The visit of Nepal’s Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba to India, beginning April 1 — four years after a Nepali leader visited New Delhi — is significant. It is the first bilateral visit abroad for Mr. Deuba who leads an election government; local elections are to take place on May 13 and federal elections are slated later in the year. In April 2018, Nepal Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli had a lacklustre-feel good visit to India, with little achievement worth talking about.
Mr. Deuba assumed office in July 2021, his fifth time as Prime Minister, leading a fragile coalition that has not been able to make Parliament function. The Nepal Parliament has been dysfunctional since July 2020 after cracks within the former Communist alliance developed in December 2019. The novel coronavirus pandemic has been a face-saving event for political forces.
Nepal’s relations with India, that plummeted to a historic low after the Indian blockade in September 2015, have yet to recover as Nepalis do not see relations with India improving any time soon. India’s refusal to accept demonetised bills with the Nepal Rastra Bank worth just INR₹7 crore and the unknown fate of the report submitted by the Eminent Persons Group (EPG) have not helped in securing it a better image in Nepal. The fact that passengers boarding flights from Nepal to India are still subjected to a pre-boarding security check even over 20 years after the hijack of an Indian Airlines aircraft, determines the perception of trust of India in Nepal. This is despite thousands of Nepalis serving in the Indian Army and Nepali villages expressing grief whenever violence escalates in India as many lose their lives defending a country that is not their own.
