Gujral hands out sops on his Nepal visit, but leaves his official retinue flabbergasted
“I have told the Nepalese Prime minister that whenever he wants India to do anything, he has the power to sign on my behalf." So said I.K. Gujral in Kathmandu last week, his first bilateral visit abroad as Prime minister. Surely, he didn't mean it literally. It was a rhetorical way of saying India would be very sympathetic to Nepal's demands. And naturally, as the Gujral doctrine goes, reciprocity will not be an issue. Of course, it all went down well with Gujral's interlocutors.
If there is one thing that Gujral managed in Nepal, it was to charm his hosts. They were even more charmed when Gujral publicly ran down his government's aviation policy, declaring that he was "totally dissatisfied with it". He argued that SAFTA, modernisation and globalisation can't work without open skies, adding: "I hope the civil aviation secretary, who is sitting here, will note the commitment of the Government of India."
By any standards, it was an odd performance. The head of the Government of India telling a civil servant of the Government of India that he was dissatisfied with a particular policy of the Government of India. That too, on foreign soil. "I fell out of my chair when I heard him," says an Indian official present on the occasion. "Why doesn't he change it (the policy)?" asks another outraged senior official. "He heads the government, he can do anything." There is a near consensus among the bureaucrats 바카라 spoke to that Gujral should not have come out with such criticism on foreign soil.
Gujral's problems with the Civil Aviation Ministry are well known. The first clash was over allowing Air Mauritius to use Delhi, in addition to its other Indian destinations. The ministry reasoned that if it wanted to use Delhi, Mauritius should allow Air India planes flying to South Africa to touch Port Louis. Air India was flying to South Africa via Dar es Salaam, a 13-hour journey. Air Mauritius, on the other hand, flies first to Port Louis, an eight-hour journey, offers an overnight stop and the next day flies to South Africa, which is another three hours. The result: no takers for Air India's South Africa flights, which it has had to suspend, resulting in a loss of tens of crores in the last few months, say ministry officials.
Gujral, as external affairs minister, got the then prime minister, Deve Gowda, to overrule the Civil Aviation Ministry and grant this concession to Air Mauritius. It was non-reciprocity at the cost of commercial interests. Says a ministry official. "The point is when you are trading rights, these rights are in perpetuity." Clearly, while the Civil Aviation Ministry tried to protect the interests of the national carrier, the External Affairs Ministry was pursuing a diplomatic agenda. The Tata-SIA project had also been shot down with diplomatic implications. But none of this justifies debunking the Civil Aviation Ministry in Kathmandu.
Besides, in Nepal the criticism had other implications. Sometime back, a Nepalese civil aviation delegation had come up with extraordinary demands. In addition to asking for extra seats per week, which is fine, it asked India to allow any airline registered in Nepal the 'fifth freedom rights'. The Civil Aviation Ministry immediately shot it down. The Nepalese demand would have meant that any third country airline could have registered itself in Nepal and started picking up passengers from India for destinations beyond India (which is what the fifth freedom rights mean) at the cost of Air India.
The Gujral doctrine was on full display in Kathmandu. India conceded Nepal's long-standing but legitimate demand for a transit route to Bangladesh. Troubled by the delays and corruption at the Calcutta port, where it gets the bulk of its imports, Nepal had asked for a land route to Bangladesh, so that it could rise the Chittagong port. The modalities of using the 61-km route--from Kakarbita- Panitanki on the Nepal-India border to Phulbari on India-Bangladesh side--are expected to be worked out in the next couple of months itself.
The concession was given despite the objections of security forces. They have argued that there are security implications because the route passes through the chicken's neck that connects West Bengal to the North-east. Pakistan's ISI has been extremely active both in Nepal and Bangladesh. But these objections have been overruled. The security implications, it has been said, will be kept in mind while finalising the necessary modalities and the arrangement will be duly reviewed after six months.
Nepal forcefully raised the issue of Kalapani, a small area on the trijunction of India, China and Nepal, on Nepal's western border, where an ITBP post has been located since 1962. Nepal claims Kalapani as its territory and had staked a claim to it in the '60s. Gujral agreed to the joint technical-level boundary committee, which has been working on determining the border between the two countries, to determine the boundary in this sector too, including Kalapani. Perhaps Kathmandu realises that with the Gujral doctrine in operation, it's best to raise all outstanding problems and get a favourable response.
Even in the case of civil aviation, Nepal began with an initial demand of 6,500 seats per week, but when Gujral reached Kathmandu, it raised the demand to 12,000. However, it got only 6,000.
Meanwhile, much has been made of the treaty on the integrated development of the Mahakali river and the proposed Pancheshwar project. The treaty has been held hostage to Nepal's domestic politics though the perception in Nepal is that India is dragging its feet on it. Signed in a hurry by former external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee in January 1996, it was ratified with great difficulty last year by the Nepalese parliament. But not before imposing some conditions. It wanted the status of the Mahakali river defined, whether or not it was a border river; clarification of its origin, with Nepal saying it originates at Kalapani; payment by India for the use of the water in excess of its share for irrigation and demarcation of the border.
The opposition Communist Party of Nepal (UML.) also suggested a formula for the pricing of the power to be supplied from the Mahakali project, which would have been much higher than the real price.
WHILE the detailed project report (DPR) on the Pancheshwar project is to be prepared in the next six months and many of the points raised by the Nepalese parliament will be dealt with in it, India will have to be careful not to concede demand that the Nepalese chooses to make. As it is, the DPR has been held up because of differences on issues like pricing of power, amount of water to be taken by each side and its cost and so on. After it is prepared, there will be the bigger hurdle of securing financing. The two countries plan hawking the DPR around the world to get the finance for the massive project, which will take many more years to build.
What was the compulsion for Gujral to go to Nepal? While an Indian prime minister's visit to Kathmandu was long overdue (the last was by Narasimha Rao in '92), it might have been better to wait till the political situation in Nepal had stabilised somewhat. Within days of his return to New Delhi, Nepal's foreign minister Prakash Chand Lohani resigned, throwing the fragile Lok Rahadur Chand government into a crisis. Even before Gujral's visit, rumours were afloat in Kathmandu that Lohani may quit.
Besides, since the local bodies elections in Nepal, it has been known that Chand's government is in a precarious situation. It was a difficult choice on both sides. While there are doubts in India about another government in Kathmandu sticking to its commitments (Indian officials say there are no doubts), fears are being voiced in Nepal that if Gujral goes, will his doctrine survive?