By Devendra Gautam
Ahoy there. It’s a sweltering Friday even in the relatively cool climes abutting the bustling metropolis of Kathmandu.
After a few cool splashes at a pool (located on the lap of a hill, it looks like a lagoon) teeming with diverse people, the blue water feels like home. Two young guys, most probably in their teens, approach this greenhorn and want to know how to swim even as a giant among humans dives in deep waters nearby, with a huge splash!
Processing the youths’ inquisitiveness takes time as ears fail to believe what they just heard! These guys must be kidding, making fun of a late learner, right?
After making sure they are not, this stranger to blue water replies, drawing a bit from experiences, which includes a near-drowning incident: Try short distances first, in shallow sections. Aim for something that you can clutch on to stay afloat if you feel short of energy. Move your limbs. Do not swallow water.
Shout ‘help’ if you are drowning (that is what these sapiens did in such a situation and here he is, to tell the tale). The wisest advice comes last, as always: Learn with professionals, not a newbie.
Almost three hours after churning the water, it’s time to head home.
The Summit of the Future
Three hours into the water and so much has changed outside! Our Prime Minister has gotten an invite to participate in the Summit of the Future from none other than the United Nations Secretary-General, Antonio Guterres.
Per media reports, Hanaa Singer-Hamdy, the UN resident coordinator in Nepal, delivered Guterres’ invite to Prime Minister Dahal, who said he was positive about attending the UN-organized summit taking place in (New York) this September while expressing gratitude to the UN chief for visiting Nepal and internationalizing its concerns and interests.
The reports quoted Singer-Hamdy as saying that Nepal should take part in the summit for its role in climate change (mitigation).
What on Earth is this summit, by the way?
David Steven, a senior fellow at the UN Foundation, knows better. He writes in a March 26 post on the foundation’s homepage (https://unfoundation.org): As part of a monumental effort to reset global cooperation, the United Nations will host hundreds of world leaders, policymakers, experts and advocates in September at the Summit of the Future. The ultimate goal is to rethink what multilateralism means in a rapidly changing world.
Steven writes: Choose a country — any country — and you will likely find the same trends: Trust in public institutions is plummeting, wealth inequality is on the rise, and societies are increasingly polarized.
If nothing else, citizens of the world are united behind one grim truth: The status quo is failing us all. That’s why the stakes for the UN’s Summit of the Future are high. Simultaneously hailed as a once-in-a-generation opportunity and criticized for being the right summit at the wrong time, this high-level event in New York City is expected to produce not one, but three international frameworks: the Pact for the Future (currently available as a zero draft), the Global Digital Compact, and the Declaration on Future Generations.
Let’s hope that this summit helps avert the world body’s ‘transformation’ into a League of Nations 2.0, given its inability to restore peace to conflict zones around the world, including in Gaza and the war-torn territories of Russia and Ukraine. Let’s also hope that the revived world body becomes able to create a world where all nations are indeed equal in terms of national sovereignty instead of the Big Five and the self-proclaimed messiahs of the Global South.
Back to Nepal from the Big Apple, the seat of the UN headquarters.
Even an hour is a long time in Nepali politics as so much can change in a matter of minutes. Governments can come and go, in a jiffy. Madhes Province has seen it, so has Gandaki and so has Koshi. Come September, who knows what will happen in Singhadurbar? Will this government still be in place?
Let’s leave the future to the stars, for now.
Still, an invite from foreign shores is very important. It shows Nepal remains quite relevant in this age of geostrategic push and pull, as the largest troop contributor to the UN-sponsored global peace efforts, the chair of the Least Developed Countries and a member of the Global South, among others.
So, it is very natural for our prime minister to be willing to go (to New York for the summit), come September.
A new practice
Before September, our PM promptly agreed to an important foreign visit in response to an impromptu invite. The invite from the near shores of New Delhi was to attend the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra Modi, the third-time PM of India. Per reports, presidents of Sri Lanka and the Maldives, the vice-president of Seychelles and prime ministers of Bangladesh, Mauritius and Bhutan also received the invite from New Delhi.
By the time this article comes out, Nepal’s five-member team will already be back home from the Delhi sojourn, most probably.
But this hasty invite and prompt response has raised some unsettling questions.
Swearing-in of a democratically-elected PM is an internal affair of a country, isn’t it? The then PMs Sushil Koirala and KP Sharma Oli attended Modi’s swearing-in as PM in 2014 and 2019 respectively, but then is high-level participation in such shows necessary, given that a) such visits hardly have any agenda on our part and b) even if we do, there’s no chance whatsoever of getting the agendas addressed.
In a democratic world, where all countries are equal in terms of sovereignty, such a function should have no resemblance whatsoever with the coronation of a Chakravarti Samrat (an emperor out to conquer the world) of some sort, right?
What kind of precedents does this impromptu invite and a prompt visit set in our bilateral ties that are far from equal and just?
While navigating the choppy waters of diplomacy, our PM has the advantage of hindsight while he seeks to lead the country to the future, with the 1950’s Peace and Friendship Treaty, the Koshi Agreement (1954), the Gandak Agreement (1959) and the Mahakali Treaty (1996) acting as danger signs along with a slew of agreements reached in the name of ‘sharing’ of rivers.
A novice in a crowded swimming pool consisting of newbies, all-rounders, butterflies, backstrokers, sprinters, distance swimmers and open-water swimmers, this scribbler requests the PM to navigate the choppy waters of diplomacy with caution.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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