs or aahs from the audience.

Ironically, the panel was discussing how the two visits by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nepal in 2014 rebooted India-Nepal relations and led to dramatic new headway in hydropower projects that had been stuck for decades. The signing of the Power Trade Agreement (PTA) between the two countries and deals on the Upper Karnali, Arun 3 and Pancheswar on mutually favourable terms could ease power cuts in India and Nepal.

The paradigm shift in politics in India removed mistrust with Nepal, led directly to progress in economic cooperation and created the political will to move ahead on power, confidence-building measures, border management and security. The question on everyone's mind is: how does the Modi administration view the deadlock over the new constitution?

In Kathmandu, with less than a month to go for the 22 January deadline, the upbeat mood of the previous weeks has suddenly soured again. After coming very close to striking a deal on federalism, form of government and election rules, the two sides have drifted apart, press statements have become belligerent. An alliance of Madhesi, Maoist and smaller Janajati parties have announced street agitations to push for their agenda on federalism based on ethnicity.

Whatever the public pronouncements of the leaders, the real disagreement seems still to be over power sharing after January. UCPN(M) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal has been telling interlocutors that if they agree to make him president, he will remove the constitutional logjam. Dahal is clutching at straws, and his announcement of strikes and protests in the run-up to the deadline seems to be a bargaining tactic. The Madhesis are also negotiating for choice berths in a post-January cabinet. 

In fog-shrouded New Delhi this week, there was discernible divergence of views between Hindu-right politicians on the one hand, and the bureaucrats with security agencies, who have directed India’s Nepal policy since the 12-point agreement of November 2005, on the other.

Even so, the BJP government appears to have been convinced by the foreign policy establishment that with the deadline on the constitution looming, any attempt to dismantle its building blocks of secularism, republicanism and federalism would jeopardise the Indian-brokered peace process which is nearing its climax. Reverting back to monarchy or Hindu state would destabilise Nepal, and that would not be in India’s national security interest.

Some sections of the BJP are listening. One senior adviser gave us what he said was the party line: if Nepalis wanted to restore the monarchy it was up to them, that multi-ethnic Nepal could learn from India’s success with federalism, and that secular India wasn’t pressuring Nepal to become a Hindu state. While unequivocal, these remarks are in stark contrast to the anti-federal and anti-secular advice given to Nepali politicians by senior BJP figures in recent months. In India itself, parliament is stalled over opposition protests about a controversial campaign by RSS cadre to reconvert Muslims and Christians back to Hinduism. Modi has been mum on the issue.

It is due to these mixed signals that politicians like Kamal Thapa of the RPP-N and the powerful Khum Bahadur Khadka wing of the NC have been trying hard in the time that is left to derail a secular, federal, republican constitution. Positions have hardened in constitution talks. The UML’s KP Oli has suddenly become vociferously opposed to federalism with ethnic characteristics, even though it was already agreed that the names of future provinces would be finalised by future provincial legislatures. Dahal of the UCPN(M) has abruptly resurrected his call for a form of government with executive presidentship, a post which, presumably, he would fill.

Needless to say, Nepal’s national identity should be defined by our cultural, linguistic, religious and ethnic diversity, not just by the Hindu-ness of our past rulers. We don’t need to change that just because some sections of a rightwing party in India thinks so. We need to decentralise and devolve political power, but the Indian union may not exactly be the right model for us. We have to make a constitution that is right for us, not one that behooves a religious right governing party in the neighbourhood.

Read also:

One month to go, Editorial

Let’s get back to work, Editorial

Contentious consensus, Anurag Acharya

Playing the shame game, Marty Logan

The second coming, Editorial

Modi-fying Indo-Nepal ties, Damakant Jayshi

Modifiable relations, Damakant Jayshi

‘India-open’, Editorial

Separation of state and temple, Editorial