India’s early optimism about relations with Nepal is quickly fading.
Following Nepal’s Gen Z uprising last year, New Delhi had firmly backed the interim government of Sushila Karki and its single-point agenda of holding timely elections. The Karki government delivered on that promise.
In the March 5 parliamentary elections, the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) secured nearly a two-thirds majority. Its projected prime ministerial candidate, Balendra Shah, took over the government’s reins on March 26.
India, which supposedly had a pre-poll understanding with the RSP that its vital interests would be protected should the party come to power, seemed happy with developments in Kathmandu. Following the publication of Nepal’s election results, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi could barely conceal his delight in the congratulatory message for Shah.
Yet cracks quickly emerged in India-Nepal ties. In keeping with the tradition, Indian Ambassador to Nepal Naveen Shrivastava wanted to congratulate Shah personally when he became the prime minister. But Shah, in a mood to break from the tradition of Nepali executive heads individually meeting foreign ambassadors, gave a collective audience to resident ambassadors in Kathmandu.
It later transpired that the Indian prime minister had invited Shah to visit India while extending his congratulatory message — and Shah had accepted the invitation. Kathmandu and New Delhi expedited preparations for the visit. Then, unexpectedly, the RSP issued a statement saying that the Nepali prime minister would not be making any foreign trip for at least a year.
This happened even as Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri was scheduled to visit Kathmandu and extend Modi’s formal invitation to the Nepali prime minister.
Again, Shah did not agree to a meeting with Misri, in line with his stand that he would not meet any foreign leader below the rank of a minister.
Interestingly, the new prime minister went against his own Cabinet members, who advised that a blanket policy of not meeting foreign delegates was unwise. The prime minister seldom listens even to senior RSP colleagues.
Around the same time that preparations were underway for Misri’s Kathmandu visit, Nepal lodged a sharp protest with New Delhi against the new China-India deal to resume trade and pilgrimage through the Lipulekh Pass, which lies on a trijunction point between the three countries. In light of all these developments, Misri’s Kathmandu visit was postponed.
That was not all. The Shah government enforced a long-ignored directive whereby goods bought by Nepali nationals in Indian border towns would be taxed, purportedly to control smuggling. This affected the livelihood of these Indian towns reliant on Nepali shoppers. In short order, even the entry of Indian vehicles into Nepal through the open border between the two countries was restricted.
The Indians felt betrayed. They thought they had a solid understanding with the RSP leadership that Indian interests would be accommodated under the party’s government. This was the reason they also supported quick elections (in what was a pro-RSP electoral climate) and the party’s coming to power.
According to one line of argument, it was the old RSP leadership that had an understanding with India — not Shah, who joined the party only a couple of months before the elections. In this reading, the mercurial rapper was always going to be a wildcard for India.
New Delhi also believes that extensive people-to-people connections and trade ties make its relations with Kathmandu incomparable to Nepal’s relations with any other country. So it is wrong to treat India just like any other country. It does not matter to the Indians that Shah has also refused to meet resident Chinese, U.S., and other foreign envoys — or other visiting officials from these countries.
All these signs suggest that New Delhi and Kathmandu are drifting further apart, and India’s initial enthusiasm for the Shah government has cooled.
New Delhi can make things difficult for Shah. Trade is a big component of India’s neighborhood policy. In 2015, when the Indians felt their interests were not accommodated in the new constitution that Nepal promulgated that year, they blocked the border, creating an acute shortage of vital goods in Nepal. India perhaps won’t make the mistake of imposing a blockade again, which also harmed its international reputation. But it still has other disruptive tools at its disposal. For instance, it recently tightened imports of Nepali tea and can similarly place quotas or new limits on the goods it imports from Nepal.
Even domestically, it has been far from plain sailing for Balendra Shah. He is now embroiled in yet another controversy after refusing to be a part of the new parliament’s question-and-answer session. Just days before, during the inaugural session of parliament, he walked off while the president was presenting the plans and programs of his own government.
With trouble mounting at home, Shah may be tempted to follow the script of some of his nationalist predecessors and tilt closer to China, as some early signs suggest. This will make the Indians even more jittery. And a suspicious India rarely bodes well for the Nepali prime minister — or for the Nepali state.
