Nepal in World Politics

Abstract

N EPAL HAS ENTERED UPON the stage of world politics with a suddenness somewhat disconcerting to many of her citizens. As yet, she is not involved in the big Cold War, but she has become an unwilling object of the small Cold War which is being waged in the frontier mountain areas between China and India and their smaller neighbors. During the past year or two, international affairs has become a prominent topic of discussion in the kingdom, almost drowning out the noise produced by the many political parties in their maneuvering for position in the first general election (originally promised for October I957)P1 While the government claims credit for considerable success in its foreign relations, the opposition parties accuse it of exaggeration and attempts at covering up failing internal policies by parading meaningless achievements before the public's eyes. They all agree, however, that the creation of direct contacts with a number of foreign countries has inaugurated a new era in Nepal's history. Until the violent overthrow of the autocratic Rana regime in i950, Nepal was outside the stream of international relations, being secluded in the Himalayas and in substantial contact only with her neighbors India, Tibet, and occasionally China. Her geographic location, poverty in natural resources, and medieval state of development made her an ideal buffer state between her more ambitious neighbors, the Chinese and the British.' Along with the elation which has come to the Nepalese with their country's entry into world politics, there is an awareness that this event has also brought dilemmas, making an already complex political situation in the country still more difficult. There is therefore little eagerness among most Nepalese to enlarge the scope of the country's foreign relations. Many wish that some of the former seclusion might remain so that the people could devote themselves undisturbedly to the modernization of their country. But the world is no longer leaving Nepal alone. In most cases, the relations which have grown up between Nepal and foreign countries since I950 were due to the initiative of these countries, not Nepal. It was to be expected under these circumstances, and quite apart from geographic and Indian influences, that Nepal would choose a rather passive neutralism as the foundation for her re-