Opinion Think mutual benefit

The first is about India’s attitude to the internal turbulence in Nepal. The very fact that India is receiving Bhattarai is being widely interpreted as Delhi’s decision to discard its presumed political hostility towards the Maoists.

India’s Nepal policy,however,is not about choosing sides between the Maoists and other political formations in Kathmandu. Nor is it about propping up one Maoist faction against another. The political chatter in Kathmandu about Bhattarai being “pro-India” and Prachanda (Pushpa Kamal Dahal) as “pro-China” has little policy consequence in Delhi.

India’s concern has been about the reluctance of the Maoists to abide by the terms of the peace process by dismantling their armed instruments of political coercion and becoming a genuine civilian formation.

India is eager to hear from Bhattarai on how he wants to lead Nepal’s current political crisis by wrapping up the work on the drafting of the constitution and integrating Maoist fighters into the national army on reasonable terms. Delhi,in turn,is ready to lend all the support it can to Kathmandu.

The second set of issues relates to regional security and geopolitics. In India,there is much anxiety about the growing Chinese influence on its periphery. In the case of Nepal,these concerns have become acute amidst the perceived Maoist tilt towards Beijing.

The China factor,however,must be put in some perspective. As the world’s second largest economy and a rising power,China’s footprint is growing across the world,and India’s periphery in the subcontinent is no exception.

In Nepal,the Maoists are not the first ones to play the “China card” against India. Kathmandu’s attempts to balance between Delhi and Beijing date back to the early 1960s.

In deciding to come to Delhi before he heads to Beijing,Bhattarai probably wants to signal a little more pragmatism than Prachanda in dealing with its two giant neighbours.

Bhattarai’s propositions that Nepal must be a bridge and not a buffer between China and India and seek cooperation from both for its national advancement are unexceptionable. As India itself expands mutually beneficial cooperation with China,it can by no means object to a similar approach in Nepal.

Bhattarai’s remarks that Kathmandu will not allow anti-India activity on Nepal’s soil are reassuring,but need to be translated into effective arrangements between Delhi and Kathmandu.

The Maoists’ play on China is intimately interconnected with their view of the special relationship between Delhi and Kathmandu. That in turn is defined,for good or bad,by the 1950 treaty of peace and friendship between the two countries.

The Maoists have long denounced the 1950 treaty as unequal and hegemonic. They have repeatedly demanded the scrapping of the treaty. In his comments to the Indian media before leaving for Delhi,Bhattarai has sought to finesse the Maoist position without really changing it.

While insisting that a revision of the treaty is not at the top of his priorities now,Bhattarai has called for the formation of an “eminent persons group” to reconsider its various provisions.

The UPA government must look favourably at this proposal,for India has as much reason to re-frame the treaty which has long outlived the context that produced it more than 60 years ago.

For nearly a decade,Delhi has been willing to discuss the future of the treaty. At the end of Prachanda’s visit to India in 2008,the two sides had agreed to “review,adjust and update” the treaty to take into account the contemporary realities and the “special features” of the bilateral relationship.

The lack of political stability in Nepal and the immense consequences of tampering with some of the unique features of the treaty — like India’s “national treatment” to Nepali citizens — are some of the reasons for the lack of real progress in the official review process.

India’s own political will on modernising the historic treaty arrangements with its smaller neighbours was reflected in the revision of the 1949 India-Bhutan treaty in 2006.

Equally significant have been the two recent partnership agreements that India has signed with Bangladesh in September and Afghanistan in October. They provide valuable models for developing an overarching framework for restructuring the special relationship with Nepal on the basis of equality and mutual benefit.

That brings to the third set of issues on trade and economic development,which Bhattarai says are at the top of his bilateral agenda with India. Bhattarai is realistic enough to recognise that while Delhi and Beijing are both valuable partners for Kathmandu,geography and demography bind Nepal,nestling on the southern slopes of the Himalayas,tightly with India.

Bhattarai has pointed to the fact that nearly two-thirds of Nepal’s international trade is with India and only 10 per cent with China. Nepal needs to accelerate its economic development to consolidate its democratic transition.

Delhi can take many imaginative and unilateral steps to help Nepal partake in the benefits of India’s economic growth. Delhi must also act to reduce Nepal’s growing trade deficit with India. In its own enlightened self-interest,Kathmandu must “depoliticise” economic cooperation with India.

If Nepal’s domestic dynamics remain delicate and its geopolitics are in a flux,it is in the economic domain that Delhi and Kathmandu can take some definitive steps during the visit of Bhattarai.

The writer is a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research,Delhi,express@expressindia.com