Performing double standards
Nepal’s political leaders are not serious about the country’s sovereignty, independence, and prosperity, except for their personal gains. After China unveiled a new political map, it became clear that the then government led by K.P. Sharma Oli didn’t inform the United Nations and other friendly countries about it, which was unveiled by the Nepal government even after amending the existing constitution through a national consensus.
When India released its new political map by incorporating Nepali territory -- KalapaniLimpiyuadhara and Lipulekh – the then government led by Oli published a new map of Nepal by including India forcefully occupying Nepali territory in Darchula district. The entire nation commended the act of the government, but the leaders, whether in the ruling party or the opposition, were demonstrating themselves as patriotic and, in fact, were fooling the Nepali people.
Instead of sending letters to the UN and the international community having diplomatic relations, the then prime minister Oli, even forgetting the diplomatic protocol, invited the then Indian RAW chief Samant Goel with a red carpet welcome in an attempt of “course correction”. Oli held a one-on-one mid-night meeting at PM’s official residence in Baluatar. What do they talk about, we don’t know but can guess how Oli surrendered in front of the Indian intelligence chief. Meanwhile, Oli instructed the then-education minister not to distribute the textbook in which the new Nepal map was published.
The Oli-led government’s patriotism was disclosed after China made public its new map. Foreign Minister NP Saud informed that he didn’t get the record of the letter corresponding to the friendly countries informing about Nepal’s new political map. During that time, Pradeep Gyawali was the foreign minister. He is unable to refute the present FM’s claim, which means that when he was the minister, he didn’t send letters to foreign countries. This also means that all the political parties, to fool the Nepali people, developed a consensus and released a new political map of Nepal but in practice, they didn’t make any attempt to return the India encroached land. All the political parties are in the race to please India even by bowing down in front of the Indian leaders sacrificing our sovereignty, independence and prosperity. We knew about this fraud of the political parties only after China unveiled its new map without recognizing Nepal’s new map.
Due to the utter negligence performed by those political leaders, Nepal is losing its international image. Our political leaders have surrendered to the Indians to the extent that the Indians are not ready to accept the Nepali leaders as political creatures. We saw chaos in Nepal-India relations during the long-awaited visit of Prime Minister Pushpakamal Dahal to India. PM Dahal’s first non-scheduled and non-pre-informed meeting was with Indian national security advisor Ajit Dovel and external affairs secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra. Both the Indians dictated PM Dahal on what to speak and what to not speak with his counterpart Narendra Modi. The visiting PM was unaware of the agenda of the talks with his Indian counterpart Modi until the meeting with the latter took place.
PM Dahal was unable to speak about many burning issues including the prolonged border dispute to avoid a "possible" unfriendly environment during the talks. Surely, the present government was formed considering India’s comfort as said by PM Dahal. How the Indians are treating the “India comfortable government”, we saw it when Nepal didn’t get the opportunity to attend the BRICS Summit in South Africa and also the G-20 summit that was held in Delhi, India. The present government led by Pushpakamal Dahal is not on the good list of Beijing as well as of Delhi as both the influential partners in BRICS didn’t need to invite Nepal as an observer in the BRICS summit. Also, India, the host nation of the G-20, didn't allow Nepal to attend the summit. The present BJP government is lauding the slogan of neighborhood first but Nepal was not included in the list. So far, Bangladesh has been present in both global events. We can clearly judge how influential is our foreign policy and how influential are our political leaders in the eyes of our immediate neighbors!