Ordinary Nepali's guide to understanding and behaving with the neighbor
I have made a habit of avoiding writing on as many topics as possible. This is because, it is simply impossible practically to scribble on every topic of my interest as there are just too many of them. I would have never come up with this one despite recurrent urges to do so if one small eventuality had not taken place.
Around the time Nepal won a historic soccer match against India a week back in SAFF games, I had done a story on fallout of India's partition for
Asia Times Online which was subsequently carried by
Foreign Policy Journal also. Days after, fortunes had reversed as Nepal had crashed out of the tournament after losing to Afghanistan in semifinals while India had impressively reached the finals by beating the seemingly unbeatable team from Maldives. Coincidentally, the coverage of communal riots in and around Muzaffarnagar in India's Uttar Pradesh was getting priority in Indian media and I was surfing internet with about a dozen related news/analyses from
Outlook to
Tehelka, wondering whether I could do another serious story so soon.
Having seen the antipathy among Nepalis towards India during the Nepal-India match, one Indian friend of mine saw me fixated in Indian magazines and spoke some words that I cannot restate here for their extremely provocative nature. Then he/she added a sentence to this effect: you even have to read the magazines from India and you still oppose India!!
Well, it is absurd to think that the person represents an average Indian. So is the case with some Nepalis who harbor extreme anti-India sentiment and feel compelled to share their words in social media etc. I believe there is a very small proportion of people in either country who bear unnecessary grievance about their neighbors. But they appear to be everywhere because they choose to express their ill-worded prejudices more loudly through different mediums and are thus heard far more easily by others.
The foundation of irrational animosity and hatred towards the neighbors is a misperception of facts and a process of maladaptive thinking: those who are most insecure in their private lives and are in search of an excuse for their personal failure are the most arrogant and aggressive nationalists-- to say euphemistically-- and hence hateful to their neighbors.
#1. Why resent India? The 'Bully' factor
Of course, I cannot unduly generalize specificities and lump every Nepali who feels antagonized by India in same category, that is probably true for Indians who feel the same way about their neighbors including Pakistan. There are multiple causes for which Nepalis resent India. Foremost is a perception that India is a regional bully dictating the terms of developments in Nepali politics. The unnecessary servility of Nepali political leaders towards India does not help the cause: the more people hate their leaders, the more they feel animosity towards India for 'having made' leaders behave the way they do. As the transition period in Nepal stretches with one failure after another of the political parties, people are likely to increasingly see India's meddling not because they get more time to imagine so but because given the absurd impotency of Nepali leaders to sort their domestic issues out at home, India does have real influence among every significant leader in Nepal. Second most sensitive issue on the matter is the apparently 'expansionist' nature of India that happens to manifest as border incursions.
Among other prickly issues is the controversy about birthplace of Gautam Buddha. Every time it is implied in India, even subtly, that he was born there, an irresistible wave of animosity and hatred against India passes across Nepal. The other causes include the gaffes by celebrities who happen to blurt something even remotely derogatory of Nepal, etc.
The average perception among the India-hating Nepalis is this: while India is proudly marching with its impressive economic growth with glittering cities like Mumbai and Delhi and with marvelous airports like Indira Gandhi International airport in Delhi, it is deliberately leaving Nepal behind in the cold; with sluggish growth and little progress, its leaders bickering, industries collapsed, young people drained away and above all, even the birthplace of Buddha stolen through propaganda!
Please note that these are not my views and I may not perfectly capture the essence of anti-India sentiment in Nepal in these words but they represent a large part of reality. Here is how I see the whole issue.
First let me debunk the first myth about India: Nepal is left far behind India in development as India gloriously marches to 'hyperpower' status while Nepal is pushed towards insignificance in world stage by myopia of leaders.
While not baseless, this conclusion is derived from partial reading of India's advance. India may be the world's leading arms importer, only one among 6 world powers having made their own aircraft carrier and, of course, one among the handful of countries to have a substantial nuclear arsenal. Nepal has neither of these but please note that India is also the country where live the largest number of world' poor, a highest proportion of people with preventable/treatable conditions and diseases like blindness, tuberculosis and leprosy. It is said more than half of Indian households lack toilets. Travel to Lucknow and host of other cities in Northern India and you will see the number of people who pass their nights below the open sky in footpaths. Consider the fact that in states where the quacks outnumber the doctors and doctors compete with quacks for quackery, a swindle involving one health scheme of government
amounts to a staggering IRS 86 billion, a staggering one fourth of Nepal's annual budget. In states where hunger and malnutrition strangle people if not straight away kill them, a
decade long theft of food grains meant for the poor amounts to IRS 2 lakh crores, i. e. Nepal's annual budget of approximately 7 years.
My point is, while India is a big country with big pockets, that does not necessarily mean it is more effectively serving its people and 'India' does not mean only the grandiose politicians in Delhi and state capitals; nor is it limited to the ignorant segment of educated middle class who refuse to acknowledge the fate of the poor and the underprivileged in their own land for fear of 'smearing' India's international image.
#2.India is growing despite corruption but Nepal is not
Many well-informed people in Nepal know that India does have its share of corrupt politicians and corrupt practices are not unusual there. But they reiterate: still India is growing despite all that. The estimated per capita GDP of $1500 for India is 2.5 times higher than the value of $600 for Nepal for the year 2012 and this argument appears to be valid. Also, Nepal's tiny, sclerotic and regressing industrial sector is nowhere comparable to the industrial prowess of India where reside second highest number of billionaires from Asia.
On issue of corruption, whatever the efficacy and limitations, Nepal has an independent body named CIAA to checkmate the corrupt practices of the politicians and bureaucrats while India's attempt to install a similar body in the name of 'Lokpal' ended in a magnanimous fiasco last year. While representative data are hard to find, my personal speculation is that the extent of institutionalization of corrupt practices is far more in India.
Coming to growth part, knowledgeable people now increasingly believe
that, the last 10 years of rapid economic growth was 'a corruption bubble' generated by a 'toxic mix of political corruption and crony capitalism' just to quote this
New York Times article.
The message is, while India has indeed grown, it could have done it in far more sound way by enforcing accountability at every step. Now that every person from the PM Manmohan Singh down to the grassroots employee has colluded in an unsavory scheme that gave instantaneous dividends to themselves, the damage done is irreparable. From landscapes desertified by illegal mining to rivers poisoned by toxic chemicals, there is little India can now do to reverse the environmental degradation.
Not that Nepal has developed and utilized natural resources more wisely and accountably, the very fact that most of our resources remain unutilized may be the plus point in the long run.
