By Devendra Gautam
Caught in the midst of happening times, but start I must by overcoming a formidable inertia. But where do I start from?
From our nearest foreign capital, where our very own Finance Minister was shining? Was he shining, by the way?
Were his remarks on Nepal’s historic foreign policy orientation not generating more heat than light?
Opinions vary and that’s natural. His supporters – and the supporters of the party that he belongs to – are perhaps sure that he is glittering like gold. They have every right to be so. But his critics argue that he is casting aspersions on Nepal.
What did he say, exactly, and where?
Interacting with the host, Padmaja Joshi, at the NDTV World Summit 2026 whose attendees included the likes of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister S Jaishanker, Finance Minister Swarnim Wagle claimed that Nepali nationalism had historically been driven by anti-Indianism and went on to declare its end. He posited that his government, formed about six months ago following general elections in the wake of the GenZ movement, will focus on reaping financial benefits from one of the global economic powerhouses that happens to be our neighbour.
There’s nothing wrong in reaping such benefits, but Nepal is a clear enough example that the reaping part is easier said than done. Messrs Wagle and company do not need to be reminded that our two neighbours have been rising and shining for the last seven decades or so, while we have been falling, quite courageously in our distinctive style, towards the bottomless pit, with no parachute. This is a far cry from the old times when Nepal used to trade with both her neighbours in artefacts, woolen products, herbs, mint silver coins and the like, benefiting quite a lot.
Both history and the present show that windfall from the neighbourhood does not land here automatically. You have to have something to cash in on it.
What is it? A bit of imagination, innovation, industriousness? Institutional capacity? When human resources are the biggest ‘export’, how can a country benefit?
The powers that be know better.
Let’s leave the benefit part, at least for now, and focus on the foreign policy question.
Every foreign policy worth its name is the extension of a country’s domestic policy priorities and ours is no exception.
Even when the British empire was colonising the neighbourhood and beyond with a fierce zeal, Nepal managed to remain independent despite her severe dismemberment.
And when the winds of change were blowing in Eastern Europe in the 90s leading to fragmentation of some of the giants like Russia, Nepal held on, with a regime change.
Though burnt severely during a movement barely a year ago, not to mention wounds suffered during a decade-long war and other manmade as well as ‘natural disasters’ in the course of her contemporary history, this ancient country is somehow holding together amid the ascendance of her two neighbours and what appears to be a gradual decline of the sole superpower, not to mention fresh winds of disruption blowing with gale force around the world and all sorts of turbulences that come a-visiting an ill-governed, instability-plagued country.
What all is holding us together as a nation? Communal peace, harmony, mutual tolerance – in essence the spirit of an ancient country, a very old civilisation –the habit of minding our own business and our domestic policies of keeping both our neighbours as well as other powers at arm’s length. That spirit has historically found reflections in our foreign policy guided by the principles of Panchsheel rooted in the teachings of Buddha and the United Nations Charter that still strives for sovereign equality of nations.
Every nation has her core interests and Nepal is no exception. During the NDTV interaction, Minister Wagle himself talked about the disparities between Nepal and India in terms of the size of the economy and population. A mid-sized nation with a small population is bound to have a development and growth trajectory that is quite different from that of the world’s largest country in terms of population, the fourth largest in terms of the size of the economy, the seventh largest country in terms of land area (3.29 million square kilometers) powered by the world’s fourth most powerful military.
A series of disasters that have hit the country over the centuries, such as the 1934 Nepal-Bihar Earthquake, the 2015 Gorkha Earthquake and the recent Bhotekoshi disaster, not to mention incidents of landslide and flooding that occur during the rainy season every year with increasing ferocity in the age of climate change and global warming, leaving behind a massive trail of death, devastation and displacement show that our terrain does not have the carrying capacity for big-ticket projects such as multipurpose hydropower projects that can export the benefits such as green energy, flood control, ecology gain, navigation, irrigation and drinking water beyond our borders.
Our cautious approach towards environmental and other issues, reflected through our policies, means we are pro-Nepal; we are not against any country, leave alone her next-door neighbour. Linking our development with that of the giant neighbour will be akin to tying a bullock cart with a bullet train; it will be a disaster in motion.
In the same interview, Wagle went on to describe India as the first responder to step in the immediate aftermath of the 2015 Gorkha earthquake and the recent Bhotekoshi disaster. In any functioning country, the first responder in an emergency is, without a doubt, its government, not a neighbour. Our defence-security agencies, such as the Nepal Police, the Nepali Army and the Armed Police Force rush to the scenes and carry out search and rescue efforts whenever disasters occur within our territories.
Why did Wagle choose to ignore this very fact and seek to push Nepal further into a perilous path?
And was a forum held abroad a proper place to declare the end of a certain time-tested policy orientation, espoused by the likes of the late Yadunath Khanal?
On other counts, an erudite Wagle seemed to shine at the interaction, projecting his charisma to an enlightened audience as an economist and scholar of considerable standing. Now that the limelight is over, the second highest-ranking minister in the Balendra Shah government owes the nation honest answers to questions that his controversial remark has raised.
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