China-India Relations
Regional Implications

By Nishchal Nath Pandey

INDIAN External Affairs Minister Jaswant Singh’s China visit taking the inaugural direct flight of China Eastern Airlines from Delhi to Beijing has much to mull over as the two giants try to establish a solid footing for the bilateral relationship to grow and flourish. The visit, taking place after the visit of Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji to Delhi is also likely to pave the way for Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s visit to China later this year. The significance of the visits is the plausibility of a recognition that India and China have slowly started viewing their own security and their own interests in a broader framework than their own immediate neighbourhood. This can have definite consequences for the region that has long had to sustain the pressures and pulls emanating from Cold War Sino-Indian rivalry. To put it in plain terms, it can either be positive or negative depending on which prism one would like to view this development.

Substantive Decisions:

Accelerating the process of demarcation of the Line of Actual Control (LOAC), political determination to intensify economic cooperation, time-frame on exchanging maps on western and eastern sectors and moreover the initiation of the first ever bilateral dialogue on combating terrorism are some of the hallmarks of the decisions taken during Singh’s meeting with the Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji in Taiyuan in North China’s Shanxi province and his counterpart Tang Jiaxuan. This discussion operationalizing a bilateral mechanism on counter-terrorism is reportedly of "sharing intelligence with India on the developments in the Northeast and Jammu and Kashmir and apprising the Chinese about the Ughyur insurgency in Xinjiang". If this is going to be implemented in full spirit, one can be best assured that nothing is going to hold the two countries back from exploring a qualitatively new relationship based on equality and goodwill.

It has been known that the first bilateral dialogue on counter terrorism will be on April 23rd in Delhi and history itself has shown that when transparency and engagement through free communications and travel come about, no two countries have chosen to linger on the fossils of the by-gone era. Suspicion and distrust can only thrive in an atmosphere of secretion, parallel policy and underpinnings of the approach of the Cold War. But when it comes to India and China not only is their personal chemistry important but more so their impassioned approach (es) towards smaller neighbours have been an incisive factor influencing their bilateral relations. How they will manage each other’s evident engagement with smaller neighbours in their own periphery needs to be observed with alertness as these are also sources of deeper divide-sometimes unpredictable and mostly aggrandising.

Evincing Wisdom

Singh’s China tour which is the first part of his visits to the Republic of Korea and Myanmar was personified through a very important talk programme at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies (SIIS) established in 1960 by Zhou Enlai, a great practitioner of foreign affairs and also a true friend of Nepal. While emphasising that his views were "individual, not institutional", Singh impulsive of the years after the end of the Cold War stated, "we live in an age of relative absence of ideological strife, an age of aggregation and assimilation." As a scholar who happens to be the Foreign Minister of a mixed society like India, and very much in the line of I.K Gujral, Singh compared today "to that of the ancient past of the now ended Cold War and found even the coldest night was relatively of greater innocence during that period. Despite the anxieties that then gripped our policy formulations, the faultlines of the Cold War were at least identifiable, so much clearer, so much more addressable," he remarked. The central challenge that policy makers face today, according to Singh is "how to work for and attain ‘peace’ in the face of so much that is so unreliable."

In reply to a question on the possibility of a defence engagement and cooperation between the two countries posed by Prof. Dengli Shen of Fudan University and himself a known expert on Sino-Indian relations, Singh said, "India and China have only one future, and it is up to the government to realise it-the future is positive." He also admitted that there could be military relations (provided) that there would be trust. Professor Zhang Jiaoze of the SIIS’s question (idea) of building hydropower stations in some border areas of Yunnan, Tibet and Arunachal Pradesh was interesting and something that students of international and regional affairs were totally ignorant of. While elaborating the changing configuration of powers in South Asia, the suave ex-soldier remarked that "Sino-Indian relations must never be seen through any prism of angle of any third country relations."

On the whole, there are ample signals that the two rivals will now work to engage fruitfully on mutually beneficial commercial inter-exchanges and then move on to a higher level of intelligence sharing and other arrangements. To and from visits have no doubt further intensified the relationship. But the central challenge remains on ways to converge their known past divergences on a narrowing index of issues at hand now.

Glimpses Of Medieval Nepal II

By Guna Dev Bhattarai

THE main occupation of the Valley people during the later medieval period (1482-1768 A.D.) was agriculture associated with animal husbandry. The soil of the valley was favourable for the growth of crops, vegetables, fruits and flowers. Because of the uncertainty of monsoon rain there were crude forms of irrigation. Some canals called Kings’s canal (Rajkulo) were used for irrigational purposes.

Horses were bred for riding and elephants were used for loading and riding on the occasion of marriages and religious ceremonies. Male and female peasants were engaged in manual labour throughout the year. If they got rest from their labour they would entertain themselves in feasts and festivals whether social or religious ones. Their life was simple, honest and enduring. Besides agriculture many peasants would employ themselves in various activities such as spinning, wearing, load bearing and the like. As there was no system of ploughing they would till the land with the spades and other tools. Some peasants had their own land in the vicinity of their dwelling place. From their very childhood they were trained in agricultural pursuits by their parents. Though illiterate they were expert in sowing, tilling and reaping. Even in adverse circumstances caused by the rivalry of the rulers they reconciled to their fate because they were superstitious.

As the medieval society was divided into high and low castes each and every one was bound to accept the rules and regulations of the family. Lower caste people were deprived even of normal facilities and privileges. They were always engaged in the service of high caste. In short the high caste exploited the low caste. The latter toiled hard as workers and producers. The Jyapus and the Khusals, as they were classed as low caste, were not given due respect for their sweat. Even the masous, potters, dyers, carpenters and the like, inspite of their contributions to the betterment of society, were kept barely alive.

There were peasant proprietors and tenants who enjoyed some rights over the land they farmed. As there was no Zamindari system there were not many landholders who enjoyed a very large land holding and property. The land granted by the rulers to their favourites was not extensive enough to be called a large estate. The Brahmins were granted Kusa Virta. Such land was exempted from taxation. Land granted to temples and monasteries also was exempted from taxation.

Trade and industry were in a flourishing state. The Jyapus and Udais had their own handlooms to produce cloth that was exported, the fine ones, to gilly rejions and Tibet which were best markets for their products.

The valley rulers minted silver coins in their names. However, Mahendramalli was a common name for all the silver mohars of the valley because Mahendramalla (1561-74 A.D.) was the founder of silver coins in the Nepal valley. The valley rulers and later Bhadgaon monopolised the right to send currencies to Tibet and thereby derived a substantial amount of profit. Custom offices were stationed at the key posts of the capital cities of the valley states. The goods were carried by porters who were called Bhariyas. Ponies and mules were also used for carrying goods. The exporters were to pay their duty to the government concerned. So long the valley was safe from outside invaders peace and prosperity prevailed for a long time.

Kathmandu, Patan and Bhadgaon were densely populated cities. Nevertheless there was enough arable land to feed them. Air pollution was foreign to them. Almost all the houses had gardens and courtyards.

The people of the valley used to be engrossed religious celebrations with pomp and grandeur. They would enjoy themselves by witnessing stage plays and masked dances. For that purpose a special platform was constructed and many people thronged the performances to quench their thirst for merriment. In the vicinity of famous temples some of the urban people would meet together in the evening and chant religious verses written by renowned poets.

Well-to-do people would spend some of their earnings on building temples, rest houses and the like. Stone taps were constructed here and there by the rulers and their courtiers.