Nepalese Prime Minister Sher Bahadur Deuba has completed his fourth five-day state visit, from August 23 to 27, to India, successfully signing eight MoUs and streamlining hydro-power cooperation.

With regard to flood control, he talked to the Bihar Chief Minster, who agreed to look into the problem jointly. His visit was different from those of his predecessors, PK Dahal “Prachanda” and KP Sharma Oli as these two leaders are of communist background, whereas he has democratic credentials.

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Naturally, it would have been comfortable for India to deal with him. Nepal-India relations have been cooling over several decades and have deteriorated considerably with India not welcoming the new Constitution, which different groups of people are opposing. Interestingly, this was the third visit of a Nepalese PM since the new Constitution was adopted in September 2015. Oli and Prachanda had visited India as Prime Ministers.

In spite of the then Indian President Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Nepal last year and Nepalese President Vidhya Devi Bhandari’s reciprocal visit to India, relations are yet to warm up significantly. PM Deuba has returned to be greeted with both brickbats and bouquets.

Media at the airport questioned him on his reference to the amendment to the Constitution while in India. He, however, stoutly rejected the allegation of denigrating the prestige of the country leveled by Oli who held Deuba’s remarks as a shame for the country, alleging that he raised the issue of the Constitution’s acceptability out of context in a foreign land.

Despite the reality that all members of both the Nepali Congress (NC) and the Maoist Centre (MC) had voted in favour of the amendment, Oli added, “He took the oath of office and secrecy under the same constitution. He was elected PM under the same constitution”. Significantly, the government led by PM Deuba with support from the Maoist Centre had tabled the amendment motion. The present strength of the House is 592.

Out of the 553 lawmakers present in the House, only 347 members had voted in favour of the bill. The bill could not be passed due to lack of a two-thirds majority, falling short by 48 votes. PM Deuba really showed his sincerity by making a statement of fact against the backdrop that all Madhescentric parties would continue to agitate for their demand to amend the Constitution, though they had decided to contest the elections.

Seemingly, these parties did not leave the House, since it could have changed the chemistry of the House affecting the ruling coalition. Relevantly, PM Modi, while terming the first two phases of local level elections held in Nepal as great leap forward in implementing the new constitution, hoped that Nepal would be able to successfully implement the constitutional scheme by accommodating the aspirations of all sections of its diverse society.

In reply PM Deuba had assured that the Constitution would be amended once Parliament had the required numbers to do so. In his own words, “To address the demands of the people living in the south, we had initiated the amendment process but we could not make it this time. In order to make it broad based and to meet the demands of the people from the south, east and north, we will continue to push the amendments.”

Significantly, although MC leader Prachanda had held the visit a success, he had criticised PM Deuba the other day by stating, “It was wrong to express commitment to amend the Constitution in India when the amendment proposal has already rejected by parliament.”

The issue of the one-to-one meeting between the two Prime Ministers that was scheduled to be held on 24 August but was held a day earlier also invited criticism.

It is being viewed from two angles in Nepal. Why was it rescheduled? And why was PM Deuba invited to the residence of the Indian PM? If it was really a respectful gesture, PM Modi could have visited Rastrapati Bhavan himself to meet PM Deuba.

By inviting him to his residence, PM Modi had shown his superiority and not respect. However, some view it as a good gesture as Modi’s invitation to Deuba for evening tea showed the close relationship between them.

Again, rescheduling of the oneon-one meeting proved that either there was no proper homework or it was sought to discuss important subjects at the earliest. PM Modi’s reference to accommodate the aspirations of all sections of people in implementing the Constitution, has drawn two responses – either it is viewed as irrelevant as it is an internal matter of Nepal or it is suggested that PM Deuba should have skipped the issue.

A biased mind however views even a good gesture as a bad design. Of course, it is natural for small countries to be sensitive, suspicious and scared of a big neighbour. Small countries always seek equal and just treatment from big neighbours.

Nepal is no exception. It would be no exaggeration to hold that the politics of Nepal, ever since it acquired the present geographic form, is more or less Indiaspecific. It has always been guided by the sentiment expressing favour or opposition to any Indian policy. The psyche of a majority of the hill origin intelligentsia, media and the political class is to be obsessed with the Indian role.

They suffer from an inferiority complex not because of geographic size, but on account of Nepal’s economy being totally dependent on India. Consequently, these groups are oversensitive to the pseudo-nationalism initiated by then king Mahendra, and revived recently by Oli to get support from the majority of innocent hill people.

Ultimately, Nepal, as a whole, will have to suffer.

(The writer, a former Election Commissioner of Nepal, is associated with the Nepal Transition to Peace Institute.)