Nepal

India’s relationship with Nepal is at its lowest point since the five-month “Indian Blockade” of 2015. The gap between Kathmandu and New Delhi is widening as India has not been able to keep up with transformations in Nepal and uses old lenses to view its neighbor.

COVID-19 cases continue to rise rapidly in South Asia. For months, South Asia was spared the worst of the pandemic.

As Modi, Khan, Hasina, and other leaders tackle COVID-19 (coronavirus) by prolonging national shutdowns, economic forecasts indicate a rocky year ahead for South Asia.

As 2019 came to a close, annual reports showed just how nations' economies and governments measured up—and how countries in South Asia slid backward on many metrics. Plus: an island settlement for Rohingya refugees that leaves questions unanswered, continued protests in India, and a new approach to counter poaching in Nepal.

Welcome to “Women Around the World: This Week,” a series that highlights noteworthy news related to women and U.S. foreign policy. This week’s post, covering October 25 to November 1, was compiled by Yuxin Lei and Rebecca Turkington.

Sujeev Shakya is the author of Unleashing Nepal and chairs the Nepal Economic Forum. www.sujeevshakya.com  India has a lot to do to rebuild its relationship with Nepal. Nepali Prime Minister K. P. Oli visits India this week with a jumbo delegation at a time when Nepal-India ties have plunged to their lowest point in recent history. India had just shored up its image in Nepal with two successful visits of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in August and November of 2014, followed by unprecedented support in the relief and rescue efforts after the April 2015 earthquake. But the warmth chilled by September 2015, with the announcement of a new constitution in Nepal and an “informal” blockade on trucks heading across India’s border with Nepal. Nepal officially promulgated a new constitution on September 20, 2015. The constitution resulted from eight years of deliberation, and 90 percent of the constituent assembly approved the text. It was the culmination of hard-won peace in Nepal after the end of a ten-year Maoist insurgency. Nepal has seen the end of 240 years of monarchy and transitioned to a federal republic through a difficult but ultimately successful peace process that incorporated the one-time Maoist insurgents into mainstream politics. When India merely noted the completion of Nepal’s constitution in a press statement, it was clear that New Delhi was not satisfied with the end product. Although a big achievement, contentious provisions in the new constitution triggered controversy within Nepal and attracted criticism from India. The most critical issue concerns citizenship rights. The constitution does not treat Nepali women and men equally when it comes to passing on citizenship to their children. Questions also remain over whether a foreigner naturalized as a Nepali citizen can hold political positions. Additionally, some—especially the Madhesi communities living along the border with India—are dissatisfied with the way the constitution demarcates states. “Informal” Blockade The Madhesis, many of whom are of Indian origin and live in the plains near the Nepal-India border, launched protests against the constitution before its adoption, as they felt their interests were not well represented in the process. Historically, Nepal has been ruled by members of what are called “the hill community” in Kathmandu. During Nepal’s transition from monarchy to federal republic, the Madhesis agitated for greater representation in the political process. Following the official release of the constitution, activists of the Madhesi community took out protests at the border and appealed to the Indian government for an intervention. From Nepal’s perspective, India obliged by tightening the border points, effectively imposing an “informal blockade,” in order to pressure Nepal into making changes to the constitution. (The Indian government denied imposing a blockade, and said that drivers feared entering areas of unrest.) Nepal, a landlocked country, depends on Indian ports and transit routes, formalized through a bilateral transit agreement. Nepal’s biggest import is petroleum products that come through India. The choking of petroleum products and other supplies took a massive toll on Nepal, especially since the country was just recovering from the devastating earthquake. In the cold winter months, the largely hydropower-generated electricity supply experiences up to one hundred hours of disruption per week. The blockade only ended after Nepali leaders announced plans to amend the constitution to address Madhesi concerns. Delhi Is Far Away Before India’s capital was moved to New Delhi from Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) in 1912, the Indian government was physically closer to its neighbors to the northeast. With India’s capital now in New Delhi, India’s Himalayan neighbors appear distant not only geographically, but also in thought, culture, and economic sphere of influence. One result is that countries such as Nepal are seen as buffer states in a strategic competition between India and China. The two fought a border war in 1962, and the border to this day remains unresolved. India watches closely to see how China’s influence may be growing in Nepal. The months of the blockade led the Nepali government to seek fuel supplies for the first time in history from China, across the far more difficult northern border terrain. Oli’s Temporary Triumph and Days Ahead Prime Minister Oli of the United Communist Party - United Marxist Leninist (UML) has benefitted the most from this Indian strategic mishap. The blockade gave him a platform to raise anti-India slogans—a nationalist sentiment key to political survival in Nepal. Oli leads a delicate coalition of rightists, leftists, and prominent opportunists at a moment when governance has plummeted to a historic low and corruption has risen to a historic high. The blockade led to a proliferation of black markets for fuel through networks that allegedly involved politicians, security forces, bureaucrats, and businesses. Oli knows that, after the blockade, people will turn their sights to his dismal performance. India Needs to Recalibrate For India, the challenge is restoring its image in Nepal. New Delhi’s repeated denials of its involvement at Nepal’s border will only add fuel to the anti-India feelings already running high in Kathmandu. Instead, India should shift the focus of the bilateral relationship to areas where Indian states border Nepali provinces. One route is through subregional initiatives like the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, and Nepal (BBIN) corridor, which will help link India’s Himalayan neighbors with its own states in the northeast. They are the bridge to economic integration with the Southeast Asian economies, critical to unleashing equitable economic growth in India. For this, perhaps India will need to set up a mechanism that trains specialists in the Indian Foreign Service to acquire greater knowledge of countries in the Himalayan region in order to avoid future mishaps. India spends millions of dollars each year to support its Himalayan neighbors, and recently pledged an additional $1 billion to Nepal for earthquake recovery.  Many of India’s citizens in the northeast depend on trade and labor opportunities across the border. To move past the current mood of Nepal-India ties, India should take Oli’s visit as an opportunity to don a fresh set of lenses and make amends.

Several years ago, I went on an “Earthquake Walk” in downtown Kathmandu, a walk designed to raise awareness about the city’s vulnerability to a major earthquake. As we ducked into a traditional courtyard, winding our way through a low narrow corridor before emerging into an open square surrounded by high traditional homes, we saw a big stick propping one edge of a building up against another. I’ve thought a lot about that stick today—its inadequacy, its fragility—as news of Nepal’s quake poured in. Nepal has been waiting for the quake of April 25, 2015 for some years, conscious that it was “overdue” for another. The U.S. Geological Survey has called Nepal “one of the most seismically hazardous regions on Earth.” It sits at the intersection of two tectonic plates, the India and Eurasia, colliding together quickly in geological terms—forty to fifty millimeters each year. That pressure eventually gets released as earthquakes. Source: Reuters Nepal’s last significant earthquake—8.1 on the Richter scale—occurred in 1934. That quake resulted in nearly eleven thousand deaths (around seventeen thousand in both India and Nepal), and caused significant devastation to buildings in the Kathmandu Valley. Prior to that, a quake of between 7.5 and 7.9 took place in 1833. The quake on April 25, measuring 7.8 on the Richter scale, had its epicenter forty-eight miles (seventy-seven kilometers) northwest of Kathmandu. It shook the city; ancient buildings crumbled; and as of late evening Nepal time on April 25, the Nepali government estimated the death toll at nearly fifteen hundred with the expectation it would rise. A major part of Nepal’s vulnerability to earthquake disaster lies in poor infrastructure governance—like the stick serving as a makeshift buttress between buildings. Since the quake of 1934, Nepal’s population has grown, become more urban, and therefore denser. Urban population growth results in rapid building, and Nepal has seen the mushrooming of brittle, multistory concrete structures with little seismic resistance throughout the Valley. Additional levels perched on top of narrow structures originally designed two to three stories high dot Kathmandu’s urban landscape. Buildings like this are clearly not to code by any definition, and create man-made hazard. Due to this known seismic vulnerability, the Nepali government has been focused for some years on a disaster risk reduction approach. The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and supporting governments, including the United States, have worked with Nepal to identify steps it can take. A brief on UNDP’s Comprehensive Disaster Risk Management Programme is available here. Those steps run the gamut from retrofitting buildings for seismic resistance; strengthening governance practices on matters of zoning and building codes; helping Nepal develop a more robust disaster response management capacity; creating better advance preparations for search and rescue to save more lives; and raising public awareness to the steps individuals can take to prepare themselves better. Nepal developed a National Strategy for Disaster Risk Management in 2008, and has been working to implement it. But progress has been halting due to the country’s problem of on-again-off-again government especially during 2012 and 2013. Nepal has declared a state of emergency now. UNESCO World Heritage sites in downtown Kathmandu have crumbled, and more news of widespread damage will likely emerge in the coming days. Nepal will need all the help it can get from its neighbors. India is taking the lead on humanitarian assistance and has already sent flights with relief and rescue personnel; Pakistan has offered assistance as well, and Nepal has asked for help from China. Other international partners are mobilizing quickly—the United States has sent $1 million and a team of disaster relief experts. It will be grim work to identify and rescue those trapped, and then rebuild in the days to come. I am quietly hoping that the courtyard homes with the jerry-rigged stick repaired their walls since that earthquake walk, and that they and their families are safe. Follow me on Twitter: @AyresAlyssa

Lauren Dickey, Darcie Draudt, Charles McClean, Will Piekos, and Sharone Tobias look at the top stories in Asia today. 1. Tensions rise on the Korean Peninsula. South and North Korea exchanged artillery fire across a disputed martime border off the peninsula’s western coast on March 31. Neither side aimed at land or military installations, but 100 of the 500 rounds from North Korea fell south of the boundary, followed by 300 South Korean artillery shells shot into the northern side of the boundary. The incident occurred not far from Baengnyeong Island, where in March 2010 North Korean torpedoes sunk the South Korean warship Cheonan. The artillery barrages follow increased protests and heightened rhetoric from Pyongyang in response to annual joint U.S.-ROK military drills.On April 1, South Korea discovered a small unidentified drone, which Seoul alleges came from North Korea, shortly after the exchange of fire on Monday on Baengneyong Island. Following these events and amid rising tension, South Korea announced on April 4, that it successfully tested a ballistic missile capable of reaching most of North Korea, which has been test-firing short- and mid-range missiles of its own in throughout March. 2. Philippines seeks UN arbitration over South China Sea dispute with China. Manila has submitted its claim to the tribunal that arbitrates maritime disputes under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Under its ‘nine-dash line,’ Beijing’s territorial claims encompass much of the South China Sea and overlap with the exclusive economic zones (EEZs) of Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Manila would lose 80 percent of its EEZ in the waters off the western Philippines if it accepted Beijing’s line. Chinese media have been dismissive of the claim and have thus far chosen to unilaterally reject UN arbitration of the dispute. 3. Environmental protests in China lead to arrests; four rumored to be killed. Thousands of residents in the southern Chinese city of Maoming protested a petrochemical plant this past week. One post on microblogging site Weibo claimed that four teenagers had been killed in the clashes, and many pictures showed paramilitary police throughout the city. Eighteen protesters have been detained, according to state media. Protests have also spread to other cities in the area, including Shenzhen and Guangzhou. The plant would produce paraxylene, or PX, a chemical used to produce plastic and polyester. Protesters have taken to the streets over PX plants before; citizens of Xiamen were able to get a plant moved to another city in 2007, and mass protests in Dalian in 2011 and Kunming in 2013 elicited similar promises. An opinion poll by Jiao Tong University in Shanghai found that 77 percent of respondents believe that environmental protection is now more important than economic growth. 4. UN court orders Japan to halt Arctic whaling. The UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled that the Japanese government must halt its whaling program in the waters around Antarctica.  The ruling ends a program that has captured more than ten thousand whales since 1988 in the name of biological research. The Japanese government has agreed to abide by the ruling, despite the central role of whaling in the Japanese culture. While the ICJ ruling is a whale of a win for environmental organizations, questions remain over whether Japan will find a way to keep hunting the mammals of the sea. 5. Human rights group finds Tibetans repressed in Nepal. Human Rights Watch released a report Tuesday documenting repression faced by Tibetans in Nepal, which they claim is a result of political pressure from China. Many of the 20,000 Tibetans in Nepal entered the country illegally from China, and at times are forcibly returned, in violation of an agreement between Nepal and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. China has become a top foreign direct investor in Nepal in recent years, which Tibetans say has led to a crackdown by the Nepalese government on their community. The report claims a de facto ban on political protests against China in Nepal and that Tibetans have less freedom to promote their culture. Since 2009, more than 120 Tibetans in China have set themselves on fire to protest the government’s policies. BONUS: North Korea reveals logo for its new space agency. North Korea’s National Aerospace Development Administration (NADA) revealed its new logo on Monday: a retro blue circle that is reminiscent of NASA’s earlier logo, though with a Joseon twist. Here, the Big Dipper “reflects the will of the space scientists of the DPRK to glorify Kim Il Sung’s and Kim Jong Il’s Korea as a space power,” according to North Korean state media agency KCNA [Korean]. The agency is overseen by the Korean Committee of Space Technology, which was reportedly founded in the 1980s. The pessimistically named NADA has had only one successful launch of a since-failing Earth-orbiting satellite in December 2012 that was promptly condemned by the UN Security Council.

In a year of many tumultuous events, these ten developments stood out—in my personal view—as the most consequential stories for India and South Asia. It was a year of many elections, of protests, and of change. Herewith the list, with a few links for further reading: Indian women stand up for change: It was a year of extraordinary attention to women’s rights in India, spurred first by mass outrage at the December 2012 gang-rape of Nirbhaya in Delhi. Parliament passed a new, more comprehensive law on rape with dispatch; fast-track courts fulfilled their name, bringing justice quickly; a new sexual harassment law was implemented; and more than ever before, women stood up for their rights. Nawaz Sharif’s return: Nawaz Sharif, twice prime minister of Pakistan in the 1990s,  successfully defeated the Pakistan People’s Party in the May national elections. This first peaceful transition of power from one elected civilian government to another marked an historic benchmark for a country that has oscillated between civilian and military governments throughout its history. Narendra Modi’s definitive rise: Though his political rise had been chronicled in the press for several years, it was 2013 that witnessed the scale of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi’s mass appeal across numerous states in India. His formal anointment in September as the Bharatiya Janata Party’s prime ministerial candidate for the 2014 elections put an end to speculation of intra-party rivalries, and fueled endless polls and speculation about a NaMo versus RaGa showdown in India. Largest accident in garment industry history: The April 24 collapse of the Rana Plaza building in Bangladesh led to the garment industry’s worst tragedy in history, with more than 1,100 dead and a heartbreaking, more than a week- long rescue operation to search for survivors. [This haunting photograph went viral, symbolizing the heartbreak of this senseless catastrophe.] The collapse led to action from European and U.S. brands and retailers, as well as action from the government of Bangladesh and the Bangladesh garment industry associations, to focus on workplace safety and labor rights to strengthen this industry which employs more than 4 million, primarily women. Region wary of troop drawdown in Afghanistan in 2014:  In 2014 the troop drawdown in Afghanistan will likely rank as the region’s top story, but throughout 2013 it remained the big unknown turning point of the future. CFR released a special report in November which recommended close attention to the regional dynamics as essential to Afghan stability. It also recommended relying less on Pakistan, and encouraging greater regional economic integration. Slowing economic growth in India: In 2013 an even sharper slowdown in India’s economic growth led some analysts to ask tougher questions about India’s economic future amidst numerous political economy challenges. A June 2013 report from Standard & Poor’s asked whether India might become the first of the BRICs to lose its investment grade rating. Indian citizens vote for governance (rise of the Aam Aadmi Party): The surprise result of the Delhi state-level election in India was the second-place showing of a barely year-old party, the Aam Aadmi (Ordinary Person) Party, which had campaigned explicitly on an anti-corruption platform. Even more surprising has been the unfolding process through which the AAP has sought to form the Delhi government, as no party gained a simple majority. As AAP seeks to extend its reach nationally, many will be looking to see what effect it might have on the national level. Nepal holds elections after five years, votes against Maoists: On November 19, Nepalis at last were able to vote for a new Constituent Assembly. The previous Assembly’s mandate had expired in May 2012, so Nepalis were without elected representatives for a year and a half. Voters had a firm message for the Maoists (they were not returned to power), and the Nepali Congress won 105 of 240 seats. The Assembly will have to get to work completing a new Constitution—the single most important and divisive task leftover from the previous Assembly. Sri Lanka’s struggle with legacy of conflict: In 2013, a second UN Human Rights Council resolution passed urging Sri Lanka to fulfill the recommendations of its own Lessons Learnt and Reconciliation Commission report following the 2009 end of the country’s civil war. While much has been done on reconstruction and return of the displaced, and this year the Northern Provincial Council at last elected its own local government,  substantial international concern about human rights and accountability questions overshadowed the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting hosted in Sri Lanka this year. Maldives votes in half-brother of former autocrat: Following more than a year and a half of extreme political polarization in Maldives, and a very complicated election process with a first round vote, a delayed run-off, an annulment of the September first round and November re-do, and then a final run-off, Maldivians elected the more conservative Abdulla Yameen, half-brother of former president Gayoom, over the internationally known former president Mohamed Nasheed. Mr. Nasheed conceded graciously.

There have been a lot of elections in South Asia in recent days. On November 16 a run-off election produced a surprise result in Maldives, where Abdulla Yameen—the half-brother of former President Gayoom—narrowly succeeded over Mohamed Nasheed, who had led the previous two first-round elections. The Indian state of Chhattisgarh (the size of a small country, with about 25 million people) had its first phase of state-level polls on November 11. And on Tuesday, November 19, there will be two elections underway in the region—the second phase in India’s Chhattisgarh, as well as the long-overdue national Constituent Assembly elections in Nepal. India will count the results from five different state elections on December 8, so we’ll all have to wait to find out who wins. Nepal’s elections mark an opportunity for the country to get back to business politically. This country of 30 million people has been without elected representatives since the expiration of the last Constituent Assembly on May 27, 2012. The Assembly, comprised of 601 representatives, was created in April 2008 initially as a two-year body at the end of Nepal’s long decade of internal conflict, tasked with seeing through the peace process and drafting a new constitution for a country that has moved from monarchy to constitutional monarchy to insurgency to democracy. On management of the peace process, the former Assembly did quite well. Nepal has successfully dealt with the enormously difficult post-conflict question of how to demobilize former combatants, integrating some into the Nepali Army, and helping others move into retirement or new livelihoods. Many countries would do well by learning from Nepal’s experience here. But it was the constitution drafting exercise where the former Assembly foundered. Despite four extensions, in the end members could not reach agreement on federalism-related issues (like the number of provinces, on what basis they might be formed, what they would be named, among others) and the Assembly lapsed. Since then, Nepal has been in an interim state of government—not a crisis, but not proactively advancing the important developmental agenda that its citizens want. For a country long held out as one of great hydropower and tourism potential (but a potential unrealized), the ongoing political instability has not facilitated needed investment, to quote the head of the Non-Resident Nepali association. Current press coverage has focused on voter disappointment “by the bickering among parties and a flailing economy,” with the “euphoria” of the 2008 national elections decidedly missing. There does not appear to be a clear front runner, and with more than 120 parties registered, “fractured” best describes the electorate. The party with the single largest number of seats in the previous Assembly, the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), headed by Pushpa Kamal Dahal (known for years by his nom de guerre, Prachanda), is seen as vying for votes with the Nepali Congress, headed by Sushil Koirala, in part due to a split in the Maoists. But there are so many smaller parties, and the general consensus is that no single party will have a definitive victory, so coalition formation will be the important thing to watch.