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 Much has been written about Nepal’s last-minute withdrawal from the BIM­STEC military exercises held in India from Sept 10 to 16. Some see this as a mark of Nepal’s asser­tiveness and advice India to get used to dealing with a confident Nepal. Others are praising the government for upholding the principles of non-aligned move­ment as they saw the exercises as being targeted against China. Meanwhile, the Indian side, which was clearly dismayed by Nepal’s “snub”, attributes the cancella­tion to Nepal’s “internal political dynamics”, a vague interpretation that can mean many things. All of these are politically cor­rect interpretations, which, like all politically correct interpreta­tions, are cryptic, bend the truth, do not tell the whole truth or con­tain no truth at all.

Here’s what the withdrawal means, plain and simple. The decision does not in any way prove that we are becoming more independent or assertive in con­ducting our foreign policy. All it means is that we are becoming overly sensitive of China and we don’t want to do anything that we imagine as against Chinese interests. When foreign policy is guided by others’ imagined inter­ests and with the sole intent of appeasing others than promoting our own interests, can we call that being assertive and independent?

China has made it clear time and again that it doesn’t want Nepal to jeopardize its relations with India, but we don’t seem to get it. The Chinese foreign minis­ter, Wang Yi, talked about trilat­eral cooperation with our foreign minister Pradip Gyawali in Beijing for a reason.

Therefore, it makes little sense to believe that the pressure to withdraw from the exercises came from Beijing. As Nepal was beaming with pride for upholding the ideals of non-aligned move­ment and preserving its neutral­ity, China was participating in a 27-country naval exercises that also included the US, Japan and India, among others, in Darwin, Australia, from August 30 to Sept 15. The leaders and scholars who opposed Nepal’s participation in the BIMSTEC military exercises thinking that it won them some brownie points with China, are clearly in for disappointment.

Then, what actually led us to commit a major diplomatic blun­der that certainly angered one neighbor but made no difference whatsoever to another neighbor?

PM KP Oli wants to prove that he is a nationalist and is quite good at standing up to India. As the government is losing its pop­ularity, he seems to have realized that being “assertive” vis-à-vis India would do his image no harm at all.

Nepali Congress probably cal­culated that opposing the mffffffili­tary exercises would help shed its pro-India image and make it appear as nationalist as the rul­ing NCP and it too could be seen favorably by China. The govern­ment thus pulled out of the mili­tary drills, fearing that the NC was stealing its nationalist thunder.

It could also be that some intellectuals and lawmakers who opposed the military exercises were made to believe that China wasn’t happy with them, by a junior diplomat or somebody act­ing on his or her own capacity in Kathmandu. And the government was easily swayed byf the orches­trated “public outcry” against the military exercises.

A recent report by the Wilson Center on Chinese influence in American academia contains many examples of Chinese dip­lomats in consulates across the US going beyond their mandate to encourage Chinese students associations to protest “anti-Chi­na” views in academia. Rather than serving their country these diplomats wanted to boost their own careers and perks. Some­thing of the sort has happened here as well.

In September 2013 the Min­istry of Defense sent a letter to the Nepal Army asking it not to enroll foreign students in its high altitude and mountain warfare school in Mustang. The military, realizing that it was just someone in Kathmandu trying to raise his/her profile, ignored it altogether. There has been no pressure from Beijing, at least publicly, on the issue so far. Just like the south­ern diplomats in Kathmandu, the northern diplomats too at times go beyond their mandate and our gullible leaders and analysts read­ily swallow it.

India probably knows that the decision has to do with the gov­ernment being overly and unnec­essarily sensitive to Chinese inter­ests in Nepal. But it cannot say so openly given the recent thaw in its relations with China. Hence the vague “internal political dynam­ics” interpretation is what they have to be satisfied with.

Again, just like the others, I could be way off as well.

 It’s another Friday morning, and Pancha Maya Limbu is with her friends in her cozy room. Her room is on the first floor of a recently repaired building in Grays, Essex, which looks no less than five-decade-old. The 65-year-old Gurkha widow apparently owns nothing, not even a sofa. Her neighborhood friends, Man­mati Limbu, 71, and Maiya Limbu, 72, both Gurkha widows, innocently gaze at each other, listening to the conversation as they find a stranger in the apartment they often visit to share their life experiences.

A narrow passage at the main entrance that leads to the kitchen is full of worn-out footwear. On the wall are portraits of a variety of gods. The dining room is full of equipment which Pancha Maya uses during her shaman prayer. “Here is where I live,” she smiles. “No one knows where they will end up. I would never have thought of being here in my life.”

The story of Pancha Maya is the reality of most retired Gurkhas and their families in the UK where they have been offered a new hope for life.

While the Gurkhas had served in the British Army, after their retire­ment they were encouraged to restart their traditional way of life in the homeland: farming. But after 2004 when the British government announced a new law allowing the Gurkhas to settle in the UK, the number of Gurkhas has increased in major towns, including Grays.

The presence of the Gurkhas in the UK is a reminder of their strong ties to this country.

According to the Gurkha Welfare Trust, there are an estimated 14,000 Gurkhas (heads of family) living in different parts of the country, of whom 12,000 retired before July 1997, with the majority of them on benefits. Additionally, there are approximately 1,600 Gurkha wid­ows. Altogether, there are about 58,000 people of Gurkha back­grounds, says Gary Ghale, Gurkha Welfare Officer at the Trust.

This emerging pattern of migra­tion among the Gurkhas has now raised an important question, par­ticularly for the likes of Pancha Maya who can’t read or write English: what to expect from life?

Citizens of the UK are eligi­ble for several different welfare benefits depending on finan­cial circumstances and national insurance contributions. For exam­ple, if a person has a total of 30 qualifying years of national insur­ance contributions, the person will qualify for the state pension; if the person has not paid enough nation­al insurance contribution, little or no state pension will be paid. However, the person can apply for other means-tested benefits which are based on the needs of the individual. The majority of the Gur­khas and their families fall under this category as they have not paid enough national insurance.

Manmati Limbu, who came to the UK in the hope of having new life experience, is one of those living on means-tested benefits. She lives with her son, daughter-in-law and grandchildren. In her early days, she found the UK homely because the Gurkha community was small and everyone shared their lives with each other.

But this does not happen so much now as the Gurkha community has changed with time. Besides, there are also changes in social behav­iors amongst the Gurkhas, with the younger generation opting for West­ern lifestyles. These changes have brought about a dilemma to Man­mati: What am I to do? On the one hand, she needs to be in the UK as she is on medication with follow-up hospital appointments. Moreover, being with her own family members is important as it allows her to feel loved and secure.

On the other hand, she knows she is getting older as time goes by and she has no idea of what to expect from life in a country where her own culture is non-existent. Now she is worried about her future. “I am sharing a room with my son. I am certain my granddaughter will soon need the room that I am living in,” she says. “I don’t know where I will end up when she moves in.”

Maiya Limbu, originally from Tehrathum, has a different story. Like most other widows, she left her homeland hoping for a new life but ended up being all alone on for­eign soil: now she needs someone’s help to run her everyday life—from reporting to official appointments to visiting supermarkets. She doesn’t even know what benefits she is on despite the fact that she is in the welfare system. Her diasporic world is made up of only a small number of friends.

Although many retired Gurkhas and their families are illiterate, they were the ones who successful­ly created an urban class in their homeland, where their lives are sim­ilar to those of the elite class: most educate their children in private schools, live in good housing and some even employ maids. Gurkha residences in the homeland are often described to be moderate because of their Western influence, yet it is these ‘brave warriors’ and their families who are struggling in their land of dreams because of language: the majority of them can’t read or write English.

The British government is trying to address minorities’ issues by offering a range of vocational courses. In particular, local councils are actively helping minorities to improve their language skills. In 2012, it established several resources through local councils with the aim of helping the Gurkhas and their families enhance English language. Yet most elderly Gurkhas and their spouses failed to take an advantage of the opportunity because of age-related illnesses, such as diabetes.

While life in the UK is challenging, some Gurkhas and their families find the former world power a place of opportunity. Now many own their own private homes or small busi­nesses and, in particular, working age Gurkhas including their wives and children are doing well. In 2014, Kent University reported the Gur­khas of working age to be the most economically active and self-reliant social group in the UK, with 95 per­cent in employment.

However, for those who can’t read or write English, linguistic challenges continue to be a driving force behind Gurkha pessimism. Despite these challenges, the British values remain as a lifeline for the likes of Pancha Maya who hopes to live a happy life in a foreign land. “The government is doing more than enough. It has offered me a council flat, assuring me of a future which I couldn’t have in my homeland,” she says. “I am not moving anywhere; I will continue to stay here until I die” o

The author is a researcher associated with South Asian Media Studies Center, UK

The trouble with ethics is no one knows you have them until you come into conflict with people around you.

Earlier this year I was offered a job which breaches my, and the current trend of, ethics. It is not illegal and the person was truly astounded when I said what he was suggesting is now seen, around the world, as unethical. He stated that a niche market had opened up, which he thought he could fill, because of the very fact other countries and orga­nizations have stopped this practice due to ethics.

My friend has worked for decades to improve the lives of thousands of people in Nepal, and to a lesser extent, overseas. This of course takes an inordinate amount of fund­raising. He thought that by entering this niche market he could make enough money to help fund his humanitarian projects.

Double jeopardy. Do we do some­thing parts of the world now con­siders unethical, but as I said, not illegal, to the benefit of the under­privileged? In my opinion this could backfire on him, making his current donors and supporters doubt his ethics across the board. Or am I just being too sensitive to something that perhaps his supporters are totally unaware of?

I am sure this question is sim­ilar to those faced by non-profit and for-profit organizations every day. Perhaps for the organizations that exist to make a profit for their shareholders, the line is not so blurred. After all making money is their bottom line. As long as it is not illegal, who cares if it is ethical or not? Most larger organizations these days have a social conscience—some contributing out of real desire to help (the environment, the unem­ployed, the poor, etc) and others out of an obligation and perhaps for a tax rebate.

Non-profits face a bigger dilemma, as their very existence is often brought about in reply to unethi­cal behavior (armed conflict, gen­der bias, etc) by governments and groups in various countries around the world. One organization I respect for its ethics is UNICEF. They do not use pictures of suffering chil­dren in their fund-raising campaigns or literature. To them it is unethical to use the suffering of children to raise money. Yet many organizations do use pictures of the suffering to help raise awareness and funds. We can ask, is this ethical? Does the end justify the means?

We can also say ethics is a luxury many people cannot afford. But by saying this, I think we do the majority of the population a disser­vice. We all have our own level of understanding of ethics, depending on our background, upbringing and environment. Sometimes we are required to do things in our work or family which we do not particularly want to but by not doing them the result may be us being out of a job or coming into conflict with colleagues, friends or relatives.

It can be extremely hard to stand up and say ‘no’ when those around us are compliant. But every day people take the decision to do just that. Often those people are not widely noticed, but most likely are the people who do not get ahead in their career or are called ‘foolish’ for not breaking their own set of values for personal gain. There are a few brave souls (like a friend’s mother) who stand up for their beliefs by chaining themselves to trees or machinery scheduled to cut those trees or mine the land. Or who stand up against the social norms in their society (like Malala Yousafzai) because nowhere under God’s law does it say girl children should be denied education, or that certain people are less than human and should be exterminated. And some­times we do notice these people and applaud their ethics o

The West Seti Hydropower Project is again in the news for wrong reasons. Twen­ty-one years after first license was issued for its development and seven years after it was handed over to the Chinese side, perhaps not unexpectedly it is on the verge of being cancelled again.Separate the fluff and the financial viability of West Seti was always a suspect. As a stor­age-type, it makes sense for Nepal to develop it for energy securi­ty. But it’s relative remoteness from urban centers in Nepal and the fact that it needs a very long transmission line for power evac­uation, if it is not exported to India, didn’t seem to make much economic sense. It was originally conceived as an export-type proj­ect for obvious reasons.

But with India’s new regula­tions on cross-border power import that proscribes import­ing power from Beijing-invest­ed projects in Nepal, the door for exporting it to the southern neighbor remains shut. While there may be talk about consum­ing the generated power in the far-west and developing a local economy, that is unlikely before the transfer within the Build Own Operate and Transfer (BOOT) period is over.

The China Three Gorges Corpo­ration was worried about the prof­itability of the project and return on investment. Nepal Electricity Authority (NEA) was expected to make a 25 percent investment in this $1.6 billion project—arranged through concessional loans from China EXIM bank. (Now there is talk of the project being built with the help of Nepali investors.) Even NEA management would much rather invest the borrowed amount in other projects, if it were not for political pressure.

When the government of Nepal cancelled the license given to Snowy Mountain Engineering Corporation (SMEC) in 2011, it had become clear that the SMEC would not be able to arrange financing for the project. By then ADB and China National Machin­ery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation (CMEC) had decided not to offer financing as well. But curiously enough the project was handed over to anoth­er Chinese state-owned firm in August 2011.

The story of repeated fail­ure of the West Seti hydropow­er project is emblematic of our lack of pragmatism. This is also a strong indictment of our devel­opment model that perpetu­ates a slack and nonchalant attitude in everything we do. A degree of discipline is required in any undertaking, more so in huge national infrastructural development. Our inclination to take at face value commitments made by our neighbors is also a problem. We tend to assume that China will fund anything and everything, if we only ask. Reality is much different. Chinese polit­ical leaders may give assurances to fund our request, but they are only being polite.

More important, the failure of West Seti is symptomatic of our unrealistic expectations from Bei­jing; our inability to see through cultural differences during nego­tiations continues to create a bub­ble of unrealistic expectations.

As Nepal begins a phase of negotiations with China on a raft of projects both in and out­side the ambit of Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI), the failure of West Seti offers a stark remind­er of what could happen to oth­er much-hyped undertakings, including the railways, if we do not do due diligence.