Submit your Article

There is a notable difference in the election manifestos of the ruling BJP and the opposition INC in India over the Indo-Pacific Strategy. While the INC manifesto is silent on this, the BJP’s states that the goal of “ensuring an open, inclusive, prosperous and secure Indo-Pacific will be pursued vigorously”. The BJP manifesto is in line with the BJP government’s rejection of China’s proposal to take part in the second high-level BRI Forum this month. India had also boycotted the inaugural event in 2017.

There is a deep divide in New Delhi over India’s role in the American Indo-Pacific Strategy. China hawks see it as a coun­terweight to an overbearing Middle Kingdom in the South China Sea. But many on the left believe India should rather work closely with the next-door China, a fellow developing country, rather than with the distant and ‘unreliable’ US. Yet the right-leaning BJP’s manifesto suggests a clear support for the US strategy, and if reelected, PM Modi seems keen on working with the Americans to contain China’s rise.

The INC is more skeptical of the US but if it comes to power, it too may feel compelled to support the strategy as the gaps between the economic and military heft of India and China widen. Then there are those who see no reason the BRI and the Indo-Pacific cannot go together. But that is easier said. More likely, because of its calculus on Pakistan, India will continue to shun the BRI and support the Indo-Pacific. Smaller countries in the region will not remain untouched by this development.

Recently, the ruling NCP co-chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal visited the US, ostensibly to treat his wife. The hush-hush trip and the American government’s iron-clad guarantee against his arrest for war crimes set the tongues of strategic thinkers in Kathmandu wagging. Even in the past, Dahal has flown to Singapore and Hong Kong, often on the pretext of treating a loved one, to keep his secret rendezvous with security officials abroad. How did Sita Dahal get better so soon after landing in the US? Could it be that the real purpose of the trip was that the Americans wanted to talk to her husband about his possible role in enforcing the Indo-Pacific Strategy in Nepal? That they, and the Indians, still doubt the loyalty of the Beijing-friendly KP Oli and would like to see him gone as soon as the option of tabling a no-confidence motion against the PM opens up in less than a year?

As the American presence in South Asia increases as part of their new strategy, Nepalis, used to seeing their country as a playground for India-China geopolitical rivalry, will have to grapple more and more with a third power. Not that this power was entirely absent earlier.

The ruling Nepal Communist Party Co-chairman and ex-Maoist party leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Pra­chanda’ must have been aware of the risks of travelling to the United States, if only to treat his wife this time. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the US was among the first countries to designate the warring Maoists in Nepal ‘terrorists’. Only in 2012, six years after the Maoists had joined mainstream politics, were the former insurgents removed from the infa­mous list.

Before leaving for the US on March 17, Dahal had appar­ently secured an iron-clad pledge of ‘immunity’ from the Americans. Yet an unpleasant surprise awaited him when he landed on US soil. Officials from Nepali Embassy in Washing­ton DC surrounded him and tried to whisk him away, “almost as if I was still underground,” Dahal later recounted. Only later did he learn that one Dr Tilak Shrestha of the Nepali Congress PR wing in the US had ‘informed’ the FBI that a ‘ter­rorist’ responsible for the death of ‘17,000 innocent Nepali people’ was on American soil.

Even though Dahal had gotten a ‘no-investigation’ assur­ance from the US prior to his trip, he must have known that the American judiciary works independently from the US government. Had someone gone to a US court by invoking the UN’s ‘universal jurisdiction’—whereby someone impli­cated in ‘flagrant violation of international humanitarian law’ can be prosecuted for their crimes anywhere in the world— Dahal might have been in trouble. In 2016, Dahal had had to cancel a trip to Australia after a case was lodged against him with the New South Wales government. Before that, in 2013, a Nepal Army colonel had been arrested in the UK under universal jurisdiction.

Dahal knows that no future trip to western countries will be without risk, especially if transitional justice in Nepal is not settled to the satisfaction of the international community. But even if it is, Dahal or any of the former Maoist leaders will never be completely out of the woods. The Americans felt the need to humor the co-leader of the ruling party at a time they are looking to increase their footprint in Nepal under their new Indo-Pacific Strategy. Should the American priorities change tomorrow, Nepali communists, and especially the for­mer Maoists, could once again find themselves under Amer­ican scrutiny. Unfortunately for them, the American sway in the western world extends far beyond the US borders.

With under a fortnight left for the start of the general elections, India is in full election mode. Newspapers and TV news channels are filled with endless specu­lations on seat projections and electoral alliances. Leaders of both the ruling BJP and the main opposition Indian National Congress are endlessly canvassing the length and breadth of India, trying to drum up support. One issue dominates the national discourse at this crucial time: Pakistan.

The common thinking here seems to be that before India’s ‘preemptive’ air strikes inside Pakistan—that followed the terror attacks in Pulwama, Jammu and Kashmir, killing 40 Indian paramilitary personnel—the two main parties were running neck and neck. After all, in recent state elections, Congress under Rahul Gandhi had made crucial gains in former BJP strongholds like Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh. Gandhi was finally getting into his element, riding high on the back of Modi’s disastrous ‘demonitization’ and BJP’s seeming ignorance of local and state level issues. Yet Pulwama has changed everything.

Recent opinion polls show public support for Modi rising following what is widely seen as a muscular anti-Pakistan policy post-Pulwama: for the first time since the 1971 war, an Indian prime minster dared to send Indian warplanes into Pakistani territory. It has now emerged that India was on the verge of using missiles against Pakistan after the latter’s cap­ture of its airman Abhinandan Vartaman in an aerial combat following Pulwama. (Pakistan was readying for a retaliatory missile attack of its own.)

In the face of his party’s narrowing lead over the INC, Pulwama, as tragic as it was, was also a big boost for Modi’s popularity. India is readying itself for four more years of the former chaiwala-turned-chowkidar, albeit with a less over­whelming mandate than he got in 2015.

For Nepal, whether Modi or Gandhi comes to power makes little difference. The landlocked country has faced crippling blockades during the reign of both their parties. There is also greater institutional memory of India’s neighborhood policy, particularly in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. Bureau­crats and spooks will continue to have a disproportionate say in how India’s relations with its smaller neighbors will (or won’t) progress.

 Meanwhile, Modi’s face is ubiquitous in pre-election Delhi, as are posters expressing support for Pulwama victims. The two phenomena seem inextricably linked. Nepal should start planning for another stint of Modi, which is perhaps a good thing in light of the recent rapprochement between Kathmandu and New Delhi.

Perhaps the only person who is definitely happy with the federal government’s 11-point agreement with CK Raut’s secessionist party is Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. Forget the main opposition Nepali Congress, Oli didn’t even consult senior leaders in his own party before he signed the agreement. There has thus been vociferous opposition of the ‘hush-hush’ and ‘ambiguous’ agreement, even from within the ruling Nepal Communist Party. Congress has repeatedly asked PM Oli to come clean on it, as have the two main Madhesi parties.

Even Raut seems to be in a dilemma whether to talk up the agreement. In a way, Raut wants to have his cake and eat it too. Had he not realized the futility of the quest for an independent Madhes through extra-constitutional means, he would not have signed it. But having done so, he also does not want to lose his core support base comprising Madhesi youths mesmerized by his larger-than-life per­sona and the radical solutions to Madhesi marginalization he offered over the years. As it is, these youths won’t be amused by the agreement with Oli, who was until recently projected as Mad­hes’s ‘Enemy number 1’.

To get Raut to agree to such vague terminology is a political victory for Oli

But nor does Raut want to violate the agree­ment with the govern­ment by saying some­thing incendiary. He rather seems intent on biding his time: to gauge the public pulse, weigh India’s response and explore political options. Either way, he is fighting an uphill battle. With the field of mainstream Mad­hesi politics already crowded, open politics will not be easy for Raut, whether or not he sticks to his referendum agenda on the final status of Madhes.

Many political analysts have been critical of PM Oli for what they suspect is his tacit agreement for a referendum in Madhes, which, they say, is reflected in the ambiguous second point of the 11-point accord that seems to leave open the prospect of a referendum. But then, just to get Raut to agree to such vague terminology, with no clear promises, is a political victory for Oli. It has stolen the thunder of the firebrand revolutionary that was CK Raut, and turned him into just another opportunistic politician in the Madhesi eyes.

Some Madhesi intellectuals are against the government’s agreement with Raut, which they see as kicking the Madhesi radicalism can down the road. But if Oli’s goal was to diffuse the threat of secession, however big or small, or at least to reduce its appeal as a viable option among the Madhesi youth, he has succeeded.