Nepal and a Demodified India
Nepali Times ईspecial 7 - 13 June 2024 #1215
Narendra Modi has pulled defeat from the jaws of victory, and Rahul Gandhi is celebrating as if he won. Here in Nepal we are trying to figure out what just happened.
Some in Nepal still remember August 2015 when PM Modi and his then Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar announced an unannounced, unofficial, informal, undeclared, so-called blockade of Nepal for 5 months just as the country was recovering from an earthquake. It was the beginning of New Delhi’s ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy. Prime Minister Dahal is attending Modi's inauguration in Delhi on Sunday. All South Asian leaders are invited, except Pakistan.
As if we did not have enough fun and excitement in Nepal this past week, Chinese Ambassador Chen Song decided to pick a fight on X with journalist Gajendra Budhathoki of Taksar magazine for tweeting about the Pokhara airport being a ‘debt trap’. It did not end well for His Excellency.
We in Nepal have been squashed between India and China for the past 65 million years. Today, geo-tectonics determines geopolitics. Just as Grandfather of the Nation Prithvi Narayan Shah the Great famously said in 1776 about Nepal’s geolocation: “Frankly speaking, we have our nuts in a vice.”
Indeed, Nepal is like the mouse that is trampled when two elephants fight and also when they make love. Having one pushy Big Brother was bad enough, now we have two.
For this and more, read Chandra Kishore’s excellent take on the fallout of the Indian elections for Nepal in ‘Demodification of India’ on page 1, and a longer version of his column Borderlines online here.
Elsewhere, war has broken out between Kathmandu’s Rapper Mayor Balen Shah and three-time former prime minister K P Oli of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninists). The mayor started digging up New Road to broaden the footpath, and the Non-Physical Infrastructure Minister Mahato, who is UML, reinstated the street.
The Asphalt War raged, and gloves came off as both protagonists donned knuckles and claws. The Nepali Congress, which has been waiting for just this moment to dislodge the coalition, smells blood and is siding with Balen against Ba.
But we digress. Check out the Editorial on page 2 by Pinki Sris Rana about the current cooperatives crisis and why banks are up to their necks in assets from collateral they have confiscated from loan defaulters. Ironically, Nepal’s crisis-ridden broadsheet newspapers are now being kept afloat by revenue from pages upon pages of paid land auction notices from big banks.
June Hillary, the wife of Edmund Hillary, died on 1 June in Auckland aged 92. Lisa Choegyal, the honorary New Zealand Honorary Consul to Nepal, pays tribute on page 4-5. For more photos go online.
On page 6-7, linguist George van Driem dissects racism, caste and ethnicity around the world and says there can be no selective indignation. He urges minority groups to own labels that are deemed derogatory because of political over-correctness.
On page 10-11 Yugattam and Yugeshwar Koirala look at the lifestyle changes among Nepalis that are driving a deadly epidemic of diabetes, and the growing problem of myopia due to increased screen time in children post-Covid lockdowns.
This and more at nepalitimes.com.
Until next Sunday,
Kunda Dixit