N.P Upadhyaya, Kathmandu: Professor Amartya Kumar Sen is an Indian economist, who since 1972 has taught and worked in India, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
He once wrote that, as far as I recall, in a democracy the citizens enjoy two meals a day and thus do not die of starvation.
How far his saying is correct perhaps those who have died in a democratic system in his own India would have told us better but alas! The souls perhaps do not enjoy the liberty to express as to how and why they died? Will the starving population of Indian landmass agree with what the Nobel laureate said of democracy? Perhaps not. Democracy doesn’t guarantee availability of foods to the starving populace.
The same Indian veteran economist while talking to a Delhi TV channel said that “despite being the fastest-growing economy the country has taken a “quantum jump in the wrong direction” since 2014.
The Indian scholar shields the Indira Congress rule because the Indian slide, if it could be said so, had right begun the day when the BJP government under Atal Behari Bajpayee had clandestinely provided shelter and security to the Nepal Maoists in the NOIDA suburbs for all along ten years or so which was later granted with “Indira Congress government largesse”.
Geo politics perhaps. Crime against Nepal that it was.
Dr. MM Singh was the bogus PM of India. The slide began then continues even today with a new “Modi” thrust. Yet let’s listen to what this Economist has to add.
Honorable Vajpayee too was never a good friend of India though his admirers in Nepal may not agree with what is being written here. So be it.
Mr. Sen also accuses the BJP that its Hindu fundamentalism too has its contributions in inviting the slide for India.
The rest, the Nepali observers agree verbatim to what this eminent scholar says of PM Modi and his “coercive” and disgusting Indian regime which takes sadistic pleasure in twisting the arms of her smaller neighbors. Thanks Maldives has just slipped from the Indian grip.
Indian slither is yet incomplete in that the Indian regime controlled mercilessly by Chaiwala Modi jee (is what has been best said by a Congressman, Mallikarjun Kharge in Maharastra, July 9, 2019, that it was the Indian Congress that had saved the Indian democracy which has awarded an opportunity to a Chaiwala to become the Indian Prime Minister) because Modi prefers to confront the super power in the making, President Xi Jinping of China whose end result could fairly be predicted in advance. Source ndtv.com in Twitter.
And now China is not that fool as not to have calculated the “real intent and meaning” of the Indian design when Delhi summoned its Ambassadors serving in South Asian region.
News reports appearing in the social media and the internet says that “India will adopt a broad, three-pronged approach to deal with China’s increasing engagement in the South Asian and Indian Ocean neighborhood, track Beijing’s activities carefully; pursue its own projects and commitments; and educate and advise neighbors on the consequences of engaging with China.
So India will educate Nepal and other countries in this part of the world? Joke of the week indeed.
At least people in Nepal remain assured in that China shall never impose economic blockade like what had been done by the ugly and naughty neighbor in the South in 2015, if one were to recall.
Reports say that during the meet, Minister Swaraj laid out this approach at a meeting with top diplomats posted in the neighborhood. This means that the Indian diplomats will have to act like a spy whose main job would be to carefully eye on the Chinese activities in the South Asian nations.
Back in Nepal, our own Communist Prime Minister has been exhibiting ominous signs as far as the running of the nation-state is concerned. Freedom of expression apparently has already been curtailed and the freedom to travel abroad too has been under attack as one Sanskrit scholar was almost kidnapped by the innocent security forces complying with the Prime Ministerial orders from the International Airport who was about to board a plane to Canada via Korea. The manner this Sanskrit scholar was behaved by the State deserves condemnation.
The scholar detained perhaps has slight inclination, it is widely talked, towards Nepali Congress.
Now the next target hopefully would be gagging of the Nepali press. The first step to authoritarian rule perhaps which if happens then such a situation may please China, our new found partner. The US and the champions of democracy so far have not taken note of Nepal situation that have unfolded in the recent weeks.
Nepal is not safe in the hands of PM Oli and Delhi indoctrinated Prachanda who now jointly control the India tortured nation state.
Chances are high that India would lure once again Prachanda and break the unified communist party. Take it for granted. Chellany’s article provides abundant indications to this effect. Unstable Prachanda would not conceivably reject the Indian “coercion with love”.
The Communist rule is what is in the fate of the Nepali population henceforth thanks the courtesy of the Indian regime that sent its Nepali chum Prachanda to Kathmandu in order to capture the State to which he did and now the same regime repents in having damaged Nepal.
Yet the tenure of this communist government depends on when and how India wants to break this communist unity through Prachanda.
As stated earlier, Brahma Chellany is an Indian academic whose fresh article is somewhat surprising in that whatever he has written is not up to the mark to what he used to pen on Nepal and its politics. In effect, his hatred towards Nepal and its leaders, more so with the overthrown monarchy, no longer remains a secret now. However, he has penned this article just the opposite which doesn’t suit to his former taste for whom he writes.
Is it then a dictated article? Yes! It is.
In an entirely changed mood, perhaps having briefed by the South Block like what the Indian so called academia more often than not takes up the dictated views to be aired or disseminated through articles such as the one to which we shall mention a small portion to enlighten the Nepali academia who will later go deep into the factors which might have impelled south block to encourage Chellany to write on these lines.
The dictation begins. “Three Indian blunders have proved costly for India — spearheading the abolition of Nepal’s constitutional monarchy; bringing the Maoists to the center stage of Nepali politics; and aiding the plains people’s revolt against the new Nepali Constitution and then abandoning them”.
Simply put, writes Chellany that “Nepal represents a critical challenge for India. But, to a significant extent, this is a self-created problem. Three Indian blunders, Chellany continues, since the mid-2000s have proved very costly for India — spearheading the abolition of Nepal’s constitutional monarchy; bringing the underground Maoists to the centre-stage of Nepali politics; and, more recently, aiding the plains people’s revolt against the new, 2015-drafted Nepali Constitution and then abandoning their movement and pressuring them (Madhesis) to participate in the 2017 elections, thus legitimizing a Constitution it said was flawed.
What is more than surprising is that the timing of this article. This has appeared when Nepal has already chosen the Chinese path albeit keeping its relation with India in a balance as promised by the incumbent Prime Minister KP Oli to whom Chellany has not very good words in the very first paragraph of his “close to the truth” article.
Jalney ki boo aa rahi hai…..Dhuwan uth raha hai….
The Maoists who had been granted secured asylum by the Indian government in effect was first Indian blunder which later paved the way for further such blunders to be committed.
And now India has to face China. No escape. As you sowed, so you will reap now.
Easy escape for India would be to dismantle the Communists rule if she can.
The overthrow of the Nepali Monarchy, a symbol of unity among the people of this country to which Chellany now accepts was tentatively the second blunder that allowed some space to China to initiate intimate ties “secretly” with the scattered communists and later managed somehow or the other to act like a catalyst in their grand unification.
All put together, the Indian Maoists which have remained a serious security threat to the Indian regime at the moment, very cleverly exported the Nepal Maoists back to their homeland equipped with Indian assistance in order to carry out the fragmentation of Nepal. However, the plan failed as the Nepali nationalists in the Terai plains read the Indian designs on time. Our salute to the people of Nepal’s Madhesh.
Or is it that through Chellany’s article India is cooking some cookies for Nepal? Is he hinting a regime change like the “sponsored” last one? Shyam Saran knows possibly.
Having said that, a retired Major general Mr. Binoj Basnyat, who is a senior Political and Security Analyst in his own right observes Nepal’s vulnerabilities this way, in his own words, says that “Three powerful Nepali leaders, two of them with communist leanings, have diversified trade and transit in response to India’s behavior. There is a strategic question that now needs an answer:
Will China meet India in Kathmandu?
Kathmandu could be the undesirable venue if and when Delhi meets Beijing here or vice versa, but the fact is also that President Xi Jinping and PM Modi recently talked about Nepal in Wuhan, China wherein both the Dragon and the Elephant agreed that they should help Nepal and that no objections shall be made either by China or India when the two remain engaged in helping Nepal with its developmental efforts.
If so then why the Delhi meet of the Indian Ambassadors? And why FM Sushma encouraged her diplomats to spy on China?
This should mean that India and China will face with each other either in Kathmandu, as hinted by Basnyat, or in Doklam or if not then at least in Arunachal Pradesh. The stage is thus being set for yet another confrontation between the two. An already frustrated and humiliated India in the region will then come to its senses with the fresh Chinese punch that is in the making.
Back home, PM Oli shed tears while talking with a local TV journalist Tek Narayan Bhattarai who asked as to how the PM took the lives being braved by the common people? In response PM Oli with heavy heart replied that “it is really hard for them”. And the tears in his eyes. (Janata Sanga Pradhan Mantri).
Should this mean that PM Oli understands the people’s plight but yet his hands are tied? But who is impeding his desire to be of support to the common people? And what of his stance taken towards Dr. Gobinda KC?
Though the supporters of KC have made it an issue, mostly the men from the Congress party (and the FB and Twitter shakers) yet unless proven that Dr. KC is just a pawn of some hidden forces, one has to take the doctor’s fast unto death as an exercise in favor of the common people.
An advice to PM Oli: It is the people of Nepal who count for him but not the support that he expects from China or India for his extended tenure in the current Chair. China and India have their interests to get served through him. However, the people of Nepal will remain his friends for long time to come. So PM Oli is advised to make the people smile. China is likely to scold PM Oli for having failed to curb the anti-China activities going in Nepal even upon Oli’s return from Beijing. The Dalai Lama’s birthday was celebrated in Kathmandu and high places sources have told this paper that some Communists leaders also had assisted the celebrations. Oli too needs a Chinese punch then? Ailing Oli can’t brave this thump.
Now for the Road:
Now, with the construction of the CPEC mega projects , there is a hope that the CARs ( Central Asian Republics) and other South Asian countries, as stated in previous article, will like to avail the opportunity of mutual economic cooperation and development through exploiting trade avenues and attracting foreign investment. Because of the economic incentives for these regions linked with the CPEC, the chances are very bright that the regional countries would like to prefer geo-economics over geopolitics to draw economic benefits through mutual cooperation in trade and investment-oriented relations. To achieve these objectives the SCO member states and South Asian countries would like to show flexibility in improving mutual trust and resolving their mutual disputes to make the regional political and security environment favorable to facilitate their economic cooperation.
Now that Pakistan and India have become permanent members of the SCO, China, Russia and CARs would like that as SCO member countries India and Pakistan should improve their mutual relations. Also China and Russia, which enjoy good mutual relations, would like to help Pakistan and India to improve their mutual relations by resolving their outstanding disputes through negotiations.
The SCO Summit is sure to allow both India and Pakistan a perfect venue to sort out their lingering political differences, mainly the Kashmir issue. It is time that both the rival nations keep themselves engaged in bilateral talks and sort out their differences and allow the region to take a sigh of relief.
Recently, certain parts of the media have been witnessed to create negative propaganda against the China Pakistan Economic Corridor, terming it as a project that can potentially halt the long-term politico-economic situation of the country says a Pakistani minister.
On behalf of the Government of Pakistan, Minister for Finance and Planning and Development, Dr Shamshad Akhtar issuing a statement has recently said that “Pakistan is fully committed to the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). There is a complete consensus among all institutions and political forces in Pakistan that CPEC is key to the future of Pakistan’s development and prosperity. That’s all.