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Nepal's Upcoming 'Reset' With India

Nepal’s new prime minister is enthusiastic about restoring ties with India back to normal.

By Ankit Panda
September 14, 2016

Nepal’s new prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal (also known as Prachanda), will v isit India later this
week for four day s, marking his first trip abroad as the Himalay an nation’s head of gov ernment.
Prachanda, a Maoist politician, was prev iously prime minister for nine months from 2008 to 2009 and
recently returned to the post after his predecessor, Khadga Prasad Oli, failed to surv iv e a no-confidence
motion in parliament. Prachanda’s v isit to India will largely be poised toward resetting Nepal’s most
important bilateral relationship after ties had soured under Oli.

The Nepali premier’s upcoming trip to India is receiv ing a high degree of attention in New Delhi, where
concerns had grown among foreign policy mandarins that India was ceding ground to China in Nepal. A s
I’v e discussed before in The Diplomat, the primary cause for the precipitous decline in the historically
close ties between India and Nepal was New Delhi’s decision to side with ethnic groups protesting Nepal’s
new constitution, which was promulgated last y ear and included problematic prov isions on federal
districting and electoral participation.

The most acute manifestation of the difficulties between the two countries during the crisis was the
cessation of trade across the India-Nepal border as protests grew increasing intense in southern Nepal,
depriv ing the country of much needed fuel and other supplies. Nepali authorities accused New Delhi of
instituting a formal blockade to force constitutional changes–a charge strongly denied by Indian officials.

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Prachanda’s diplomatic manifesto from day one has been about rebalancing Nepal’s foreign policy
between its two mammoth neighbors, India and China. One of the prime minister’s first actions was to
dispatch high lev el special env oy s to both countries to offer clarity . Bimalendra Nidhi, Prachanda’s
deputy prime minister, was in New Delhi three weeks ago to lay the groundwork for Prachanda’s
upcoming v isit.

Regarding his agenda in New Delhi, Prachanda hasn’t made any grand promises, noting ex plicitly that
observ ers shouldn’t ex pect to see any major bilateral initiativ es unv eiled. Rather, he seeks to lay a
“strong foundation” for mutual trust between the two countries after what he describes as a “bitter
ex perience” during the constitution-related difficulties. “I am confident that the v isit (to India) would not
only normalize the relations that went through some bitter ex perience in the recent past, but also build a
strong foundation for mutual trust,” he told a parliamentary committee in Kathmandu.

Geopolitically , Beijing will be watching Prachanda closely during his New Delhi v isit. There were reports
recently that China is dissatisfied with a perceiv ed lack of continuity between Oli, who had signed a range
of important agreements with China, and Prachanda. A s a result, Chinese President Xi Jinping’s rumored
October v isit to Nepal may be stricken from the diplomatic calendar this y ear. Nepal has denied the
reports and China’s foreign ministry has been characteristically noncommittal in its reaction.

A s an interesting aside, Prachanda, during his first prime ministerial stint, shunned longstanding
tradition for Nepali heads of gov ernment and v isited China on his first trip abroad instead of India. A s
bad as things got under Oli, the former prime minister also v isited India before China–though he
threatened to v isit Beijing first to send New Delhi a message.

Prachanda has nev ertheless sought to assure China that he has no intentions of spurning Beijing’s
ov ertures; China sought to capitalize on both the rift between New Delhi and Kathmandu and Nepal’s
general need for aid and infrastructure assistance in the aftermath of last y ear’s dev astating A pril
earthquake. Realistically , howev er, Nepal’s immense economic reliance on India alway s meant that
China’s attempts at forging new geopolitical inroads would be limited.

Finally , for close observ ers of India-Nepal ties, Prachanda’s interactions with India are especially
interesting giv en his history of criticizing New Delhi both during his first tenure as prime minister and as
a politician more generally . For ex ample, Prachanda once called on Nepali leaders to rip up the 1 950
treaty of friendship with India, the cornerstone of the bilateral relationship between the two countries,
describing it as “unequal.” The prime minister is far from a doctrinaire supporter of a close Nepal-India
relations like his gov erning partners in the Nepali Congress Party . (Ov er at the Hindustan Times,
Prashant Jha has an ex cellent deep div e into Prachanda’s interesting history with India.)

Complicating matters somewhat, Nepal’s politics continue to remain fragile. A fter July ’s no-confidence
v ote, Prachanda’s Maoists only managed to form a gov ernment in alliance with the Nepali Congress, the
country ’s largest political party with strong historic ties to their namesake party across the border in
India. Sher Bahadur Deuba, the president of the Nepali Congress, will step up to the plate as prime
minister after Prachanda’s agreed upon nine-month stint as prime minister comes to an end. Deuba may
choose to double down on the incoming reset in ties with India or maintain whatev er momentum
Prachanda manages to establish–only time will tell.

Despite Nepal’s ongoing political fragility and the lingering geopolitical tussle between Delhi and Beijing,
Prachanda’s v isit will be worth watching closely . A fter a y ear adrift, Nepal and India are poised to restore
their bilateral relationship to a stable trajectory . Prachanda’s meetings with Indian Prime Minister
Narendra Modi and other senior Indian officials will offer an idea of what may be in store for the nex t
phase in India-Nepal relations.

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