Nepal, Relations with

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NEPAL, RELATIONS WITH

NEPAL, RELATIONS WITH Nepal is a land-locked country adjacent to India, China, and Bangladesh. It lies in the foothills of the Himalayas, dominated by the Kathmandu Valley, where most Nepalis live. Nepal is the only Hindu monarchy in the world and one of a handful of Asian countries to have escaped European colonial conquest.

The foundations of modern Nepal were laid by its conquest by Gurkha ruler Prithvi Narayan Shan in 1768. China defined Nepal's northern boundary in 1792 by halting Nepal's territorial expansion toward Tibet. The Anglo-Nepalese War (1814–1816) culminated in a treaty that defined the southern territorial boundaries of modern Nepal. In 1846 the kingdom of Nepal came under the sway of hereditary chief ministers, known as Ranas, who isolated Nepal and wielded decisive influence over its fortunes late into the twentieth century.

The onset of armed rebellion, sponsored by the Nepali Congress Party (NCP), resulted in the end of almost one hundred years of Rana paramountcy in 1951 and restoration of the sovereignty of the crown. The anti-Rana Nepalese Congress Party (NCP), which had been operating from India, joined their Rana adversaries to form a government, though headed by a Rana. It collapsed shortly afterwards and the NCP itself split in bitter division. M. P. Koirala, heading a pro-Monarchist faction known as the RPP, became Prime Minister. Several palace nominees succeeded him until 1958. More political unrest led to Nepal's first parliamentary elections in 1959, which were won resoundingly by B. P. Koirala (brother of the more monarchical M. P. Koirala) and the adoption of a multiparty Constitution. But King Mahendra, who had succeeded his father, King Tribhuvan, in 1955, seized power in 1960, suspending Parliament. Another new constitution legitimated the exercise of absolute power by the monarch, and Nepal was still an absolute monarchy when King Birendra ascended the throne in 1972.

In 1980 King Birendra agreed to allow direct elections to Parliament again in response to agitation for reform, but the NCP rejected them because of the stipulation that elections should take place on a nonparty basis. A campaign of civil disobedience by the NCP, which enjoyed the support of India because of its espousal of pluralist politics, gathered momentum. King Birendra agreed to a new Constitution in 1990 in the face of widespread street protests, and G. P. Koirala of the NCP became the first prime minister of democratic Nepal in 1991.

Nepal, the home of the legendary Gurkha soldiers, who fought with great distinction for the British Empire and still provide important contingents for the Indian army, remains a largely illiterate and impoverished country. It has virtually no resources, except for the beauty of its mountainous environment, which attracts tourists, and a potential for generating hydroelectric power that could be destined for the Indian market beyond its southern borders. Remittances from migrant workers, including, until recent times, hard currency income from Gurkhas serving with the British armed forces, are an important source of national revenue. More than 70 percent of Nepal's national budget is funded by foreign aid.

Nepal's international trade is dominated by India and is governed by a Trade and Transit treaty signed in 1951. It is estimated that half of Nepal's population lives in India, which exercises no control over inward migration from Nepal. Nepal's highly asymmetric dependence on India has engendered severe mistrust between its elites, and popular Nepali sentiment displays overt hostility toward India. Specific Nepali grievances over trade relations, the sharing of water resources, and demarcation of the border have been worsened by acrimony over the use of Nepal as a base by Pakistani agencies for subversion against India. Nepal also occupies the strategic geographical position of a buffer between India and Tibet, which entails a difficult balancing act between the two giants of the region, India and China. An underlying cause of tension between influential opinion in Nepali society and India has been the latter's historic support for parliamentary politics in Nepal as well as its effective veto over unwelcome outcomes.

Political instability did not end in Nepal with the new democratic constitutional dispensation introduced in 1991, as various factions struggled for position. The NCP government was overthrown in 1994, and a Communist-led coalition came to power. The Communists themselves split, and a radical Maoist group, the Nepal Communist Party, began an armed insurrection, demanding an end to the monarchy and the establishment of a people's republic.

A succession of parliamentary governments, led by different political factions, failed to resolve the deepening political crisis provoked by the Maoist rebellion. Nor did they institute good governance, although Nepal's socioeconomic indices showed some improvement during the decade of parliamentary rule. King Birendra relinquished formal power, assuming the role of constitutional monarch. The army remained loyal to the palace, and despite abrupt administrative reforms, including the centralization of administrative power and wholesale retrenchment of the existing bureaucracy, the old Nepali elites retained considerable influence.

In June 2001 the monarchy almost came to an end when Crown Prince Dipendra Bikram Shah murdered King Birendra, his own immediate family, and other close relatives, fatally injuring himself as well. National grief and mourning followed, after which the sole surviving brother, Gyanendra Bikram Shah, ascended the throne.

The increasingly bloody Maoist rebellion continued, and the eleventh government in a decade of parliamentary rule seemed powerless to resolve the political crisis. A truce with the Maoists in July 2001 failed within months, and a state of emergency was declared, with the army launching a determined assault on Maoists strongholds. Controversy over extending the state of emergency led to the dissolution of Parliament in May 2002. A few months later King Gyanendra dismissed the caretaker government of Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba when he sought to postpone parliamentary elections.

King Gyanendra assumed constitutional authority himself, and has nominated two interim prime ministers from the small pro-monarchical Rashytria Prajatantra Party. A fresh truce was agreed with the Maoists and peace talks commenced, but they also failed, and the bitter civil strife resumed in August 2003. The parliamentary parties, with the exception of the pro-monarchical group, were increasingly alienated from the monarchy, refusing all cooperation until the king restores parliament.

In the following year, the former elected premier, Sher Bahadur Deuba, was renominated as prime minister by King Gyanendra. But he dismissed him in February 2005 yet again, allegedly for failing to make headway in peace talks with the Maoists and schedule parliamentary elections that the end to the conflict was hoped would allow. The declaration of an emergency and assumption of power directly by King Gyanendra, suspending civil liberties and arresting leading politicians, was greeted with emphatic international disapproval. Nepal found itself isolated, with the king at odds with parliamentary politicians, a disrupted economy and no end in sight to the bloody conflict that had already claimed thousands of lives.

Gautam Sen