Nepal

FOR a long time, this storybook kingdom on the roof of the world between India and Tibet had been spared violence. The only casualties in the quiet years were minor and not the result of armed clashes. Overzealous searchers for the yetis, or Abominable Snowmen, which by legend inhabit the Himalayas, would sometimes sprain an ankle. An occasional mountain climber, attempting to scale Mount Everest or one of the other foreboding peaks, would break a leg or be overcome with altitude sickness. A few tourists, visiting the valley towns of Katmandu, Bhadgaon, and Patan, acquired stiff necks gazing at the ubiquitous temple carvings that can only be described as pornographic by Western standards. Nepalese explain them and their vivid coloring by saying that their goddess of lightning is a virgin and that if she sees the carvings, she will be scared away.

Against this background of years of tranquillity, the past twelve months have been chaotic. Rebel raids occurred daily and slackened only when the China-India border war flared nearby. By the end of 1962 more than two hundred Nepalese had lost their lives in the domestic fighting.

Buffer state

Politically, recent months have been marked by efforts on Nepal’s part to move away from traditional dependence on India and to seek friendly ties with China. Communist China welcomed this shift in Nepalese policy but seemed to have plans of its own for the area. Last summer, Radio Peiping called for a Himalayan Mongoloid Federation, to include Nepal and the semi-autonomous states of Sikkim and Bhutan, as well as Tibet. This would give expansionist China both a suitable buffer with India and boundaries similar to those at the height of past Chinese dynasties.

India, Russia, Communist China, Britain, and the United States all have embassies and aid programs operating in Nepal. But in this nation with a population of about 9.5 million and an area of 54,000 square miles, it is the competition between India and China that matters. Nepal’s primary ethnic elements are Mongolians, who migrated to Nepal by way of Tibet, Sikkim, Assam, and northern Bengal, and IndoAryans from the Indian plains and the subHimalayan areas west of Nepal. India has made a large contribution to Nepal’s development, but in view of the developing situation, it perhaps should have done more. China claims that historically the Himalayan states were linked to it and that British imperialist expansion in India severed the ties and set the areas up as semi-autonomous buffers relying on India. Nepal’s King Mahendra began wooing the Chinese as animosity toward India mounted in His own country.

Hostility toward India

In 1950 India’s independence movement had fired Nepalese patriots to rise up against the rana regime. King Tribhuvan was smuggled from the palace where he was under virtual house arrest and flown to New Delhi. Soon he was able to return, triumphantly, as the rightful ruler of Nepal. The Ranas were chopped down to size and retained an understandable hatred for all things Indian.

From 1952 onward, India speeded development of Nepal. The Indians built roads, bridges, irrigation dams, power stations, hospitals, and communications facilities. As Americans have discovered, however, donor nations can become resented, and Indians were so tactless in giving their aid that great hostility was aroused. The King died in a Switzerland hospital in 1955, and his son Mahendra had ideas of his own that differed from his father’s vision of democracy.

Open anti-Indian feelings came to the surface in 1960, when King Mahendra dismissed the elected government and assumed personal power. Former Premier B. P. Koirala was thrown in a Katmandu prison, where he remains today. India was shocked by these developments. Nehru called them a “setback to democracy,” which may have been true but was tactless in view of the growing anti-Indian feeling fanned by the deposed ranas.

The King envisaged an eventual return to democracy and has allowed elections to village and city panchayats, or councils. New Delhi remains cold to his genuine efforts, however, and Nepalese cannot understand this since India recognizes other dictators. including Nasser and Ayub Khan. The King and his followers were further riled when India gave asylum and, seemingly, support to ousted politicians of the Congress Party, who fled to Calcutta and set up a government in exile under former Deputy Premier General Subarna Shamsher. India’s newspapers began boosting this group’s “liberation movement” and its plan to oust the King and restore democracy.

Wooing the Chinese

With these events as a background. King Mahendra began in earnest to woo the Chinese, who were already a step ahead of him in exploiting and agitating the situation. The King’s announcement in October, 1961, that the Chinese would build a road linking Katmandu with Kodari (70 miles to the northeast), which is already linked by unpaved road to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa, took India by surprise. The project, to be completed by 1966, will include the training of Nepalese in road-building skills.

India feels the road opens not only Nepal to penetration from China but India as well. There is a road built by the Indian Army linking Katmandu with Raxaul on the Indian border. India was angered by the fact that it was not consulted on the project, which by treaty it had a right to be, and also because the project meant that another two to three hundred Chinese road builders would be allowed in Nepal to spread propaganda as well as gravel. About this time, General Subarna Shamsher’s rebel group from Calcutta began making raids across the border, signaling a general breakdown of order in south Nepal.

As a countermeasure, King Mahendra undertook a “get to know the people” tour early last year, concentrating on the southeastern Terai, or farming district, which was a former stronghold of the ousted Congress Party. In February, at the town of Jnakpur, an attempt was made on the life of the King when a homemade bomb was thrown at his car. Suspects were arrested, but accomplices were believed to have fled to India, joining other exiles.

In April, the King went to New Delhi for a meeting with Prime Minister Nehru, and a communiqué signed by the leaders announced that a joint Indian-Nepalese committee would investigate rebel raids on request of either party. Nepal insisted that the raids took place from Indian territory, while India claimed just as emphatically that they originated within Nepal. In fact, the 600-mile border between the two was almost impossible to police. Three joint inquiries were held after April, but they did not satisfy either side.

A serious incident occurred on September 29 at Raxaul, the busy Indian border town and the gateway to Nepal. A band of Nepalese reportedly entered the town and fired on residents, killing five. The Nepal government blamed the raid on Nepalese rebels “stationed in Indian border towns.” Indian crowds subsequently threatened Indian transport operators, and goods destined for Nepal were held up for a week in a blockade which severely disrupted the Nepalese economy and demonstrated the country’s economic dependence on India, and added to the ill feeling between the two countries.

Second thoughts about China

King Mahendra was threatening to take India’s “encouragement” of the border raids to the United Nations when China began its massive attacks on the Indian border in October. Meanwhile, the Chinese had been subtly agitating the situation within Nepal and taking advantage of the strained relations between India and Nepal. Speaking in Peiping on October 5, on the first anniversary of the signing of the Chinese-Nepalese boundary treaty. Communist China’s Foreign Minister Chen Yi said the Chinese people would come to the aid of Nepal if Nepal was attacked by a foreign power.

The Katmandu-Peiping cordiality was increased by a spirited United Nations speech by the Nepalese delegate on behalf of Communist China’s admission. The delegate’s statement that the Tibetan issue is closed since “Tibet has always been thought of as part of China” was welcomed by China, but caused rumblings domestically and in New Delhi. There are thousands of Tibetan refugees in Nepal. Some of them have told Western correspondents that their numbers are infiltrated with Communist China’s agents on missions of subversion.

When the Sino-Indian war became intense in late October and early November, the Nepalese apparently had second thoughts about playing power politics. General Subarna Shamsher called off his liberation crusade for the duration. King Mahendra denied that he had been playing off the two giant neighbors against each other. Nepal went on record warning both China and India to stay clear of its territory.

The King’s domestic program

Domestically, King Mahendra has shown little inclination to relax his own tight grip on the country. Early in December, with an eye on the Sino-Indian situation, he announced that the state of emergency in Nepal would be extended for one year. On December 17 he announced a new constitution, but it failed to provide for the broad participation in government that opposition elements had hoped for.

Agricultural reform continues to be Nepal’s most immediate need. The country’s second Three-Year Economic Plan, begun in July last year, provides for an increase in agricultural productivity through planning and shifting from traditional to modern farming methods. Out of the total population of 9.5 million, it is estimated that 8 million draw their livelihood from some 6 million arable acres. With this small per-capita area of land, agricultural extension has been given priority. An Israeli agricultural expert has been advising the government on the resettlement of landless peasants.

In the central valley, wheat, corn, buckwheat, millet, barley, sugarcane, and a variety of vegetables are grown. Tea, cotton, and tobacco are cultivated in the hot southern plains, while the temperate foothills yield a variety of fruits. Favored by a profusion of flowers, beekeeping is an important cottage industry.

The highlight of Nepal’s 19621963 budget is its emphasis on mobilization of internal resources. Taxation has risen to its highest level in the country’s history — until a few years ago there were no taxes at all in Nepal — and this has added to the political unrest.

Cold-war battleground

Nepal today is fast becoming a major cold-war battleground. Foreign assistance comes from both blocs and is made more interesting by the competition between Russian and Chinese efforts on the Communist side. In the past year, for example, several foreign-aid projects have been undertaken or completed. The Indian-assisted Phewatal Dam in Pokhara and the Tika Bhairab irrigation project were finished early last year. The United States completed installation of a 1500-line telephone system in the Katmandu Valley.

Work began on Soviet-aided factories to produce sugar and cigarettes. Two other Soviet projects, the Panauti hydroelectric plant and a hospital in Katmandu, are nearing completion. A cultural program with the Soviet Union has also been instituted. China’s main efforts have been in surveying and other preliminary work on the KatmanduKodari road, which will open Nepal to new trade opportunities with Tibet. Nepal also signed a trade treaty recently with Pakistan and has been inquiring about barter deals with Japan, the Philippines, France, and Italy.

As in other capitals, the Chinese Communists stick close to their embassy in Katmandu and avoid fraternization with other diplomats, including Russians, who gather often at parties or around the fireplace at the Hotel Royal, which is managed by a Russian expatriate. However, the Chinese have begun a program of exchanges, and several Nepalese delegations have visited Peiping.