Running head: Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
Tokyo International University
International Security
Sachin Tiwari
18319067
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
Introduction
Nepal and India share a history of similar cultures, norms, and traditions for decades. The
brotherhood between these two nations is shared for centuries, from that era when the calendar
even didn’t exist. Their relationship is deeply consolidated in the field of politics, economy,
religion, and culture. Nepal is a crucial neighboring country for India because of its similarities
in various aspects. Either it’s Nepal’s assistance to India for protesting against the British regime
or it’s India’s role to abolish the autocratic regime in Nepal, the bilateral cooperation between
these two nations has always remained intact. Due to all of these reasons both of the nations have
always been committed to the principle of peaceful coexistence, understanding each other’s
aspirations, and sovereign equality. Due to the presence of a strong bond between these two
nations till today’s date, they share open borders, and thousands of Nepali youths get recruited
into the Indian army to fight for India’s sovereignty.
However, during the end of the twentieth century, Nepal-India relations began to
deteriorate due to conflict of interests. Since India is geographically 22 times bigger than Nepal,
the Nepali government’s trade system was based upon India. Nevertheless, the flourishing
concept of a free market caught Nepal’s attention and it decided not to renew the single trade and
transit treaty with India in 1988 (Ramindar Singh, 2013). For a democratic sovereign nation, it’s
their basic fundamental right to have free trade with more than one nation to reduce inequality
and create healthy competition in the international market. Nonetheless, despite being the largest
democratic country in the world, India couldn’t understand the basic principle of democracy.
Instead, it implemented a thirteen months trade embargo against Nepal, stopping all the imports
and exports from Nepal and ending its sea access and transit privileges. Doing that India also
violated the basic fundamental principle of the United Nations which states that all it’s the
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
fundamental and permanent right of a land-locked country to have transit privileges and access to
the sea (United Nations conference on the law of the sea, 1958, p. 13). From that period till
today’s date the diplomatic relationship between these two countries is getting worse day by day.
The weakening of the diplomatic relationship further escalated under Prime minister Narendra
Modi’s tenure due to India’s interference in Nepal’s politics, expansionist Indian foreign policy
with bully attitude, and radical Indian leadership which claims various Nepal’s cultural heritages
to be its own. As a result of this, the Nepal-India relationship is at an all-time low due to which
Nepal is getting severely affected in its economic development.
Hence in this research paper, I will thoroughly look upon the reasons why Nepal is
severely getting affected by aggressive Indian policy from the past few decades. The main
reasons for my research question will be divided into three sections where I will first formulate a
hypothesis to my research question. To consolidate my argument, the hypothesis will be further
examined in a case study scenario. The major two factors which I have considered for my
research paper is the Nepal-India relationship before 1988 and after that. The elements that will
be analyzed during that time period will be Nepal’s economic growth, rate of infrastructural
developments, and technological advancements derived from bilateral cooperation between
Nepal and India. At last, the ways through which Nepal can minimize the increasing Indian
influence will be briefly discussed.
My motivation for writing this research paper is to create awareness for the international
audience about the geopolitical importance of Nepal in South Asia. Nepal has been a democratic
nation after the end of the Second World War. However, due to excessive domination by the
Indian government, it is now slowly inclining towards China. The United States of America has
failed to understand the importance of Nepal’s role in maintaining a proper power balance
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
between its important ally India and China. As a result of that, China’s economic debt in Nepal is
at a growing trend in the field of economy and military. Analyzing the Chinese debt strategy all
across the world, there is a high possibility that China may set up various military or paramilitary
facilities inside Nepal in the forthcoming days. This will be a major disadvantage for the
American side in case an Indo-China war breaks out resulting in the heavy defeat of the Indian
side and Chinese dominance over South and East Asia. For all of these reasons, Indian-Nepal
cooperation is very important for the stability and progress of South Asia. Due to that, as a
scholar of international relations, my goal of this research paper is to discuss the possible ways to
stop Indian dominance over Nepal and the role of western countries to meditate the Indian-Nepal
crisis so that their interests are well protected in South and East Asia.
Literature Review
Numerous Indian and Nepalese scholars have researched in the field of Indo-Nepal
diplomatic relationship. However, the result of their research or the argument made by them is
very contradictory. According to their researches and statistics, it can be seen that both of the
countries believe themselves to be the protagonist and another side to being the antagonist.
Talking about the viewpoint from the Indian side, India believes that Nepal has always been
profited by its relationship with India. Since Nepal is economically dependent upon India, it has
helped Nepal in infrastructural development and economic development through various kinds of
funds and projects. However, Nepal has done very little to India in return. It doesn’t even allow
Indian citizens to buy properties and land in Nepal or carry out any form of business activities
inside its territory. However, on the contrary note, the Indian government does allow Nepalese
citizens to possess properties or carry out business in India. They claim that the Nepal-India
relationship is in trouble only because of increasing Chinese influence inside the country. China
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
heavily backs the communist political party of Nepal to use anti-Indian sentiments so that they
can sustain their power. It’s the communist leaders of Nepal and China who pretended to have a
crisis against India even if the actual crisis doesn’t even exist (Constantino Xavier, 2020). Apart
from that, Rishi Gupta (2020) states that various allegations Nepal has made against India are
very misleading and India never has the intention to obstruct Nepal’s progress and interfere in its
internal politics. He further added that India didn’t impose an economic blockade against Nepal.
It was the Nepalese minority groups called Madhesis who interrupted the passage of goods to
protest against Nepal’s newly drafted constitution. To solve the border problem, the Indian
government sent its foreign diplomats to handle this rising issue since it was tarnishing India’s
image in Nepal. India vowed to solve the problem through dialogues in an atmosphere which
would be free from violence and intimidation, which was later labeled as interference by
Nepalese nationalist (Sanjoy Mujumder, 2015). The Indian scholars have always blamed Nepal
for asking India’s help whenever it needs it. However, if it doesn’t like what India is doing they
label it as interference.
On the other hand, Nepalese research scholars argue that India takes advantage of Nepal’s
geographic and economic inferiority over India. Since Nepal imports 65% of daily life goods and
93% of fuels from India, the economic powerhouse of South Asia sees Nepal as one of its states
and tries to control Nepal’s internal politics and economic activities through its will (Deepak
Adhikari, 2020, para. 9). One of the examples of India’s direct interference in Nepal’s politics is
when Nepal tried to promulgate its constitution, Indian Prime Minister Modi clearly showed his
displeasure through his strong statements issued by the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi.
The Indian national newspaper Indian Express even “circulated a seven-point demand for
amendments to the constitution within days of its promulgation” (Ojha, 2015, para. 2). The
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
above action by the Indian government shows that India wants to control Nepalese politics
through its will and whenever it fails to do that, it weakens Nepal’s politics through various
economic embargoes. If we look at the history, economic sanctions have been imposed upon
Nepal every 25-30 years, resulting in Nepal’s political instability and economic fall down
(Adhikari, 2020, para. 13). On the other hand, Nepalese researchers also argue that India is
aggressive in its foreign policy towards Nepal because of its developing relationship with
Beijing. Nepal has acted as a buffer zone between two military powers China and India. Hence,
growing Chinese influence in Nepal possesses a security threat to India especially in recent times
considering their military bust-up on the Ladakh border. The cost of preserving Indian security
has been paid by Nepal in terms of economic failure, illiteracy, lack of proper infrastructures all
across the country, and so on. India is very inconsiderate to Nepal’s growing economic problems,
it wants dominance over Nepal to strengthen its national security. Through various economic
blockades and expensive trade policies it tries to remind Nepal of its relative powerlessness
which is “sovereignty was not a right that it enjoyed but a privilege granted by the Indian
government” (Shahid, 2020, para. 6).
According to my perception, even though there are various articles and research papers
that have been written about the Indo-Nepal crisis, they are heavily one-sided papers. The paper
doesn’t include the viewpoint of both the countries and are highly pro Indian or pro Nepalese.
The majority of the authors who wrote about this topic always described the problem between
India and Nepal but failed to recognize the problems their country has and were less interested in
solving the crisis by fixing their home country’s problem first. Undoubtedly, India is a vital
neighbor for Nepal because it is surrounded by three sides by India. The only solution for
Nepal’s effective and rapid economic development is efficient trade with India. The ongoing
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
Indian trade with Nepal is also helping Indian sides to strengthen its state-level economy. Various
Indian states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh are heavily benefited from ongoing trade with
Nepal in terms of employment and business activities. Not only that, the water resources on
which the whole Bihar state is dependent originates in Nepal. The conflict between these two
nations harms the overall economy of Nepal and the state-level economy of India. Therefore, the
ongoing problems of India and Nepal must be solved on mutual understanding and cooperation.
In my research paper, I will try to find out the problem Nepal has in its relationship with India.
After deeply explaining the reasons behind Nepal’s failure to stabilize the aggressive foreign
policy of India, I will also try to find out a middle-ground solution which I think is the best way
to minimize Indian influence in Nepal without intimidating or offending our key neighbor India.
Since I believe that the Indian-Nepal crisis can only be solved by fixing one’s internal problem
first, my paper will focus more on the problems my country has rather than baselessly criticizing
the Indian government.
Theory
Nepal has been deeply affected by India’s aggressive foreign policies not only because of
India’s dominant nature. Considering the geographic and economic dominance of India and
Nepal’s heavy economic dependence upon India, it’s very rational that India tries to possess
some control over Nepal. However, it’s up to Nepal on how it counters the aggressive foreign
policy of India. In the modern international system, there are various agencies and platforms
which work to strengthen the relationship between the two nations. In the globalized era where
nations are connected through trade, the aggression of one country can easily be countered by the
other even if it’s geographically, economically, and militarily inferior. For example, Laos is one
of the small countries like Nepal surrounded by big neighborhoods like China, Vietnam, and
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
Thailand. However, it has been able to make use of its neighborhood fruitfully. Laos has a
rapidly developing economy fueled by trade as there is healthy competition between its
neighbors to invest inside Laos. It's not that Laos is untouched by the aggressive foreign policies
of the powerful nations surrounding it. It has been affected by Bangkok and Beijing`s aggressive
strategy before. However, due to intact foreign policy, it has been able to check and balance the
influence of China and Thailand inside its region (Strangio, 2020).
From the example of Laos, what Nepal can learn is having two powerful countries as a
neighbor can indeed be a plus point for the country's economy if it can check and balance the two
nations' influence inside its territory. However, Nepal has failed to make use of two powerful
nations surrounding it which has resulted in the devastation of Nepal`s economy, chicken games
between India and China inside Nepal, and unstable national politics. It is mainly because of
three major reasons which are Nepal's weak international presence, shallow foreign policy, and
disintegrated internal politics.
1. Nepal`s weak international presence
Like its neighbor India, Nepal was never colonized by ay western power so it has always
been a sovereign nation. Talking about history, Nepal was the first country to recognize countries
like the USA, Israel, UK, and many European nations in South Asia. During the First World War
and Second World War, it even sent several thousand troops to fight on behalf of Great Britain.
From historical data and events what we can understand is Nepal had a great international
influence after the end of the Second World War. The king of Nepal made his royal visit to the
USA twice during the Eisenhower, Johnson, and Kennedy administrations. Their influence in the
international community especially in the USA was so big and effective that they had even
addressed the US congress during their visit. However, after the end of Reagan’s administration,
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Nepal underwent two major civil wars, one of which was an armed guerrilla conflict for ten
years. Due to that reason, Nepal’s international grip loosened and it became a less valuable
member of the international community. Its focus on the international community deviated
especially after it went to war against Maoist guerrilla forces, a period where Nepal was seen as a
conflict zone by the majority of the western nations.
Soon after the civil war ended in Nepal there were various basic reforms that needed to
be done to recover the nation’s lost economy and stabilize the national politics. During this
period, Nepal could have regained its influential international presence. But due to the victory of
Maoist based communist government, Nepal wasn’t treated very well by the western nations.
Even after winning a democratic election, the White House still considered Nepal’s ruling party
to be a terrorist organization. Due to that, even other European nations like Switzerland,
Germany, France, Belgium refrained from keeping good relations with Nepal (Parajuli, 2008,
para. 1). After the unpleasant welcome for a newly formed system by the international
community, Nepal’s international participation was limited to East and South Asia.
Nevertheless, the Maoist government lost its power in Nepal and again the Marxist
government came into power. It was a period when Nepal started to receive recognition from the
international community. But due to the unstable politics, Nepal’s government started to change
very frequently. Because of the changing administration, its foreign policy also frequently
changed which created confusion in international politics. Western powers were not clear on
where Nepal stood, so they started caring less about Nepal. Even after Nepal drafted its first
democratic constitution and had a stable government for five years, the country was running
without any foreign policy (Bhattarai, 2020, para. 1). On top of that, Nepal’s government was
heavily criticized for being corrupt and the anti-Indian sentiment which was being spread by the
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Prime Minister of Nepal himself dragged Nepal’s credibility to zero. The country now has less
trust in international society due to which none of the nations wants to fully cooperate with
Nepal in its development. The reason for Nepal’s weak international presence is not only because
of the civil wars it experienced but because of the kleptocratic governmental system Nepal had
for the past two decades.
2. Shallow Foreign Policy
The second major problem for Nepal getting affected by the aggressive foreign policy is
its shallow foreign policy. Due to political instability and conflict, Nepal has a vague foreign
policy that neither fully supports India nor criticize it during the time of conflict or disagreement.
On the other hand, its foreign policy with China is also very unclear. Nepal tends to make China
one of its biggest trading partners to strengthen its economy. However, the diplomatic talks with
the Chinese government are very limited. One thing Nepal lacks in its foreign policy is it doesn’t
take sides between its two neighbors. Due to that reason, even if India harasses Nepal, China
doesn’t want to get involved because it doesn’t have strong diplomatic ties with Nepal.
Considering the current Indo-China and China-US rivalry, Nepal’s foreign policy has
been unable to handle these rivalries and turn them to its advantage. Looking at the globalized
system, a developing country always has a good advantage when there is an ongoing rivalry
going on between two of its neighboring countries. Like Nepal, Bhutan is also another country
that is situated between India and China. Unlike Nepal, Bhutan’s foreign policy is heavily reliant
upon India. Due to which India is handling Bhutan's border problem with China. The
government of Bhutan also has a treaty that cites that India will exclusively help Bhutan to
protect its national interest and maintain the sovereignty of the nation (MEA, 2007). Not only
that, but Bhutan has been also highly benefited by Indian aid in the field of education,
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infrastructural development, transportation, and hydroelectricity (Palden, 2019). Looking at the
case of Bhutan, it is rational to say that bold foreign policy for a small country is highly
advantageous. Even though Nepal heavily criticizes India, it doesn’t work out to strengthen its
relationship with China. Kathmandu’s communication with Beijing is not so frequent and in the
international forum, Nepal doesn’t fully support and trust China, which makes the
Kathmandu-Beijing relationship even more complicated (Giri, 2019).
Apart from that, another major problem with the foreign policy of Nepal is its credibility.
Nepal is a sovereign nation and it has full right of self-decision. However, on various occasions,
it looks like China is dictating the foreign policy of Nepal. Nepal’s relationship with China is not
that strong either but when it comes to United States-led programs it tries to interfere in Nepal’s
politics. Nepal has an image of being a neutral country which means that it won’t support any
countries exclusively. However, whenever there’s something of Chinese interest, Nepal’s official
statements are even issued in Beijing. For example, Beijing published a statement on behalf of
Nepal that it won’t be a part of the US-led Indo-Pacific strategy. This angered the USA because
it was Nepal’s foreign minister who requested to be a part of the Indo-Pacific alliance during his
visit to Washington (Baral, 2019). Such kind of double-sided nature and China’s high influence
on Nepal’s foreign policy makes India insecure. Recently, the Indo-Chinese relationship is
worsening day by day, so it is forced to make hard decisions against Nepal. China has never
supported Nepal during the time of border crisis or economic crisis. Hence, it’s foreign policy
should also refrain from being pro-Chinese. The high influence of Beijing in the foreign policy
of Nepal means that it will face aggressive decisions from New Delhi either. Therefore, Nepal’s
foreign policy should be strategic and clear in such a way that it is being protected by one nation
when the other is aggressive towards it. Its foreign policy should be designed to check and
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balance both nations while maintaining good relationships with them. A strong Nepalese foreign
policy certainly helps to neutralize the aggressive Indian foreign policy.
3. Disintegrated Internal Politics
Nepal’s politics has been very unstable even after democracy was announced inside the
nation. After gaining democracy there were mainly three political parties inside Nepal which
were Maoist, Marxist, and Congress. Congress was a pro-Indian political party and the
communist was said to be Pro-Chinese. The government was formed by the alliance of several
different small political parties and due to that reason, only one political party couldn’t run the
government for more than a year. This made Nepal's foreign policy very unstable. When the
communist government was in power, it was seen to be pro-China, and when Congress was in
power, it became pro-India. This decreased Nepal’s foreign policy credibility in the international
community too. Various projects that were agreed upon between the Indian government and the
Nepalese government stopped whenever the communist government came into power. The
Indian side’s heavy investment in Nepal’s hydroelectricity and education went into vain which
stopped Indian investments to some extent. Since India has very little interest in Nepal due to its
political instability, it’s obvious that it won’t let Nepal take one-sided advantage of India either.
For that reason, the Indian government started to become more aggressive towards Nepal (KC,
2017, p. 10).
However, after 2017 to minimize the ongoing political instability inside Nepal, the two
communist parties inside Nepal merged their parties to form a stable government. They won an
election with huge electoral success and even got a majority inside the parliament. Other small
political parties couldn’t even meet the electoral threshold and the Congress party had very few
seats inside the parliament. Finally, Nepal had a stable government for the next five years and a
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stable orientation towards China. However, Nepal couldn’t strengthen its ties with China because
of internal conflict inside the political party. When two parties combined to form one political
party, there was a power struggle between the Maoist front leaders and Marxist front leaders.
Apart from that, the government became heavily criticized for being corrupt and autocratic inside
its party. Due to that reason, various leaders from the Marxist front and Maoist front pressurized
the current Prime minister to resign. During these three years, the main focus of Nepal’s
Prime-minister was not to strengthen foreign policies or international cooperation, he used his
tenure to sustain his power and influence inside the government. His government became the
most criticized and unsuccessful government in Nepal’s political history. The self-centered
politics of Nepalese political leaders led to a disintegrated political system in Nepal (Shakya,
2020, para. 14). Because of that, it became even easier for India to take down the Pro-Chinese
government through its aggressive foreign policies inside Nepal. Due to political conflict inside
Nepal, the economic situation is worsening on a daily basis. Nepal has very little trade with
China and the Nepal-India partnership is decreasing regularly. The newly formed communist
government wasted a very good opportunity to consolidate Nepal’s trade with China.
Nevertheless, the failure of political leaders to do so has deeply affected Nepal’s economy by
India’s strict trade policies and declining cooperations.
Case Study
In order to consolidate the arguments that I made in the theory section, I will test the
Nepal-India relationship between two-time frames, before 1998 and after 1998. I chose these
two-time frames because from 1998 Nepal-India relationship started to break down when Nepal
decided to protest India’s single transit treaty. This event is specifically important in the
Nepal-India relationship because from this time anti-Indian sentiment started to rise inside
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Nepal. In this part, I will examine how my proposed independent variables in the theory section
cause changes in the dependent variable. My proposed independent variables are Nepal’s weak
international presence, shallow foreign policy, and disintegrated internal politics. On the other
hand, the dependent variable is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy.
1. Nepal India relationship before 1988
Nepal India’s relationship before 1988 was very strong because of only one factor i.e. the
autocratic monarchical system of Nepal. The monarchs of Nepal at that time played an important
role in maintaining the neutral image of Nepal. Even though the socio-economic condition inside
Nepal was very poor and the freedom of Nepalese people was very limited, Nepal had a very
clean image in the international community. It is related to Nepal’s monarchical ties with the
British monarchy. The prime minister of Nepal Junga Bahadur Rana was the first head of state
from South Asia to visit the British empire during 1850. He deeply strengthened Nepal’s
diplomatic ties with the British empire through Nepal’s military aid to Britain. In return, the
British also helped the Rana regime to build various modern infrastructures inside Nepal which
are still in use to today’s date. Even though the Rana dynasty lost power in Nepal, the
Anglo-Nepal relationship remained intact. Nepal sent its soldiers to fight on behalf of Britain
during World war first and World war second. The role of Nepalese soldiers in the World War
made Nepal an important ally for Britain.
After 1945 when India was still struggling with internal politics, Nepal had a strong grasp
in the international community due to its direct tie with Britain. Following the strong ties with
Great Britain, King Mahendra went for a world tour where he established various diplomatic
relationships with different nations (Cowan, 2015). The king had such a huge international
influence that they addressed the US congress, hosted Queen Elizabeth’s Nepal visit, and even
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visited Israel, a highly controversial state at that time where none of the South Asian countries
had established its official diplomatic relationship (Embassy of Israel, 2018). The reason why
Nepal was able to have such an influence on the international community is because of British
influenced Nepalese monarchy. Britain influenced the Nepalese monarchy so much the King
started sending their sons to Eton, Harvard, and Tokyo. The monarchs were very aware of the
importance of the free market that had been flourishing at that time. Due to that reason Nepal had
a strong grasp on the international community and India couldn’t be aggressive towards Nepal
because of that. At that time Nepal had no border issues with India and it was not much
dependent upon India because Nepal also had a huge network of international trade. Nepal's
GDP was at an all-time peak during the monarchical system i.e at 75% (ITC, 2017, p. 2). Less
economic dependency over India means Nepal was less affected by Indian aggressive policies.
Not only that, at that time the USA also viewed Nepal as a strategic buffer between India and
China and a Pro-USA state (CIA, 1983, p. 10). Because of Nepal-USA’s strong diplomatic ties
created through frequent state visits by the monarch of Nepal, Indians couldn’t afford to be
aggressive towards Nepal. Especially during the Nixon, Eisenhower, and Johnson
administrations, Nepal was more important to the USA than India. During this period India was
known to be pro-Soviet so the US gave higher importance to Nepal (Shrivastava, 2011).
Similarly, during the monarchical system of Nepal, there was either a direct coup by the
king or a single party system known as Panchayat. The Panchayat system was also a political
party that was directly run by the royal family. So due to this reason, the politics of Nepal was
very stable. The governmental foreign policy was also a pro-west foreign policy that didn’t
possess any security threat over India. Instead, during this period India signed various treaties
with Nepal to accelerate its trade inside Nepal. The 1950 treaty of India with Nepal strengthened
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Nepal-India friendship with free border movement and increased Indian investment in Nepal.
During the Sino-Indian war, Nepal even gave its land to India so that it would be easier for India
to defeat the Chinese force. In this manner, due to the pro-western foreign policy of Nepal and
stable politics inside the nation, the Nepal-India relationship was very strong and Nepal didn’t
suffer much from aggressive Indian foreign policies.
2. Nepal India relationship after 1988
However, after 1988 when the Monarchical government was highly criticized inside
Nepal, the Nepal-India relationship started to worsen. Due to the bitter relationship between the
King of Nepal and the Prime minister of India, the first economic blockade was imposed inside
Nepal (Sharma, 2020). After 1990, the People’s Movement of Nepal became highly successful
because of India’s support, and the King’s involvement in politics was banned. During the
constitutional monarchy, the India-Nepal relationship was normalizing because of stable
government and foreign policy. During this phase, the pro-Indian Congress party came into
power which improved the trade relations between the two countries. However, the good
relationship between Nepal and India didn’t last very long. After the Royal Massacre of 2001,
the current king of Nepal was murdered and his brother came into power. Shortly after he
became King, the parliamentary system of Nepal was dissolved and the king imposed his own
direct rule. The undemocratic move by the King of Nepal was heavily protested by the Indian
political leaders. Even though the King of Nepal tried to gain Indian support his offer was
declined by the Indian government. To pressurize the autocratic King, the Indian government
stopped all of its aid to Nepal including military aid. Following the Indian move, other countries
like Britain and the USA also stopped all of their support to Nepal (Sharma, 2019). Due to this
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political coup, all the Indian investments were taken back from Nepal and India instead
supported the guerilla force to take down the monarchical system from Nepal.
India successfully dethroned the king with the help of several political parties that
revolted against the King’s direct regime. However, after the end of the monarchy in Nepal, the
relationship between these two countries became even worse. When the Maoist party came into
power, he strengthened its ties with China. Nepal’s China-directed foreign policy offended India
a lot and the communist government began receiving heavy criticism from the Indian
government (TNN, 2009). Apart from that, due to the rise of communism inside Nepal other
countries like Britain and Europe also deviated their interest from Nepal. However, the rise of
communism in Nepal was not a bigger problem in itself. If Nepal had a stable communist
government with a consistent foreign policy, it was very obvious that Nepal could gain enormous
amounts of financial and military aid from China. However, the major problem for Nepal
became its disintegrated internal politics with changing foreign policy. Within ten years ten
prime ministers came into power until 2018, each from different political parties. The foreign
policy of Nepal changed back and forth from India to China every year. This confused both India
and China which resulted in Nepal receiving support from neither of the nations. The political
parties were very disintegrated and only focused on coming into power rather than supporting the
existing government. Due to uncredible foreign policy, Nepal’s position inside the white house
went from addressing at the Congress to only meeting the US president at the UN delegation
reception.
Because of corrupt political parties, Nepal became a loan-asking country in the
international community with almost no contribution. If we look at the statistics, the debt of
Nepal is at an all-time high which is 1.8 billion dollars whereas under the monarchical system
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
until 1975, we had no debt at all. The FDI fell in Nepal by 108.9 USD which indicates the weak
international presence and destroyed the international image of Nepal (CEIC, 2020). According
to the data by Transparency International (2019), Nepal is still a highly corrupt country in Asia
with a rank of 113 out of 180. The disintegrated politics, weak international presence, and
shallow foreign policy is making Nepal more vulnerable to India’s aggressive foreign policy.
This has resulted in zero US presence in Nepal and China’s reluctance to openly support Nepal.
The Indian influence is increasing more on Nepal since there’s neither American presence nor
active Chinese presence to counter it.
Methodology
The methods which I used in my research paper to support or check my argument are
qualitative. I chose a qualitative method to test my hypothesis because, to prove the claims in my
research paper, statistical data doesn’t completely help to consolidate my argument. Since
historical events, opinion-based political papers, and academic journals are vital to formulate a
strong argument and build up a case, I backed up my arguments with small pieces of information
provided on research papers, news articles, or political journals. After carefully analyzing and
examining the collected information, the independent variables which I think causes direct
variables to change have been explained. Similarly, the statistical data which I collected during
the writing process for evidence is mostly extracted from the reports of various
non-governmental international agencies. In addition to it, to add more credibility to my
argument and give the audience a detailed look at the existing scenario, governmental treaties,
and declassified information have also been used.
Conclusion
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Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
In conclusion, Nepal is getting heavily affected by the Indian foreign policy because of its
incapability to maintain an international presence, shallow and uncredible foreign policy, and
kleptocratic government. The current condition of Nepal is so pathetic that the economy seems
far better when it was ruled by a cruel autocratic regime. To counter aggressive foreign policy by
India first of all Nepal has to fix the above-mentioned internal problem. After fixing its home
problem, Nepal can counter Indian policy with the help of SAARC. Currently, India seems to be
drifting away from SAARC to the US-led Asia Pacific organization. If Nepal can revive the
SAARC again and start regional cooperation it will firstly benefit Nepal in terms of trade. Apart
from that, it will be easy to pressurize India on the regional scale because India's relationship
with other SAARC members is not that good either. Apart from that, branding its image to be
Pro-China is also another way to decrease Indian aggression. Through this strategy, it will either
attract the White House`s attention in Kathmandu or increase Beijing’s interest. The best way to
do that is by fastening the BRI project in Nepal, a frozen project which was signed three years
ago. Through these two strategies, Nepal can cleverly counter the ongoing Indian aggression and
influence inside its territory.
19
Why is Nepal getting affected by aggressive Indian foreign policy?
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