As the World's Centre of Gravity Shifts, India and Nepal Must Learn to Build Together |
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A couple of years ago, on a detour from a state visit, I found myself on the floor of a kitchen-equipment factory in industrial Delhi. The owner showed me around, proud of the place. I asked the question any Nepali would: why build all this, when it’s so much easier to import finished goods and sell them on? He looked at me like I’d missed something. “I want to see my equipment in the supermarkets,” he said. “Made in India.”
That line marks the difference between a trader’s country and a maker’s country, and it explains where India and Nepal are heading better than this month’s diplomatic theatre will admit. India’s foreign secretary was due in Kathmandu. The visit fell through and was recast as postponed; Delhi argued over whether Nepal’s insistence on “equal stature” was real or for show. The friction will pass. But that old game of gesture toward Delhi balanced by one towards Beijing is now the least interesting thing between the two countries.
As the visit was being un-scheduled, Nepal’s embassy in Delhi invited Indian vloggers on an all-expense-paid trip to film the country, billed as tourism, aimed at a friendlier Indian feed. Meanwhile the prime minister stayed home and his party chairman Rabi Lamichhane flew to Delhi at the BJP’s invitation, meeting Indian Prime........