Trikal Darshi Bhaila
5 mins ·
Nepal, India: A failed diplomacy, pegged economy and huge dissatisfaction
An open letter to our Indian friends
Dear friends from India, I am writing today as a common citizen from Nepal to all the common citizens of India for a very difficult purpose. As you know, we do share common grounds on culture, religion and dialects, thanking god for this sometimes stumbling but pleasant journey, we also need to live for the future and that’s why you need to hear this stumbling part.
I want to let you know, this letter by no means, a fury against India nor her citizens. The sole purpose of this letter is to enlighten you up about the wrong doings your government or more specifically Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has smuggled inside our territory. Our country has a huge defect in the name of politicians; they are easily corrupted, no far sightedness and above all, now, we don’t get along. This untrustworthiness is miserable and very harmful to co-exist.
Our internal politics has a lengthy story; I do not want to bore you with, today.
Nepal is a very small country, possessed its own economy for centuries but was never the way it is today. We had our trades from north to south and east to west for so long as far as we could see our history. As a whole, nation was not poor as depicted today in the world media.
Until the British regime in India, we had Ranas’ dynasty ruling all over Nepal. But after the change in 1947, Ranas lost their back support in the south asian region. We are thankful to the then prime minister Nehru for his enormous support to install democracy in this small Himalayan “kingdom”. That very support is still considered one of the very thoughtful and heart touching for all the Nepalese around the globe. But, what happened in later decades are miserable and was very crucial times to lay foundation for a prosperous country.
What world was going through was collision between many countries, with of course their hidden agendas of arms trade but brought out to be for the sake of peace and democracy. Nepal never wanted to be part of this mess at all, which is why our late King Birendra declared it as zone of peace. Roughly all other countries supported his mission except India. Zone of peace meant a lot for this tiny country, where no arms would be supplied to bring chaos like they brought in Sri Lanka and many other African countries. It was a big blow for a small neighboring country from such a great country of yours by not supporting king Birendra’s proposal. In course of time, during 10 years old civil war, your country turned out to be the number one supplier of arms to both National army and then Maoists rebels. How would you justify this manipulation? Not only that, Indian base also trained both Nepal Army and Maoists army in the same Indian territory at different times just like they did for Tamil tigers and Sri Lankan army. This is where I want you to remember the above given abbreviation RAW. They are deeply rooted in our country; they keep record of every leader in our country and have tested the strength of all, whether that be kings or ministers.
Obviously, the young democracy was mismanaged and had to have 30 years strength of Panchayat. Again, we have our own differences here, we appreciate your concern but in the name of bringing freedom from king birendra, Indian government started a huge blockade in all of its borders to force a sovereign country to bow down on the hands of Rajiv Gandhi with the help of RAW. Let me tell you this, the only Indian concern then was the strength of king birendra, he was respected and even worshipped all over the nation and was also an icon for the united Nepal. We stumbled very hard during this blockade; then Indian government closed their eyes on how it might impact the millions of lives living in Nepal. Every drop of fuel, food had to pass through Indian territory. Just imagine how people might have lived for those 13 months of blockade. And on today’s day of national tragedy of earthquake, we are unable to trust Indian armies being here because we are not sure if they are seriously concerned or not. Sorry to say, but we simply don’t and you can see why; if you are really in the nepali ground facing Indian armies. Don’t take it otherwise though.
The another issue is border encroachment, the Indian Sashastra Sima Bal (SSB) who are mobilized in the border have occupied so much of nepali borders, sadly we do not have any great leaders who will even take this topic out in front of Indian leaders.
Another thing is economy, back in the days before 1990 revolution, our economy was free and was not pegged to Indian currency. As I stated earlier, Nepal was not that poor, yes people were thriving a bit with our own policies but nation was going to tackle on our “own ways”. After 1990, it has been fixed that IRS 1 = NRS 1.60, which means everything Nepalese will purchase is already 1.6 times expensive than what Indians would get. Manipulation was so huge that every Nepalese company established within Nepal had to be grounded, letting high imports and less exports. Till date, it feels like economic blockade was reduced to 1.6 but not completely removed. Life got on to be expensive and many young Nepalese had leave their own houses to earn their living in foreign lands. I am not blaming it completely on Indian government but they played a vital role on bringing down our country at this level.
One of the biggest issue that involves RAW was the royal massacre of 2001, that wiped away all King Birendra’s family. King Birendra was planning to a major step in bringing Maoists in right channel of national politics and also was on the verge of ‘assemble and wholesale’ sale of Belgium made weapons to other countries. To support the massacre by RAW, I just want to tell you that the incident happened at 9:15 pm Friday and the Indian media was spreading the news at 1:00 am on the Saturday morning saying that the incident has taken place with the story that the crown prince has done it because of his relationship with some woman. When not many people did not even know that such incident has occurred even till the next day, how would Indian media get a hint on such a story when they were just rushed to the army hospital.
Don’t you think RAW was deeply nosy and had a huge impact on the then Royal family and just added fuel to such destruction even if Dipendra has committed such crime.
Until today, non of our leaders stepped up to speak for our own people coz they are all bribed some way or the other by the Indian wing. This is something you really need to know, what Nepalese have gone through in all these years. I see you have Anna Hazare stood up for the ultimate rights of all the Indians, which we all Nepalese are also happy about. But I want you to step up and force your government to stop manipulating in our country as well.
Today, in such a national tragedy, I am having to write this to you all because people lost their livelihood and we do not even have a government whom we can trust upon, not even a single leader that could console us on such tragedies because we are left with coward and corrupted leaders. If we were left alone at least our accountability would have been vital.
Hope you understand the spirit and essence of this letter and act right away. Free Nepal from the grip of your leaders. Be a friend, not a fire.
Yours truly,
TDB