N. P. Upadhyaya: Chronic Communism has tentatively sneaked into Nepal’s Republican order that has Chinese fervor. This much is visible when one listens to the ban imposed by the PM Oli led RED government that there remains no such a place from where the common Nepali population could ventilate their grievances or for that matter express ire against the soi disant functioning of the Singh Durbar power set up?

Bad omen. First step to authoritarianism?

To put it mildly, the freedom of expression has thus been curtailed and the process has already begun with the ban on the Maitighar Mandala area which has been declared already a prohibited zone. The population will perhaps be not allowed to ventilate their anger against the Government’s faults.
Though this area has been best unutilized by various “funded” NOG/INGOs in order to push their “doctored” demands forward and let the population at large to understand their messages to which these organizations wish to sound or have been told to air.

Let’s take it in a very simple way and console ourselves by considering for sure that the long awaited “Communism has entered Nepal much ahead of the Chinese rail”.
Enhancing relations with China should mean now, so long as this government formed with the merger of the Jhapa’s home grown and the Delhi nursed Maoists that we shall have to pay tax in the form of appreciating and adopting the Chinese style of Communism. It is just obeying or for that matter practicing the system not of your preference by the alien’s choice.
So it is just that previously we used to be dictated by the South and now it is by the North. Dictates remain the same, however, there have been change only in direction of the origin of the prescriptions and sermons.

But this is not to say that China is a dangerous friend comparatively. China excels India at least in that India declares the same financial grants to Nepal which she have had acknowledged a decade ago. Each time, Nepal-India Summit takes place, the same yet to be donated amount surfaces for a fresh award for Nepal and the ugly scene gets repeated. This has been happening since 1990-the year degeneration of Nepal began in earnest. In 2005-6 the country practically collapsed. The Nepal of today is just the extension of the same collapsed one of the year as stated earlier. Indian intervention attained a new high since then.

If there is a change then that perhaps is the Communist takeover of the Republican Nepal by Oli and Dahal combined. The Opposition, the Nepali Congress, is left with one single option: Just to cry against the ruling coalition and charging the power set up that it is inching towards a totalitarian rule. That’s all.
However, the population has been witnessing the ever increasing Chinese influence in Nepal that is real and to some extent desirable also just to counter the heavy dominance of the Indian establishment into the exclusive Nepal matters. Compulsion factor!

With PM Oli’s China visit, a beaming and ballooned China is observing the Indian debacles abroad in series, more so in the South Asian region.

As if losing Nepal were not enough, India has very freshly irritated the tiny South Asian neighbor, the Maldives and, as is its inferiority complex ridden habit, imposed Economic Blockade.
Indian loss in Maldives is the Chinese gain. As in the case of Nepal, the Indian blockade came as a blessing in disguise for the Chinese establishment to enter into Nepal. Partially the Nepali populace were forced to seek the Chinese assistance to lessen their over dependence on China. That was certainly a compulsion factor. The Maldives will certainly inch closer to China.
Now that Nepal has already inched closer to China, all that remains to be seen is how the Dragon treats and behaves with Nepal. Whether it is as an equal partner or a lopsided one much similar to what we have had with the Goliath in the South?

Whatever may be the case at the end, the fact is that Nepal is now closer to China and expecting so many things unspoken from China for its development including the entrance of the rail track from Tibet. Earlier the better or else PM Oli would be made an object of laughter by his detractors who pounce occasionally upon him under instructions from above-the South.
Look how a seasoned writer on regional affairs Mr. Bhim Bhurtel writes in The Asia Times, July 2, 2018, about India under the title “India’s myopic muscular neighborhood policy”. In his own words, (sic): Despite one “muscular diplomatic” debacle after another, India has been unrelenting in its bullying attitude towards its small and weak neighbor. India is imposing another economic blockade on a South Asian nation, the Maldives.

A declared enemy is far better than a fake friend. When India is around, enemy is not needed, so talk the Nepali intelligentsia over a cup of tea discussion.
The Indian PM Modi’s diplomatic decline began right with his “hugging” habit that was not taken in good taste by a host of the international leaders whom he hugged or forced them to hug.
In the process of hugging, the Modi-Trump hug perhaps backfired. Look how Shekhar Gupta writes in the Print, June 30, 2018, in his own words, (sic): The most poorly kept secret in diplomatic circles is the terrible meeting that Modi and Trump had in Manila on 13 November 2017. Not only did Trump’s behavior and body language lack his earlier warmth, his conduct bordered on being disrespectful. This came on top of his leaked videos mocking Modi’s manner of speaking. Then Trump hit India on trade. It coincided with British action on visas. It hurts when you’ve been hailing the rising respect for the Indian passport as your big achievement.

Modi got what he deserved.

Very freshly Nickki Haley aka Nimrata, the US Ambassador to the UN visited Delhi and scolded Indian leaders to act on lines as dictated by her country.

She perhaps told India not to import Iranian petro products and soon after the proposed Indo-US meet suddenly got cancelled sine die for the third time. The US hit India hard by being in Delhi. Very sad. Hugging diplomacy did not work.

This perhaps speaks that India will have to pay a very heavy price for increasing tariffs on US Goods.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has a height among the comity of nations to which Modi has not. Justin has the ability to face President Trump then Modi lacks the needed political acumen.

Two external negatives were not the Modi government’s fault: The rise of Trump and a new Chinese assertion, so writes Shekhar Gupta. He further maintains that “Trump’s actions, particularly the change in Iran policy directly led to rising oil prices, destabilizing India’s domestic economy and politics and that the Chinese push for CPEC, unmindful of Indian concerns, and its moves in Sri Lanka, Nepal, the Maldives and Bangladesh showed that China is no longer willing to leave the subcontinent as a zone of India’s pre-eminence.
In a grand satire that it could be taken for Modi, Mr. Gupta says that the “days when a George W. Bush could speak to Hu Jintao on the phone to get India an NSG waiver are over. Xi won’t listen, but more importantly, Trump won’t do it. Because, if Modi is transactional, Trump is more so”.

To put it mildly, President Trump needs at the moment is baby Kim more than PM Modi and the entire European allies. US Secretary of State has already visited Pyongyang very freshly.

The story of India Seychelles relations are also experiencing troubles.

Three years on, after a number of fire-fighting attempts by top Indian diplomats, Modi’s outreach to the Seychelles feels like an episode of Presumption Island. The Seychellois President Danny Faure has terminated the naval base plan ahead of a visit to India. Perhaps he has received as cold a welcome in New Delhi as the one accorded to Canada’s Justin Trudeau, who was greeted on arrival by Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, a man virtually no Indian would be able to recognize on sight. Trudeau hasn’t forgotten the snub, which will certainly rebound on India at some point.
Justin fortunately doesn’t believe in the practice of hugging business like PM Modi.

Though the Seychelles President termed his fresh India visit as a good one, yet internally he is not that happy with the Indian leadership. Let’s wait for the right moment when President Faure signals his distaste against India. Earlier the better for the people of Seychelles. Consider another Modi initiative from his early days in power which seemed innovative but ended in a fiascos: his visit to Mongolia-one of China’s immediate neighbors. The idea was that, as China’s “string of pearls” threatened to encircle India, New Delhi would perform a counter-encirclement. In effect, Modi was saying to Xi as a tit for tat act that, “I see your Hambantota and raise you Ulaanbataar-the Capital of Mongolia.” Modi promised Mongolia a billion dollar credit line to secure the nation against any Chinese threat. The next year, following a visit to Mongolia by the Dalai Lama-the Indian card for China, China struck, blockading the landlocked nation and strangling its economy.
The Mongolian government turned to India for the promised relief and support, but found none forthcoming as has been the case with Nepal. Modi’s targeting of China turned out to be as frail as the archery skills he had demonstrated on his Mongolian visit. Ulanbator was forced to ask for pardon to a Chinese leadership that rules by the Nixonian dictum, “When you’ve got them by the balls, their hearts and minds follow.” (Courtesy Scroll.in July 2, 2018.).

In the meantime, the survey poll conducted and released by the Thompson Reuters Foundation that India is the most dangerous country for the women too has hit PM Modi hard much ahead of the next parliamentary polls.

This poll results will certainly have its own sort of negative impact on the BJP election outcome. The target shall be the current PM Modi definitely. Frankly speaking, Nepali women folks tremble with fear while being inside the Indian Territory. They take a sigh of relief upon entering into their own landmass. This is the fact. The Poll conducted by the Thompson-Reuters is hundred percent correct.

If the Indian congress does a little homework then the BJP under PM Modi could be knocked out back to the Railway station, sorry to say, from where he saw the outside world beyond Gujrat. The blockade pain is still in this scribes’ heart personally speaking.

Having said that, Nepali population have once again abundant reasons to feel unsecured in that the Economic Blockade Expert alias Indian PM Modi is likely to visit Nepal next month.
Nepal should take courage in sounding the Indian PM that he has traveled Nepal enough and that enough should be enough. The news runs like this.
Prime Minister Modi is likely to attend the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit on August 30 and 31 in Nepal.

The summit of heads of governments of the seven member countries — Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal — was to be held in March, but was rescheduled due to domestic developments in the Himalayan nation.

Modi’s idea is to damage the SAARC regional body for good which, he considers, should be replaced by this BIMSTEC sans Pakistan.

Sad that the talkative man is again visiting the sacred land of Lord Pasupatinath. Modi upon arrival in Nepal will initiate sectoral secret meetings with his preferred political groups and thus will in all likelihood sow the seeds of conflict in this otherwise peaceful nation. Modi should learn from Nepal on how to maintain communal harmony that India has not.

Now for the Road:

Acting Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China, Zhao Lijan last Friday said in Islamabad that under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), western route of the project would be completed earlier than the eastern route, reports APP. Speaking at the National Press Club here about CPEC Project, the Chinese envoy dispelled rumors about the Western Route and said that western route of CPEC would be completed earlier than the eastern route.
He said work on various project under the CPEC was going with full speed and 22 projects would be completed during the current year while 18 projects would be completed next year.

He said around 70,000 Pakistanis had got employment in these projects.

In an interview with the staffs of Nepal matters for America, Ms Jeniffer Loy had interviewed one Indian national, Mr. Narayanana, who adhering to the standar Indian line has said that CPEC employment is not for the host country nationals.

However, the Chinese envoy speaks something that differs with the Indian experts claim.

The Indian and the Nepali media, have been airing that CPEC projects cater only to the needs of the Chinese nationals, however, as the Chinese envoy says, it is not that what has been told to air by their peers.

China’s debt trap bogey too is the master brain of the Indian media which has been copied ditto by their brethren in Nepal. That’s all.