Topic Of The Day”-Rebooting India-Nepal Ties”
Nepal is run by a revolving door of political leaders who have weakened the polity and economy over the years, but who did battle the odds to promulgate a new Constitution. India, meanwhile, has a Chief Minister-turned-Prime Minister who has had to learn geopolitics on the job. Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have realised the limits of optics in geopolitics, and Nepal serves as a marker of adventurism gone awry. With global geopolitics on the boil, and the Hindi-Chini relationship in free fall, it should be in India’s interest to secure its own neighbourhood, and that can only be through letting national politics and governance of the smaller neighbours evolve without interference.
Impediments, Implausibilities
New Delhi must use the visit of Nepal’s newly anointed Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba, on Wednesday as an opportunity to hit the reset button on Nepal-India relations. Such a rebooting requires a cold and hard look at how Nepal was handled over the past decade, exemplified by the impediments placed in the writing, adoption and implementation of the Constitution. True, India played a valued role in ending the Maoist insurgency in 2006, but the period thereafter was marked by escalating micro-meddling in Nepal’s internal affairs. In Constitution-writing, there were attempts to define the new provincial boundaries according to Indian dictates — pushing first an unwieldy and unworkable plains-only province, then a two-province formula. The presence of India’s heavy hand contributed in numerous ways to the distortion of consensual governance needed in transitional times. Kathmandu’s civil society was preoccupied with managing the fallout, and much time has been spent rallying around the flag rather than stabilising the new republican democracy, trying to end ‘bhagbanda’ share-the-spoils politics, and working to ensure that the inclusion enshrined in the Constitution is observed in practice. (The scarcity of Madhesi faces in the recent appointment of ambassadors, judges and government appointments is a case in point.) For reasons best known to South Block, India ‘noted’ rather than welcomed the Constitution. A society trying to emerge from the April 2015 Great Earthquake was slapped with the punitive Great Blockade. Even today, New Delhi seems uneasy with the recognition of Maithili, Bhojpuri and Avadhi in Nepal, and prefers the elevation of Hindi as in India. While keeping silent for years on Nepal’s post-conflict transitional justice process, in November 2015 India’s representative in Geneva cynically utilised the forum of the Human Rights Council to influence government change in Kathmandu. A year ago, Indian interlocutors pushed the Nepali Congress to renege on its promise to continue in coalition with the mainstream left Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist), and engineered what is the implausible current embrace of the Congress with the Maoist party of Pushpa Kamal Dahal. At the tactical level, New Delhi’s motives behind the heavy-handedness of the recent past may have to do with electoral calculations related to the Bihar and Uttar Pradesh polls. On the Constitution, the idea of a ‘buffer’ province is thought to have been floated either to prevent third country militant infiltration or to control national-level politics in Kathmandu. Some point to an agenda to try to take Nepal back to ‘Hindu state’ constitutional status. For the long term, Indian strategists may be seeking ways to get Kathmandu to allow the construction of high dams and deep reservoirs on Nepal’s rivers — for flood control, navigation, urban use and irrigation in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. A particular federal demarcation might make Kathmandu more amenable, goes this line of thinking. In trying to push some or all of these goals, New Delhi made deep inroads into Nepal’s political class, but none did it use more than the Madhesbaadi parties. Besides the fact that this has done great injustice to the plains-based Madhesi citizens of Nepal, the Madhesbaadi leadership is presently incensed that after all its goading New Delhi now seems to be backtracking — a recent example of this ‘use and throw’ policy is seen in how the Madhesbaadi leaders were made to stand against local government elections, followed by a volte-face of the Indian Embassy urging them to join. As Mr. Deuba deplanes, indeed there are indications of a scaling back of Indian involvement. Hopefully this is a response to a growing realisation in New Delhi that a peaceful, stable Nepal that evolves of its own volition is good for India, and especially for the central Ganga plains. From the Kathmandu perspective, politically micromanaging Nepal could not have but backfired. Take the Great Blockade, which forced the Kathmandu political leadership to reach out to Beijing and sign a slew of trade, transit and infrastructural agreements with it. Few know that Nepal is today better connected by air to Chinese cities than to India.
MEANINGS AND WORDS
1) Promulgate
Meaning: Put (a law or decree) into effect by official proclamation.
Example: In January 1852 the new Constitution was promulgated.
Synonyms: Enact, Implement
2) Interference
Meaning: The action of interfering or the process of being interfered with.
Example: Concerns about government interference in church life.
Synonyms: Intrusion, Intervention
3) Impediments
Meaning: A hindrance or obstruction in doing something.
Example: A serious impediment to scientific progress
Synonyms: Hindrance, Obstructions
Antonyms: Benefit
4) Implausibilities
Meaning: (of an argument or statement) not seeming reasonable or probable; failing to convince.
Example: This is a blatantly implausible claim.
Synonyms: Unlikely, Improbable
Antonyms: Plausible, Convincing
5) Anointed
Meaning: Nominate or choose (someone) as successor to or leading candidate for a position.
Example: His officially anointed heir.
6) Exemplified
Meaning: Illustrate or clarify by giving an example.
Example: He exemplified his point with an anecdote.
Synonyms: Illustrate
7) Insurgency
Meaning: An active revolt or uprising.
Example: Rebels are waging an armed insurgency to topple the monarchy.
8) Escalating
Meaning: Make or become more intense or serious.
Example: The disturbance escalated into a full-scale riot.
Synonyms: Grow, Develop
Antonyms: Shrink
9) Distortion
Meaning: The action of giving a misleading account or impression.
Example: We’re fed up with the media’s continuing distortion of our issues
Synonyms: Misinterpretation, Perversion
10) Enshrined
Meaning: Preserve (a right, tradition, or idea) in a form that ensures it will be protected and respected.
Example: The right of all workers to strike was enshrined in the new constitution
Synonyms: Set down, Express
11) Punitive
Meaning: Inflicting or intended as punishment.
Example: He called for punitive measures against the Eastern bloc
Synonyms: Penal, Disciplinary
12) Post-conflict
Meaning: Post Conflict is a conflict situation in which open warfare has come to an end.
13) Transitional
Meaning: Relating to or characteristic of a process or period of transition.
Example: A transitional government was appointed.
Synonyms: Intermediate, Middle
Antonyms: Initial, Final
14) Interlocutors
Meaning: A person who takes part in a dialogue or conversation.
15) Renege
Meaning: Go back on a promise, undertaking, or contract.
Example: The government had reneged on its election promises
Synonyms: Fail to honour, Go back on
Antonyms: Keep, Honour
16) Coalition
Meaning: A temporary alliance for combined action, especially of political parties forming a government.
Example: A coalition between Liberals and Conservatives
Synonyms: Alliance, Union
17) Embrace
Meaning: Include or contain (something) as a constituent part.
Example: His career embraces a number of activities—composing, playing, and acting.
Synonyms: Include, Cover
Antonyms: Exclude
18) Demarcation
Meaning: The action of fixing the boundary or limits of something.
Example: The demarcation of the maritime border.
Synonyms: Separation, Distinction
19) Amenable
Meaning: Open and responsive to suggestion; easily persuaded or controlled.
Example: Parents who have amenable children.
Synonyms: Compliant, Acquiescent
Antonyms: Uncooperative
20) Inroads
Meaning: An instance of something being encroached on or reduced by something else.
Example: The firm is beginning to make inroads into the UK market
21) Incensed
Meaning: Make very angry.
Example: Locals are incensed at the suggestion
Synonyms: Engage, Infuriate
Antonyms: Placate, Please
22) Goading
Meaning: Provoke or annoy (someone) so as to stimulate an action or reaction.
Example: he was trying to goad her into a fight.
Synonyms: Provoke, Spur
23) Volte-face
Meaning: A sudden change from one set of beliefs or plan of action to the opposite
Example: In 1986 he made a very public and dramatic political volte-face from Left to Right.
Synonyms: Changing your mind
24) Interventionism
Meaning: The theory or practice of intervening; specifically: governmental interference in economic affairs at home or in political affairs of another country
25) Severity
Meaning: The fact or condition of being severe.
Example: Sentences should reflect the severity of the crime.
Synonyms: Seriousness, Gravity
Antonyms: Mildness, Leniency
