Nepal PM hopes to ease India crisis with visit

By Deepak Adhikari

KATHMANDU, Nepal

When he touches down in New Delhi on Thursday, Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal will become the country’s second head of government to visit India in eight months.

Dahal’s four-day trip is aimed at repairing ties with Nepal's powerful southern neighbor, which had deteriorated following a months-long border blockade that paralyzed the country last year.

Nepal accused New Delhi of imposing the blockade by halting the passage of cargo trucks carrying essentials, including petroleum products and medicines. New Delhi, for its part, said supplies were obstructed due to unrest along the border.

Dahal, a former revolutionary who once proclaimed war with India from his hideout in Nepal’s mid-western hills, came to power early last month after striking a power-sharing deal with the country’s largest party, Nepali Congress.

The new coalition government was cobbled together to replace the administration of K.P. Sharma Oli, who had antagonized India and turned to its regional rival, China, to open trade and transit routes for the landlocked country.

On Friday morning, Dahal is scheduled to receive a guard of honor at India’s presidential residence, where he is meeting Indian President Pranab Mukherjee.

The Nepalese premier will then hold talks with his Indian counterpart, Narendra Modi, who visited Nepal a few months after his inauguration in New Delhi in 2014 in an attempt to improve ties with India’s smaller neighbors in South Asia.

Addressing Nepal’s parliament days before the trip, Dahal said he would nudge India to speed up construction of India-funded infrastructure projects that have stalled and push for implementation of past agreements.

“Instead of raising several issues, deepening of trust and implementing past agreements [with India] will be the priority [of my visit]. Our discussions will revolve around issues that are in Nepal’s interests,” he told lawmakers on Tuesday.

Regional observers also believe Dahal will refrain from inking any new accords that may have far-reaching consequences for Nepal, which is dependent on India for imports of consumer goods.

“Because of the legacy of his predecessor, Dahal is unlikely to focus on long-term bilateral deals,” said Purna Basnet, Editor-in-chief of Nepal Khabar, one of the country’s leading digital newspapers. “New Delhi also seems eager to repair ties with Nepal.”

Basnet cautioned however that it would be a little early for New Delhi to regard the Maoist leader as a staunch ally.

“Dahal isn’t an ally of India. Not yet. He is not in a position where he can abandon Beijing and become very close to New Delhi. There’s a tremendous pressure, to strike a balance between the neighbors, from within his party and the people who supported Oli when he reached out to China,” he said.

Akhilesh Upadhyay, editor-in-chief of The Kathmandu Post newspaper, said recent political development in Nepal has forced New Delhi to seek close ties with Kathmandu.

“Finding a balance, in fact, is at the root of Indian dilemma in Nepal. How does it project its soft-power status to gain political leverage to settle the political standoff and yet not alienate a vast number of Nepalis?” he wrote in The Kathmandu Post on Monday.

Both Basnet and Upadhyay agree that Nepal’s political instability -- marked by frequent changes of government -- has threatened to turn Nepal into a geopolitical theatre for the emerging Asian giants.

“The result of current stasis is a little more than disturbing: Prolonged political instability could invite big-power struggles and Nepal will turn into a theatre of geopolitical games, which will be beyond our national capacity to manage,” Upadhyay said.