Nepal and India: Interdependence dynamics

The two countries must consciously move towards a relationship aimed at interdependence.

While writing this final and the 101st fortnightly column, I notice six far-reaching changes unfurling in South Asia. Firstly, India-Nepal relations are once again warming up and ascending to a newer height. The tumultuous slide down had hit rock bottom. Secondly, India is largely able to put forth stiff terms of negotiation with China on issues of border skirmishes. Thirdly, the fruition of esoteric ideas like Indo-Pacific and Quadrilateral Security Dialogue has the potentiality to reorient the geopolitical alignments and regional responses in Asia. Fourthly, India’s exit from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership signals a new variety of economic competition and intra- and inter-regional decoupling wars. Fifthly, the novel coronavirus, while dismantling the state constructed geographical borders triggered a variety of human borders wherein far away from military and economic powers, the multinational pharmaceutical laboratories and individual vaccine inventors are emerging as new global messiahs. And finally, the end of the unpredictable, directionless and unreliable Trump regime in the US has rekindled the hope that multilateral institutions would be allowed to act freely once again.