Book Review
By Rajeev Kunwar
Nepal’s quest for survival in a challenging geopolitical setting: M.R. Josse’s compendium of related essays, monographs and occasional papers (Ananda P. Srestha & Hari Uprety, Eds.). Kathmandu: Nepal
Foundation for Advanced Studies (NEFAS), pp. 567.
M.R. Josse’s prolific writings on international relations and diplomacy had on print Nepal and the World: An editor’s notebook, Vol. I (54 Articles) & II (56 Articles), (October 1984) which had revealed the journalistic coverage of the foreign policy, foreign affairs, and diplomacy of Nepal from 1965 to 1984. Josse has now come with this third opus comprising 22 articles on this interesting field of public and international affairs. His 50 odd years of honing analysis in this area of expertise mould him into a mature and insightful thought provocateur. Contemporary public interest has swelled in Foreign and Security Policy (FSP) and its inter-allied issues in political discourse and praxis. The words are etched not from academic rigour but the experience of his stint as a diplomatic practitioner and media reporter churnings. The publisher notes that this volume provides umpteen lessons on Nepal’s quest for survival amid elusive political order and stable political demeanour.
This compendium purports to take into account of a tumultuous story of Nepal’s search of survival strategy. The quest for foreign policy coupled with national security emanates from Nepal’s immediate geopolitical settings contiguous to the two world neighbourly behemoths – India and China. A conceptual template of yam and two boulders emerges from a metaphor similar to a bovine, an elephant, and a dragon. The writings cover a spectrum of politics, strategic equipoise, peace paradox, security dilemma, internal conflict, triangular dynamics in domestic affairs and bilateral relations on how independent, interdependent, or interlinked they are, loud noises of cartographic annexation in international frontier territories, America’s relations with the PRC and its policy and praxis fallout on Nepal, three great powers overarching consensus and conflict on a geopolitical primacy of Nepal, Himalayan water resources impetus to achieve prosperity, India’s losing spherical influence of Bangladesh to China and Nepal’s relations with a South Asian nuclear Islamic country Pakistan. The ZoP had been discarded but one has to take note that after the 1990 democratic restoration in Nepal so far three constitutions have not dropped this idea stated in the provisions on the state policy to pursue an institutionalization of peace. It supports policy continuum however politics was anti-monarchical or against panchayat partyless regime. Swiss neutrality despite being a recent member of the UN does not resemble Nepal’s geopolitical identity politics pursuing sovereign and independent posture in international affairs.
Josse bluntly says Nepal professes an active and responsible member-state in the world.
Himalayan barrier theory has become an outmoded policy when it has been penetrated through only the road link of Kodari/Araniko Highway. In the days ahead, the transit concept in Nepal is going to see connectivity from the northern Himalayas to the hills and plains. China’s factors in Indo-Nepal relations are touched upon and triangular relations are perturbed by the geopolitical rivalry and contestations in the Spatio-temporal realm. Delving on the nature and nuances of the Maoist insurgency politics that posed a challenge to the state and society from Nepal, security policy also got attention in his analysis. The low-intensity internal conflict of Nepal revealed that the concept of peace has been breached. Thus, Nepal’s security dilemma inside/out and outside/in had amplified. It had put an intractable burden on FSP. The great power rivalry of America, India, and China set in influencing their convergences and strategic interests in Nepal questions.
A geopolitical primacy of Nepal tops the agenda of diplomats of regional and global power who wield persuasive exercises on internal political dynamics.
Apart from current political concerns in FSP, a road to prosperity is to explore to harness untapped vast reservoir of Himalayan water resources to support trade and business promotion and development in South Asia. South Asian regionalism so far has not realized this potential for amicable benefit in the region with centripetal gains of India. Particularly the riparian state of Bangladesh was building rapport with China, a South Asian neighbour next to India. The logic of China in South Asia spans through eight SAARC member states and its footprints in India’s immediate neighbourhood cause anxiety in the South Block from economic diplomacy to political capital – hard and soft power ammunitions in the mindset or perception/misperception in FSP.
Finally, Josse ends with Nepal’s relations with Pakistan similar to Aide Memoire.
Last but not the least, Josse has tried to imply from these writings the predicament of Nepal’s survival strategy. But he lacked prescriptive measures to breakthrough Nepal’s FSP dilemma. He revealed the conflict dynamics in the nuances of internal politics and great powers’ interests and management to curb their apprehensions or divergences emerging from the politically anarchic nightmare. Nepal’s quest for survival in geopolitics is unending, and as time goes by, it would exact prudence and foresight of practitioner cum pundits sooner than better to relieve the state of affairs from political instability. Josse could have focused additionally on counsel, guidance, and novel ideas in Nepal’s FSP to grapple the changing conduct of great powers and how to promote good politics or positive politics in the Himalayan political enclave in the transition to mitigate the historical burden of political infighting and to reinstall an evasive political respite to fix the domestic affairs. So that political consensus is forging on to navigate from vagaries of tumultuous and roughshod of contemporary politics of international relations.
Kunwar is a doctoral student of Political Science at Tribhuvan University, Kathmandu, Nepal.
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