Abstract
The hydropolitical interaction of Nepal and India can be well defined within the framework of hydro-hegemony. Two case studies of hydro-hegemony and counter-hegemony are illustrated in this paper, unleashing the approach of resistance from the vantage point of Nepal: Upper Karnali and Saptakoshi high dam. Both case studies share a common norm that Nepal, as a small state, has been providing access to the Indian hydro-hegemony, which has compelled it to slowly cede its rights from its water resources. As such, in a historical manner, Nepal is not only losing the opportunity of capitalising on its water resources, but also fixing itself in a vulnerable position in terms of the water securitisation. However, for the two projects lying entirely within the (political) territory of Nepal, the state-level resistance is still feasible to deter and deflect the unintended detrimental effect on Nepal.
Highlights
Environmental issues are increasingly being embraced within the broadening definition of the term ‘security’1(Gleick 1993; Frohlich 2012)
The paper intends to critically interrogate the hydropolitics through the perspective of Nepal in relation to India through the two case studies of Upper Karnali hydropower project (UKHP) and Saptakoshi multi-purpose high dam project (SHDMP) lying within the territory of Nepal that engender the plausibility of imposing detrimental effects to Nepal
Recognising the significance of UKHP, Nepal needs to seek the way for the self-construction of the project, whereas recognising the plausible detrimental impact of SHDMP project, Nepal needs to decline the Indian proposal
Summary
Environmental issues are increasingly being embraced within the broadening definition of the term ‘security’1(Gleick 1993; Frohlich 2012). The tendency of labelling conflict or cooperation absolves a hydropolitical interaction from the norms of regional common interest and integrative flow of water (river) resources that severely downplays the aspiration of water allocation in an equitable and benefit sharing manner Such consideration makes it difficult to represent the hydropolitical dynamics of relations over time and changed political context creating a deterministic rhetoric that (all) ‘conflict is bad’ and (all) ‘cooperation is inherently good’. The common theme shared by those scholarships is the way they focus on power in a Gramscian sense, typically on a hydro-hegemony and its interests In this context, the project of de-parochialising hydropolitics endeavours to evade the conventional discourse of conflict and cooperation and elucidate the small states like Nepal’s resistance prevalent within the intellectual, political, and social sphere.
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