By P Kharel

Parliamentarians from Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania last fortnight issued a joint statement that calls on the international community to renew and elevate its support for Tibetan freedom. They condemned a Chinese law that they claim codifies forced assimilation of Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Mongolians, effective from July 1. If they want to brew trouble for communist China, would Nepal, adjoining the Tibetan autonomous region, be left alone?

Disintegration of South Asia, once noted as the world’s most-populous region representing every fifth of humanity, is gradually deepening as far as cooperation and understanding between the region’s seven countries are concerned. It is weak, disorganised and chaotic, with no country or recognised leader in the scene to bring about a semblance of order for minimum cooperation stripped of mutual suspicion not to speak of belligerence.

The regional situation was never an easy task to address effectively. For more than a decade, now, conditions have deteriorated. Bringing things back to, say, even the days of the 2010s undoubtedly constitutes a tall order, given the manner in which New Delhi has held the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) hostage for 12 years simply by refusing to shed its intransigence to being seen shaking hands with its Pakistani counterpart.

Consequently, Nepal has had to bear the grouping’s enforced chairmanship for as long as Narendra Modi has held India’s record innings at prime minister. Modi has simply decided not to complete the formality of receiving the report prepared by Eminent Persons’ Group (EPG) whose eight members were vetted by New Delhi when it was announced in 2016. The panel’s work procedure specifies that the report will be received by the prime ministers of the two countries simultaneously.

TIME AWAITS NONE: The joint panel’s primary task was to review all bilateral agreements, including the 1950 “Peace and Friendship Treaty”, signed during the dying days of the 104-year Rana autocracy and decried from the very beginning by the Nepalese intelligentsia as “unequal”.

First, SAARC was reduced to inactivity. The bilateral panel of EPG has not been able to submit the report it completed in 2018. Dr Bekh Bahadur Thapa handed over the key to the vault storing the report to the Nepal government recently.

With the sweeping change in Bangladesh’s domestic power equation in the last couple of years, Dhaka and Islamabad have developed warm relations covering various spheres, the like of which had never been recorded since the two split when East Pakistan emerged as independent Bangladesh after a tragic civil war, actively intervened by New Delhi in 1971.

NO LARGE HEART: New Delhi’s small-mindedness exhibited in not playing cricket in Pakistan but insisting on Bangladesh playing in India, even if the latter raised security issues.

Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran are neighbours. The 10,000 km railway track from Shanghai to Tehran was inaugurated in 2025, and underscores strategically—militarily and economically—another shift in power equation.

The US ambassador to New Delhi, Sergio Gore, paid a visit to Kathmandu last spring. He did not take umbrage at Prime Minister Balen not sparing time in meeting one of Trump’s most trusted diplomatic assignees. That prevented the Indian establishment from making noises about their unilateral concept of “special relationship”.

LIPS SEALED: whatever the wrongs and weaknesses the US might commit or suffer, the Trump administration has effectively sealed the lips of would-be critics. It dangles some carrot and a thick thorned stick at intellectuals and critics who would otherwise might have like to pass some critical comments on some of the American president’s brash style and rash decisions.

Elite talks skirt from anything critical of the Donald Trump-led United States. Visa seekers cower and fund seekers follow them. This is applicable to all—bureaucrats, security personnel, academics and members of the self-assertive lofty club of the Fourth Estate.

The US-driven geopolitics has shifted with a surprising jolt for sweeping change. Iran’s ireand Washington’s fire Iran has prevailed in the Gulf region and its neighbourhood in particular.

Trump has, in the end, found a way out of the situation he created by embarking on a reckless war against Iran. The threat of destroying an entire civilisation provided him with the pretext to step back. A ceasefire under conditions where the Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian control would suggest that Tehran has not backed down.

BEST SERVED COLD: Iran seems to be dishing out what the English coined: “Vengeance is a dish best served cold.” Tehran’s warning that threat won’t work underscored its confident defiance, which meant the war could drag on for long amidst louder calls from different capitals to halt the war.

India knows from its time under British rule that divide-and-conquer is the essence of imperial strategy.

Tehran did not, and does not, break down as easily as Washington does. In a costly miscalculation of winning a quick war and telling the world who really is an effective leader for the international community, Washington brought aboard Israel and attacked Iran on February 28. Trump announced that the war would be wrapped up within a week. The results are all to seen within and outside the US.

Conditions have been created for closer cooperation between Russia and Tehran. And China’s reassuring presence can be palpably felt. China launched a 10,000 km railway service from Shanghai to Tehran in 2025, which reduces transport time and costs by more than one-third when compared with the sea route.

In short and plain words, Pakistan, which played a pivotal role in the recent US-Iran shaky agreement, and Bangladesh have bonded breathtakingly fast and deep since the “revolution” two years ago. Proportionately, Dhaka-Delhi relationships have suffered undeclared setbacks. Sri Lanka has pulled itself away from India and maintains a close rapport with China. The Maldives, too, has shown enough determination to ignore India. Afghanistan will sooner or later realise the ground realities.

That leaves Nepal—vulnerable by lack of a definitive policy of its own, drifting on what others prescribe.

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