Chapter 13: Footnote 16

Sansad TV. ‘SH. Mani Shankar Aiyar’s Comments on the Situation in Nepal and the State of Indo-Nepal Relations.’ YouTube, 7 December 2015, www.youtube.com/ watch?v=rb99bsPrm-E. It can also be accessed at the book’s website: http://www.amaverickinpolitics.com or by scanning the QR code at the end of this chapter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rb99bsPrm-E

It was against this background that I rose to speak in the Rajya Sabha on 7 December 2005 as the last speaker from the Opposition benches. Extracts:

SHRI MANI SHANKAR AIYAR (Nominated): Mr. Deputy Chairman, Sir, the hon. Minister of External Affairs in the Statement that was laid on the Table of the House on Thursday has repeatedly used the word 'advice'. It is for the party who is advised to decide whether the advice tendered should or should not be taken. What has ruined our relationship with our most important strategic neighbour is that, in reality, we have converted advice into orders. You cannot force your advice on a sovereign, independent Constituent Assembly.

Nepal's Constituent Assembly has 116 elected representatives from the Terai region. Of these, 105 Terai representatives voted for the Constitution. Do we know the Nepal Terai better than the Terai's democratically elected representatives? Yes, we warned that an agitation would break out if the amendments we proposed were not accepted. Who is running that agitation? Certainly not the 105 elected representatives of the Terai region who were in the Constituent Assembly and voted in favour of the Constitution. Only eleven elected Members of the Terai voted against it. I think we should have some sense of proportion in whom we support and whom we don't. We have a Madeshi delegation in Delhi just now. It consists of four members. Three of them were defeated in the elections. The fourth stood in two constituencies and lost from one. So, who is representative of the views of the people of Terai? Should our interference in Nepal's affairs amount to telling the voters of the Terai whom they should vote for?

Sir, instead of rushing a special envoy to sort out the practical problems caused by the current agitation, the only special envoy the Government has sent was a man who, according to one Nepali commentator, behaved as if he was Lord Curzon. Now, I know this Foreign Service officer. He has high propriety. He is a very well-behaved, well-spoken young man. So, why did he behave as if he was Lord Curzon? Was he under instructions from the Prime Minister's office to misbehave in Nepal? In any case what did he achieve from this misbehaviour?

Sir, we have only last month debated our commitment to the Constitution which we adopted on the 26th of November 1949. Would we have stood for a foreigner arriving uninvited the next day to tell us not to promulgate our Constitution, not to proclaim it? That is exactly what happened in Nepal on the morrow of their ending seven years of earnest struggle to arrive at a national consensus. They had arrived at a national consensus. Why were we trying to undermine that national consensus, especially when the situation in our country is that we can amend our Constitution more than a hundred times?...

If we can amend our Constitution 122 times, why cannot we trust the Nepalese to make their amendments after promulgating the new Constitution? Please remember, Sir, the Constituent Assembly has decided that the Parliament which exists just now will continue functioning as a Constituent Assembly even after it becomes a Parliament. And there has been a decision taken by the Nepal Cabinet, which is in the public domain, that there are outstanding issues and that they will sort this out through amendments to the Constitution. It is they themselves who are pledged to do this. Why should we go and tell them that we don’t trust you, we want you to do it immediately and do it today because the day after tomorrow you are promulgating the Constitution. Is this the manner in which we treat with a sovereign neighbour of ours?

We have added insult to injury by describing their largely adopted Constitution — there were only 25 Members who voted against it; more than 500 Members voted in favour — and yet we described, in our official spokesman’s statement, their Constitution as ‘a Constitution’ and not ‘the Constitution.’ There is not a word of felicitation, no congratulations on their changing a Hindu Kingdom into a secular Republic and there is not a word of welcome. So, naturally, the Chinese stepped in. We gave the Chinese a golden opportunity of being one-up on us in the general affections of the Nepali people.

Sir, let me just read out to you one Nepalese comment. “All the good will” – he is referring to Prime Minister Modi’s visit – “has now been squandered by the decision-makers in New Delhi who have callously turned an entire generation of Nepalese against India.” This is the great achievement of our democracy as viewed by The Nepali Times on the 5th December, 2015.

We have another Nepalese commentator, Yubraj Ghimre, who writes in The Indian Express, saying that “the current standoff is only a manifestation of India not knowing where and when to stop, even when there were clear signs of India’s role being counter-productive.”

I have a final quotation from another Nepali commentator, Krishna Sanjali, who said that “the standoff between the two neighbours is not really about the recently adopted Constitution or the rights of the excluded plains community, it is about bruised egos in the New Delhi establishment trying to teach Nepali politicians a lesson for not listening to them”.

Is this how we wish to be perceived in Nepal? Is this not how we are being perceived in Nepal? The children of Nepal are being told that they cannot go to school because India is stopping them. The women of Nepal are being told that they cannot have food, fuel, medicines and vaccines for their children, because India is stopping them. What are we achieving by this kind of behaviour?...Nepal, we have considered, as our paasbaan (frontier guard). I am quoting from Iqbal. Nepal is the guardian protecting us from the North, and it is this paasbaan that we are humiliating in the manner in which we are doing.

However noble might be your intentions, Madam Foreign Minister, I am afraid, this is not the way to pursue them. I really find it impossible to imagine that this is your foreign policy. When one reads your statement, a sweet reasonableness pouring like treacle comes out of it. So, who is responsible for this kind of bad behaviour? Who is being an authoritarian and making you behave like an authoritarian in a neighbouring country…

Whether the hon. External Affairs Minister agrees or not, we have, in effect, imposed an undeclared blockade on Nepal. Most public opinion in Nepal believes that we have. This has alienated an entire generation and an entire people from us. Is this the strategic objective of your foreign policy in our northern neighbour?

Again and again, it is being stated in this House, and I trust you would respond to it, that the UNICEF Executive Director has estimated that 3 million children or 30 lakh children, as pointed out by Shri Ram Prakash, under the age of 5 are at risk of death or disease if the blockade continues. This is a human tragedy of such proportions that the least humanity should have led to our rushing teams to Nepal to work with the Nepali authorities on finding alternative routes or on pacifying the agitators. It has been pointed out in this debate that there are many routes into Nepal. My own information is that there are 27 of these and only one of these is blocked, or, perhaps, one-and-a-half of these is blocked. Why are we not doing the humanitarian thing of ensuring that through other routes along this border, which is 1,800 km. long? Can we not find entry points to go in there? Dr. Karan Singh made a suggestion that we airlift vital medical supplies, at least, to them, that we airlift and find some way of getting the fuel in there, for if we don’t, it is not as if Nepal does not have an alternative. Nepal can either look southwards or it can look northwards. For a long, long time, the Himalayas were impenetrable. They no longer are. They can be penetrated, they can be flown over, and there are land routes that can be opened between Tibet and Nepal. If any of these were to be used, then the strategic objective of our having a certain number of independent sovereign States on the northern borders of India will be defeated. If they are defeated, our internal security is more threatened than by the Whistleblowers’ Protection Bill!

Are we siding with the agitators? There seems to be a suspicion everywhere, not only in Nepal but also in several sections of India, that we are siding with the agitators. If we are doing so, then we are only exacerbating the situation. This is not Panchsheel; this is bullying. This is what Rajiv Gandhi used to call, the “Quest for Dominance”. He used to say this about the Imperial powers. He must be wondering why we have become victims of that syndrome…

Please don’t create a situation in which clashes are provoked. Remember, there are five hundred thousand, i.e., five lakh Madhesis living in Kathmandu and in that Valley, if you start joining hands with those who are conducting the agitation instead of functioning as a good neighbour who pacifies matters, you may end up endangering the very people whom you pretend to protect. Please do not allow the situation in Nepal to become as that of Sri Lanka in 1984. Please stop all this provocation; turn to the Nepalese as a friend; stretch your hand out to them… (otherwise) we will lose the game to the Chinese and forfeit the goodwill of the Nepalese people for years and years to come.

Thank you, Sir”