17 December 2020, NIICE Viewcasts 6579
General Bipin Rawat
As close neighbours, both our countries India and Nepal share a unique relationship of friendship and cooperation, which is characterised by our open borders and deep rooted people to people contact of kinship and culture. I daresay that the historic relationship between our people goes back to hundreds of years. In fact, you see a large number of religious Institute’s, both in India and Nepal, have common heritage and linkages. The people to people contact between our nations power not only culture, but also customs, who lead business and indeed, every sector, including defence. Around 600,000 Indians live and work in Nepal. Approximately 8 million Nepalese live and work in India. Nepalese are respected the world over for their honesty, loyalty hard work and dependability. And I daresay, Nepalese citizens are therefore, serving in the armed forces of India, the United Kingdom, and Brunei and the Veteran Diaspora is in demand, all over the world, just because of the characteristics of honesty, loyalty, hard work and dependability.
Nepal has a border of over, 1850 kilometres with five Indian states – Sikkim, West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand. There has been a long tradition of free movement of people across our borders. In fact, it is the India-Nepal Treaty of Peace and Friendship of 1950, which forms the bedrock of our special relations that exists between our two nations. Under the provisions of this treaty, Nepalese citizens enjoy unparalleled advantages in India availing facilities and opportunities at par with any Indian citizen. The treaty has allowed Nepal to overcome the disadvantages of being a landlocked nation. In times of crisis, India has rightly played a timely role during the earthquake of Nepal in 2015 when we helped many affected citizens. Recently both India and Nepal have been affected by the global pandemic COVID-19. Showing the goodwill gesture, the Foreign Secretary of India presented 2000 vials of Remdesivir to Nepal. In the coming future, India should be playing a proactive role in the distribution of vaccines in this country.
While the lengths of Nepal border with India and China are nearly comparable, the critical factor is the geographical terrain. The Northern fringe with China is obstructed by the Himalayas, while the southern periphery opens into the Indo-Gangetic Plains. The topography between India and Nepal is an economic and ecological continuum, rather than a demarcation, and has resulted in a history of socio-cultural contiguity. India and Nepal have a wide ranging cooperation in the defence sector. India has been assisting the Nepalese army in its modernization by supplying equipment and providing training assistance during disasters,. Joint military exercises, adventure activities and bilateral visits, are other aspects of India’s defence cooperation with Nepal. A number of defence personnel from Nepal army attend training courses in various Indian Army Training institutions. A Nepalese citizen can also join the Indian Army, either as a Javan or even as an Officer, which makes Nepal-India relations, indeed, very unique. Indo-Nepal Battalion Level joint military exercise, Surya Kiran, is conducted alternately in India and Nepal. The 14th Surya Kiran exercise was held from 3 to 16 December 2019 at Salijhandi of Nepal. Since 1950, India and Nepal have been awarding each other’s army chiefs with the honorary rank of General in recognition of the mutual harmonious relationship between our two countries. I have the unique privilege of being an honorary General of the Indian Army.
The Gorkha regiments of the Indian Army are raised vastly by recruitment from the hill districts of Nepal. Currently about 32,000 Gorkha soldiers from Nepal, are serving the army in over 36 battalions. The famous saying of Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, “If a man says that he is not afraid of dying, he is either lying, or he is a Gorkha”, brings out the utmost bravery and loyalty. Great Britain has recognised that unique qualities and has Gorkhas serving in their army too. In addition to Military Pension Branch in Kathmandu, there are two pension paying offices at Pokhara and Dharan and 22 district soldier boats inside Nepal, all functioning under the Defence Wing of the Indian Embassy in Kathmandu, which arranges the distribution of pensions and organises welfare programmes of re-training, rehabilitation and assisting Ex-Gorkha veterans and their families in the rehabilitation.
The Government of India Development and Assistance to Nepal is a board based programme focusing on creation of infrastructure at the grass-root level, under which various prospects have been implemented in areas of infrastructure, health, water resources, education, and rural and community development. In recent years, India has been assisting Nepal, in development of border infrastructure, through upgradation of roads in the Tarai area, developments of cross border rail links and establishment of integrated checkpoints. The total economic assistance earmarked under ‘Aid to Nepal’ budget in the fiscal year 2019-2020 was INR 1200 crores (12 billion).
In the fields of water resource cooperation, primarily concerning the common rivers, are one of the most important areas of our bilateral relations. A large number of small and large rivers flow from Nepal to India, and constitute an important part of the Ganges River Basin. These rivers have the potential to become major sources of irrigation and power for Nepal as well as India. A three tier bilateral mechanism established in 2008, to discuss issues relating to cooperation in water resources, flood management inundation and hydropower between the two countries has indeed been working well. We also cooperate in energy cooperation. Therefore, India and Nepal, have a power exchange agreements in 1971 of meeting the power requirements in the border areas of the two countries, taking advantage of each other’s transmission infrastructure. There are more than twenty 132 KV, 33 KV and 11 KV transmission interconnections, which are used for power exchange in the bordering areas, and for power trade. Agreements on Electric Power Trade, Cross-Border Transmission Interconnection and Grid Connectivity between India and Nepal was signed in the year 2014. The agreement is aimed at facilitating and further strengthening cross border electricity transmission, grid connectivity and power trade between Nepal and India. The agreement provides a framework of power trade between the two countries, import by Nepal from India, until it becomes power surplus and subsequent import by Indian entities from Nepal in return on mutually acceptable terms and conditions. South Asia’s first cross border petroleum products pipeline constructed and funded by Indian Oil Corporation Limited connected Motihari in India to Amlekgunj in Nepal was remotely inaugurated by the two Prime Ministers on 10 September 2019.
India’s economic relations with Nepal are quite unique, although much more could be done. In 2019-20 economic assistance has crossed INR 12 billion for development in various sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, water resources, energy, infrastructure, and the list can go on and on. Total bilateral trade has reached to the extent of USD 8.27 billion. India’s exports for the same year have been around USD 7.76 billion, while imports into India from Nepal have been around USD 508 million. The balance of trade is much in India’s favour. considering the many essential items have to be imported from India into Nepal. As far as investment is concerned, India accounts for over 30 percent of the total Foreign Direct Investment in Nepal, and over 150 Indian ventures are successfully operating in Nepal in various fields, such as manufacturing services, banking, insurance, dry port, education, the telecom sector, the power sector, and tourism industry. It is interesting to note that leading Indian companies such as the ITC, Hindustan Unilever, Asian Paints, Tata Power, Dabur, and others have set up manufacturing ventures inside Nepal.
Over the years, India’s contribution to the development of human resources in Nepal has been one of the major aspects of our bilateral cooperation. Government of India provides around 3000 scholarships, annually to Nepalese nationals that goes for various courses at the PhD, master’s, bachelor’s and plus two levels in India and in Nepal. These scholarships cover a wide spectrum of subjects including engineering, medicine, agriculture, pharmacology, veterinary sciences, computer application, business administration, music, fine arts, and many more. Government of India’s initiative to promote people-to-people contacts in the fields of art and culture, academics and media include cultural programmes, symposia and events organised in partnership with different local bodies of Nepal, as well as conferences and seminars in Hindi. Regularisation of visits to India by Nepalese journalists and editors and short term training in India for Nepalese editors and journalists, or experts or officials in the field of print and electronic media and archaeology are also being arranged.
Assistance is also provided to several India-Nepal Friendship Organisations, working to promote Indian culture and India-Nepal bilateral relations. India is establishing an E-library system across the country. The Swami Vivekananda Centre for Indian culture was set up in Kathmandu in August 2007 to showcase the best of our culture. The centre has generated considerable goodwill for various cultural events, it has undertaken in the past. The Nepal-Bharat library was founded as early as 1951 in Kathmandu. It is regarded as the first foreign library in Nepal. Its objective is to enhance and strengthen cultural relations and information exchange between our two nations. The BP Koirala India-Nepal Foundation was set up in 1991, through a memorandum of understanding signed between the governments of India and Nepal. The foundation’s objective is to foster educational, cultural, scientific and technical cooperation between the two countries, and to promote mutual understanding and cooperation, sharing of knowledge and professional talent in academic pursuits and technical specialisation.
The canvas and spread of cooperation friendship and people-to-people contact between the two nations of India and Nepal, are deep and extensive. But in the present age, Nepal is also opening up other nations, including China, based on its independent foreign policy. Here I would like to stress on the fact that India’s goodwill comes with no strings attached. Nepal is free to exercise, choices in international affairs, but it should stay vigilant and learn maybe some cases from Sri Lanka, and other nations, which have also signed agreements with other international countries in the region. On the other hand, it is necessary to strengthen the existing relationship further for the peace and prosperity of the people of both countries who are already inseparable in every way. We must stand with the spirit of bilateral relations.
Finally, to conclude, I would like to reiterate, once again, the relations between India and Nepal, are unique and have been existing for centuries. The bonds are too pure and strong to be easily broken. The aspirations goodwill and spirituality between these two nations are as tall as the Himalayas, and as deep as the Indian Ocean.
