Visit of HM King Gyanendra A New Chapter in Indo-Nepal Relations
Nishchal N Pandey
Deputy Executive Director, Institute of Foreign Affairs, Kathmandu
The first visit abroad by the new King of Nepal, His Majesty King Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, after his accession to the royal throne has generated both curiosity and positive reaction. He chose his first state visit to be India-the closest country with which Nepalese have familial, cultural and religious ties from the time of goddess Sita and Gautam Buddha., The Shankaracharya appointed a pundit from south India to be the head priest of the famous Pashupatinath temple 900 years ago in Kathmandu, a custom still honored by Nepal. It must be underscored that King Gyanendra is no stranger to
New Delhi
. He has many friends there with whom his personal relations have been exceptional and have been cultivated over the years.
In fact the relations between the royal family of
Nepal
and the top political leaders of
India
barring one single episode have always been warm and cordial. The present chief minister of Uttaranchal Narayan Dutt Tiwari’s mother was a Nepali citizen. During the time of Mrs India Gandhi, the relations was at an all time high. Regretfully, during the late eighties, with the lapse of the trade and transit treaties, the relations crash-landed due to what most people opine was the high-handedness of the Late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.
The last decade of multi-party democracy in
Nepal
has been tumultuous-full of upheavals and political confusion. A revolving door charade and a never ending game of political one upmanship has seen ten Prime Ministers, three general elections – the dates of the fourth one too has already been announced – and resulted in the focus of the leaders turning to the survival of their own position than the uplift of the poor people in the country that had voted them into power. Despite this, it is only the Crown which has at all times abided fully by the tenets of the 1990 Constitution of Nepal. As politicians strive to interpret and use the Constitution to suit their petty interest(s), not even a single instance has been recorded when the palace breached Constitutional norms.
In the words of President KR Narayanan also, the institution of monarchy “has performed a wise and important role in the democratic development of
Nepal
, has provided stability and constitutional focus for multi-party democracy and has earned honor in the entire world.” HM King Gyanendra said likewise, “The fact that I am visiting
India
[first] is, I think a reality, a significant reality more than anything else. And I personally feel that this is not something, which I want or don’t want to, it is the question of what the Nepalese people expect of me to do more than anything else”.
From the last 6 years,
Nepal
has been witnessing a violent Maoist movement which has taken four thousand lives and has shaken the very foundations of
Nepal
’s economy. For the first time, the national budget puts the general expenditure higher than developmental expenditure to pay for rising security bills. We definitely need assistance from
India
to combat this mindless Maoist campaign as it may also have serious implications for Indo-Nepal relations. Thousands of Nepalese work for the Indian Army and a sizeable proportion live and work in various parts of
India
. Besides, one hundred thousand idle Bhutanese refugees are situated in a part of eastern
Nepal
, which is not only political vulnerable, but very near the conflict prone
Northeast India
.
It is this spirit of togetherness and mutuality of interests that the visit has highlighted – the weight and importance both
Delhi
and
Kathmandu
have come to attach and understand. A prosperous
India
that is progressing tremendously in scientific and trained human resource-building and other fields can only be of advantage to its smaller neighbors while an unstable, chaotic and politically confused
Nepal
can never be in
India
’s interest. Although a constitutional monarch, the present political crisis invests His Majesty with a crucial role that he alone (and no one else) can play to safeguard multi-party democracy and guarantee that the vital interests of
India
are not jeopardized inside and via Nepalese territory.
In a nutshell and in plain words, the outcome of this visit is that both have realized the importance of the other!
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