{"id":69559,"date":"2016-02-08T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2016-02-08T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=69559"},"modified":"2016-02-07T19:18:05","modified_gmt":"2016-02-07T19:18:05","slug":"india-steps-up-pressure-on-nepal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/02\/india-steps-up-pressure-on-nepal\/","title":{"rendered":"India Steps Up Pressure on Nepal"},"content":{"rendered":"

5 Feb 2016 – <\/em>A continued Indian-backed blockade of supplies to Nepal, a small landlocked country wedged between India and China, has escalated tensions between Kathmandu and New Delhi.<\/p>\n

Nepali Prime Minister K. P. Oli has threatened to withdraw his acceptance of an invitation from Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit India this month. Oli told journalists on January 26: \u201cIt would not be appropriate for me to visit India unless the situation returns to normal.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Monday, the deputy chief of the publicity committee of the Oli\u2019s Communist Party of Nepal (CPN-UML), Surya Thapa, declared: \u201cIf the embargo is not lifted, the Prime Minister [Oli] may visit China first, instead of India.\u201d<\/p>\n

India denies any involvement in the blockade, maintained since last September, insisting that it is a result of agitation by Madhesi parties from Nepal\u2019s flat southern Madhesh region for amendments to Nepal\u2019s constitution, adopted in August. The United Democratic Madhesi Front (UDMF) has conducted a protest campaign demanding that Madhesh (or Terai) be given greater representation in parliament.<\/p>\n

Nepali police have killed at least 55 people since September in suppressing the Madhesi protests. On January 21, police shot down three protesters who allegedly tried to disrupt a CPN-UML meeting in Terai that Oli was to address.<\/p>\n

Due to the blockade, essential supplies such as fuel have been substantially limited, severely affecting hospitals, transport and power generation. Many schools have closed down due to lack of transport.<\/p>\n

India is tacitly supporting the Madhesi demands, encouraging their agitation and asking the Kathmandu ruling elite to amend the constitution to address the \u201clegitimate aspirations\u201d of all sections of the country\u2019s population.<\/p>\n

Under immense pressure from India, the Nepali government agreed to three basic Madhesi demands for a re-demarcation of provinces, the fixing of electoral constituencies on the basis of population and proportional representation. Parliament passed those amendments last week but Madhesi parties rejected them, saying they had loopholes that Kathmandu could manipulate.<\/p>\n

The Madhesi parties, which represent the regional elite, are pressing for greater privileges, backed by New Delhi\u2019s continued insistence on \u201csuitable amendments\u201d to the constitution.<\/p>\n

The Nepali government\u2019s conflicting signals regarding what would be Oli\u2019s first overseas visit expresses a political crisis exacerbated by India\u2019s intervention, which has been encouraged by the US. New Delhi\u2019s concern is not to uphold the democratic rights of Madhesi people but to firmly establish its geo-political foothold over Nepal. India\u2019s government is using the communal politics of the Madhesi parties to scuttle China\u2019s growing influence in the country.<\/p>\n

Sections of the Indian ruling elite have expressed concerns that the government has not intervened \u201cfast enough\u201d in Nepal and is now pushing it more toward China. On December 29, India\u2019s parliamentary standing committee on external affairs questioned foreign secretary Subrahmanyam Jaishankar about the government\u2019s policy in Nepal.<\/p>\n

One committee member told the Hindu<\/em>: \u201cNepal was fast emerging as vehicle for China\u2019s growing influence in south Asia and souring India\u2019s ties with Nepal.\u201d This \u201cwould send out a negative message to other members of the South Asian region.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kathmandu signed an agreement with a Chinese company in October to import petroleum, even though delivering supplies from China is difficult through the mountainous terrain. The agreement demonstrated that Kathmandu was seeking to counter New Delhi\u2019s pressure and that China was taking the opportunity to bolster its relations.<\/p>\n

Strategic rivalry with China dominates the Indian political and defence establishment\u2019s discussions and calculations. Nihar R Nayak, an analyst from India\u2019s defence ministry-sponsored thinktank IDSA, recently warned: \u201cAt a time when India is confronted with growing negative sentiments in Nepal, China has been reaping a good harvest of positive perceptions.\u201d<\/p>\n

At issue is not just India\u2019s drive to incorporate Nepal into its perceived South Asian sphere of influence. Washington, which has embarked on aggressive military encirclement of China, has a strategic partnership with India. Both India and the US consider Nepal to be a critically-situated underbelly of China, a base from which to undermine Beijing.<\/p>\n

The Obama administration is seeking to entangle all the countries across the region in its \u201cpivot to Asia\u201d to confront China. Echoing India\u2019s stance, US Deputy Secretary of State Antony Blinken telephoned Oli on January 22, urging him to \u201crepresent the interests of all Nepalis and take concrete steps to resolve the political impasse.\u201d<\/p>\n

China is taking steps to counter this line-up. The Chinese ambassador to Nepal, Wu Chuntai, called on Oli on the same day last December that Oli announced India\u2019s invitation. Wu extended a counter-invitation to visit Beijing.<\/p>\n

In 2014, China overtook India as Nepal\u2019s largest foreign investor. A report by Nepal\u2019s Department of Industry said Chinese investments reached $174 million between July and December 2014, accounting for over 60 percent of the total foreign direct investment committed. This was a three-fold rise from the $55 million investment in the corresponding months of 2011, when India was the biggest source of investment in Nepal.<\/p>\n

The South China Morning Post<\/em> quoted a Nepalese writer, Kanak Mani Dixit, saying: \u201cNepal cannot afford to loosen its ties with India as it\u2019s impossible to replace India with China given our geography \u2026 But Nepal\u2019s China tilt has never been this pronounced and it\u2019s entirely the result of New Delhi\u2019s policy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dixit added: \u201cNepal\u2019s situation vis-\u00e0-vis India means Nepal will not overnight convert itself into a pro-China holdout. But this still is a significant shift in South Asian geopolitics.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Nepal crisis is another expression of the aggressive US moves against China, and the harnessing of India as Washington\u2019s partner. This drive is deepening geo-political tensions and increasing political instability throughout South Asia, including in mountainous Nepal.<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wsws.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

5 Feb 2016 – A continued Indian-backed blockade of supplies to Nepal, a small landlocked country wedged between India and China, has escalated tensions between Kathmandu and New Delhi\u2026 The Nepal crisis is another expression of the aggressive US moves against China, and the harnessing of India as Washington\u2019s partner. This drive is deepening geo-political tensions and increasing political instability throughout South Asia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-asia-pacific"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69559\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}