Games Nations Play

Editorial

When the Chinese crashed through their ideological blinds and struck off on their course to ‘four modernizations’ they made sure that their domestic politics would sustain the change. A similar luxury was denied the erstwhile Soviet Union and it took Vladimir Putin re-assimilate the Russian change politically for political sustenance. Both Putin in Russia and Xi in China face a Western onslaught that has hardly been tempered by the change. What was, in the 1990s, thought to have emerged as a uni-polar world with potentials to emerge as a multi-polar one is, by the Western challenge being engineered into a bipolarity through alliances that could once again slide the international community to another Cold War, this time not with ideological differences but purely on industrial and commercial ones. The rhetorical divide that is being pitched is perhaps too naked for comfort and the West a long time back was already forecasting a conflict beginning the 20s placing possible geographical conflict zones as in the vicinities of the South China sea (China-Japan-Korea), the Indian Ocean region (India-China), West Asia (Turkey-Russia and the Aegean and Crimean region) and Eastern Europe (Poland and the Balkans) included. Remarkably, the two former Communist giants will have been verily effectively encircled by these conflict zones in which they appear to have been placed smack in the middle.

Nepal, an independent, unstable, unreliable, piece of impoverished territory in between India and China is at its lowest political ebb at a juncture when its dominant southern neighbour, India is being vehemently wooed a role in this scheme of things. Long-nurtured hegemonist hangovers from colonial days would seem a dangling prize deterred only by down to earth assessments of the actual costs of such indulgence in the region. Just as a Nepali system has squandered popular beliefs in Nepal, an emerging South Asian system too continues to be squandered by the same Indian hegemonism the restoration of which is being dangled for temptation in the emerging strategy. Just as Nepali politics can escape unscathed only if they venture to spin out of the emerging magnetic pulls, the Indian system must also prevent itself from falling prey to traditional ambitions with an actual assessment of geo-strategic capabilities which can otherwise be complemented by dependence on non-regional elements, a dependence on which can suck the region into a costly destabilization spiral that can ultimately be detrimental to a coherent united Indian entity itself. It is another matter that the Indian system is being threatened by these same sources as the price for non-cooperation. Be warned. The onus lies on India. Nepal must decide already that it cannot be a victim to Indian dalliance. We must spin or opt-out of these games that nations play since we cannot sustain it. Our politics cannot, that is to say.

People’s Review Print Edition