View Point (Spotlight Weekly)

Nepal Attracts US Attention, to India's Dismay

By Dhruba Adhikary

KATHMANDU - Would the United States have enhanced its concerned interest in Nepal's Maoist insurgency had the tragic events of September 11, 2001 not occurred?

It is difficult to say, but it is unusual that the US has suddenly chosen to increase contacts with the Himalayan kingdom that it has officially known for more than 55 years.

Washington and Kathmandu established diplomatic relations on April 25, 1947 - shortly before independent India and Pakistan were born. (Though small in size in comparison to her giant neighbors, Nepal was never under British colonial rule.)

Nepal started to accept US assistance shortly after the formal establishment of ties, adding up to aboutUS$700 million in 50 years. The size of the annual package grew only recently - to $38 million ñ after the visit of US Secretary of State Colin Powell in January 2002. The military component in the package was allowed to be slightly increased in view of the need to make the Royal Nepal Army capable of effectively fighting Maoist guerrillas. Some of the grant money was spent in procuring small arms from the US and Belgium.

More than 7,000 people have lost their lives in as many years of armed insurgency in Nepal. The victims include Nepalis working as guards at the US embassy in Kathmandu, as well as in a US-aided development project in the western region. A ceasefire was agreed in January this year between the government and the rebels, but it is far from certain whether stuttering talks will bring peace to this largely mountainous country.

As is obvious from the figures, the US assistance is very modest, and Nepal's present difficulties are real. But India, Nepal's neighbor on the south, is perturbed at these developments. New Delhi's displeasure has been made public through periodic pronouncements, and by senior officials handling India's external affairs. Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal has spoken several times in Paris, New Delhi and elsewhere that Nepal must not take "outside assistance" to quell a domestic rebellion. "Anywhere else in the world, this small amount of military assistance would have been seen as trivial," wrote Indian journalist C Raja Mohan in The Hindu newspaper on June 18. "But in the context of Nepal, this has acquired a larger than life dimension," he added, indirectly scoffing at India's foreign policy managers.

Ostensibly on official prompting, some sections of the Indian media are obsessed by what they describe as the "growing American presence in Nepal". Giving credence to such perceptions, Indian ambassador Shyam Saran told a newspaper interviewer in Kathmandu recently, "The government of India is in close touch with the US government concerning the developments in Nepal, since both are friends of Nepal. There is no competition or rivalry between India and the US in Nepal," he added, leaving no doubts to readers that this indeed is the case.

In fact, in New Delhi's opinion, Nepal should always resolve its problems through bilateral consultations, as suggested by a controversial treaty concluded more than half a century ago. The Treaty of Peace and Friendship was initialed - on July 31, 1950 - when a revolution was going on in China. And the accord itself was signed by Nepali prime minister Mohun Shamsher Rana, whose autocratic regime was overthrown six months later in a popular pro-democracy movement that dismantled the 104-year-old autocracy.

Turning a blind eye to these developments, hardline bureaucrats in India's capital still prefer to offer interpretations requiring Nepal to understand the "spirit" of the anachronistic treaty. Indians want Kathmandu not to buy defense supplies elsewhere, even if they cannot always give assurances that the goods made in India would maintain minimum quality. If they had their way, army sources said, they would like Nepal to spend the American grants to purchase weaponry from Indian manufacturers.

But even the discredited treaty says that Nepal can procure its supplies from anywhere in the world. Article 5 reads as follows: "The government of Nepal shall be free to import, from or through the territory of India, arms, ammunitions or warlike material and equipment for the security of Nepal. The procedure for giving effect to this arrangement shall be worked out by the two governments acting in consultation."

There was no need for India to be alarmed when Nepal imported some defensive weapons, such as anti-aircraft guns, from China in 1988. Since Nepal did not need to use Indian territory for those imports, authorities in Kathmandu did not find it necessary to inform India about the consignments coming overland via Tibet. But New Delhi considered it an offense, and accused Nepal of breaching the "spirit" of the 1950 treaty. Subsequently, the Indian government imposed a trade and transit blockade on Nepal, at the start of 1989, which lasted for 15 months. Relations became normal only after June 1990.

Will New Delhi again think of taking such punitive action against Nepal for accepting a few air-borne military consignments from the US and Belgium? Will India take a step "to teach a lesson" to Nepal, as its prime minister Rajiv Gandhi did 14 years ago? Probably not this time. The political environment has undergone a sea change over the past years: there is no USSR to back India in a hegemonic role in the neighborhood. And the present-day reality is that the US is omnipresent in terms of its economic and military power. China, Nepal's neighbor on the north, has also become too big a factor to be glossed over.

The Indian establishment, however, seems reluctant to accept what is a stark reality. On the contrary, it is insisting on the implementation of an accord that has been billed "unequal" since the day it was signed. This is evident from the different status of the signatories: from Nepal's side it was the prime minister, Mohun Shumsher Rana; from India's side it was just an ambassador, C P N Singh. And it is believed that Mohun Shamsher Rana accepted the treaty in the hope that his signature would produce a quid pro quo in the form of Indian support to his falling regime.

But inconsistency in protocol matters alone did not make the treaty unequal. Articles 6 and 7 of the document, for instance, contain provisions for granting national treatment to each other's citizens on a reciprocal basis. "How can a small country of 23 million people be asked to extend 'reciprocity' to India, which has a population of over a billion?" wonders Mohan Man Sainju , a leading expert on developmental issues.

Despite these asymmetries, Indian authorities continue to cite the dated pact to reject Nepal's suggestions for regulating the 1,800 kilometer porous border that the two countries share. Presently, there is unrestricted movement of people from either side. It is conspicuous that none of India's other contiguous borders remains porous. In a write-up published in a journal in 1994, Japanese scholar Kyoko Inoue took note of the prevailing Nepali perception that provision for reciprocity "might result in serious constraints on national integration and national economy-building under its difficult geo-political condition, while no such constraints were being felt in India." Nepal's northern border is a regulated one, despite the fact that China's Tibet region is a very sparsely populated area - of about only 6 million inhabitants.

That India in 1950 imposed an unequal treaty on Nepal is a widespread perception, and popular reaction to this imposition surface often, and particularly during parliamentary elections. Leaders of even known pro-Indian political parties find it expedient to promise that, if elected, they would seek the abrogation of the treaty. This trend has been evident in all three elections since the democratic restoration of 1990. The pact is construed as an instrument that, it is felt, undermines Nepal's status as a sovereign and independent country.

Foreign policy analysts agree that in the camouflage of an innocuous accord, the Indian government inserted clauses to constrict Nepal's future policies on immigration, flood control, utilization of river water, defense systems, trade and transit. "Operative clauses of the treaty make it clear that it was designed to corner Nepal from every conceivable direction," says Madhab Prasad Khanal, an analyst who once served in the ministry of foreign affairs. "That Maoist rebels can carry on their anti-Nepal activities from Indian soil is distinct proof of New Delhi's desire to develop friendship with Nepal!" Khanal adds sarcastically.

The attitude in New Delhi has become something that some Indians themselves find hard to digest. "India became free in 1947, but could not free itself from the British mindset," concedes K V Rajan, former Indian ambassador to Nepal, in the recently-released anthology "External Affairs: Cross-Border Relations". Accepting that the 1950 treaty is a major "psychological irritant" for Nepal, Rajan, whose tenure in Kathmandu was from 1995 to 2000, urges India to come forward with positive proposals of its own.

C Raja Mohan is another Indian author to identify "contradictions between India's global policy and its regional approach." In his new book Crossing the Rubicon: The Shaping of India's New Foreign Policy, Mohan makes the following observation, "At the international level, India rejected the notions of balance of power and exclusive spheres of influence; within the region it clung to them."

"New Delhi needs to shed its untenable expectations that the world can be kept out of Nepal and that the problems in Kathmandu can be resolved purely in a bilateral framework with India," Mohan, strategic affairs editor of The Hindu newspaper, said in a separate article published earlier this year.

Avatar Singh Bhasin, editor of books comprising documents on Nepal-India relations, describes the treaty-bound relationship as "feudal" and suggests that New Delhi to modernize it. "The sooner it [treaty] is replaced, revised or abandoned the better ...", he writes.

The contentious treaty has often been compared with the accord that the former Soviet Union imposed on neighboring Finland in 1948.

Nevertheless, the official Indian contention has been that the treaty imposed certain security obligations on Nepal in exchange for important economic benefits. Nepal, on the other hand, argues that it would not be "asking for things which India does not want to provide".

Everything said and done, admit intelligentsia on both sides of the border, the 1950 treaty has been implemented more in the breach than in observance. For example, article 2 requires both sides to inform each other should any friction or misunderstanding occur with any neighboring state. India went to war with Pakistan and China, but it never officially informed Nepal. Similarly, while Indian nationals enjoy unrestricted entry into Nepal and movement within the kingdom, Nepali nationals visiting India are not allowed to enter most of its northeastern states without prior permits. Likewise, Nepal has enacted laws that prevent foreigners, including Indian nationals, from buying landed property in this country.

What then is the use of retaining a treaty that fails to meet the needs of the 21st century? Since the accord does not provide any room for changes, amendments or revisions, Nepal could, though, initiate steps for its annulment. The last article (article 10) provides a solution: "This treaty shall remain in force until it is terminated by either party by giving one year's notice." But is Nepal prepared to invoke this article when it knows well that the other party is still living under an illusion that it can retain the "unique" relationship on the strength [or weakness] of this document? The alternative is to wait until the day that India realizes that it is being subjected to further ridicule for not being in tune with changing times.

But what if India quickly agreed to get rid of the treaty? How would Nepal adjust to the new situation? While traditionalists sound apprehensive about such a possibility, others are not worried. Keshav Raj Jha, president of the Nepal Council of World Affairs, is one of them. "Nepal can go for one of the two available options: sign a treaty similar to the one it concluded with China in 1960, or begin conducting bilateral relations without any treaty, like Bangladesh," ha said.

Jha's reference is to the 1960 treaty with China, signed by premiers Chou Enlai and B P Koirala in Beijing ,which was based on the principles of equality and mutual benefit. The second allusion is to the friendship treaty that India and Bangladesh initialed in 1972 which was allowed to lapse after 25 years. Similarly, India's 20-year pact with the then Soviet Union remained a one-time deal.

"No treaty, howsoever good and well-meaning it may be, can achieve its goal if its articles are not allowed to remain relevant to the issues at hand," comments Badri Bahadur Karki, a seasoned lawyer who once had a stint as Nepal's attorney-general.

(Adhikari is a senior journalist. This article appeared in www.atimes.com)