Nepal’s Prime Minister, Sher Bahadur Deuba will visit New Delhi for five days. The Congress said in Parliament that relations between India and Nepal had deteriorated in the recent past. But External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj parried the thrust saying that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had visited Nepal twice in one year while no Indian Prime Minister had done so in the last seventeen years. There is, however, no doubt that relations between the two countries have been through ups and downs. India may continue to be seen as an interfering Big Brother. But this is because Nepal politics has been so unstable with one government following another. The Great Blockade by the Madhesis in 2015 embittered relations between the two neighbours. Nepal claimed that India backed the obstructionist Madhesis. Meanwhile China has poured a huge amount of money into Nepal to finance a number of infrastructure projects and concluded some trade and transit deals. But Nepal’s attitude to the India-China standoff on Doklan remains neutral.
Madhesis have links with Indians in Bihar and U.P. but India has withdrawn support to them to counter penetration of Chinese influence in Nepal. Nepal is making the most of the competition between the two giants. Dueba will no doubt air his grievances against India during his visit starting from the Mahakali Multipurpose Project to the adverse impact of Modi’s demonetisation. There may also be a complaint that the BJP is secretly trying to rob Nepal of its secularism. It is however hoped that Dueba’s visit will be as fruitful as his visit two months ago.