by Hari Prasad Shrestha 6 September 2022
The Royal Bengal Tiger, Panthera tigris is a striped animal. It has a thick yellow coat of fur with dark stripes. The combination of grace, strength, agility, and enormous power has earned the tiger its pride of place as the national animal of India.
Tigers are carnivores, they prey on medium sized animals – chital deer, sambars, nilgais, buffalos, gaurs; smaller animals such as rabbits or monkeys and young elephant and rhino calves as well.
Bengal tigers are also found in India’s neighboring countries – Nepal. Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. The national animal of Bangladesh is also Panthera tigris, the Bengal Tiger. Cow, which is sacred to Hindus is national animal of Nepal. The green peafowl is national animal of Myanmar. And the elephant is the national animal of Sri Lanka.
India and Nepal, both are Hindu majority nations, however, both have different national animals.
Cow, the national animal of Nepal, are the most common type of large, domesticated ungulates. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae, are the most widespread species of the genus Bos, and are most classified collectively as Bos primigenius. The national breed Achham cattle which falls in the Bos indicus species is understood to be the national animal.
Cow is a pet animal, lives in sheds near human settlements and the tiger, lives in forest far from human settlements. Sometimes, just like to other animals, tiger also attacks to cow, wherever it gets chance, whether in sheds or when grazing inside a forest.
Mahatma Gandhi considered cow protection as integral to Hindu beliefs, and called “cow protection to me is one of the most wonderful phenomena in human evolution” and “cow protection is the gift of Hinduism to the world, that it is not Tilak or mantra or caste rules that judge Hindus, but “their ability to protect the cow”.
As cow fears with tiger, Nepalese have a perception that India habits with it, in analogous way, how a tiger behaves with a cow and Hindus of Nepal seem to be wary with India and its Hindu regime.
In 2014, when Narendra Modi elected as prime minister of India, people in Nepal were delighted and they had elevated expectations that Nepal also being Hindu majority nation, the new regime in India would certainly ease the difficulties of Nepal.
His first visit to Nepal as Prime Minister, Mr. Modi was successful in spreading good gesture and positivizes of India towards Nepal. People in Nepal praised Modi sincerely.
However, the Indian good gesture could not sustain long time and after it imposed Nepal border blockade by complete stopping entry of goods to Nepal which created a catastrophic situation in Nepal and people suffered from lack of fuel, medicine, food stuffs and other essential items. After promulgation of constitution of Nepal in 2015, India patronized Madhesi leaders of Terai of Nepal to shut down Nepal borders.
The prolonged Madhesi agitation against the promulgation of new constitution of Nepal was an indication that external forces have succeeded in polarizing the Madhesi plain people and Pahade hill communities in Nepal.
This was not the first time India imposed a blockade on Nepal. India first imposed a blockade in 1969 after Nepal challenged the existing mutual security arrangements and demanded that the removal of Indian military check points from the north of country bordering China. Then in 1989, India imposed a blockade after Nepal allegedly purchased arms from China. And after each blockade, Nepali economy has spiraled downward.
During latest border blockade of 2015, hill origin population from some Terai districts of Nepal were evicted from there by the Madhesi communities and currently they are spending miserable life in new locations. The key role in such activities were played mostly by newly arrived Indian immigrants who received naturalized citizenships of Nepal.
Moreover, since then, the slogan of one Madhes of 22 districts bordering India as one province (Ek Madhesh Ek Pradesh) by some regional Terai leaders became more vocal as start of a step against national unity and sovereignty of Nepal.
And some Terai leaders started demanding for multinational state or multinational union as a sovereign entity that comprises two or more nations or states in Nepal.
Many are also pushing for people elected executive President and full proportional electoral system of House of Representatives.
Full proportional electoral system in parliament is most dangerous for democracy and national sovereignty of a nation. It confers full power to political party leaders to select Members of Parliament of their interest based on votes received by a party logo and there is no room for contesting individual in the elections. It would encourage selection of nearest and dearest people of party leaders or their bosses, which could easily make easy to constitute a puppet parliament, which we have experience of puppet government of Sikkim before its annexation in India.
Indian interferences in Nepal started after India compelled Rana Prime Minister Mohan Shumsher to ink the treaty of 1950, in a deal to save Rana regime; on contrary while India was supporting the democratic movement, which overthrew Rana regime within three months of the treaty signed. India succeeded in its ill intention; Mohan Shumsher was deceived, and Nepal suffered badly after that treaty. Had the Indian leaders been an honest friend of Nepal, they should have waited for restoration of democracy to ink the same.
Since 1951, after abolition of autocratic Rana regime, the governments and people of Nepal have been continuously opposing the 1950s treaty asking either its abrogation or review as Nepal has big concern over some articles including unregulated open border with India and provision to import weapons informing India and equal national treatments for people of both countries.
Thereafter the Tripartite Agreement between the Great Britain, India and Nepal was a treaty signed in 1947 concerning the recruitment of Nepalese youth military services of United Kingdom and India, who are superior compared to their respective armies, was also a tactical move of the Great Britain and India to use Nepalese youths fight against friends of Nepal from their sides and protect their citizen from external attacks.
India had always a policy to keep Nepal under its sphere of influence by making it politically and economically weak and over dependent on it. Moreover, it always pressurizes Nepal to formulate its citizenship laws and constitution favorable for border Indians in acquiring Nepalese citizenship certificates, who easily enter Nepal through open borders.
It is true to a great extent that the attracting factors behind acquiring citizenship of Nepal by the poor, neglected Indians across the border are economical as well as political accomplishments made by them in a fleeting period.
Although India has very restrictive policy offering citizenship certificates to foreigners however it always wants Nepali citizenship law to be liberal and comfortable for Indians. In India, for those who have already received citizenship certificates, an investigation has been started into citizenship certificates previously distributed in Assam and West Bengal through the provision of National Registration of Citizens (NRC). Around four million citizens of Bangladeshi origin and one hundred thousand citizens of Nepali origin have been excluded from the NRC.
The citizenship issues have been never ending problem of Nepal. After issuing millions of citizenships certificates by decent, by birth and naturalized to immigrants by loopholes of laws, each time after promulgation and amendments in each constitution of Nepal, Indian as well as western media always portray millions are still stateless people remain in Nepal without citizenship certificates. It is a well-planned campaign to make Nepal full of immigrants like Fiji by filling Indian immigrants in Nepal.
Indian media only portray a grim picture of Nepal as a country cannot survive without support of India. And there is misconception in Indian people about importance of Nepal to India. Indian media and responsible authorities never disseminate to Indian people, how Nepal is more important for India than India for Nepal and why?
First, Nepal is a monopoly market for India. It imports goods worth US$ 15 billion from India annually. If India loses this and goes in the hand of China and Bangladesh, it will negatively affect export industries of UP, Bihar, and Delhi areas.
Second, Nepal is the seventh-largest remittance-sending country to India. Indians work in Nepal send remittance equivalent US$ 5 billion to India, which Nepalese working in India sent the amount to Nepal US$1 billion annually.
Third, Nepal is helping sustain millions of the weakest people of border states of India by providing employment who has been neglected by New Delhi.
Fourth, Nepal’s water has immense importance for India, which can be compared with blood in human life for irrigation in its agriculture and drinking water.
Fifth, Nepalese Gurkhas in the Indian army are supporting and protecting as frontline warriors since democracy to unification of India till date to Indian territories and its people.
Sixth, Nepal has been standing as a wall between India and China, barricading any conflict between them throughout Nepal Himalayas.
India’s policy towards Nepal has been unchanged since its independence in 1947. It did not bother and never wanted to listen concerns of Nepal as result of weakness in Nepal’s political leaderships.
The Kalapani territorial dispute between Nepal and India is a long-standing dispute erupted on May 8, 2020, when Indian Defense Minister Mr. Rajnath Singh inaugurated the road in Lipulekh, Kalapani, stating it was a pilgrimage road Kailash Mansarovar in China. After the Sugauli treaty with India in 1816, this territory was under Nepal until 1962, encroached by Indian security forces in the war with China in1962.
Before the inauguration of this road by the Indian home minister, on November 2, 2019, India’s Home Ministry unveiled a new political map, placing Kalapani inside the Indian borders.
Countering it, on May 18, 2020, the Government of Nepal endorses a new political map placing Kalapani, Lipulekh, and Limpiyadhura, occupied territory by India, within its border, confirming those land under Nepalese territory. Due to a lack of compelling evidence, India was not much interested in talking with Nepal in this issue.
India never wanted to go into sincerely, not only in border issues but also on many other issues, where Nepal is suffering seriously.
It has been a regular phenomenon in plain land of Terai, bordering India, becoming catastrophic during monsoon rain, caused by hundreds of roads, dams, and embarkments illegally built by India along thousand kilometers parallel to Nepal border. Every year, it kills hundreds of people, destroys thousands of houses, makes homeless to millions, destroys thousands of acres of croplands and many infrastructures.
The next issue – India, most of the time intends to impose its one-sided interests during any aviation deals with Nepal, whether it is open sky agreement, air space agreement, Indian air Marshal in flights, re-security check of baggage and passengers by Indian authorities in Kathmandu airport etc.
For more than a decade, Nepal has been repeatedly requesting India for a review of the airspace agreement with the aim of providing more cross-border entry and exit points through western Nepal for airlines that will be serving the GBIA, Pokhara International Airport and the proposed Second International Airport (SIA) in Nijgadh. However, India is always refusing to offer direct two-way additional air routes to Nepal by blocking air routes to Nepal.
Nepal’s industrial productions are declining as result of India’s imposition tariff and non-tariff barriers, additional taxes, quantitative restrictions, quarantine barriers, anti-dumping duty, and product disqualification. Indian products have no trouble entering Nepal but exporting Nepali products to India is not easy.
As a result of Indian protection policy and biased trade treaties between the two countries, many export-oriented large industries in Nepal either get shut down by quantitative restrictions or repeatedly must face unfair tariff, even non-tariff, barriers in India. And industrial sectors in Nepal are almost.
Another area where India wants to monopolize are water and hydropower of Nepal. India has captured most of the major rivers by making several agreements with Nepal to construct hydro power projects, and till date it has not produced even a single megawatt of hydropower from any projects. It has constructed big dams in Koshi river, Gandak river and Mahakali River in Nepal but Nepal has no access to those dams and according to agreement and treaty between Nepal and India, however all these dams inside Nepal are under full control of India.
Despite high potentialities, Nepal’s hydro power sector is still in primitive stage. After 50 years of Nepal’s effort to sold electricity to India, only this year India accepted to buy Nepal’s electricity after problem arose there due to lack of coal to run thermal power plants. Power planners in Nepal are still suspicious and have started to say that India is not a reliable market for Nepali power producers because of sudden policy shifts of India towards Nepal.
Nepal suffered for decades the burden of Bhutanese refugees as Bhutan forcefully evicted Nepali speaking Bhutanese and compelled them to enter Nepal via Indian territory under systematic and planned strategies indirectly supported by quiet Indian diplomacy, which was criminal precedence, encouraged by alignment with a powerful nation, to its minorities by such a small country.
The Bhutanese refugees traveled across Indian territory to arrive in Nepal. India SSB forced refugees to enter Nepal; legally India cannot do it since Nepalis and Bhutanese can move across the Indian border freely. India’s actions supported the Bhutanese dictatorship. India’s stand on this issue was that it was a bilateral problem between the Governments of Nepal and Bhutan and thus needs to be resolved bilaterally. Accepting the refugees immediately was also weakness in part of Nepal by allowing them to enter Nepal through India.
Indian authorities and politicians are spreading misleading information about birthplace of buddha in India instead of Nepal. The Buddha’s birthplace being in Lumbini is something that the Nepali people are fiercely proud of. And the spiritual leader of Tibet in exile Dalai Lama also once spoke in similar tone by saying Buddha was born in India, not in Nepal.
In the last four years EPG Nepal side members are constantly trying to submit joint report to Indian PM, however India is now no more interested to receive the report.
However, Indian prime minister declined to receive the report. As per media reports, Indian prime minister is refusing to receive the report due to pressures from regional politicians, intelligence, and bureaucracy as well in India. Now the report is getting dust as it has been kept with EPG coordinators since many years.
India’s reluctance to accept Nepal India EPG report reconfirms that it is not ready to reset Nepal-India relations in changed regional and global dynamism.
According to media reports, a faction of ruling authorities in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh states of India are against regulated borders with Nepal because Nepal has been paradise of prosperity for their millions of poor border populations.
Despite being 5th largest economy of the world, around half of global poor people live in India, mostly in northern states of India and bordering states with Nepal. If its ever increasing political, social, and economic gap between the rich and poor people is not rapidly narrowed down, the current flow of bordering poor population to Nepal, for better life would not be decreased; most Indian of big cities and southern states may not be familiar with this truth.
Lastly, I would like to quote a famous story of cow and tiger how unity of cows defeated tiger and breakdown in cows’ unity, the tiger succeeded to finish them.
Long time ago, there lived four cows in a jungle. They were best friends. They always grazed together and saved each other in danger. A tiger had indeed an eye upon these cows. But he could never find the right opportunity to make them his prey. One day, the cows had a fight among themselves. Each one grazed separately her own way. The tiger got to know about the fight of the cows. And it became easy to tiger attack individual cow and finished them one by one. So, unity is the strength.
As legacy of British colonization, India has divide and rule policy in Nepal by dividing Hill and Madhesh origin people and interfering internal politics by compelling almost all-party leaders to be its blind supporter. These division between ethnic groups and politicians have been disastrous for Nepal. Without unity among all sections of people to maintain national unity and protection of sovereignty, Nepal can never counter external interferences. All Nepalese must learn lesson from this story.