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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day whis­tle-stop tour of Nepal has created a lot of hoopla. Over the past few weeks an endless stream of op-eds and commen­taries has raised doubts about Modi’s ‘real intent’. Likewise, on the eve of Modi’s visit, the nationalist credentials of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli were questioned, as he had suppos­edly kowtowed before his Indian masters. There may be some substance to these suspicions. But in some ways they are also self-defeating. Whether or not you endorse Oli’s brand of politics, it is hard to deny that no other contemporary prime minister of Nepal has been as articulate in defending Nepal’s interests and in denouncing even a hint of foreign meddling. Oli has made some astute moves too.

For instance, during his last visit to India, “Oli managed to engage Modi on equal terms, reflecting a more confident Nepal,” says Constantino Xavier, a fellow at Carnegie India, a New Delhi-based think-tank. “This was unprecedented in India-Nepal relations, as successive generations of leaders in Kathmandu since 1950 chose one of two extremes with India: they were either subservient or confrontational, neither of which served Nepal’s interest.”

Oli is proving to be a more skilled statesman because he has avoided both these extreme options, says Xavier, who is originally from Portugal. “Oli recognizes that he loses little by playing into Modi’s playbook, giving the Indian leader all the optics and symbolic reverence of bilateral visits, even while he silently keeps developing real connectivity and interde­pendence with China. This is Nepal’s strategic tradition of non-alignment at its best, balancing both India and China.”

These observations of a neutral observer of Nepal-India relations suggest two things. One, Modi and the Indian estab­lishment are keen on improving relations with Nepal after bilateral ties reached their nadir during the blockade. Ahead of the 2019 general elections, they clearly want to show to the Indian public that Modi’s ‘neighborhood first’ policy, if not a complete success, has not been a total failure either.

Two, PM Oli seems to be making genuine effort to establish relations with India on a more equal footing. This means clearly articulating Nepal’s sovereign right to enter into any kind of relation with any country in the world, including China. Perhaps Oli realizes that he is at the fag end of his polit­ical career and as such wants to leave behind a strong legacy. According to his aides, he wants above all to be remembered as the first Nepali leader who had the confidence to negotiate with India as an equal and as a leader who not just talked but actually did something to balance India and China.

When judging Modi’s latest Nepal visit, let us look not only at the agreements that are signed (or not signed). Let us also evaluate it in terms of PM Oli’s long-term strategic vision.

It has been over two and a half months since CPN-UML Chair­man KP Sharma Oli became the country’s prime minister for the second time, following a thumping victory of his left alliance in last year’s elections. Soon after assum­ing office, he cobbled together a lean cabinet, comprised of relative­ly clean figures like Lal Babu Pan­dit and Gokarna Bista who have a proven record in government. Oli then brought important state organs like the Department of Mon­ey Laundering Investigation and the National Investigation Depart­ment under the direct purview of the PMO, apparently to make them more effective. His recent crack­down on cartels and syndicates of various hues has also been widely hailed. Moreover, there are signs that his dream of connecting Nepal with India and China through rail­ways could also materialize soon.

But despite such promising sig­nals, there is a lot of skepticism about the new prime minister’s intent. “Prime Minister Oli seems to be in a mood to centralize powers, which is antithetical to the spirit of federalism,” says Ujjwal Prasai, a writer. “He is using public support to strengthen himself, which is no different from what the Panchayat rulers used to do.”

Prasai points out how even the party-less Panchayat had survived for 30 years, as it enjoyed “a degree of public support”. In following a “tried and tested” method of cen­tralized governance, Prasai thinks PM Oli is taking the country on a dangerous path. “If there is one lesson of our failed experiment with Panchayat, it is that develop­ment is possible only with broad public participation in deci­sion-making.”

Words are not enough

Suman Dahal, a lecturer at Apex College in Old Banesh­wor, also sees a troubling pat­tern in how Oli is governing. “We hear the prime minister making big announcements. He says he will bring railways from India and Chi­na. He says he will end the reign of syndicates. But how do we know he is not saying these things off the top of his head?”

Dahal is not assured about the virtues of eradicating syndicates either. “What if removing the trans­port syndicates is not in the interest of the common people? I mean: Does the prime minister have hard data on how the removal of syndi­cates will actually help folks like us? Without proper homework, what if, for instance, transport fares go up rather than down?”

Upendra Gautam of China Study Center echoes Dahal’s doubts. “The prime minister’s announcement of a crackdown on various cartels and syndicates will be meaningless unless they are backed by strong and consistent action.”

Gautam cites how more devel­oped countries use different prox­ies to gauge the effectiveness of their government. “For instance, it is generally thought that if a country has well-enforced traf­fic rules, other public services also function effectively,” Gautam adds. “But the enforcement of traffic rules in Nepal is extremely lax. So what are the metrics with which we judge this government? Words are not enough.”

In the opinion of security analyst Geja Sharma Wagle, “This is perhaps the strongest government democratic Nepal has ever had. Yet it has been unable to make decisions commensurate with such power.”

What kind of decisions is Wagle talking about?

“Take the prime minister’s decision to bring the National Investigation Department and the Department of Money Laun­dering Investigation under the PMO. Having done so, he should have immediately set about drafting the requisite policies and regulations to make them work. Yet he has done nothing of the kind,” Wagle says.

Unintended consequences

Wagle brings up other unintend­ed consequences of the central­ization of power. “Now that the government’s intelligence-gather­ing unit has been brought under the PMO, the Home Ministry has been deprived of a crucial source of security-related information—with grave ramifications down the line,” he adds.

Prasai, the writer, believes the prime minister is pandering to people’s desire to consume more and more—to have wider roads, bigger airports and comfortable homes—without a broader debate on whether such an approach is in the country’s best interest. “PM Oli likes to talk about bringing railways from India and China but he seldom discloses their cost. Are such expen­sive railway links worth it?” he asks.

Gautam of China Study Center, for his part, says he has seen too many governments in Nepal in his lifetime, and how they have mis­erably failed people after promising so much at the outset. “So let us hope that this gov­ernment is different, but let us also wait a bit before we start trusting it.”

“All the while PM Oli has been projecting himself as a vision­ary,” says Asmita Verma, who has just completed her Masters in International Relations from Amity University in New Delhi. “But he has thus far unveiled no roadmap for the much-touted development and prosperity.”

Verma sees Oli’s gestures like addressing the country on the Nepali new year from Rara Lake and his adoption of children to educate them as nothing but “populist gim­micks, which he is quite good at.”

But what about foreign policy? Hasn’t the communist prime min­ister done a rather good job of balancing Nepal’s two important neighbors? “His overtures to the outside world are ill-prepared and incoherent, as if he is trying to balance himself on two different boats,” says Verma.

And then, Madhes

In contrast, Hari Bansh Jha, a former professor of economics at Tribhuvan University and currently a visiting fellow at India’s Observer Research Foundation, credits Oli for bringing a degree of warmth back to Nepal-India ties. But again, when it comes to the domestic sphere, he too believes “there has been no substantive change.”

“If PM Oli says that per capita income of Nepalis has grown along with our GPD, we have to remember that these are not overnight phe­nomena. The foundation for what­ever turnaround in the economy we are witnessing was laid before Oli became prime minister,” Jha says.

He also thinks that the Oli govern­ment has ignored the Madhesi issue of constitution amendment, which would mean that the “Madhesis will continue to harbor a degree of resentment against Kathmandu.”

All in all, nearly everyone I talked to for this report—some cited, some not—seemed to agree that the all-powerful government of KP Oli could do much good. Some of his recent decisions have aroused a glimmer of hope. But people are not ready to believe him—not yet. These conversations also suggest that while Oli can perhaps afford to ignore the views of some members of the intelligentsia, as he recently suggested he would, he as the prime minister needs to pay attention to the hopes and fears of common folks .

Despite its cultural and archeological sig­nificance, the nearly six-century-old Mus­tang Palace doesn’t inspire much awe. In fact, the closed and decaying doors and windows give an impression that the palace is getting more decrepit. But the fresh layer of earth in some walls raised an obvious question: who is renovating the place? Historical records suggest that the Mustang Palace was constructed in 1440 following the establishment of an independent Mustang state. Besides the palace’s unique style that is appropriate for the high mountainous region, the tall walls surrounding the entire capital are an extra attraction. But the collapsed walls are a pathetic sight now. Within the confines of the walls are the palace, a Buddhist shrine and 170 houses built in ancient styles of architecture.

The palace is a five-storied building with 108 rooms. It houses important Buddhist texts, stat­ues, ancient artifacts as well as over 300 sheep and mountain goats.

Coming back to the present, my investiga­tion revealed that the palace’s façade is being redone by an NGO named HimalAsia Cultural Heritage and Educational Foundation, without the government’s knowledge. The NGO works on issues related to mountain culture and edu­cation and has offices in Germany and Sikkim besides one in Kathmandu.

Such unsupervised reconstruction threatens the palace’s originality. “Official indifference on the one hand and the NGO’s negligence in the name of reconstruction on the other have spoilt the palace’s traditional splendor,” says Madan Rimal, a culture expert. “No heritage building can be altered without government permission. The Department of Archaeology (DOA) has to take charge of the palace’s reconstruction.”

The DOA isn’t aware of the reconstruction work on the palace either. Director General Bhesh Narayan Dahal pleads ignorance and admits that his office hasn’t been able to take charge of the renovation even though it should. Following the monarchy’s abolition, the Mus­tang Palace has been reduced to a tourist attraction, and no more. While the govern­ment, through the Office of the Nepal Trust, has started conservation work on the palaces of the Shah kings, the Mustang Palace hasn’t drawn its attention. Ramchandra Tiwari, Chief District Officer (CDO) of Mustang, says he has no information about the palace’s reconstruc­tion. “There is no record of any organization seeking permission for it. But we can certainly look into it,” says Tiwari.

However, Indra Dhara Bista, a Province 4 assembly member, says that in the absence of government funds, the palace’s renovation was commenced with the help of the NGO. “As the palace became dilapidated, it stopped attracting tourists. So we started renovating it, even though the money had to come from an NGO,” says Bista.

Susan Vonderheid, Director of HimalAsia, admits that her organization started recon­struction work on the palace without informing state authorities. “We started our work on the basis of our agreement with the Mustang Pal­ace. We don’t know the rest,” she said.

The palace had already fallen victim to state apathy, and the 2015 earthquake only exacer­bated its state. Tourists aren’t allowed inside the palace after the quake damaged its struc­ture. “The palace must be conserved; this is our common concern,” says Rinjing Dorje Bista, chairperson of Lo Manthang rural municipal­ity-5. “Upper Mustang is interesting and import­ant not only because of its natural beauty but also because of its rich history, culture and archeology. The palace obviously has its own significance,” says Bista.

Some locals are preparing to launch an ini­tiative to place the Mustang Palace and the settlement in its vicinity on the World Heritage List. “The bottom line is that the palace has to be restored to its former glory. All we ask is that there be an environment where domestic and foreign tourists visit this place to see the palace,” says Tashi Gurung, a local.

 By Chhetu Sherpa | Lo Manthang, Mustang

Both India and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli were in a mood to wrap up the unification process of CPN-UML and CPN (Maoist Center) before the start of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Nepal visit on May 11 and 12. As India has of late been dragged into a few controversies in Nepal, including, most notably, during the 2015-16 border blockade, New Delhi wanted to preempt the perception that the left unity had its blessings. For his part, PM Oli, who has in the past few years stood firm in his nationalist stand, would naturally want to safeguard the image of the new party from the damaging ‘pro-India’ label. But their desire could be thwarted, primarily because Maoist Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal wants ‘credible’ assurances that either he will be the prime minister after two and a half years or he will get to lead the combined left outfit post-merger. Yet it is hard to see what such assurances could be. If Dahal wants Oli to commit, in writing, to relinquishing the prime minister’s chair after some time, Oli could perhaps oblige. But such a commitment will be meaningless if, tomor­row, the rest of the UML lead­ership is not willing to accept him as their prime minister. Ditto with any assurances on the party’s chairmanship.

This is why Dahal has of late been hinting that he is look­ing for ‘collective assurances’ from the UML top brass. But with the UML still very divided on Dahal’s role in the new party, such a promise would be hard to get. Alternately, Dahal has proposed that party unifi­cation take place on a 50-50 basis, with near equal division of seats between UML and Maoist Center in all important decision-making bodies in the new party. That would make it easier for Dahal to stake a claim on either party leadership or the prime minister’s chair in the future. But then, a 50-50 division of spoils will be unacceptable to UML rank and file.

Interestingly, Dahal is also said to be open to party unifi­cation, even in unequal terms, if China is ready to act as a witness to the ‘gentleman’s agreement’ with Oli, whereby Oli commits to giving up one of the two executive posts at a fixed future date. Of course, Dahal cannot expect India, the other big external power in Nepal, to play that role because the Indians no longer trust him much.

Neither Oli nor Dahal can afford to be seen as backing down from the merger promise, which, after all, helped them secure a two-thirds majority in last year’s general and provin­cial elections. But signs are that it could take some time yet.