By D.M. Thapa That is a good and important question on what our foreign policy should be like, but an easy one to answer as well. After all, this question had been answered by none other than the founder of modern Nepal, late king Prithvi Narayan Shah, who had described Nepal as a ‘yam between two huge boulders’. Geographically the truth still remains the same, with the two big powers China and India, encircling Nepal from the South to the North. While Nepal shares an open border with India, which the Indians and our own political leaders like to call an ‘ancient’ and close relations, the huge Himalayan Range is already there, which barricades our equally old relations with China. Ironically, Nepal’s politicians forgot the importance of China, which now has become one of the biggest economic giants in the entire world, coming only behind the United States, and it is also recognized as a strong military power in the world. Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba may have pleased the Chinese side by deciding not to be a partner in the SPP (State Partnership Programme) in which the US has spent a lot of money under different strategic policies like MCC (Millennium Challenge Corporation) for example, which was passed in the Parliament by the very people who are in power now but are trying to accuse others of starting the whole process. Take for example the alliance partners in the coalition government led by the Nepali Congress and the CPN (Maoist Center), they are trying to ‘pass on the buck’ to a ‘lame duck’ leader of the CPN (UML) KP Oli who has become a punching bag like the former kings were made by most political parties in the past. Sure, Oli could also have been involved in this lucrative deal with the US, but we shouldn’t forget the fact that the MCC pact was formally passed by the present government. Political leaders here and also authorities in various government wings have become very talented in passing on the buck whenever there is an outcry from the public for not doing things properly which will benefit the ordinary people. This does not solve any problems faced by the helpless poverty-stricken people of Nepal but allows the leaders and bureaucrats to get away with faulty and thoughtless decisions. Take for example even the courts, where a normal person expects to get justice, even ‘criminals’ there have been able to get away with corruption which the media exposes, but after a cooling down period, all is forgotten and forgiven. Have the media which exposes such abuse of authority, the justices and naturally the political leaders and bureaucrats, done any hard work to mete out justice and punish the wrongdoers? From criminals and big-time tax defaulters, they have been virtually getting away with ‘murder’. Just because they are well connected or they can pay huge amounts to bribe the easily manipulated officials or leaders, who don’t care at all about the nation even as they can make individual gains. So most crimes go unpunished and wrongdoers are more encouraged. Another tragedy for Nepal is that because of such an environment, many professionals or youths, prefer to go to foreign lands to make their families happy with a better income they can make instead of toiling in their own country just because they don’t have good networking, without which existing here has become almost impossible. This author is one of a few Nepali citizens, who doesn’t want to go abroad, because this would be like giving up and giving free rein to the worst specimens of our otherwise harmonious nation. Now to come back to the issue we started with, it would have been smooth sailing for a small country like Nepal to just follow the wise wisdom given by great King Prithvi Naran Shah, and we stuck to a non-aligned foreign policy. After decades of the dictatorial rule of the Rana family, King Mahendra, a visionary himself, realized the international strength Nepal would enjoy by remaining neutral on major international issues and he quickly jumped into the non-aligned movement bandwagon. The major players in starting this movement were the late president of then Yugoslavia Gen. Josip Broz Tito and the then recently liberated India’s first PM, late Jawar Lal Nehru, both of whom were far-sighted leaders who worked hard for the independence of their respected countries. Ironically they also happened to be close friends of the then Soviet Union (Russia) one of the two superpowers of the world then. Even during dangerously freezing situations, the Cold War which was fought by Russia and the US, remained neutral, thus they managed to survive. But all such sage foreign policies were forgotten when multiparty democracy was established in Nepal, with close monitoring of India. In fact, India became the architect of Nepal’s foreign policy and it was happy to see a weak Nepal through any means, including Maoist terrorism, in which thousands of people died, all in the name of giving more liberation to the people. The leaders of the Maoist party were being given shelter in India, and they were also being nurtured for more use, by India itself, but to show itself as a ‘friend’ of Nepal it even branded the Maoists as a ‘terrorist’ group, while using them to its hilt the very ‘terrorists’ they were protecting. We saw leaders like Girija Prasad Koirala. Baburam Bhattari, Sushil Koirala and other incompetent leaders like Girija’s own daughter Sujata and Upendra Yadav as foreign ministers, so it was no surprise to see Nepal being used as a playground for mostly Western powers, who always came with huge funds to not help Nepal but to satisfy the personal needs of the greedy politicians and bureaucrats. Now also, Nepal has made a huge mistake by taking sides with the US while chiding the Chinese government, and now they have gone on to displease even the US by scrapping the SPP deal, which was being pushed by PM Sher Bahadur Deuba and his ministers. This was a completely different path followed by the Nepali leaders, who would have done well by sticking by the original path of non-alignment chosen by visionary leaders of the past. But the greed of the huge amount offered as a trap by the US through MCC it was too much for the leaders here to not accept this offer. So now we are in this ‘Catch 22’ trap, where we will displease the Americans if we follow China and displease the Chinese if we support the US. This was a huge, huge mistake made by the policymakers in Nepal, who should have diligently followed the wise wisdom given to us by sage-like leaders of the past. As far as the Indians were concerned, they were satisfied by the slave-like treatment they could give to our leaders and bureaucrats, and they could afford to play a game of ‘wait and watch’ policy because they knew in how deep waters Nepali leaders were standing. With many people abandoning Nepal in search of a better life in foreign lands, only a handful of people remain who believe that Nepal will be brought back on track with the blessings of Lord Pashupati Nath. With nothing to do but remain cynical of such promises, this could also be only a pipe dream of these people who really love Nepal and the Nepalese people.