If you think it is impossible for an entire country to have an inferiority complex, then look no further. Our astounding lack of self-esteem begins with the frequency with which officials utter the words "a small country like Nepal". Compared with our gigantic neighbours to the north and south, we are indeed smaller. But with 25 million people we are bigger than Australia, and are in fact the 46th largest country in the world.

The other trait we have picked up in the last few decades is to blame everyone but ourselves for our woes. We excel in the art of playing victim and finding excuses for not getting our act together: we are landlocked, our topography creates obstacles, our mountains are too high our plains are too low. Foreigners either meddle in our affairs or refuse to do so, depending on our mood. The few things we carry a semblance of pride in are not the result of our own hard work, but symbols that are flukes of history: the world's highest mountain, the birthplace of the Buddha, our non-colonial past.

But the arena where our insecurity shows most vividly is in our obsession with 'Sikkimisation'. India annexed our sister Himalayan kingdom and the Sikkimese themselves seem pretty much reconciled to it. But being who we are, the way our left and right express their extreme nationalism is by fanning fears of imminent Sikkimisation. With an area of 7,300sq kms and a population of about half a million, Sikkim is so small even Bhutan would feel insulted if told it should fear Sikkimisation. Maldives doesn't fear Sikkimisation, either. They are more worried about climate change wiping their nation off the map.

Is our sense of insecurity so acute that we have to quake every moment of our waking day with the fear of India gobbling us up? Or are we spreading this paranoia of insecurity as a part of our own security strategy? If that is so, Sikkimisation may actually turn out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. The way to counter Indian influence and coercion is to be strong and confident ourselves. Let's not cloak our own lack of self-esteem in xenophobia. What we have to do is institutionalise democracy as a strategy for longterm development and guard against the rise of tinpot dictators. If Finlandisation is a more pragmatic and probable outcome than Sikkimisation, then let's strategise to take advantage of it just as Helsinki did vis-?-vis the Soviet Union. Nepal is too big to be swallowed up. Our edges are too sharp, and outsiders foolish enough to try to do that will die of internal bleeding. And they know it.