The agencies in Nepal! The primary positive result of PM Narendra Modis visit to Nepal was in the evident push-back of the Indian intelligence agencies that have been manhandling Nepal politics for many years now. These entities have managed to create a labyrinth of unaccountability that has hurt bilateral relations in numerous sectors. They have allowed some individuals to strut the stage claiming to have the ear of the Lainchaur Embassy, South Block, 10 Race Course Road, what have you. Deep suspicions have been allowed to grow that are not in the interest of Nepal-India, nor Southasia as a wholem. Two countries that should have had exemplary relations across an open border have deliberately been allowed to grow apart. Lets be clear, the overt activism and attempt at micromanagement by the Indian agencies has primarily to do with the weakness of tired leaders of Nepal who find themselves at the end of a political cycle (more on this another time). Of course, this weakening began with the conflict era, when New Delhis PMO during the AB Vajpayee Government allowed the RAW and IB to engage with the Maoists (ref SD Muni). Sadly, this intelligence activism was continued in the 7-8 years of transition due to the pusilanimity of Kathmandus political class (Pahade and Madhesi). There were also Nepali politicians corrupted through direct cash grants and even scholarships for children, others by political ambitions they felt could only be fulfilled by submitting to the operatives that moved about openly in Kathmandu with nary a veil. This is how the unbelievable micromanagement began in all sectors, even putting many Indian diplomats nonplussed and on the back foot. But because these were the intelligence agency, while it was happening, no one knew to what extent... New Delhis officialdom seemed to think all was okay on Nepal-India relations while on the ground second- and third-level apparatchik were running amok, excited about the ability to wield influence over a whole, sizeable, country. What was the budget for all this hyperactivity, who was sanctioning, how much was spent, and who would have built mansions and bought plots in Lucknow or Chandigarh out of money supposedly spent on undercover assignments? Will anyone be doing financial accounting? What, after all, was the capability of these intelligence apparatchiks that the Nepali political class submitted so easily to, since we know that the best and brightest go to the IFS, IAS or IPS. The muddy murk surely promotes mediocrity. So many Kathmandus media commentators and fellow-travelers simply looked the other way while all this was happening. The grand muftis of Kathmandus opinion-dom were all writing about everything else but this dangerous trend overtaking the polity, and this helped make the micromanagement a reality that came to be accepted by the full hierarchy of Nepali politics. It did not help that the high end New Delhi intelligentsia ignored Nepal, forgetting the importance of this country/economys stable and democratic advance for the advancement of the poverty-stricken parts of neighbouring India - Uttar Pradesh (particularly Purvanchal) and Bihar, to begin with. The few New Delhi scholars and analysts who wrote about Nepal were unwlling to let on. It required a shake-up like the outsider Narendra Modis arrival in New Delhi for these gentlemen to suddenly shift gears, do a 180 degree turn in their punditry - and start telling all and sundry that India-Nepal relationship has to be taken back to the political plane. It became so strident, this call, that it became embarrassing to those who have been saying this over the past few years. In Kathmandu, the very individuals who sat, drank and planned with the spooks now wanted to show obeisance to the new political reality evidently in the making. These individuals never actually challenged the overt activism of the agencies as it was happening, trying instead to push the spooks in the preferred direction. This is evident in the books, blogs and articles that these individuals have been writing recently even as they adjust their sails to the new wind. A full accounting can only come after a full study of the archives of these prolific gentlemen who believed in the intelligence agent as both source and collaborator. For now, one can say that the knowing people in Kathmandu and Delhi writing retroactively about the agency/agencies proactivism proves a point that has been kept under wraps by the very commentators. Prime Minister Modi has come and gone. How successful this trip was for India and its politics/geopolitics is something for New Delhi commentators to evaluate perhaps. As for Nepal, amidst the atmospherics, the primary upalabdhi has been that he has created conditions for politician-to-politician links between two sovereign nations, to be managed by diplomats as directed rather than the spooks. It remains to be seen whether the nervous, agitated and ever-quarreling political class of Kathmandu can respond to this fine turn of events, which was not their own doing. End note: Shyam Saran, Indias Former Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to Nepal, in todays Himalayan Times exclusive front page opinion piece: What are the prospects for India-Nepal relations in the wake of this important bilateral visit? The restoration of high level political engagement between the two countries is arguably the most important development... A relationship as important as this should never have been devolved, by default if not by design, to bureaucrats and agencies, with increasingly limited political involvement. My response: Astu.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 02:47:51 +0000
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