PYQ Vault · Paper 2 · India & South Asia — Part 2
Discuss the potential role India can play in initiating a possible phase of trilateral economic engagement among India, China and Nepal.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
R1 Nepal land-locked between two rising economies — foreign policy narrowed to both, not widened to the world — trilateral converts zero- sum contest over Kathmandu into positive-sum Rk2 India already holds trade, power and transit instruments — constraint is not capacity but sequencing — begin project by project, not by grand framework
Body flow
functional advantage: largest trading partner + main power market + route to sea — ~45,000 MW viable potential vs 10,000 MW committed over ten years — Nepal already sells power to Bangladesh across Indian grid = trilateral working in practice — Raja Mohan: manage complex interdependence, not compete — functionalist case for shared needs — Lipulekh border trade reopened June 2026, Nepal protests the pass is its own — Himalayan economy still in two separate bilateral tracks
Counter-view
India distrusts BRI and any third presence in Nepal — suspicion dating to Sugauli — China rarely joins what it has not begun — Muni: Kathmandu plays the China card for better terms from Delhi; new government caught between regional and global rivalries
Conclusion routes
R1 India’s own delivery is the first ceiling — 20 MW withheld, transmission limits — begin where politics is thinnest: power, transit, shared water data R2 Chellaney: geography leaves Nepal no substitute for India — Delhi can move first, trilateralism built project by project
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
