Amid Nepal’s continuing political turmoil, confidence vote win for PM Prachanda, the task for India

Under Nepal’s constitution, the Prime Minister must seek a vote of confidence after an ally withdraws support to the ruling coalition. The Nepali Congress, with 89 MPs, is the largest party in Parliament, followed by Oli’s CPN-UML (79) and Prachanda’s CPN-MC (30).

Politics of convenience

Prachanda, 69, took oath for the third time on December 26, 2022 (he had been Prime Minister earlier in 2008-09 and 2016-17), and won 268 votes in the floor test of January 10, 2023 after receiving support from almost all parties, including both the Nepali Congress and the CPN-UML.

However, he had to seek a second vote on March 20, 2023 after CPN-UML and the monarchist Rashtriya Prajatantra Party withdrew support over Prachanda’s backing for Ramchandra Paudel of the Nepali Congress to be President. Deuba supported Prachanda in the second trust vote, and the Nepali Congress joined the government.

On March 4 this year, Prachanda dumped Deuba and went back to Oli, which triggered the vote in Parliament.

Prachanda, who led Nepal’s Maoist insurgency that caused 17,000 deaths between 1996 and 2006, has proven himself to be a consummate survivor in the years after he joined the mainstream. Even though support for him in Parliament has declined from 268 in January 2023 to 172 two months later to 157 now with only 32 votes from his own party, he has clung on to power — demonstrating a political flexibility that provoked Deuba to denounce him as “dhokhebaaz (betrayer)”.

Over the last decade, Prachanda, Deuba, and Oli have been the leading political actors in Nepal, which has had 13 governments since 2008, the year in which the country’s 239-year-old monarchy was abolished and a republic was proclaimed.

View from New Delhi

The extraordinary political instability in Nepal is of concern to India, where Prachanda’s moves are being watched with a mix of caution and admiration. However, while Prachanda retains significant goodwill in New Delhi, his now partner in government, Oli, does not.

The actions and statements by Oli in 2015 during the drafting of the Nepalese constitution, which led to protests and the infamous border blockade, had caused a fair bit of bitterness in South Bloc. Oli, who was Prime Minister then, portrayed India as the neighbourhood bully in his country.

Politicians in Nepal have often described the country as being “India-locked”, meaning it needs India for access to ports — a fact of geography that Indian diplomats prefer to frame as being “India-open”. New Delhi has sought to project itself as a benevolent “elder brother” to Nepal, as the former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj put it, rather than a controlling and hectoring “big brother”.

The Indian foreign policy establishment points out that India is Nepal’s largest trade partner, with bilateral trade crossing $7 billion in FY 2019-20, and that India provides transit for almost all of Nepal’s third country trade. Indian exports to Nepal have grown more than eight times over the past decade, while exports from Nepal have almost doubled.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, India provided assistance of more than $7 million to Nepal, which included the supply of more than 23 tonnes of medicines and medical equipment, more than 9.5 million doses of vaccines, and a medical oxygen plant.

About 8 million Nepalese citizens live and work in India, and some 6 lakh Indians live in Nepal. Indians are about 30% of foreign tourists in Nepal. The bilateral remittance flow is estimated at $3 billion from Nepal to India, and $1 billion in the opposite direction. Cooperation in power, water, and infrastructure has been a major element of India’s diplomatic toolkit with regard to Nepal.

India vs China, in Nepal

Nepal is sandwiched between the two Asian giants, and the Nepalese political leadership, including the country’s former monarchs, has long sought to play the China card to manage the relationship with India. China has been pouring aid and investment in infrastructure to wean Kathmandu away from New Delhi. Nepalese imports from China almost tripled from (Indian) Rs 49.5 billion in 2013-14 to Rs 138.75 billion ($1.67 billion) in 2022-23.

With Oli, who has clear China leanings, back in government in Kathmandu, New Delhi would be keenly watching the expected efforts by Beijing to play a more active and influential role in Nepal’s domestic affairs.

Some analysts in Nepal view India under the BJP as trying to nudge Nepal in the direction of a “Hindu state” — which has triggered some pushback in that country.

In an editorial published last month, The Kathmandu Post wrote: “The competition (in Nepal) now seems to be for who can make a solid case for “Hindu Rashtra”, even while trying hard not to sound too regressive. One such party that is touching on the idea of restoring Hindu Rashtra is the Nepali Congress. …Second- and third-tier leaders are making a case for restoring Hindu Rashtra. That ‘fringe’ was at least 30 per cent in the last Congress Mahasamiti meeting in 2018. This time, around two dozen influential leaders…raised this issue at the central working committee.”

According to the editorial, developments in India such as the “consecration of the Ram Lalla temple in Ayodhya…has emboldened some Nepali leaders to ride on the rising popularity of the idea”. However, the editorial said, “the political ideology of Hindutva, based on the idea of nativism and monoculturalism,…has no place in a democracy”.

The political instability in Nepal has impacted the country’s economy. Thousands of young Nepalis are heading abroad, mainly to the Middle East, South Korea, and Malaysia, in search of work. In 2022-23, about 7.7 lakh people got permits to go to foreign job destinations, and remittances sent by Nepalese expatriates has been a major source of both sustenance for many Nepalese families, and of foreign exchange for the country.

As he works with new partners in government, Prime Minister Prachanda has his task cut out: he must stabilise Nepal’s economy, undertake reforms, crack down on corruption, and build infrastructure in the country. India needs to step up cooperation with Nepal in all these areas, and India’s development and economic aid must remain open.

New Delhi’s position on the politics and future of Nepal must remain nuanced and flexible, with the people of Nepal at its centre — it must ensure that China or its proxies do not get an opportunity to ride on suspicion or prejudice against India. More than an “elder brother”, India should seek to be an equal partner for Nepal.