Wednesday, November 1, 2006

The Britishers who colonized India for centuries at least upon leaving the Indian sub-continent they taught the bureaucrats of their former colony all the tricks and the maneuvering policies on how to deal with her smaller neighbors.

Divide and rule was their main lesson to the Indians and this is what they have been doing now in practically all the countries neighboring Indian Union.

Look how our Nepali leaders and their political parties are divided even on matters which have a direct bearing on our genuine national interests.

After the British left the Indian Union, the British trained and dominated Indian bureaucrats further devised certain clandestine schemes in order to overwhelm the smaller countries by sending their poor/destitute to those countries which needed no visa formalities, for example, Nepal. The treaty itself was designed by Nehru in such a manner that facilitated the unhindered entry of the Indian nationals which remains intact even today.

It should have been the time when we have had Arvind Ram Chandra Deo as India's Ambassador to this country at the fag end of the 1980s. His hatred against this country and her people was so intense that he even told me in private that he would "teach a lesson to Nepal". The rest my professional ethics does not allow me to write.

It was his clandestine and some times direct support to the agitating parties in the after math of the March 1989 Indian economic blockade that the 1990 popular movement came out with flying colors. In effect he cashed in upon the rumored personality clash in between King Birendra and then Premier Rajiv Gandhi.

But then yet he was a good friend of mine personally speaking.

He devised, I presume, such a scheme that was a slow poison for the Nepalese and her economy. In effect his policy was to invite the neighboring poor lot from Bihar and allocate them with some official money which they could later use in selling vegetables to the kathmanduites.

His plan not only succeeded but did miracles to the extent that we the Nepalese prefer to buy the vegetables from them instead of buying the same from our own brethren.

Thus slowly and steadily the Indians siphoned the earned money to their own lands which was only but natural.

It was not for nothing that a Nepali scholar working at the Agriculture Development Bank termed such siphoning of the Nepali money to India as "basket diplomacy".

Shame on the Nepali vegetable vendors that they have yet to learn this trick from their Indian counterparts.

The interesting part of the whole story has been that according to one estimate, what the aids and the donations come from India in the name of Nepal returns back to the donor through the effective and the meaningful use of this basket diplomacy.

We should in no way get excited as and when India donates some financial support to this country. There are many processes under the sleeve of the Indian diplomats to get back the donated money from Nepal.

According to yet another estimate, the barbers currently operating in Nepal-from the terai plains to the mountains, earn almost a sum that should be equivalent to what recently India has allocated for the construction of the Trauma center right here in Kathmandu. Thanks that some of our own Teraians have taken over the job in the recent years.

This should open our eyes. The message should be clear to all.