Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal is being accused of being ‘dependent on India’ after his visit to India that ended last weekend. It is also being said that Nepal did not achieve much during this visit.
Ajay Bhadra Khanal, research director at the think tank Center for Social Inclusion and Federalism, predicted a similar outcome for Dahal’s visit in a comment he wrote on a website just before his visit. Now he has said that Nepal’s dependence on India has increased even more after Dahal’s visit. Khanal has said that the need is to convert this ‘dependency’ into ‘interdependence’. But now the situation has become such that if India ever again puts pressure on Nepal, it will be difficult for Nepal to counter it.
Vishwas Baral, editor of the newspaper Kathmandu Post, wrote in a commentary that India greeted Dahal with skepticism. This is because of the perception about Dahal that he is the leader of a weak coalition. Also he has the image of ‘China Man’ (supporter of China). But Baral has written that Dahal had understood long ago the need to keep India happy.
It has been a tradition in Nepal that after becoming the Prime Minister there, a leader goes to India on his first foreign trip. Commentators have said that Dahal performed the ritual but did not achieve much for his country. Newspaper comments said that preparations for Dahal’s visit to China would now begin after his return from India.
Baral has written- ‘Dahal in China will probably find (the same must have happened in India) that relations with India and China seem to be more and more at each other’s expense. It is becoming more and more difficult to please both together.” Opposition parties have also termed Dahal’s visit as a failure, saying that he is trying to persuade India on Nepal’s demands regarding border dispute, air route, Pancheshwar project. Could not He talked about the exchange of territories between the two countries. Here it is interpreted to mean that Dahal indicated to India that Nepal was ready to give up its claim on the Kalapani area.
