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 That the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sec­toral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) has been unable to come up with a governing charter in over two decades of its existence is no coincidence. The member coun­tries—initially Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand, which were later joined by Bhutan and Nepal—seemingly wanted to build a vibrant economic bridge between South Asia and Southeast Asia, two of the fastest growing regions in the world. But for most of its existence BIMSTEC was badly neglected.

Then there was SAARC. As things stand, SAARC is the least integrated region in the world, with inter-country trade within SAARC accounting for less than six percent of the total foreign trade of the eight-member states. The concept of South Asian Free Trade Area, though much discussed, could never be implemented, as India and Pakistan continued to lock horns over even seemingly inconsequential issues. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at some point seems to have concluded that it is futile to expect a more connected South Asia via SAARC, so long as Pakistan is a part of it.

And so the moribund BIMSTEC was revived in 2014, the year it held its third heads-of-state summit, and the year its secretariat was finally established in Dhaka. If SAARC could not unite South Asia, perhaps a forum like BIMSTEC, minus Pakistan, and minus SAARC’s ‘unanimous decision’ provision, was better placed to enhance regional trade and connectivity. But this is a gamble.

As the fourth BIMSTEC summit ends in Kathmandu, the seven-member states have agreed to enhance trade through land and water ways, to collectively fight ter­rorism, to draft the long-delayed charter, to establish a regional fund and to boost customs cooperation. The charter, when ready, will add clarity about BIMSTEC’s purpose. More than that, if the forum can for instance facilitate the extension of India-Myanmar-Thailand highway all the way to Nepal, it could herald a sea of change in Nepal’s development. But will the securi­ty-minded India be ready to open up its territories for such an undertaking? What will greater anti-terrorism cooperation entail? And what happens to SAARC now? Even though India is uncommitted, other countries in South Asia still set great store by SAARC. The fourth summit brought some clarity on BIMSTEC and on regional cooperation. But perhaps not enough.

 The first reservation of a Nepali skeptic of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sec­toral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) is that, technically, Nepal should not even be a part of it as the country is not on the Bay of Bengal. Of course, as Constantino Xavier points out, this reading overlooks Nepal’s centuries-old trade and cultural ties with other BIMSTEC countries like India, Bangladesh, Thailand and Myanmar before the British colonized the Indian subcontinent.

The other concern is that India is promoting the seven-member BIMSTEC to somehow undercut the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC), the eight-member regional grouping which, unlike BIMSTEC, includes Pakistan, India’s arch-enemy. In this reckoning, Nepal should be wary of support­ing BIMSTEC whose achievements are underwhelm­ing, even when compared to the perennially-subpar SAARC. Also, while SAARC brings together eight coun­tries of South Asia, a natural construct, BIMSTEC incon­gruously embraces five South Asian and two Southeast Asian countries.

Whether the skeptics are right or not, Nepal ought to be careful. First, is there a tangible way Nepal can benefit from BIMSTEC? The Nepali parliament recent­ly passed an anti-terrorism bill as a part of its com­mitment to BIMSTEC. This will entail greater security cooperation with BIMSTEC countries, primarily with India. Have the implications of new security commit­ments to India been properly weighed?

It would also be wonderful if Nepal could leverage the BIMSTEC forum to gain direct land access to Ban­gladesh and Myanmar via India. But will India, which has been rather paranoid about the security threats it faces from its neighbors, be ready to offer Nepal such an unhindered passage to these countries, or to the Indian Ocean? And has Nepal calculated the cost of iso­lating Pakistan and making the SAARC forum defunct?

There has been little of substance from Nepal gov­ernment on how it can use BIMSTEC to deal with vital issues like climate change or cross-border power trade. The fourth BIMSTEC summit in Kathmandu is sched­uled to issue a ‘BIMSTEC charter’. But what problems of Nepal will the charter help address again remain murky. In principle, there is absolutely nothing wrong with Nepal spreading its global footprint in its quest for greater prosperity. But at what cost? Without such cool-headed calculation, we are afraid that Nepal’s cur­rent approach to BIMSTEC is a shot in the dark

Dila Pun of Bheri municipality in Jajarkot dis­trict of western Nepal is not amused. She used to pay Rs 16 in land and property tax annually. But as a part of the municipality’s consolidated property tax she is now having to fork out Rs 1,900 for the same piece of real estate. “There has been no change in public services. The local hospital does not have medicines for even common fever and yet the government is burdening us with back-break­ing taxes,” she complained with APEX.

Pun’s grievance with local taxes reverberates right across the country. In Tilottama municipality of Rupandehi district, also in western Nepal, the local level units of Nepali Congress have formed ward-level ‘struggle committees’ against the ‘arbi­trary imposition’ of new taxes. With everything from mom-and-pop shops to cattle being taxed under the new regime, people’s frustration with elected officials, and with the new federal setup—which has rightly or wrongly come to be associated with higher taxes—is growing.

In the absence of proper guidelines, such taxes at lower levels of government can often be arbitrary and punitive. There is also a risk of duplication in taxes among the three tiers of government. The National Natural Resources and Fiscal Commission, a constitu­tional body, was supposed to sort out these issues. Yet nearly three years after the promulgation of the new constitution, this ‘facilitator’ between the three tiers of government is yet to get its full shape.

This in turn is indicative of lack of political com­mitment to implement the seven-province, 753-local body federal formula. Even though the constitution has clearly delineated Nepal as a federal republic, there is still reluctance to devolve power and resourc­es away from Kathmandu. This is reflected in the fact that over 70 percent of all taxes collected in the coun­try is going into the coffers of the federal government. On the other hand, neither the local units nor the federal government have been able to offer a credi­ble rationale—for instance guaranteed social security (See here)—for increased local taxes. This is not so much a sign of the failure of federalism as it is of the mindset of our top politicians who are yet to internalize that the old unitary setup has been aban­doned—for a reason. The latest tussle over taxation is likely to a harbinger of much bigger disputes between different government tiers.

 The August 5 abduction and murder of 12-year-old Nishan Khadka followed by the August 6 ‘encounter killings’ of Khadka’s abductees, Ajay Tamang (24) and Gopal Tamang (23), has raised some troubling questions about Nepal Police. The police appear to be responsible, albeit indirectly, for the killing of the little boy and for what many see as cold blooded shooting of the two abductees.

It is hard to believe that our police is so incompe­tent that it has to send threatening SMS to the abduct­ees, making them panic and kill the boy under their control. Former police officials say that is exactly what the cops should not have done. The two abductees were later arrested and taken to a jungle in Surya Binayak on the outskirts of Kathmandu where they were apparently shot dead in cold blood.

Since the police has thus far put out only a weak defense of its action, these allegations seem to have at least some truth. If so, the implications are disturbing. One, it suggests our police force is incapable of handling even routine abduction cases. The little boy’s life in this case could conceivably have been saved had the police not resorted such crude and juvenile threats against the abductees.

Two, the new penchant in the police for encounter killings hints that the cops think they are a law onto themselves. In this particular case, the two abductees were most likely killed because the police wanted to appear as heroes who punished, in the most brazen way possible, the killers of a small kid. In fact, in recent times there have been some other instances of such ‘encounters’ whereby the police have found it more expedient to shoot to death notorious criminals than to take them into custody.

Home Minister Ram Bahadur Thapa, a former Maoist rebel, has apparently given the police a free hand to remove ‘rotten eggs’ of the society. The aim seems to be to strike terror in the hearts of criminals, make them so afraid they shudder even at the thought of committing a crime. He does not seem to care that giving the police such carte blanche makes police personnel liable to abuse their powers, to lead to grave human rights violations, and to promote a culture of impunity. The Nishan Khadka episode will hopefully serve as a cautionary tale. Justice dispended at the end of the barrel of a gun is no justice at all. Nor does trampling on due process make the police any more popular.