Mottled Dawns and Self-Goals: The Heavy Cost of Instant Statesmanship

 

Devendra Gautam

What happens when powerful people who are not known for speaking begin speaking? What happens when important people not known for writing — because they obviously have other important things to do — begin writing, all of a sudden? 

 

Nepal’s contemporary history shows that a disaster — or a ‘revolution’ — is most likely to happen in either of the cases. In our case, the disaster and the revolution are synonyms, by and large, right?  

 

Build institutions, not cults

 

Instead of building a base of rabid fans and followers, the focus of any democratic government worth its name, including a celebrity-studded administration of the present, should be on building/strengthening institutions to stabilise and strengthen our democratic polity and country. While our institutions are tottering, a tribe of livid fans and followers is on overdrive on social media and beyond, putting their heroes that have risen phenomenally from the ashes of death and destruction in a youths-led movement by securing a popular mandate, on a high pedestal, likening them to ‘statesmen’ overnight. 

How cheap and featherweight words have become!

While this practice of hero worship has been there all along in a society where democracy is just a word and not a way of life, intensifying hostility towards dissenters should be a matter of grave concern for all and sundry. 

 

Back to building solid institutions for strengthening the country and the polity. 

Will an untried, untested and unbridled political leadership that has just risen from the ashes of burnt down organs of the state have the foresight to build such institutions? Does it have the political will to do that? The dawn appears mottled but let’s hope the sun breaks out from the sea of ominous clouds. 

 

The aftereffects of a remark? 

Days after a very controversial statement from the Prime Minister in the House of Representatives regarding border disputes, the chair of the ruling Rastriya Swatantra Party embarked on a five-day visit to India. 

This move has given rise to a series of questions. 

When your house is on fire, what do you do? You try to put out the flames with your family members, right? But the RSP chief chose to embark on a long visit to the neighbour, letting the flames lick the house, for five long days. 

Could he not have put off the visit citing difficult circumstances at home? Would the host country not have understood the situation their neighbour was in? 

What kind of expert advisers does he have around him? What type of nuggets of wisdom do they feed him with? 

During his visit, a long article appeared in an Indian English daily under his byline, where he highlighted the need to further strengthen cross-border linkages (they are already strong enough, aren’t they?). This includes the construction of a much-talked-about Raxaul-Kathmandu railway, development of export-oriented hydropower projects in Nepal, development of pilgrimage routes between the two countries and the construction of integrated checkposts along the border. His fans and supporters are going gaga over what they call a successful visit, describing him already as a ‘statesman’. 

 

Does Lamichhane indeed think that an old, diesel engine chugging between Raxaul and Kathmandu along a broad-gauge railway will take bilateral relations to a new era, in this era of bullet train technology? 

Will export-oriented hydropower projects, to be developed, most probably, with foreign investment and for consumption across the border by inundating swathes of Nepali territories, including jungles, farmlands and settlements, and displacing local communities, give our economy a turnaround?

 

Now about building more integrated checkposts along the border (most probably on our side of the border). How many more do we need, given that three are already in operation — in Biratnagar, Bhairahawa and Birgunj? What more stuff are we going to export, except for a couple of things like ginger, palm oil and tea? Does Lamichhaneji think that exporting these items to the next-door neighbour has been a piece of cake? Sip orthodox tea produced in Nepal and think harder, Netaji!

 

One last word

In the wake of PM Shah’s border remarks that not only India but Nepal has also encroached upon Indian territories, several Indian media outlets found a ‘hot masala’ stuff to print. 

Dainik Bhaskar, for example, screamed with a headline, (mis)informing its readership that Nepal has ‘encroached upon’ 7,100 acres of Indian territories. This may be in bad taste to livid fans and supporters of Nepal’s ruling party, but India herself has not charged Nepal with encroaching upon or occupying her territories. 

After our PM’s statement, coincidentally or otherwise, there came a report, stating that India’s Seema Sashastra Bal (SSB) personnel had prevented the Nepali side from constructing an embankment along the Narayani river in Susta rural municipality-5 of Nawalparasi district. Citing a local government official, the report stated that the piece of land in question was not ‘disputed’ before the prime ministerial remark, giving rise to concerns that fresh disputes might arise in the days to come. 

 

For our very capable, well-read and intelligent officialdom and political leadership burning the midnight oil to resolve all outstanding border disputes with a subcontinent-sized and powerful — militarily, economically and diplomatically — neighbour that is 22 times bigger than Nepal and happens to be the most populous country on Planet Earth, here’s a gem from Neville Maxwell’s India’s China War (page 15): 

 

“…..Russia’s greatest annexations of Chinese territory were taking place at the time in the Far East, however. There the Russians had renewed their southward thrust in the middle of the century, taking advantage of China’s weakness as other European powers were doing, and had taken all the territory north of the Amur River and east of its tributary, the Ussuri, founding the port of Vladivostock (sic) and cutting off China from the Sea of Japan. China was forced to accept the loss of these huge tracts in the Treaties of Aigun (1858) and Beijing (1860). From this experience the lesson must have been painfully obvious: never negotiate boundary settlements from a position of weakness. This goes far to explain China’s approach to boundary questions until the middle of the 1950s. 

 

By the time this piece gets published, if at all, our Foreign Minister will, in all likelihood, be back home from a very important yet impromptu visit to the next-door neighbour.

By the way, is this not the right time to engage with all principal powers instead of opting for impromptu, opaque engagements with a neighbour with whom we have strained relations and a huge trust deficit? 

Will the minister bring home the bacon or return with some more self-goals against Nepal and the Nepalis?

Keep stargazing! 

 

Gautam is a desk editor and columnist.