Nepal upheaval has lessons for India

THE revolution in Nepal earlier this week was so sudden, so swift and so dramatic, that even India was caught flat-footed. As former Nepali Prime Minister KP Oli’s armed police shot young student protestors in cold blood, including children in school uniform, Indian officials realised quickly that the ancien regime was collapsing. They had been preparing for Oli’s visit to India, beginning September 16. They were gobsmacked that the dam had burst on its eve.

Thing about the India-Nepal relationship is that it is so intimate, so deep-seated, so profound that it is like no other tie that India has. Former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj brought this “roti-beti rishta”, between the Terai and India’s northern borderlands, to the startled attention of Delhi’s elite some years ago, but the phrase is as true for the rest of Nepal and India. The Nepali elite as well as the proletariat — the ‘Bahun’ and ‘Chettris’, Brahmins and Kshatriyas in the hills, as well as people of other castes in the lowlands and the plains — marry, live and work in India and vice-versa. Ties of kinship reinvent the generations. If you drive from Patna to Janakpur, no one looks twice when you cross the open border.

You could argue that this is true for every neighbour of India, that ethnicity, religion and culture transcend both geography and sovereignty. Certainly, this is especially true for each of the three nations whose people have asserted their will in the face of democratic capture these last few years — Sri Lanka in 2022, Bangladesh in 2024 and now Nepal. Despite the small and big differences in each of these revolutions, the fundamental similarity is inescapable. The people rose because they were simply fed up of being led by the noose, by people they had voted in and who were now treating them like so much cattle.

In Kathmandu things have moved fast. Nepal’s former Chief Justice Sushila Karki has been sworn in as the country’s interim Prime Minister and Parliament has been dissolved. Still, the power tussle is not over. There are signs that Nepali Army chief Ashok Raj Sigdel — who, because of the aforesaid special India-Nepal tie, was awarded the honorary rank of a “brother general” in the Indian Army by the President of India last December — wants to assert himself and may be leaning in favour of the pro-monarchist politicians. Never forget that for decades when the King of Nepal was on top of the heap, the erstwhile Royal Nepal Army’s first slogan every morning was, “Shri Panch ko sarkar jai jai ho!”

The pushback has come from the most unusual of quarters. It is said that the Army chief wanted President Ram Chandra Poudel to resign to pave the way for a Naya Nepal, but Poudel responded, in words to the effect, that “you can shoot me, but I won’t stop being a democrat.” Along with other political leaders like former PMs KP Oli and Sher Bahadur Deuba, Poudel was taken under Army protection for some days, but he has since been returned to Sheetal Niwas, his official home.

Then there are the nameless, faceless Gen Z leaders, whose factions may have been squabbling among each other these last few days, but they have held firm on the most important next step : No return to monarchy. And that the Constitution of Nepal, forged in the aftermath of a previous revolution, the jana andolan of 2006, which finally came into being in 2015 — cannot be gutted.

Equally significant is what India and China, Nepal’s two most important neighbours, are thinking. China hasn’t said a word so far. India’s Ministry of External Affairs has said it is “closely monitoring” the situation and PM Modi has described the violence that wracked Kathmandu as “heart-wrenching.” Note, though, the silence from any other political outfit in Delhi — they have all been told to keep quiet, which is as it should be. India is playing this hugely important moment in the region very carefully.

Word is, that India will continue to back the progressive, secular and constitutional forces in Nepal, as it has always done in the past. During the 2006 jana andolan as well, India’s then Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran — and a columnist with The Tribune — broke from traditional policy to announce that India would support the egalitarian protest that had gone on for 19 long days and nights. That midnight in April 2006, I witnessed the incredible joy on the streets of Kathmandu as India made the right choice. It spelt the end of Nepal’s monarchy that had held Nepal and itself together since 1768 when Prithvi Narayan Shah united the warring kingdoms.

Another such moment is upon us today and we must learn several lessons from the past to deal with the present. First, the upheaval in Nepal must remind New Delhi of the importance of being even closer in touch with its neighbours. Second, India’s elite foreign service may prefer the watering holes of the West, but there’s nothing like the waters of the Bagmati or the Kosi and Mahakali from which to drink deep and imbibe both knowledge and culture.

And third, as the largest democracy not just in the region but in the world, India is a role model — Sushila Karki, the interim PM, like many other Nepali politicians before her, has studied at Banaras Hindu University — and must continue to be seen as such.

Nepal as well as the rest of South Asia must return to being both front and centre of India’s attention. It doesn’t matter if India is the fourth largest economy in the world and that these far smaller nations are small or smaller than India’s provinces. The simple truth is that India must return to the “all boats must rise” maxim and connect with these sovereign nations as equals, who have much to give as well as to get.

There is a fourth reason. India’s political class has also forgotten South Asia. There was a time when people like former PM Chandra Shekhar, Congress leaders like DP Tripathi and Left leaders like Sitaram Yechury and Prakash Karat together put their weight behind the democratic polity in Nepal. Today’s politicians, though, would rather look elsewhere.

Fortunately, the India-Nepal glue is so tight that the relationship is still safe. But if the disinterest continues, as it sometimes threatens to do, the danger is that some of the glue may start to come unstuck.