New Year review of major foreign policy developments in South Asia

Bangladesh

Upon winning the general election held in December 2018, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was sworn into office on January 3. This marked the beginning of her third consecutive term following the electoral victories of 2009 and 2014. Notably, her ruling coalition returned to power with a brute majority -- having secured 288 of the 300 parliamentary seats. This result was not entirely surprising given the continued decline of Bangladesh’s political opposition. The country’s main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party was effectively rudderless while the Jatiyo Oikyo Front failed to put up any serious challenger to face the prime minister.

On May 10, a boat carrying migrants from Libya to Italy capsized in the Mediterranean. Of the 51 Bangladeshis on board, 37 drowned; bringing back painful memories of a similar tragedy in February. In the following weeks, as survivors returned home to an uncertain future, their tragedy sparked a nation-wide conversation on migration--an issue that resonates deeply in the country where remittances from Bangladeshis working abroad make for the second-largest contributor to the country’s foreign exchange reserves.

On July 15, former president General HM Ershad passed away, marking the end of an era in Bangladeshi politics. A military strongman, Ershad grabbed power in 1982 in a bloodless coup and ruled for nine years. In 1990, he was forced to step down in the face of popular protests, but continued to be active in politics till the end of his life.

In September, the government launched an anti-corruption drive, focussing specifically on illegal casinos. Nearly a 275 people were arrested including several youth leaders and activists, and even local politicians, from the leading party.

In early October, the Prime Minister visited Delhi on a four-day official tour. The issue of river water sharing between the two countries received much attention, as did a bilateral agreement that would India to set up a surveillance system along Bangladesh’s coast.

On November 27, seven of the eight accused in the 2016 Holey Artisan Bakery terror case were convicted and sentenced to death. The verdict was welcomed across the country where the memory of the ghastly attack that claimed 23 lives is still raw; and the conversation about Islamist radicalisation far from over.

Sri Lanka

On April 21, Easter Sunday, local Islamist terrorists launched a series of coordinated attacks across the country, mostly targeting Christian worshippers in churches and Western tourists in luxury hotel. Specifically, the bombings were carried out in three churches in Colombo, Negombo, and Batticaloa, and at three hotels in the national capital. There were also smaller explosions in Dehiwala and Dematagoda. As many as 259 people were killed in the attacks including 45 foreign citizens, while hundreds more were injured. The Islamic State terror group took credit for the attack which, however, would not have been possible without local groups. In fact, in a follow-up incident, in April, local militants clashed with Sri Lankan security forces in a terror safe-house, in the town of Sainthamaruthu. Eventually, the militants blew themselves up, killing family members, including children. The government and security services were severely criticized for becoming complacent and allowing for intelligence failures. The attacks also had a debilitating impact on the tourism industry, the mainstay of the Sri Lankan economy.

In the aftermath of the Easter Sunday attacks, which saw Islamist terrorists target churches and tourists, anti-Muslim sentiment was on the rise in the country. In May, this sentiment erupted in riots, starting in Chilaw and then spreading across the Northwestern province. Muslim properties and businesses were targeted by rampaging mobs, and civilians were killed, even as security forces recovered weapons and other suspicious items across the country. To further complicate matters, a Muslim parliamentarian came under scrutiny for his links to the terror mastermind; eventually, in June, all of Sri Lanka’s Muslim parliamentarians resigned from their positions--ostensibly to allow for an impartial investigation into the attacks.

On November 16, presidential elections were held in Sri Lanka. Incumbent Maithripala Sirisena did not contest the election, with his term have been marred by the horrific Easter Sunday attacks and a bungled attempt to remove his prime minister from office the previous year. Instead, the fight was between former defence secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was widely credited for winning the war against the LTTE, and Sajith Premadasa. Having campaigned on a national security platform, Rajapaksa won with more than 52% of the votes; while Premadasa secured about 42%, mostly in the Tamil-dominant north and along the eastern coast. Upon taking office, Rajapaksa appointed his brother, the former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, to the office of prime minister.

Pakistan

On February 26, in the aftermath of the terror attack in Pulwama, India conducted airstrikes across the Line of Control, targeting terror camps in Balakot in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. This was the first time since 1971 that Indian warplanes had crossed the Line of Control. The Pakistani Air Force launched a retaliatory airstrike the next day in which one Indian jet was shot down and its pilot taken hostage -- and later returned. The airstrikes upended conventional wisdom about risk management and conflict escalation in the subcontinent, but also sent bilateral ties which were already going downhill, into a freefall.

Pakistan’s ties with India worsened further after India abrogated Article 370 and changed the status of Kashmir, on August 5. This evidently came as a rude shock to the government in Islamabad even though the intentions of the ruling party in Delhi in this regard were clearly spelt out in its election manifesto. Pakistan protested loudly--it downgraded its relations with India, suspended trade and travel between the two countries, and also sought to mobilise international opinion against India. However, its efforts bore few fruits. The only positive development in this context was the opening of the Kartarpur corridor in November, and Pakistan’s offer of visa-free travel to Indian Sikhs wanting to pray at one of their holiest sites.

During the course of the year, Prime Minister Imran Khan also made two official state visits to China, where he met with President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang among others -- mostly to attract more Chinese investments. Pakistan is already one of the biggest recipients of Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative in recent years, with Chinese investments in huge infrastructure projects in the country. However, these projects are not without controversy and, more worryingly for Khan, Chinese FDI has in fact fallen dramatically in the past fiscal year.

Khan also travelled to Washington, DC. where he met with US president Donald Trump at the White House in July. Overall, the visit was considered a success from the Pakistani point of view. The two leaders had previously been at loggerheads, and the visit allowed for some sort of rapprochement. This was mutually beneficial -- with the US, at that time, seeking to enlist greater Pakistani cooperation for its talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan; while Pakistan was desperately looking for a lifeline to pull itself out of its isolated position on the world stage. The cherry on the cake, for Khan at least, was President Trump’s offer to mediate in Kashmir.

Throughout the year, the Pakistan also struggled with its adversarial listing by the Financial Action Task Force, the inter-governmental body that monitors money laundering, terrorist financing and similar problems that threaten the integrity of the international financial system. The FATF had placed Pakistan on its Grey List in 2018, and given it certain benchmarks to meet by October 2019 or else risk being blacklisted alongside Iran and North Korea. By the end of the year, Pakistan had managed to avoid the Black List but couldn’t get off the Grey List either.

2019 closed on a particularly controversial note for the Pakistani military--with two major developments. First, former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf was found guilty of high treason and sentenced to death by the Islamabad High Court. His case is still being heard, but irrespective of how it unravels in 2020, the conviction in itself was hugely significant, and a first in the history of Pakistan. Second, incumbent Army chief General Bajwa Qamar Javed Bajwa’s term was extended by three years and this decision by the government ran into some major legal hurdles. For the time being, Pakistan’s top court has given the government and Gen Bajwa a temporary lifeline, but the issue remains far from being resolved.

Nepal

One of the biggest headline-grabbing events in Nepal in 2019 was undoubtedly the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping in October. This was the first time in more than two decades that the Chinese president was visiting Kathmandu and, as is only to be expected, Nepal pulled all the stops for the visit. The two countries signed several agreements during the visit, mostly relating to transport connectivity and greater Chinese investment in Nepal. The latter brought forth certain complications, as the public noted that not all past promises of investment had borne fruit. Another bone of contention was an extradition treaty that China wanted Nepal (home to thousands of Tibetan refugees) to sign, but Kathmandu resisted--in part due to domestic public opinion and in part due to US pressure.

Indeed, Nepal spent much of 2019 continuing to balance itself between the competing interests of the US and China. In June, the US government unveiled its Indo-Pacific Strategy which was received much attention in Kathmandu given that Nepal was expected to play an important role in this strategy. However, the US’s IPS was of course pitted against China’s Belt and Road Initiative--and it seems like the scales tilted in favour of the latter.

With India, Nepal’s relations were largely on the positive side through 2019. External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar visited Kathmandu in August; the two countries inaugurated a major petroleum pipeline in September. And they also laid the foundation stone for a long-pending bilateral hydropower project. However, there was one controversy that emerged on the negative side -- India’s inclusion of the Kalapani region in its latest official political map sparked protests in Nepal which claims the region as its own. As such, the issue didn’t seem to get much attention in Delhi but, in Kathmandu, this was a big talking point.

This article was published by the Vivekananda International Foundation on January 18, 2020

Sri-Lanka-US military ties in the Indo-Pacific

On August 18, Sri Lankan media reported that the United States had decided to suspend bilateral negotiations with Colombo on the controversial Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) until after the presidential election in the island nation1. While this pause in talks may serve to distract the public for the time being and, perhaps drive attention towards other talking points as election day comes closer, the issue in itself can be expected to remain on the national agenda. Equally important, it will also be a touchpoint to understand how different geo-strategic equations are evolving in the region. In this context, two other US-Sri Lanka bilateral agreements deserve to be mentioned: the Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA), and the Millennium Challenge Corporation’s (MCC) Sri Lanka Compact. Together with SOFA, the political narrative emerging from these three bilateral agreements speak volumes about how Sri Lanka, its neighbours, and its allies are navigating the choppy waters of the Indo-Pacific.

Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA)

Let’s start with the SOFA; this agreement provides a legal framework for when American military personnel visit Sri Lanka on peacetime missions such as training exercises, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief missions. Notably, Sri Lanka and the US already have a SOFA in place. The agreement was signed in 1995 when President Chandrika Bandernaike Kumaratunga was at the helm2. But Washington was keen on updating the agreement. Accordingly, negotiations began in August 2018 but the new agreement, as proposed by the US, has since come under much scrutiny and criticism3. It is perceived to be much wider in scope than the original 1995 version, and critics of the pact argue that, among other things, it undercuts Sri Lanka’s sovereignty.

A draft of the US proposal was published by the Sunday Times newspaper which highlighted some of the more controversial provisions4. At the top of the list is the proposal that visiting US military personnel, including civilian contractors, be accorded the same privileges, exemptions and immunities as US Embassy diplomatic staff. This has raised many eyebrows across the commentariat and among the public. And equally so has the proposal that US personnel be allowed to wear uniforms and carry arms while on duty. A third point that has caused much consternation is that Sri Lankan criminal jurisdiction not be applicable to US personnel, instead, US Armed Forces authorities will have disciplinary control. Other proposals highlighted in the Sunday Times include tax waivers for US personnel and property, permission for US vessels and vehicles operated by or for the US Department of Defence (DoD) to move freely and toll-free within Sri Lanka, permission for the DoD to operate its own telecommunications system etc.

Many see these proposals as an affront to Sri Lankan sovereignty and have expressed concern that inscrutable politicians in the country maybe neglecting the national interest5, although it is important to mention in this context that at least some of the anti-US outrage seems to be based on misinformation and misunderstanding of what such a deal actually entails. For example, as the Sunday Observer has pointed out, even the 1995 SOFA--signed to facilitate US assistance in Sri Lanka’s war effort against Tamil insurgents allowed US troops the same protection and privileges as enjoyed by technical and administrative staff at the US embassy6.

Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA)

Nevertheless, the controversy over SOFA has also raked up a debate over ACSA which was renewed in 2017 after the lapse of the original agreement of 2007. Like SOFA, this bilateral agreement puts in place a logistical framework so that the US military can easily coordinate support, supplies and services (for example, food and fuel transfers) with its allies and partners7. In Sri Lanka, however, critics have raised red flags over the surreptitious manner in which ACSA was renewed in 20178. Neither was the agreement placed before Parliament nor were the inputs of the military leadership taken into account. Instead, ACSA was given the green light, quickly and quietly, by President Maithripala Sirisena and his cabinet. At the time, there was almost no media coverage of the agreement; the signing was done away from public view and the final agreement never released into the public domain.

The new ACSA is being seen as much like the proposed new SOFA - wider in scope than its predecessor with provisions allowing more privileges to the Americans. The eight page 2007 version of the ACSA had grown into an 80-plus page document in 2017 with a long list of annexes listing US commands allowed to use Sri Lankan ports. Of course, a longer document does not in itself mean more privileges, more access, or more exemptions, it could merely mean a more thorough and carefully negotiated agreement. However, it is the former perception that has gained strength as reports have emerged about how the new agreement is open-ended (in contrast to the 2007 version, which was valid only for seven years) and allows US military ships to enter Sri Lankan ports (previously, this permission was granted on a case-by-case basis) 9. Moreover, as the controversy has snowballed, President Sirisena has distanced himself from his cabinet’s approval and claimed that he was not aware of the differences in the two versions10. This has only served to fuel more anti-US conspiracy theories.

Millennium Challenge Corporation’s (MCC) Sri Lanka Compact

The third element in this mix is the five-year $480 million US grant, designed to spur economic development mostly through private sector investment in the island nation11. The grant money was being administered by the Millennium Challenge Corporation, a US congressional aid agency, which had been negotiating a “compact” with Sri Lanka. The MCC-Sri Lanka compact was based on a study done by the Center for International Development at Harvard University which had pinpointed three factors that were hindering Sri Lanka’s economic growth: lack of access to land (especially state land) for commercial purposes, inadequate overland transport, and policy uncertainty12.

The Compact was supposed to focus on improving the first two aforementioned factors13. In the transport and logistics segment, the plan was to overhaul traffic management, modernise the public transportation system, and build a road network that would connect the Central Province, Sabaragamuwa Province and Eastern Province to the Western Province. In the land management segment, it was suggested that a state land inventory or a consolidated land bank be set up, and that a slew of steps be taken towards reforming land governance such as fixing the process for registration of land deeds and land grants, easing the process for land valuation etc. For all practical purposes, the compact had been finalised earlier this year. The MCC Board had approved the plans and notified the US Congress, while the Sri Lankan prime minister had given it the green signal.

However, the MCC Compact soon came in for significant criticism on legal, environmental and political grounds. For example, Sri Lankan Survey Department employees went on strike to oppose the proposed engagement of an American firm to prepare the land survey maps14. They argued that not only was the project unnecessarily costly, it was a threat to national security as an American company would have access to sensitive information. Others opined that the proposed east-west economic corridor from Colombo to Trincomalee would slice the country into two15. Meanwhile, rights activists opposed the move to give land deeds to the rural poor16. They argued that, given the state of the rural economy, the deeds would only serve to incentivise the poor to sell their last asset for easy cash; which in turn would drive them further into poverty and straight towards the cheap labour pool even as private corporations and foreign investors would be laughing their way to the bank, having bought land at throwaway prices where labourers could toil for long hours for less than minimum wages.

Suspended Negotiations

The US embassy in Colombo did try to respond to some of these criticisms and concerns by reaching out to politicians as well as the public17, but as the noise around the MCC compact continued to grow louder, the final signing of the agreement was eventually put on hold. Of course, the possibility of future negotiations remains open, but for the time being the Sri Lanka-MCC Compact, along with the proposed SOFA, have been put on ice - at least until the presidential poll in November. The incumbent regime simply doesn’t have the political bandwidth anymore to push through any difficult legislation, least of all sign a controversial one with a foreign partner. Within the government, the president and prime minister are rarely on the same page, and neither men seem to enjoy the confidence of the public anymore.

Return of the Rajapaksas?

It is widely expected that former wartime Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa will be next at the helm, and it will be interesting to see how he manages these issues. Given his national security-centric platform and his popularity as a war hero, he might actually find it easier to convince the public that, for example, signing a military agreement with the US does not necessarily mean that Sri Lanka will become an American military base - much like Prime Minister Narendra Modi was able to do in New Delhi when India was debating similar military logistics pacts with the US.

And like Modi, and arguably every South Asian leader, the next president of Sri Lanka will also face the challenge of managing his country’s relations with the US vis-a-vis China which already has a well-entrenched presence in Sri Lanka. Indeed, it was Rajapaksa’s brother Mahinda who as president allowed Beijing to establish a strong foothold in the region via the Hambantota port. Two years after he was voted out of office, the port was taken over by Beijing, as Colombo struggled with Chinese debt. The question now is: Will the younger Rajapaksa also have a strong pro-China tilt?

In this context, it needs to be kept in mind that Gotabaya Rajapaksa has a long history of working closely with the Americans. For example, a US citizen until recently (though some reports suggest he may not have as yet renounced his US citizenship), it was he who had, as defence secretary, signed the first ACSA with the US in the early years of his brother’s presidency - though at the time, they probably didn’t have to count in the China factor. As the Sunday Observer notes, ACSA was a mutually beneficial development; Sri Lanka used the deal to signal American support in its renewed campaign against the LTTE while America gained a logistics hub in the strategically important island nation that straddles some of the busiest shipping lines of the world.

Even today Sri Lanka continues to have strong military ties with the US that hardly compare with its engagements with China. But that being said, there is no denying that China is also a much bigger player both in the country and in the region today than it was when the Rajapaksas first came to power. And while there may be concern in some quarters about Sri Lanka moving closer to Beijing under another Rajapaksa regime, it might be helpful to remember that Rajapaksa brothers are hardly Chinese puppets. Rather, as Jeff Smith of the Heritage Foundation writes, “They are Sri Lankan nationalists. They would likely welcome—perhaps even prefer—billions of dollars in U.S. investments, too”.

Smith explains that they turned to China because Beijing offered them a good deal, and more recently have also taken care to moderate to balance their positions. For example, the former president has been seeking to mend fences with Delhi after his decision to allow Chinese submarines to dock in Sri Lanka upset many in India18. His brother, if comes to power, will have to be much more careful. His handling of SOFA, ACSA and the MCC Compact will indicate how he intends to negotiate Sri Lanka’s relations with the US, China and even India. Today, Sri Lanka is a keystone in the emerging Indo-Pacific order, and the actions of the next leader in Colombo will be keenly watched in Washington, Delhi, and Beijing.

Endnotes:

1. “US suspends SOFA talks till presidential poll is over”. The Sunday Times. 18 Aug, 2019. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/190818/columns/us-suspends-sofa-talks-till-presidential-poll-is-over-363763.html.
2. . Mason, Chuck R. “Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA): What Is It, and How Has It Been Utilized”. US Congressional Research Service. 15 Mar, 2012. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL34531.pdf.
3. Ramachandran, Sudha. “Sri Lankans Up in Arms Over US Military Pacts”. The Diplomat. 15 Aug, 2019, https://thediplomat.com/2019/08/sri-lankans-up-in-arms-over-us-military-pacts/.
4. “Sri Lanka's sovereignty and the US”. The Sunday Times Sri Lanka. 30 Jun. 2019. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/190630/columns/sri-lankas-sovereignty-and-the-us-355926.html.
5. “Inside story of how Sri Lanka fell into the ACSA-SOFA trap”. The Sunday Times. 7 Jul, 2019. http://www.sundaytimes.lk/190707/columns/inside-story-of-how-sri-lanka-fell-into-the-acsa-sofa-trap-357287.html.
6. Borham, Maneska and Wipulasena, Aanya. “Inside the ‘secret’ American defence agreements”. The Sunday Observer. 14 Jul, 2019. http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2019/07/14/news-features/inside-%E2%80%9Csecret%E2%80%9D-american-defence-agreements.
7. “Sri Lanka: Press coverage for signing of Acquisition and Cross Servicing Agreement (ACSA)”. Cable: 07COLOMBO304_a. 20 Feb, 2007. WikiLeaks. https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/07COLOMBO304_a.html.
8. Pieris, Kamalika. “Yahapalana and the United States of America Part 7.” 30 Jul. 2019, http://www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2019/07/30/yahapalana-and-the-united-states-of-america-part-7/.
9. Bandarage, Asoka. “Resistance to US intervention in Sri Lanka”. Asia Times. 6 Aug, 2019. https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/08/opinion/resistance-to-us-intervention-in-sri-lanka/.
10. Ferdinando, Shamindra. “Prez upset over US actions, accepts someone should take responsibility for ACSA. The Island. 26 Jun, 2019. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=20650.
11. "Sri Lanka Intent to Sign CN”. Millennium Challenge Corporation, Congressional Notification. 25 Apr, 2019. https://assets.mcc.gov/content/uploads/cn-042519-sri-lanka-intent-to-sign.pdf.
12. “Sri Lanka Constraints Analysis Report”. Millenium Challenge Corporation. 2017. https://assets.mcc.gov/content/uploads/constraints-analysis-sri-lanka.pdf
13. Ladduwahetty, Neville. “The Millennium Challenge Corporation Compact with Sri Lanka”.The Island. 2 Jun, 2019. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=205231.
14. De Alwis, Nathasa. “Surveyors prepare to strike over American Firm involvement in project." NewsFirst. 14 Mar, 2018. https://www.newsfirst.lk/2018/03/14/surveyors-prepare-strike-american-firm-involvement-project.
15. Waduge, Shenali D. “MCC or foreigners cannot be given Sri Lanka’s land without rule of law laid down by Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court”. Society for Peace, Unity and Human Rights for Sri Lanka. 25 Jun, 2019. https://www.spur.asn.au/2019/06/25/mcc-or-foreigners-cannot-be-given-sri-lankas-land-without-rule-of-law-laid-down-by-sri-lankas-supreme-court/.
16. Kuruwita, Rathindra. “MONLAR: Land given to the poor will end up with multinationals”. The Island. 8 Jul, 2019. http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=207148 .
17. Fernandopulle, Lalin. “MCC Compact: Wrong information needs to be cleared, says US envoy.” 18 Aug, 2019. http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2019/08/18/business/mcc-compact-wrong-information-needs-be-cleared-says-us-envoy.
18. Smith, Jeff. “Sri Lanka: A Test Case for the Free and Open Indo–Pacific Strategy”. The Heritage Foundation. March 14, 2019. https://www.heritage.org/node/11541027/print-display.
    
    (This article was published by Vivekananda International Foundation, a Delhi-based think tank)

How Nepal is negotiating its federalist contract between the citizen and the state

After weeks of large-scale protests, in the last week of June the federal government of Nepal withdrew a controversial bill that would have allowed it greater control of the country’s numerous temple trusts called guthis1. But while this step towards course correction helped calm the streets for the time being - local newspapers compared the demonstrations to the 2006 Democratic Movement that compelled the monarchy to reinstate parliament - the government still has to deal with a slew of other legislative troubles at hand. Almost all of these, including the anti-guthi bill protests, stem from Nepal’s continued struggle to move away from a unitary form of government, and implement the three-tier federal structure, as envisaged by the Constitution that was promulgated in 2015.

Be it the federal government’s Federal Civil Servants Bill, the Nepal Police and Provincial Police Bill, the Peace and Security Bill, or the Media Council Bill, all have been criticised for violating the spirit of federalism. For example, the Federal Civil Servants bill and the Nepal Police and Provincial Police Bill give Kathmandu the authority to appoint senior bureaucrats and police chiefs of the provinces, respectively, thereby sidelining the provincial governments2. Similarly, the Peace and Security Bill allows sweeping powers to Kathmandu’s representative in the provinces, the chief district officer, to effectively override provincial authorities3.The Media Council Bill lets the federal government impose hefty fines for any defamatory reportage, and has spurred Nepali journalists and civil society in general to take to the streets in protest4.

As the debate over the various bills listed earlier shows, a key issue with implementing federalism has been the formalisation of power-sharing equations between federal, provincial and local authorities. In other words, who controls what, which agency is responsible for what portfolio. The Constitution offers some guidance, for example, there are five lists delineating absolute and concurrent powers of each level of government, but it is also often vague, allowing for different interpretations, and leading to the possibility of one level of government emerging more equal than others.

Take, for example, the issue of law enforcement. The Constitution allows for the federal government and the seven provincial governments to have their own police forces but there is not much clarity on their exact jurisdictions5. Hence, the debate over the appointment of provincial police chiefs and the powers of the Chief District Officer (CDO). Another example of this is from last year, when Province Number Two raised eyebrows when it passed its own state police act before the federal government could pass the federal police act6.

Another area of serious contention is the re-organisation of the bureaucracy7. Earlier, there was only the federal government, and all bureaucrats were federal employees. Now, these bureaucrats have had to be adjusted across three levels of government and many more are being brought in. The federal government is angling for greater control over state administrators, which has obviously irked the provincial governments. The bureaucrats themselves are also important stakeholders in this situation, both as public administrators (for example, they governed even when there were no elected political leaders) as well as political agents (for example, their trade unions bartered their support for the popular movement for ‘automatic promotions)8.

In addition to these legislative missteps, there is the federal budget that was placed in Parliament last month, and, similarly, criticised for not allocating enough resources to the provinces and local governments9. But while there is no arguing that a skewed distribution of financial resources can effectively defeat the entire purpose of federalisation10, it must also be kept in mind that without a proper mechanism or framework for inter-governmental fund transfers, the purpose of fiscal federalism will not be served11. Indeed, the issue of inter-government relations in general is one that still needs a lot of work. Ideally, this is where the judiciary should step in and help interpret the Constitution to resolve inter-government disputes. For example, last month, the Supreme Court pulled up the federal government on the issue of pork barrel funding12. But there is a lot more to be done even as the judiciary struggles to find its feet while policy making is paralysed especially at the provincial and local levels13.

Indeed, it can be argued that the entire concept of federalism is still a work-in-progress in that country. The question then is: Will it hold? Generally speaking, there is a growing sense within Nepal’s political class that the government of Prime Minister KPS OIi is not interested in federalism, and might in fact be working to turn the process towards a more centralised model of governance14. But while there may be ample reason to point fingers at the incumbent regime, it is equally important to acknowledge that the problem goes beyond party politics and is, in fact, systemic and structural.

Over the past 250 years, Nepal has traditionally had a centralised and unitary form of government, with power being concentrated in the hands of the Kathmandu elite, comprised of the Palace, the central secretariat, and the Army15. Even when efforts were made in more recent decades to make the process of governance more inclusive or allow for greater grassroots participation, the core structure remained the same. For example, when King Mahendra introduced the ‘party-less’ panchayat system in 1962 to add a semblance of popular legitimacy to his authoritarian rule, the new legislators found themselves to be little more than rubber stamps for the Palace16. Decades later, in 1996, when the Maoists launched their insurgency, federalism featured prominently on their agenda. But by the time hostilities ended, the issue had been sidelined. Neither the 2005 agreement nor the formal 2006 peace deal between the rebels and the Nepali state made any mention of federalism17. Even the 2007 interim constitution initially defined Nepal as an “independent, indivisible, sovereign, secular, inclusive and fully democratic State”.

It was only after the Madhesi communities in the southern Terai region, who had been advocating for some form of federalism since the 1950s, rose in violent protest that the 2007 constitution was quickly amended to include federalism18. This was a major turning point in Nepal’s socio-political history but it was not one that could be delivered overnight. The Constituent Assembly (CA) elected in 2008 struggled for the next four years over the exact contours of Nepal’s federal structure until it was dissolved in 2012, its job unfinished. A new constituent assembly was elected in 2013 which eventually delivered a constitution in 2015. The new constitution mandated a three-tier - federal, provincial, and local - government; necessitating a massive overhaul of the entire state structure. Elections were held again in 2017 and more than 20,000 representatives were elected. In the two years since, these leaders have sought to actualise the new federal structure but the process has been long and arduous, marked by a plethora of administrative, legal, and fiscal challenges.

This is partly because the concept of federalism and how it would redefine the social contract between the citizen and his state did not get the kind of attention it deserved from policymakers at the time of constitution-writing. Federalism was not exactly an ideological priority for Nepal’s main political parties. Even the Maoists who spoke the language of federalism during the civil war only did so to gain traction with the Madhesi communities. Indeed, the ‘strategic nature’ of Nepali Maoists’ support for federalism is comparable to that of the Russian Bolsheviks and Chinese Communists who used the idea of a federal arrangement as a stepping stone towards capturing state power19. Federalism was incorporated in the 2007 constitution only because the political parties feared that the Madhesi uprising endangered the country’s nascent democratic process20.

Even between 2007 and 2015, when federalism became one of the most important issues on the constitutional agenda, the discussions on the subject were largely around just one issue - mapping of the provinces. CA members deliberated for long on issues such as the number of provinces, their names, capitals, and borders21. These were contentious issues, no doubt, the inability to resolve them led to the collapse of the first CA. The second CA did better, it produced a consensus on the number of provinces and their territorial boundaries. However, there was no agreement on the names and capitals of the provinces. Even today, four years since the promulgation of the Constitution and two years since the election of new federal, state and local representatives, four of the seven provinces don’t have official names and three have no permanent capital city22.

Moreover, the narrow focus on provincial mapping at the constitution-writing stage meant that other issues relating to federalism, such as the critical business of inter-governmental relations, were ignored. As a result, when Nepal’s elected representatives took office in 2017, these found that there was no handbook, no standard operating procedures on how to govern. Hence, they are having to write up the rule books on the job. This is bound to be a difficult process, and it will of course have to contend with the push and pull of old unitary tendencies as well, no matter which party is in power.

Endnotes

1. “Govt withdraws controversial Guthi Bill from National Assembly.” The Himalayan Times. June 25, 2019. https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/govt-withdraws-controversial-guthi-bill-from-national-assembly/

2. “Share power” (Editorial). The Himalayan Times. January 16, 2019. https://thehimalayantimes.com/opinion/editorial-share-power/

3. Kamat, Ram Kumar. “Bill giving sweeping powers to CDOs tabled”. The Himalayan Times. January 29, 2019. https://thehimalayantimes.com/kathmandu/bill-giving-sweeping-powers-to-cdos-tabled/

4. “The Media Council Bill further endangers press freedom” (Editorial). The Kathmandu Post. May 13, 2019. http://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2019-05-13/the-media-council-bill-further-endangers-press-freedom.html

5. Sapkota, Rewati. “Constitutionality of executive order on provincial police force questioned.” The Himalayan Times. November 12, 2018, https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/constitutionality-of-executive-order-on-provincial-police-force-questioned/.

6. Tiwari, Ajit and Singh, Santosh. “State 2 Assembly nods to Provincial Police Act”. The Kathmandu Post. October 14, 2018, https://kathmandupost.ekantipur.com/news/2018-10-14/state-2-assembly-nods-to-provincial-police-act.html.

7. “Bill on civil servants' transfer against federalism, say lawmakers”. The Himalayan Times. February 9, 2019. https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/bill-on-civil-servants-transfer-against-federalism-say-lawmakers/

8. Bhusal, Thaneshwar. Nepal's federalist ambiguities. South Asia@LSE. March 13, 2019, https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/southasia/2019/03/13/long-read-nepals-federalist-ambiguities/

9. "Opposition parties slam budget”. The Himalayan Times. June 5, 2019. https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/opposition-parties-slam-budget/.

10. Wagle, Achyut. “Fiscal Imbalances in Nepal's Federalism: An Empirical Analysis”. Economic Review. Volume 30-1. Nepal Rastra Bank. 2018 https://nrb.org.np/ecorev/articles/4.%20%20Fiscal%20Imbalances%20-%20Achyut%20Wagle.pdf.

11. Boex, Jamie. “A critical year for fiscal federalism in Nepal”. Decentralization Net. January 14, 2019. http://www.decentralization.net/2019/01/a-critical-year-for-fiscal-federalism-in-nepal/.

12. Kamat, Ram Kumar. “SC notice to govt on pork barrel fund”. The Himalayan Times. June 29, 2019. https://thehimalayantimes.com/nepal/supreme-court-notice-to-government-on-pork-barrel-fund/

13. Varughese, George and Payne, Iain. “Constitutional guardianship in Nepal”. Nepali Times. May 17, 2019 https://www.nepalitimes.com/opinion/constitutional-guardianship-in-nepal/.

14. Panday, Jagdishor. “Government has anti-federal mentality”. The Himalayan Times. April 29, 2019, https://thehimalayantimes.com/kathmandu/government-has-anti-federal-mentality/.

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17. International Crisis Group. Nepal: Identity politics and federalism, Asia Report no. 199. Kathmandu, Nepal/Brussels, Belgium. 2011. https://www.crisisgroup.org/asia/south-asia/nepal/nepal-identity-politics-and-federalism

18. Logan, Marty. “Nepal: Revolution Within a Revolution”. Inter Press Service. January 31, 2007. http://www.ipsnews.net/2007/01/nepal-revolution-within-a-revolution/.

19. Walker, Connor. The National Question in Marxist Leninist Theory and Strategy, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1984.

20. Lecours, André. The Question of Federalism in Nepal, Publius: The Journal of Federalism, Volume 44, Issue 4, Pages 609–632, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1093/publius/pjt030

21. Chalise, Bishal. “Nepal's uncertain transition to federalism”. Livemint. June 18, 2018 https://www.livemint.com/Opinion/J7LlSME8pqmAxAS8ZFJExO/Nepals-uncertain-transition-to-federalism.html.

22. Pradhan, Tika R. “Delay in deciding names and capitals of four provinces raises concerns over federalism implementation”. The Kathmandu Post. June 17, 2019.

This article was published by the Vivekananda International Foundation, a Delhi-based think tank.

Leveraging India's civilisational ethos

Less than a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second swearing-in, the ongoing celebrations for the fifth iteration of the International Yoga Day (IYD) offer an excellent opportunity to consider how the grand narrative that he unveiled in 2014 will continue to drive his foreign policy over the next five years. IYD was one of the earliest and among the most significant of Modi’s diplomatic successes from his first term. A concrete policy initiative for which Modi was able to organise global buy-in, it offered some insight into how his government approached the issue global governance. Importantly, IYD embodied a key principle of Indian foreign policy - a notion of exceptionalism that suggests India’s ancient history and culture, in particular its rich tradition of spirituality, and allows it a unique position for moral leadership in the world (Miller and Estrada, 2017).

As Modi said during the first celebration in 2015, IYD marks “the beginning of a new era that would inspire humanity in its quest for peace and harmony”, and that the practice of yoga could result in a “dramatic reduction in conflicts and misunderstandings between families, communities and between nations”. In this context, IYD has not just been about promoting yoga, it is a campaign to take back ownership of one of India’s most significant exports to mankind as India prepares to take on a greater role in the international system; and the government is not squeamish about leveraging all its soft power credentials in the process. Of course, Modi isn’t the first Indian leader to either publicise yoga or seek to leverage soft power to enhance India’s global standing. Both have been part of Indian diplomacy since before independence. And both build on a deep-rooted sense of Indian exceptionalism, which has also animated India’s foreign policy thinking since before independence.

An excellent example of the historical and civilisational foundations on which this thought-process has evolved is offered by historian Kalidas Nag in his essay on ‘Indian Internationalism’. Written in 1922, the essay was presented at the prestigious Peace Congress of Lugano in Switzerland and re-published in the first edition of the journal produced by the Greater India Society which researched ancient India’s foreign policy footprint. Nag’s essay begins in the 14th Century BC with the warring Hittite and Mitanni tribes of Cappadocia (Turkey) invoking the Vedic gods, Mitra, Varuna, and Indra to conclude a peace treaty, and the twin-gods Nasatyas to bless a marriage alliance. Nag presents this event, recorded in the Boghaz Keui inscription, as the earliest evidence of India developing an idea of internationalism that’s focused on peace-making and spiritual unity - at the same time as, “Egypt”, he notes, “was proudly proclaiming her world-conquests through the famous Victory Ode of Thutmosis III, cataloguing with sublime egotism the vanquished nations and countries,” while the Achaeans were “thundering on the ramparts of the Aegian capital Knossos (Crete)” in the Mediterranean, leading to the collapse of the Minoan Kingdom.

Listing how the rise and fall of empires and civilisations has been a constant, throughout human history, Nag (1922) points out that early Indians also faced the same problem of “an autochthonous people barring the way of a more virile expanding power”. But while others responded with military might which offered only temporary respite till they too were vanquished by a more powerful force, early Indians realised that the only solution to this constant threat was to recognise “the title of their rivals to exist not merely as enemies but as collaborators in the building of a civilisation”. Hence, even when the sub-continent came under attack from the “barbarians of Central Asia”, who didn’t quite have a “civilisation of their own” like the Greeks and the Persians who came before them had, India maintained “supreme faith in her principle of international unity”, allowing for the assimilation of the Kushans and the Huns.

In another example of how India’s civilisational internationalism differed from that of its peers, Nag (1922) fast forwards a few centuries to Emperor Ashoka’s “new world of constructive politics” which, he says, was guided by the “philosophy of conquest by righteousness (dharma-vijaya)” and emerged as a “spiritual oasis”. Nag highlights that “In the same epoch that Rome… was pulverising… Carthage in the Punic wars, Ashoka had been celebrating the spiritual matrimony between countries and continents” by sending “missionaries of humanism” who spread the word of Buddha to modern-day Syria, Egypt, Libya, and the Balkans to the west, and Sri Lanka and Myanmar among others to the East. This, Nag writes, was the first time in history that there had been a “humanisation of politics”, and it was an Indian sovereign who shared the message of “peace and progress” across Asia, Africa, and Europe, binding them with the “ties of true internationalism”.

The Hindu-Buddhist civilisational compact, established by Ashoka, emerges as a keystone in Nag’s vision of India’s internationalism - as he notes, for instance, how Indian mariners found “Hindu-ised”, “culture-colonies” across south-east Asia, initially in Champa (Vietnam) and Cambodge (Cambodia), then in ancient Siam (Thailand), Laos, and across the Malay Archipelago from Borneo to Sumatra, going as far as Java. Together, this produced an extraordinary movement of “Hindu syncretism and cultural synthesis” in the region which Nag refers to as “Magna India” or “Greater India”.

This concept was institutionalised by the aforementioned Greater India Society, a think-tank of sorts, established in 1926 by a group of eminent Calcutta-based Hindu Bengali scholars (Nag included), which undertook a massive history-writing project to shed light on India’s ancient cultural links, particularly with South-East Asia. The Society’s work, depicting how Indian influences shaped art and architecture, religion and language, political and legal systems in the South-East Asia (think of Angkor Wat in Cambodia and Borobudur Temple in Indonesia), spurred a re-discovery of sorts of India’s ancient heritage (Handy 1930). Crucially, it also added more substance to the idea of Indian exceptionalism that had already been voiced three decades ago.

Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902) had initiated the conversation around Indian exceptionalism with his famous speech at the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago in 1893. He promoted the idea that India was a civilisational power whose ancient spiritualism was its greatest strength. He argued that Hindu philosophy held the keys to global peace and unity, and that India had a duty to share this body of wisdom (Sullivan 2014). His teachings inspired a generation of nationalist thinkers that included the likes of Nag who, in turn, built on their own learnings and discoveries to re-purpose their understanding of Indian exceptionalism - in their case, shaping the anti-colonial discourse (and the related nationalist, pan-Asiatic, and universal-humanist discourses) in the decades leading up to independence (Vivekanandan 2018).

After independence, the Greater India discourse in particular ran out of steam with the Society publishing its last significant work in 1954. But the deeper spirit of Indian exceptionalism with a particular focus on Indian spiritualism continued to be part of the ideological framework undergirding India’s engagement with the world. Take, for example, India's decision to use the Ashok Chakra in the national flag instead of the Gandhian charkha. The latter was a key element of pre-independence nationalist iconography, yet one of the main reasons why the former was chosen was because the Ashokan connection reinforced the diplomatic role India envisioned for itself on the eve of independence (Brown 2009). As Jawaharlal Nehru noted in his remarks to the Constituent Assembly, “India’s ambassadors went abroad to far countries… not in the way of an Empire and imperialism but as ambassadors of peace and culture and goodwill.”

In the first two decades after independence, Nehru continued to leverage this sense of exceptionalism as he steered India’s engagement with the world - but not just for symbolic purposes. At a time when India had limited economic and military resources, he used Indian exceptionalism to portray the country as a peace-maker and a leader of the global South (Purushothaman 2010). Over the next seven decades, his successors interpreted the same idea into different forms to make the case for India as a responsible nuclear power: Indira Gandhi used it to counter criticism of framing the 1974 test as a ‘peaceful nuclear explosion’; Atal Bihari Vajpayee used it to highlight a new nuclear power’s sense of restraint and responsibility as he oversaw the 1998 test; in 2005, Manmohan Singh won external validation for India’s nuclear discourse, still rooted in the ideal of civilisational exceptionalism, with the Indo-US nuclear deal (Chacko and Davis 2018).

As this essay details, while a sense of exceptionalism has long been and indeed remains a part of Indian strategic thinking, different leaders have leveraged the idea differently at different times in history to achieve different goals. Swami Vivekananda used the idea of Indian exceptionalism to awaken a subjugated nation to its past glories; a generation later, the likes of Nag and his colleagues at the Greater India Society used the same concept to resist colonial oppression even if by partly projecting itself as an enlightened colonial power; after independence, Nehru used the soft power stemming from Indian exceptionalism as a substitute for hard power. His successors at South Block used it to carve India’s place in the global nuclear order.

Now, the question is: How is Modi approaching this concept? What is his raison d’etre in the use of Indian exceptionalism? His first term had some hints - apart from the initiation of IYD, Modi has framed India’s recent leadership in climate change mitigation as a civilisational prerogative. He has also highlighted the importance of India shaping the rules of governance in the critical field of cyber-space. But perhaps his greatest opportunity lies in the re-alignment of global geographies with the emergence of the Indo-Pacific, which has also turned the spotlight on the Bay of Bengal regional grouping – the BIMSTEC. If in the next five years, connectivity with South-East Asia can be drastically improved, then Modi will have re-imagined India’s neighbourhood and created a new avatar of Nag’s Greater India. 

References: 

Brown, R. M. (2009). Spinning without Touching the Wheel: Anticolonialism, Indian Nationalism, and the Deployment of Symbol. Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 29(2), 230-245. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/1089201X-2009-006.

Chacko, P. & Davis, A. E. (2018). Resignifying ‘responsibility’: India, exceptionalism and nuclear non-proliferation, Asian Journal of Political Science, 26:3, 352-370, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2018.1486218Handy, E. S. C. (1930). The Renaissance of East Indian Culture: Its Significance for the Pacific and the World. Pacific Affairs, 3(4), 362-369. doi:10.2307/2750560

Miller, M. Chatterjee and Estrada, K. Sullivan De. (2017). Pragmatism in Indian foreign policy: how ideas constrain Modi. International Affairs 93: 1 27–49; doi: 10.1093/ia/iiw001

Nag, K. (1922). Greater India: A Study In Indian Internationalism. Greater Indian Society Bulletin No. 1 

Purushothaman, U. (2010). “Shifting Perceptions of Power: Soft Power and India’s

Sullivan, K. (2014). Exceptionalism in Indian Diplomacy: The Origins of India's Moral Leadership Aspirations, South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 37:4, 640-655, DOI: 10.1080/00856401.2014.939738

Vivekanandan, J. (2018). Indianisation of indigenisation? Greater India and the politics of cultural diffusionism, Commonwealth & Comparative Politics, 56:1, 1-21, DOI: 10.1080/14662043.2018.1411232

(This article was published by the Vivekananda International Foundation on June 27, 2019)