India stems Chinese tide in Nepal with back-to-back visits

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India has stalled the advance of the Chinese juggernaut in Nepal—at least for now—by robustly re-engaging the leadership in Kathmandu, which began to show late resistance to Beijing’s attempt to draw the Himalayan nation into its orbit of influence.</p>
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Two high-profile visits from New Delhi—first by the chief of the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), Samant Kumar Goel, followed by that of Chief of Army Staff, Manoj Mukund Naravane—have set to tone to stem the pro-China tide in Kathmandu, and re-boot New Delhi-Kathmandu ties. These two visits have fire-walled space for a possible initiative—seizing trip to the Nepalese capital by Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla later this month.</p>
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The Hindustan Times is reporting that the Foreign Secretary is expected to head for Kathmandu on November 26. India’s activism in Nepal follows a well deep-think assessment that Chinese inroads in South Asia, including Bangladesh, Maldives, and Sri Lanka, has to be firmly pushed back, as part of a broader riposte in the Indo-Pacific area. The United States, Japan and Australia—which along with India form the Indo-Pacific Quad—have become India’s core partners in insulating the region from excessive Chinese influence.</p>
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Keeping the commercial sea lanes of the Indian Ocean and the West Pacific, on either side of the Malacca straits is at the heart of the budding partnership of the four democracies. The bridge building exercise between India and Nepal—two civilizational neighbors with a unique and unrivalled cultural affinity—was possible only after the Nepali leadership took concrete trust-building steps.</p>
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On August 15, India’s Independence Day, Nepal’s Prime Minster K.P. Sharma Oli reached to his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi on the phone, signaling that after its unrestrained dalliance with Beijing, the Nepali leadership intended to reset soured ties with New Delhi. Nepal also took two other major steps, which were well received in the Indian capital. Oli sacked his garrulous defence minister Ishwar Pokhrel, who revealed himself as an avid India-basher by de facto siding with China at a time when a military standoff between India and China had hardened in Ladakh.</p>
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Pokhrel specifically went ballistic against Gen. Narvane who had opined in May, without naming Beijing, that the Nepal government’s protests over a border road built by India in Uttarakhand, was at “someone else’s behest.” As tensions spiraled, Nepal made cartographic changes in its official maps, which included Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and Lipulekh, at the geopolitically sensitive tri-junction of India, Nepal and China, as part of Nepal.</p>
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But Nepal’s decision to withdraw school textbooks with the new map, further encouraged India to re-energize its historic relationship with Nepal, building on the common DNA of the two neighbors. Riding on the groundwork that has already been accomplished, Shringla’s mission to Kathmandu is expected to finalize the schedule for the meeting of the India-Nepal Joint Technical Level Boundary Committee to address the border issue.</p>
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But the visit will also have a broader agenda including revival of the Pancheshwar multipurpose project on the Mahakali river. Shringla’s visit is expected to magnify India’s soft power push in Nepal—a common theme of India’s regional outreach, which has already been suitably amplified, and drawn global attention—in Afghanistan. During his stay, the Foreign Secretary, is expected to flag India’s intent to provide Nepal stocks of coronavirus vaccine, once they are ready.</p>
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This will offer the Himalayan state a pathway to counter China’s aggressive Covid-19 vaccine diplomacy. India’s growing focus on soft-infrastructure was spotlighted on Monday, when a new school building, raised with the help of a Rs 26.24 million grant, was inaugurated in the interior Dhanusha district, in the outer Terai region. The funding follows an agreement with Nepal, where India will focus on High Impact Community Development Projects (HICDP). With an eye of education, New Delhi has already completed 428 HICDP undertakings s in Nepal, and 21 more are in the pipeline.</p>