{"id":33103,"date":"2018-10-30T10:55:50","date_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=33103"},"modified":"2018-10-30T10:55:50","modified_gmt":"2018-10-30T05:25:50","slug":"in-fact-why-it-is-time-for-new-delhi-to-make-nepal-feel-india-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/in-fact-why-it-is-time-for-new-delhi-to-make-nepal-feel-india-open\/","title":{"rendered":"In Fact: Why it is time for New Delhi to make Nepal feel\u00a0\u2018India-open\u2019\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

In Fact: Why it is time for New Delhi to make Nepal feel\u00a0\u2018India-open\u2019<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

Context<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nepal\u2019s political leadership has often felt that India uses blockades of essential supplies to discipline the smaller country. With the China-leaning Left Alliance winning Nepal\u2019s elections, India will have to work extra hard to repair the trust deficit.<\/p>\n

The History<\/strong><\/p>\n

2002: Neutralising the Maoists<\/strong><\/p>\n

In October 2002, when Shyam Saran, then India\u2019s ambassador to Indonesia, was appointed envoy to Nepal, then National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra told him that his mandate was to bring the monarchy and political parties together to \u201cneutralise the Maoists\u201d. The worry in South Block was a possible \u201cRed Corridor\u201d into India.<\/p>\n

Changing of ambassador<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was a little more than a year after the infamous 2001 Narayanhiti Palace massacre in Kathmandu, which left 10 members of the royal family dead and Nepal\u2019s monarchical polity in chaos. Saran was India\u2019s ambassador in Kathmandu for just 22 months before he became foreign secretary, but India\u2019s priorities changed.<\/p>\n

Change of Strategies<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat began as a valiant and mostly frustrating attempt to promote accord between the mainstream political parties and King Gyanendra ended with us switching to a strategy of bringing the political parties together with the Maoists to neutralise an autocratic monarchy instead,\u201d Saran wrote in his magisterial 2017 book How India Sees the World: Kautilya to the 21st Century.<\/p>\n

Left Alliance of Nepal<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the facts on the ground change, countries and leaders have to change their priorities as well. So, as India now watches with a sense of disquiet that Nepal\u2019s elections, held between November and December, have been won by the \u201cLeft Alliance\u201d led by New Delhi\u2019s friend-turned-foe K P Sharma Oli, it must reinvent its strategy \u2014 just like Saran did more than a decade ago, to accommodate the Maoists.<\/p>\n

Efforts from Nepal<\/strong><\/p>\n